From the Stanford Encyclopedia:
"Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper
understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James delivered
the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments against
Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name.
James's lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience, were
a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had never
been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious
community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the extraordinary
religious experiences of extraordinary individuals. Royce's first education
was into a strongly Protestant world view, he always retained a respect for
the conventions of organized Christianity, and his writings exhibit a
consistent and deep familiarity with Scripture. He sought a philosophy of
religion that could help one understand and explain the phenomena of
ordinary religious faith as experienced by communities of ordinary people.
There was a deeper difference between them, as well, and it centered on a
metaphysical point. Royce's 1883 insight concerning the Absolute was at
bottom a religious insight. Contrary to the open-ended pluralism and
pragmatism of James, Royce was convinced that the object and source of
religious experience was an actual, infinite, and superhuman being."
Adrie said to dmb:
...Given the 'gospel,' which is clearly present in Royce's work, Auxier's
field of interest, and John's field of interest possibly and probably as
well John
as Randall would like to restrict and restrain our interferences to the
theological field of Catholicism, thereby avoiding any possible question
about monotheism
polytheism, Islam, thora or whatever available. Needless to say that this
also would restrict and restrain us only to their (Royce,Auxier,John, the
pope's?) field of expertise, an expertise that is apparently shaped and
polished so to speak, to induce a theistic revival in filosophy again. This
is not strange nor indecent, but of course if one takes the other questions
in consideration (monotheism/polytheism/islam etc, etc...) then you are
quite right that it is nearly an impossibility to have the debate as long
as the other debates remain unsolved; If we cannot define our variables a
priori, and the John/Royce/Auxier train only wants to restrain us in the
catholic corner.
dmb says:
Well, I don't think the problem belongs to any particular kind of theism
or type of Christianity. And I don't think the other guy's view puts any
restrictions on us either. As I see, the problem is that we're dealing with
people who pretend to be thinking seriously but have already committed
themselves to certain final answers. If a person has prior commitments like
that, their thinking process will be in the service of that prior view. The
problem is that it restricts and restrains what they able to appreciate and
remember. Such prior commitments amplify the confirmation bias that effects
us all so that criticisms are, in effect, filtered out and the information
that seems to confirm their beliefs gets seared into their memories. Even
further, religious faith (and political ideologies) are totalitarian in the
sense that every part of reality must be made to fit within their
worldview. And everything that does not fit is explained away, dismissed
and/or immediately forgotten. That's what fanatics seem so impervious to
evidence and reason.
Adrie continued:
However this does not mean that it offends me or disturbs me; as John
suggests, it only offends me to go back to the luggage left behind when the
Mayflower moored in the America's, or the Halve Maen or the Pilgrim
fathers. This is the wrong luggage. ...But quid pro quo for what John is
proposing, as apparently some unseen quality is emerging in his postings,
consistency is back and he made major improvements on the field of
philosophy and writing about it.
So i will not advocate to boot out Royce as John is not really demanding
to get rid of Ol' William. Should we, as Irina suggested, keep our religion
out of this debate? Or is religion too interwoven and twined with idealism
or many forms of philosophy in general to leave it aside? The last remark
should be interesting for John to resolve....but regardless of his lead, i
will not take his word for it without delivered content.
dmb says:
It would be foolish to exclude religion as a topic or issue for discussion
because it's a major feature of human culture and because idealism in
general, and especially Royce's idealism, is a religious view. Again, the
problem is that such religious people are coming to the discussion with a
large set of prior commitments about what's true and what's real. Coming to
the table with a prior faith almost always brings a strong bias that
hinders and frustrates a productive exchange of ideas. It creates blind
spots in the mind, so to speak.
John continues to insist that James and Royce were equally religious and
that my protests to the contrary are symptoms of fear, prejudice, or even
post traumatic stress induced by a bad experience with theism. This is mere
slander, of course, but even worse is that it defies what the Stanford
Encyclopedia and James himself have to say on the topic. It's like he just
doesn't care what's true and what's not true. He wants to make it fit no
matter what it takes. That's what happens when you are already committed to
some faith before you even start to think. It warps everything so that real
conversations are almost impossible.
Take it easy.
Dave
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016-02-05 16:41 GMT+01:00 david <[email protected]>:
Adrie quoted Wikipedia to dispute John's claims:
"His publication in 1885 of The Religious Aspect of Philosophy
...contained a new proof for the existence of God based upon the
reality
of
error. All errors are judged to be erroneous in comparison to some
total
truth, Royce argued, and we must either hold ourselves infallible or
accept
that even our errors are evidence of a world of truth. Having made it
clear
that idealism depends upon postulates and proceeds hypothetically,
Royce
defends the necessity of objective reference of our ideas to a
universal
whole within which they belong, for without these postulates, “both
practical life and the commonest results of theory, from the simplest
impressions to the most valuable beliefs, would be for most if not all
of
us utterly impossible”. (see The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, p.
324)"
dmb says:
Since Royce was offering fallibilism as "a new proof for the existence
of
God" and "the necessity of objective reference of our ideas", his
fallibilism is very, very different from the fallibilism of
Pragmatists
like James and Pirsig. I think it's fair to say that Pirsig is NOT
offering
theism or objectivity. James, Dewey, and Pirsig are quite explicit in
their
rejection of SOM and even James, the most religion-friendly of the
three,
wrote his Varieties of Religious Experience in order to DISPUTE the
religious claims made by Royce.
From the Stanford Encyclopedia:
"Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper
understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James
delivered
the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments
against
Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name.
James's lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience,
were
a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had
never
been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious
community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the
extraordinary
religious experiences of extraordinary individuals. Royce's first
education
was into a strongly Protestant world view, he always retained a
respect
for
the conventions of organized Christianity, and his writings exhibit a
consistent and deep familiarity with Scripture. He sought a philosophy
of
religion that could help one understand and explain the phenomena of
ordinary religious faith as experienced by communities of ordinary
people.
There was a deeper difference between them, as well, and it centered
on
a
metaphysical point. Royce's 1883 insight concerning the Absolute was
at
bottom a religious insight. Contrary to the open-ended pluralism and
pragmatism of James, Royce was convinced that the object and source of
religious experience was an actual, infinite, and superhuman being."
Since Pirsig was suspicious of James for trying to sneak religion in
through the back door into philosophy, imagine what he'd think of
Royce's
"respect of the conventions of organized Christianity" and his stance
"contrary to the open-ended pluralism and pragmatism of James".
Like I keep saying, trying to make this Idealistic religious fanatic
into
a Pirsigian is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.
Why,
why, why does John keep preaching this nonsense against all evidence
and
reason? This covert theism is bullshit and cannot be sustained
without a
huge dose of dishonesty, or ignorance, or both.
It's fine if a person insists on being an Idealist, an Absolutist, or
a
advocate of conventional Christianity but it makes no sense to paint
Pirsig
or Pragmatism in these colors. The keys concepts of these two opposed
views
will crash into each other like two trains heading in opposite
directions.
It's worse than a pointless waste of time because, frankly, it's so
obviously stupid. It makes me sad and angry that John is allowed to
continue raining his bullshit on Pirsig and James.
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