[MD] Taking words Seriously

[david buchanan]

Marsha said to dmb:
And the Eastern texts (Buddhist & Vedic) that James read and reread early in a most difficult period in his life had a profound influence on his thinking.  This  investigation is documented in his biography 'William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism' by Robert D. Richardson (pp. 119 &126):


dmb says:
Richardson is an excellent intellectual biographer. He not only read everything James ever wrote, including personal letters, he also read everything that James read. (I used him extensively in my thesis.) Richardson also wrote a big fat biography of Emerson, James's godfather. Emerson was also heavily influenced by Eastern thinking. (Pirsig brought a copy at Emerson's home, signed it and sent it to me as a gift.)
But more to the point. If James's central ideas, the one's that Pirsig identifies with, are so heavily influenced by Buddhism, why do you try to use Buddhism against James? Wouldn't this fact only make it all the more likely that he'd be similar to Pirisg. Aren't they both American pragmatists with a big Zen influence? Doesn't just make sense that you should give a bunny's butt what he thinks? 
Being a James hater just doesn't make any sense to me. I know of at least two different scholars who describe the Buddha himself as a radical empiricist, which is exactly what James, Dewey and Pirsig call themselves. Why embrace some and reject the others? It's silly.

Are you suggesting that James was not an original thinker in his own right? Is that your point? No serious person could believe that. Just ask Richardson.