Quick followup on "L 482" or whatever it really is:
Douglas R. Anderson quotes Peirce's whole letter to John W. Brown on
pages 15-16 in Chapter 1 in _Strands of System_ and adds, "MS, Fisch
Collection"
http://books.google.com/books?id=jc5r7WoNEE8C&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22Peirce%22+%22John+W.+Brown%22&source=bl&ots=1aP337-t1e&sig=9mtD-IDxK7zpfD9NvbojyNy4IZ0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rt18U8_sGsXisATup4BI&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22Peirce%22%20%22John%20W.%20Brown%22&f=false
There's a chapter end note 11 indicated but I can't access the page with
its text in Google Preview.
Best, Ben
On 5/21/2014 1:49 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
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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