[MD] John Carl Critiques Pure Experience:INST01

[John Carl]

I really like the way RMP ripped into Idealism in that bold,
devil-take-the-hindmost, stream-of-consciousness way.    For a successful
author with aspirations of deep and lasting intellectual latching, it was a
risky, generous and open-hearted expression of sharing and caring.


So I'm gonna emulate, except in my case, big deal, got nothing to lose...


And thanks as always to our eternaly inspirational dmb, who passed this link
along...


The words by Joel W. Krueger, whom I'll have to take at y'all's word that he
actually knows his business, just like RMP had to take Coppleston's cuz we
here in the beginning of the 21st century surd don't got time for all the
reading it would be required to cover the writin' they did near the tail end
of the 19th.  Too many economical labor savin' devices at our disposal
nowadays and we don't have time for all that leisurely ink and quill stuff.


It got bigger than I thought it would so it will have to be continued.
 Speed of completion dependent upon how destracted I get. (you keep your
thoughts on that subject to yourself, lu.)


From:


http://williamjamesstudies.press.illinois.edu/1.1/krueger.html


*2. James on Pure Experience*



    The starting point of James's thought is a deeply (though not
exclusively) empirical concern. His work as a whole is founded upon a
consideration of concrete experience: the world as experienced by an
embodied, embedded, and acting agent.


 John]


 As long as we're reassured about the concreteness of this "embodied,
embedded and acting agent" then I guess we're completely on bedrock.  Not to
mention our certitude in our "concrete".  Test the slump, like the engineers
do, if you wanna be real sure.


 Personally, I'm already wondering about the "embodied, embedded and acting
agent" - I don't picture "me" all that concretely.  I'd say some context is
necessary for this self of mine and I'd have a few questions about that
context before I'd go off and pour the concrete.  Check the forms twice, cuz
you only pour once.  Jackhammering old concrete ain't no kind of fun.


 Kreuger]


 Explicating the lived structures that constitute our uniquely human way of
being in the world, James insists, is the key to understanding the
antecedent categorizations, conceptualizations, and other intellectual ways
of organizing the world that are founded upon these experiential structures,
and which emerge through our action within the world.


 John]


Ok, sounds like he's agreeing with checking the forms of the self.   But
isn't "Explicating the lived structures that constitute our uniquely human
way of being in the world"  just a fancy-nancy way of repeating the Socratic
dictum - "Know thyself"?   You know, the same thing Zen masters try and get
their acolytes to accomplish?  The beginning of the path... ?  How does this
phraseology explicate more elucidatiously?  Whenever some philosopher uses
big words on me, I suspect he's trying to cover up a flaw in his logic.  I
wanna see that slump now and I wanna see it in inches, using the level
across the top and a certified bucket and everything.


Hold the trucks!  Don't pour yet.  We need to check this out.


Kreuger]


  These intellectual structures ultimately reflect the practical concerns of
human beings as they simultaneously shape and are shaped by the world they
inhabit and act within. His "concrete analysis," as he terms it,


 John]


That's a concrete analysis?   Sounds like he's got a lot of confidence.
He's ready to pour.  His concrete analysis (we should say "analogy" rather
than "analysis") is based upon these intellectual structures and I already
forgot what they were.  Let's go back and review:


Kreuger]


"Explicating the lived structures that constitute our uniquely human way of
being in the world", James insists, is the key to understanding


John]


Understanding What?


Kreuger]


 the antecedent categorizations, conceptualizations, and other intellectual
ways of organizing the world that are founded upon these experiential
structures, and which emerge through our action within the world.


John]


And James is calling that conglomeration "concrete"?!?!?   Sheesh.  Remind
me of this when I'm searching for a contractor.   Perhaps Kreuger doesn't
have time to make Jame's case clear and obvious, but so far it looks to me
like there is a great deal of unacknowledged nebulousness that he *wants* to
call concrete, and so he does.  My dad was like that.  Always wanting to
pour early because it motivates the crew.


Kreuger]


  thus provides the methodological trajectory of his philosophical
considerations. James writes that "concreteness as radical as ours is not so
obvious.


John interrupting rudely]


yeah you can say that again.


Kreuger continuing patiently]


The whole originality of pragmatism, the whole point of it, is its use of
the concrete way of
thinking."2<http://williamjamesstudies.press.illinois.edu/1.1/krueger.html#_ftn2>



 John tapping his foot meaningfully]


Sigh.  Ok, well then.  If that's what you want, you better make sure that
that is exactly what you get.  You want concrete, dig down, mine it, make
it, test it and apply it properly.  But I can tell you right now you already
got problems and issues.



The thing about  concrete?  It  isn't really all that concrete.  At
concrete's foundation we find spaces and things that we really don't have
concrete definition for.  At some level, concrete gets really *hard* to get
permanent.  In point of fact, from a certain pov, the whirling parts,
concepts and relational energies can only be described in much more
nebulous, spiritual terms.  And the fact of this robs any empiricism of much
of its dynamic force - in that at some levels, reality just isn't concrete.



  On a whole 'nother level,   the obsession with the search for the concrete
displays an urge to control - the struggle against the dynamic which reveals
a troubled childhood.  But we'll cut Willie some slack. It's probably hard
for the founder of American Psychology to find a good therapist.


to be continued...
all comments welcome.