[MD] Rorty and Mysticism

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Dave,

DMB said:
But poetry is poetry even when it's about mystical experience. It's 
better than prose but it is still language. And the mystical reality is 
outside of language so the phrase "mysticism as poetry" seems 
dismissive and it seems to defy the MOQ's central distinction.

Matt:
Yeah, I don't see it that way.  The definition of poetry being used 
isn't limited to the lyric or epic, or even what we standardly shuffle 
into the class called "poem."  Rorty's sense of "poet" includes all 
thinkers, from Homer to Plato, Plutarch to Nietzsche, both James 
brothers, Wallace Stevens, Freud, Davidson, etc.

The central issue dividing us, it would seem, is what "the mystical 
reality is outside of language" means.  Because if it doesn't mean 
"transcendence," as you've indicated, then I'm not sure what issue 
is left that Rorty would've had a hard time with, an issue that 
makes "mysticism as poetry" seem dismissive, rather than the 
highest compliment Rorty could think to give something.

To me, the issue seems almost entirely verbal.  You have, it would 
seem, a low estimation of poetry (at least, in comparison).  Rorty 
used "poetry" as the genre-label for where secularists housed their 
spiritual texts.

Matt