Correction: Of course this post was meant to be addressed to Gary Fuhrman and the list, not to myself! GR
*Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 1:15 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]>wrote: > 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 . >> >> >> >> >> >> >
----------------------------- 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 .
