Gary R, List, I agree with what all that you've just written, Gary.
Turning now to a related topic, perhaps more closely associated with Chapter 1 of Kees' book, Richard V. Reeves, a biographer of John Stuart Mill, wrote an op-ed piece in today's *New York Times*, "Writing About a Life of Ideas," which shed for me a bit of light on biographies of intellectuals in general and on those of Peirce in particular. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/writing-about-a-life-of-ideas/?ref=opinion In the essay Reeves writes: *Biographers of intellectuals are, in the end, biographers of ideas rather than of individuals. Our hope is to bring those ideas into higher definition, by describing their human provenance. It's a modest enough task. But it's enough.* and *Rather than attempting to turn a great thinker into a greater person, our goal is simply to cast a different light on our subject's ideas, in the hope of seeing them a little more clearly.* still *And yet the ideas cannot be cleaved, in their entirety, from the life -- or at least, that's what biographers have to tell themselves.* *There is an inescapable interiority to intellectual biography, since the story is of the mind as much as of the body. Sometimes that interior story is, in itself, gripping* Be that as it may, I think that this supports your notion, Gary, that on the list, as in our individual philosophical work, that we best focus our attention on Peirce's ideas rather than on the man. Still, in this discussion of "Mind, God and cosmos," I don't think our discussion of Peirce's own religious views and experiences is inappropriate. Best, Gary R. *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]> wrote: > Gary, Phyllis, Gene, Søren, Stephen, Ben, list, > > > > Thanks to all for illuminating contributions to this thread! > > > > I've pretty much given up talking or writing about my quasi-mystical > experiences (to use Gary's term), partly because others naturally don't > know what I'm talking about, but mostly because my attempts to make them > comprehensible, no matter how 'inspired' they might feel at the moment, by > the next day sound like sops to Cerberus. Besides, why should anybody be > interested in my private experiences expressed in public language? I'm not > interested in them myself! What I'm always looking for is some way to sweep > aside the cognitive cobwebs that come between us and the immediate, > continuous reality that pours through our pores all the time. -- But that's > already a sop to Cerberus. > > > > In my youth I tried to say something aphoristically, but what I've been > trying to do in *Turning Signs* for a dozen years or so is contruct an > context in which something can be said that will push the envelope of > language even while affirming its limitations. I think this requires a > spirit of inquiry, and my main inspiration for the > scientific/philosophical/semiotic side of this has been Peirce (updated > where necessary). But my main inspiration from the religious side has been > Dogen (the 13th-century Zen master). What Peirce and Dogen have in common > is that they plumb experiential reality to its depths even while pushing > rational inquiry to its limits. (One good collection of Dogen's works is > called *Rational Zen*, and one of the best books about him calls him a > *Mystical > Realist*.) Of course, what I've learned from both Peirce and Dogen has > been determined by my own inquiry, and I'm sure whatever any reader could > learn from my book would be equally determined by that reader's ongoing > inquiry. > > > > I try to keep in touch with Peirce-L (though I sometimes get behind) > because it reminds me that there's more to be learned from Peirce than my > own inquiry can comprehend, and of course the conversation here often > reminds me how deeply fallible my own comprehension is. But mostly it's the > ever-growing, never-complete sense of the Peircean context that adds value > to the gems I manage to mine from his work and incorporate into my own > (con)text. > > > > Which I'd better turn back to now ... > > > > } But what is that which is one going to prehend? [Finnegans Wake 223] { > > www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm }{ gnoxics > > > > > > *From:* Gary Richmond [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* 23-May-14 11:44 PM > *To:* Phyllis Chiasson > *Cc:* Søren Brier; Stephen C. Rose; Gary Fuhrman; Peirce List > *Subject:* Re: SV: [PEIRCE-L] De Waal seminar chapter 9, section on God, > science and religion: text 1 > > > > Phyllis, Gene, Soren, Stephen, Gary, Ben, list, > > > > I earlier quoted Ehrenreich as writing: > > > > *"[T]he world flamed into life.