Gary F., Stephen, all,
The full text of Peirce's letter of April 24, 1892 to the Reverend John
W. Brown is at
http://www.unav.es/gep/LetterJBrown.html
at the website of the Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos. G.E.P. also has
images of the letter, beginning at:
http://www.unav.es/gep/1Brown.html
The quote about speculation and experience is in the 1898 lectures, CP 1.655
[CP 1.655, QUOTE] If, walking in a garden on a dark night, you were
suddenly to hear the voice of your sister crying to you to rescue
her from a villain, would you stop to reason out the metaphysical
question of whether it were possible for one mind to cause material
waves of sound and for another mind to perceive them? If you did,
the problem might probably occupy the remainder of your days. In the
same way, if a man undergoes any religious experience and hears the
call of his Saviour, for him to halt till he has adjusted a
philosophical difficulty would seem to be an analogous sort of
thing, whether you call it stupid or whether you call it disgusting.
If on the other hand, a man has had no religious experience, then
any religion not an affectation is as yet impossible for him; and
the only worthy course is to wait quietly till such experience
comes. No amount of speculation can take the place of experience.
[END QUOTE, FONT ENLARGEMENT ADDED]
Compare this passage from the 1892 letter:
[QUOTE] But this time - I was not thinking of St. Thomas and his
doubts either - no sooner had I got into the church than I seemed to
receive the direct permission of the Master to come. Still, I said
to myself, I must not go to the communion without further
reflection! I must go home & duly prepare myself before I venture.
But, when the instant came, I found myself carried up to the altar
rail, almost without my own volition. I am perfectly sure that it
was right. Anyway, I could not help it. [END QUOTE]
The passage from the 1898 lecture seems connected with his 1903 remark
that "experience is our only teacher," as you say, Gary F., but it also
seems to harken back to the 1892 letter. In the 1898 passage I've
enlarged the line that seems to allude to the passage that I quoted from
the 1892 letter. On the other hand, for my part, I'm unsure what broader
conclusions about Peirce's thought's longer-term development can be
drawn from all this. Brent does seem speculative about this.
Still, Peirce's _Monist_ Metaphysical series does take a more
religiously suggestive turn after April 1892, as Brent pointed out. Of
course, it could have been that Peirce was already planning that turn,
and his mystical experience came timely with it, invited by that turn,
and perhaps reinforcing or energizing it somehow.
(1891 January), "The Architecture of Theories", The Monist, v. I, n. 2.
(1892 April) "The Doctrine of Necessity Examined", The Monist, v. II, n. 3
(1892 July) "The Law of Mind", The Monist, v. II, n. 4
(1892 October), "Man's Glassy Essence", The Monist, v. III, n. 1
(1893 January), "Evolutionary Love", The Monist, v. III, n. 2
(1893 July), "Reply to the Necessitarians", The Monist, v. III, n. 4
and one should also mention
"Immortality in the Light of Synechism," submitted 1893 May 4, but
unpublished in The Monist because of a misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, I don't see all this as having much to do with Peirce's 1905
distinction of pragmaticism from pragmatism more generally. He wanted to
distinguish pragmaticism from the magical pragmatist Papini's notion
that pragmatism cannot be defined, and from the Schiller's and James's
versions. Peirce believed that they held, among other things, that truth
is not immutable and that infinity is not real. He also disagreed with
James's ideas of the will to believe. While such unpragmaticistic ideas
run contrary to Peirce's religious ideas, they also run contrary to his
ideas in general.
Note, on the listing of the letter to Brown as "L 482". I don't have my
copy of Brent's Peirce handy and the Google preview omits some pages
that I needed to see. I had wanted to find out whether the letter to
Brown was a draft. G.E.P.'s transcription calls the letter "L 482" but
the Robin Catalogue
http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/robin/robin_fm/toc_frm.htm
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Epeirce/robin/robin_fm/toc_frm.htm> has
something else as L 482. I did a browser search on instances of "Brown"
but did not find the letter to John W. Brown in either of the two lists
of letters at the Robin Catalogue.
Best, Ben
On 5/21/2014 12:00 PM, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
If the “unpublished fragment” you quote dates from 1890, how can it
bear witness to the effect on Peirce of an experience he had in 1892?
Peirce’s account of that experience says that he was drawn into St.
Thomas’s church, and up to the communion rail, “almost without my own
volition.” He wrote about it to the rector of the church, offering his
services in “some form of church work”. Then he says, “I have never
before been mystical; but now I am.” But what does that mean,
pragmaticistically? What church work did Peirce do as a result? As for
his philosophical work, there is no evidence whatsoever that this
“mystical” experience, or the memory of it, had anything to do with
Peirce inventing “pragmaticism” as an alternative to “pragmatism” 12
years later. I think you’re ignoring everything Peirce wrote about the
“natural light” during the years in between (see my post addressed to
Søren). That certainly /does/ have a lot to do with pragmaticism.
Brent on p.210 makes a totally specious connection between this
incident and something Peirce wrote six years later, in which he says
that “No amount of speculation can take the place of experience.” But
that passage is much more genuinely connected to Peirce’s remark in
his 1903 Harvard lectures that “experience is our only teacher.”
Peirce makes no mention in either place of /mystical/ experience, and
elsewhere he makes it clear that the mystical is just about the most
inconsequential kind of experience, contributing almost nothing to the
growth of “concrete reasonableness”, which he virtually equates with
the evolution of God.
gary f.
*From:* Stephen C. Rose
*Sent:* 21-May-14 11:04 AM
*To:* Gary Fuhrman
*Cc:* Peirce List
*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] De Waal seminar chapter 9, section on God,
science and religion: text 1
For starters this unpublished fragment noted in Brent (2nd ed) as CSP
to PC [20 July 1890) (L 77) which reads in part:: "Since then God is
using me ... should I not be content? ..." And then his explicit
description of his experience in church which he describes in his own
words as mystical on pp 209-10 of the same book. CSP's conclusion" "I
have never before been mystical, but now I am." The practical effect
was his effort to define pragmaticism as distinct from pragmatism and
complete 70K or so mss pages, many following the experience of April
24, 1992. I would suggest the practical effect is manifest 100 years
following his death. And that such testimony in itself should at
least be accorded a place in scholarly awareness of his biography.
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