Ant,
On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 9:26 PM, Ant McWatt <[email protected]> wrote: > On March 18th 2014, John Carl mentioned his meeting with the one and only > Hilary Putnam: > Jc: If by "his" you mean Randal Auxier, Ant. You are correct. I've not had the pleasure pesonally. > > "I took it as a very positive sign when, in Feb. of 07 I was meeting with > Hilary and Ruth Anna Putnam about Hilary's forthcoming volume in the > Library of Living Philosophers, and gracious as he always is, Hilary asked > "what are *you* working on?" I said "a book on Royce," and his face lit up > as he said "I *love* Royce." > > Hilary Putnam, the defender of Realism, convert to the philosophies of > James and Dewey from the narrow straits of linguistic philosophy, > *loves*Royce? > > That can only be a good sign." > > > Ant McWatt comments: > > John, > > I have recently finished Dave Buchanan's MA Thesis on William James which > does refer to Royce, here and there. Now, if I read Dave corrrectly, it > seems to me that Royce has the same sort of idea of the Absolute as F.H. > Bradley ie. some sort of Hegelian Absolute. > Jc: Hegel, no. Royce makes it very clear that he didn't consider Hegel much at all. With Bradley it's harder to say. They had something in common but in his annotations to the World and the Individual, Royce made clear he differed with Bradley's conception of the Absolute. Royce used the term, yes, but what he meant by it was different than Bradley and completely different than Hegel. Ant: > I note, from Dave's thesis, that Royce corresponded with William James for > about 20 years and, despite their generally polite attitude towards each > other, James seemed rather frustrated that philosophers such as Royce and > Bradley had this Platonic arrogance (if you like) that everything must be > defined in some way. So out goes Dynamic Quality straight away and in > comes in all those old SOM problems (that the MOQ is designed to avoid)! > > Jc: Ok, "generally polite attitude" is a mistaken way of portraying their relationship. "Correspond" is even more foolish. They worked together and took walks together and argued with each other and were deepest friends for a quarter of a century. Alice James didn't like Royce, but William helped him get his position at Harvard (over the much more deserving at the time, Howison) and helped Royce financially when his son Christopher had to be institutionalized and when Royce had a breakdown. Both Auxier and Kuklick agree that James and Royce agreed about 90% metaphysically. They heavily influenced each other and Peirce was part of this troika as Royce was influenced by Peirce as early in his career as 1885, something not generally known. Much of the problem is that there hadn't been any scholarship to speak of on Royce for 50 years but in 2007, this all started to change. This year three scholarly works have come out on Royce and there is a fast-growing interest in his philosophy. As I predicted in 2007 when I stumbled upon him. > For instance, Royce's "Argument from > Error" strikes me as rather phoney; by discounting mysticism, it has to > bring in all the old Realist bugbears such as Correspondence theory > between a subjective mind and some sort of "objective" reality. I think > it would have been better for Royce to follow Pirsig's (more pragmatic) > line of thought that ideas of things differ in value depending on > context and knowledge at one given time i.e. this notion of finding an > absolute truth about anything - in the MOQ at least - is "kicked out of > touch". > > I'll be posting much more on this subject. I only just got Randy's book and he has a great deal to say on the reasons why Royce has been misinterpreted ere this. > > John Carl continued: > > from the Preface to *Time, Will and Purpose; Living Ideas from the > Philosophy of Josiah Royce* > > by Randall Auxier > > > Randy is mainly a Jamesian and a breath of fresh air since my limited > experience with W. James scholars has been very poor. But in Randy I've > found a great mind, open to dialogue on the big ideas. Also he's a fan of > Pirsig and teaches him in his classes at Carbondale - THE center for > students of American Philosophers, I have learned. We have had a lot of > fruitful back and forth with what he knows of James and Royce and what I > know of Pirsig and I'd like to invite him to join this discussion where he > would be exposed to a wider range of expertise than dilettante moi can > provide but unfortunately, he's also a church-going Methodist and I'm > afraid he'd just be subjected to the same inane, anti-theistic vilification > I have experienced here. > > Ant McWatt comments: > > Maybe, it's about time the church goers got back some of their own > "Christian" treatment. And it isn't as if Dave Buchanan is putting you on > a bonfire (or ducking you in the nearest pond) like those dear old ladies > the Puritans used to harass... not such a long time ago. If you don't like > the intellectual heat here then, no doubt, the Methodists will still > welcome you with open - if rather "safe" - arms. > > > http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/?no-ist > > > John Carl continued: > > Plus [Randy] is pretty busy. > > That's probably the biggest problem we have around here - truly high > quality people don't have much time to chat about it; they just get on with > their lives. > > Ant McWatt comments: > > Or maybe John, they are simply too... what's the technical term I am > searching for... chicken? > > We shall see, Ant. We shall see. John Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