* > > > > *There were no visions, no prophetic voices or visits by totemic animals, > just this blazing everywhere. Something poured into me, and I poured out > into it." * > > > > And then commented that my very few such experiences appeared not unlike > hers. When I consider my first experience, which I earlier described as > occurring en route to the laundry room, her saying that "the world flamed > into life," seems to me to be *not exactly *a metaphor since I too > experienced this *flaming* (intense & brilliant light/color) > into/of/through my being. I thought much later of Shiva's dance of profound > world transformation. But at the moment of that experience I simply felt > extremely intensely *affirmed *in/as/by/through the cosmos, so to speak. > If I were to try to put into words, my immediate feelings were as a pouring > into and out of me a *Yes, Yes, Yes! * > > > > And further reflection (and other such experiences, always unexpected > without ever being frightening) strongly suggesed to me that even without > drugs, as Soren commented, without brain lesions, etc., it is possible for > at least some ordinary and sane folk to have experiences which either > transform or, in my case, reaffirm the sense that "the life of the cosmos" > is* itself* not a metaphor, that it is possible to have the curtain > lifted, even if for only a moment, on what we're conditioned to see as "the > world pure and simple and quite ordinary;" I surely don't mean something > supernatural, but rather a perfect sense of a cosmos which, as Peirce > argues, is really and truly alive and intelligent (for us, intelligible) > and, if not exactly benign (since Shiva dances at the destruction of the > world even in its transformation), is at least not the result of a > meaningless chance singularity (the Big Bang) once for all time, that is, > the materialist reduction of the cosmos to a stupefyingly reductivistic > nominalistic idiocy. From childhood I have *never* felt it that way, but > as alive. Is that so very weird? > > > > Alan Watts used to say that to have something as sensitive as an eye in > order for there to be sight, that sensitive tissue, etc. (easily capable of > being damaged or destroyed) is necessary. For me this was part of the > resolution of the problem of evil. The other part, the human part, is just > the understanding of the way in which too many of us become so *un*natural > as to do the horrible, truly horrific things we do to each other, other > creatures, to the planet itself. We have a perverse "free" will to do what > is perverse, twisted, cruel. > > > > Phyllis wrote: > > > > I agree that every possibility is real, but I don't agree that ymy > interpretations of everything I experience is necessarily accurate. That is > why I don't trust that those experiences are transcendent. I think they may > be just neglected aspects of perfectly ordinary reality that certain others > (or groups of others) have honed (deliberately or unconsciously) to a much > greater degree than I. > > > > That my interpretations of my experiences are fallible is certainly true. > But that some people have honed (or whataver it is, as I don't see my > quasi-mystical experience as the result of any such 'honing'), that their > sensitivity to these "neglected aspects of perfectly ordinary > experience"--if even for a transcendent moment--seems to me something worth > investigating, or at least further reflecting on, rather than denying it > out of hand (not that you are doing that, Phyllis, but some do--I referred > to them recently as essentially kinds of reductivists (and some are > scientists and some are artists and some are religious dogmatists and some > are just ordinary folk. But I *don't* see them as realists in the > deepest, fullest, the Peircean sense.) And, hey, I too am just an ordinary > bloke who happened to have had these few extraordinary experiences which > reaffirmed something about the universe which, actually, I've always felt > was so, and later which I read in Peirce's philosophy when he took up such > cosmic themes--in a word, the reality of the life of the cosmos. > > > > Once again quoting Ehrenreich: > > > > *"Try inserting an account of a mystical experience into a conversation, > and you'll likely get the same response as you would if you confided that > you had been the victim of an alien abduction* > > * ."* > > > > So I won't say any more on this any time soon, perhaps for some of the > reasons that Peirce had nothing more to say specifically about his St. > Thomas experience. But since I have had my own such mystical experience, I > refuse to denigrate his, or argue it away as some would seem to wish to do. > Some, however, are so hostile to religious experience in any form that > they'll never accept any sign that there might a life of the cosmos. > > > > "I have never before been mystical; but now I am." CSP That may not be a > very philosophically pragmatic comment; I'm not sure. I think the arguments > offered against it being one are strong. > > > > Best, > > > > Gary R. > > > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm. > > > > > >
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