[MD] three questions

[John Carl]

Marsha,

It was good to have you gone for a while.

It made me realize anew the old aphorism, ya don't miss the water till the
well runs dry.

And I agree completely when you say, "can't top what Dan has written."

But it's always fun to try.


John

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:02 PM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:

>
> John,
>
> Can't top what Dan has written in response to dmb, so I won't add much.
> I find something dynamic in all your writing, and I've even become
> interested
> in learning more about Royce.  You're writing is alive in the way I
> experienced ZMM and LILA.
>
> There is another on this list who when he writes about W. James, makes me
> think philosophy is dead and self-promotion is alive.  But I am quite sure
> I must be projecting my own demons in seeing that.
>
>
> Marsha
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 3, 2010, at 4:23 PM, John Carl wrote:
>
> > Greetings Marsha, and thanks for the questions.  Since I'm on my lunch
> > break, I'll start by just answering one question, and I'll pick #2
> because
> > I've got it right in front of me at the moment.
> >
> > And of course, I'll confine myself to the Roycean side of the question,
> and
> > leave James to the dime-a-dozen Jamesians extant.
> >
> > "Should evolutionary doctrines be true, the 'real world' will not be a
> place
> > of mechanical laws and the flux of atoms; it will be a world 'of struggle
> > and conflict, of triumph of the good, or of the abolition of evil, of the
> > moral importance of the world, of the transition from lower to higher
> > conditions... It will be a world of *ideals."*
> > *
> > *
> > Kuklick continues:
> >
> > "Why does Royce see these implications in the truth of evolutionary
> > doctrines?  An evolutionary process is historical, and to appreciate it,
> he
> > claims, we must forsake that kind of temporality which confines
> mechanistic
> > explanation.  Genetic explanation 'takes in at a glance' a series of
> > moments; it treats them as a whole.  This temporal whole will have
> meaning
> > or significance, and this dimension of time transcends that encapsulated
> in
> > the moment-to-moment sequence which characterizes changes in the physical
> > world.  An evolutionary sequence may be a series of events which qua
> series
> > is physical--a set of causally related conditions occuring in space and
> > time; but to accept this series as an historical explanation is to
> emphasize
> > unity, meaning or significance in a way that causal explanation will not.
> >
> > When a temporal series functions this way as an explanation, when it
> affirms
> > meaning or significance, our explanation takes on a moral dimension; it
> will
> > be evaluative."
> >
> > Intellectual History of Josiah Royce,
> >
> > And I guess Marsha, for #3, I believe that last statement makes my case
> for
> > what Royce brings to the MoQ.  He posits evolution as proof that the
> cosmos
> > is a moral order - he agrees with Pirsig's view of evolution in Lila.  He
> > shows that even when your arguments are good, there are jealous and
> naughty
> > men in the world who want to keep you down and even if Pirsig said
> > everything perfectly, that's no guarantee he'd be accepted by a
> values-free
> > Academia.
> >
> >
> > And now, I'm off to work!
> >
> > John
> > Moq_Discuss mailing list
> > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> > Archives:
> > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> > http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>
>
>
> ___
>
>
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>