[MD] Another parallel

[Matt Kundert]

Hi John,

John said:
I have been coming to, and am about to reach, the firm 
conclusion that Jamesian Pragmatism is NOT the way to go 
for the MoQ.   William James and Josiah Royce conducted a 
lifelong dialogue between Pragmatism and Idealism, and in 
every social, static-latching meaningful way, James won, 
Royce lost. Lost in obscurity, lost in influence, lost in all but 
the most esoteric memory.

Matt:
That's interesting.  I think I remember when you first 
started posting, and you had a bit on Royce.   And I think 
somebody said I might know something a little more about 
him.  But I don't have anything interesting to say about 
Royce.  My instinct is to say that, between pragmatism and 
idealism, pragmatism is the way to go, but that's mainly 
because I go in for neither system-talk nor God-talk, which 
most 19th/turn of the century idealists have in spades.  
Royce's reading of evil as error is an interesting 
transmogrification of traditional theodicy into terms more 
applicable to modern times, but I confess to not getting 
that much out of theodicy in general.  A notable episode in 
the wheel of history, but, I suspect, not a ghost with much 
breath left.

For my money, the neglected philosopher to read is George 
Santayana.  And in that regard, you might try reading his 
short Character and Opinion in the United States.  It offers 
incisive commentary on both James and Royce, and the 
general character of the American intellectual milieu.  It's 
absolutely magnificent.

John said:
Philosophologists are always certain about their subject, 
and philosophers almost never are.

Matt:
Sure, but do you know why "philosophologists" are so 
certain?  Because they demarcate their subject-material 
very finely, cutting off a slice of life, rather than trying to 
gaze at the whole.  It's the same for any profession.  The 
only thing that distinguishes a philosopher is that they 
can't help but continually be distracted by the whole.  But 
if every person was a philosopher full-time, then we'd have 
no civilization, because no one would've been able to stuff 
their doubt into a sack long enough to make a wheel or 
start a fire.

If a "philosophologist" is someone who confuses the part 
for the whole (knowing a lot about Kant for knowing a lot 
about wisdom), then "philophilosophers"--lovers of the love 
of wisdom--are those who confuse the whole for the part: 
knowing a lot about wisdom for knowing about X.  For as 
the Greek word sophia makes apparent, its an ineffable 
object that you can't know a lot about qua sophia.  Every 
good philosopher knows--and most through history have 
known--that you need the part and the whole, and that 
the struggle is knowing how to relate the two.

Matt

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