Søren, Ben, list,
I don’t want to downplay the affinities between Peirce and the mystics you
mention, Søren — your previous post was quite eloquent and persuasive — but I
don’t want to downplay the differences either. Peirce’s religious orientation
is, as Anderson says in Strands of System, quite idiosyncratic and hard to
classify. The idea of “the natural light” was not original with Peirce, of
course, but what he did with it is distinctive. And in my view, significantly
different from mysticism. But that’s a vague word, almost as vague as “God”, so
it would be unreasonable to argue about it any more than I already have.
Ben, thanks for the pointer to Anderson’s book (and for the other meticulous
work you posted today!) — I’d actually bought it from Google Play but hadn’t
got far into reading it yet. He does quote the whole letter to Rev. Brown, as
Brent does, but I think his comments on it are more balanced. He introduces the
text of the letter by saying: “Because Peirce did not mention the contents of
this letter elsewhere and because we do not know if he in fact sent it, it is
difficult to know how much to make of it.”
His comment at the end of it goes like this: “I do not wish to make more of
this than necessary, especially since Peirce did not see fit to make more of
the event himself. Nevertheless, it makes less problematic the fact that Peirce
began to give voice to his thinking concerning religion in the early nineties.
Moreover, it suggests one source of Peirce's ability to endure his subsequent
logician's life of increasing sacrifice and desperation.” The suggestion is
that what Peirce got from the experience, aside from an increased interest in
religion, was the strength to carry on with his philosophical quest. It doesn’t
suggest that the content of Peirce’s philosophy, or his religious beliefs, was
much affected by the experience. So that’s an alternate take on the letter
somewhat different from Brent’s and Stephen’s.
gary f.
} The train that can be expressed is not the express train. [gnox] {
<http://www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm> www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm }{ gnoxics
From: Søren Brier [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 21-May-14 2:36 PM
Dear Gary and list
Your quote made me think of John of the Cross famous poem of the dark night
describing the mystical union.
<http://www.ewtn.com/library/SOURCES/DARK-JC.TXT>
http://www.ewtn.com/library/SOURCES/DARK-JC.TXT . I have italicized the places
where the a-personal in the union is described though the poem is within the
frames of Christianity, which John managed to stay within but Eckhart was
kicked out from after his death.
STANZAS OF THE SOUL
1. One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
-- ah, the sheer grace! --
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.
2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
-- ah, the sheer grace! --
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.
3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.
4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
-- him I knew so well --
there in a place where no one appeared.
5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.
6. Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.
8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.
Best
Søren
Fra: Benjamin Udell [mailto:[email protected]]
Sendt: 21. maj 2014 20:18
Til: [email protected]
Emne: Re: [PEIRCE-L] De Waal seminar chapter 9, section on God, science and
religion: text 1
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>
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
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