[MD] still going?

[david]

>From the Stanford Encyclopedia:

"Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James delivered the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments against Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name. James's lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience, were a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had never been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the extraordinary religious experiences of extraordinary individuals. Royce's first education was into a strongly Protestant world view, he always retained a respect for the conventions of organized Christianity, and his writings exhibit a consistent and deep familiarity with Scripture. He sought a philosophy of religion that could help one understand and explain the phenomena of ordinary religious faith as experienced by communities of ordinary people. There was a deeper difference between them, as well, and it centered on a metaphysical point. Royce's 1883 insight concerning the Absolute was at bottom a religious insight. Contrary to the open-ended pluralism and pragmatism of James, Royce was convinced that the object and source of religious experience was an actual, infinite, and superhuman being."


Adrie said to dmb:

...Given the 'gospel,' which is clearly present in Royce's work, Auxier's field of interest, and John's field of interest possibly and probably as well John
as Randall would like to restrict and restrain our interferences to the theological field of Catholicism, thereby avoiding any possible question about monotheism
polytheism, Islam, thora or whatever available. Needless to say that this also would restrict and restrain us only to their (Royce,Auxier,John, the
pope's?) field of expertise, an expertise that is apparently shaped and polished so to speak, to induce a theistic revival in filosophy again. This is not strange nor indecent, but of course if one takes the other questions in consideration (monotheism/polytheism/islam etc, etc...) then you are quite right that it is nearly an impossibility to have the debate as long as the other debates remain unsolved; If we cannot define our variables a priori, and the John/Royce/Auxier train only wants to restrain us in the catholic corner.


dmb says:

Well, I don't think the problem belongs to any particular kind of theism or type of Christianity. And I don't think the other guy's view puts any restrictions on us either. As I see, the problem is that we're dealing with people who pretend to be thinking seriously but have already committed themselves to certain final answers. If a person has prior commitments like that, their thinking process will be in the service of that prior view. The problem is that it restricts and restrains what they able to appreciate and remember. Such prior commitments amplify the confirmation bias that effects us all so that criticisms are, in effect, filtered out and the information that seems to confirm their beliefs gets seared into their memories. Even further, religious faith (and political ideologies) are totalitarian in the sense that every part of reality must be made to fit within their worldview. And everything that does not fit is explained away, dismissed and/or immediately forgotten. That's what fanatics seem so impervious to evidence and reason. 



Adrie continued:

However this does not mean that it offends me or disturbs me; as John suggests, it only offends me to go back to the luggage left behind when the Mayflower moored in the America's, or the Halve Maen or the Pilgrim fathers. This is the wrong luggage. ...But quid pro quo for what John is proposing, as apparently some unseen quality is emerging in his postings, consistency is back and he made major improvements on the field of philosophy and writing about it.
So i will not advocate to boot out Royce as John is not really demanding to get rid of Ol' William. Should we, as Irina suggested, keep our religion out of this debate? Or is religion too interwoven and twined with idealism or many forms of philosophy in general to leave it aside?  The last remark should be interesting for John to resolve....but regardless of his lead, i will not take his word for it without delivered content. 


dmb says:

It would be foolish to exclude religion as a topic or issue for discussion because it's a major feature of human culture and because idealism in general, and especially Royce's idealism, is a religious view. Again, the problem is that such religious people are coming to the discussion with a large set of prior commitments about what's true and what's real. Coming to the table with a prior faith almost always brings a strong bias that hinders and frustrates a productive exchange of ideas. It creates blind spots in the mind, so to speak. 

John continues to insist that James and Royce were equally religious and that my protests to the contrary are symptoms of fear, prejudice, or even post traumatic stress induced by a bad experience with theism. This is mere slander, of course, but even worse is that it defies what the Stanford Encyclopedia and James himself have to say on the topic. It's like he just doesn't care what's true and what's not true. He wants to make it fit no matter what it takes. That's what happens when you are already committed to some faith before you even start to think. It warps everything so that real conversations are almost impossible. 


Take it easy.

Dave




------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 2016-02-05 16:41 GMT+01:00 david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>:
> >
> >>
> >> Adrie quoted Wikipedia to dispute John's claims:
> >>
> >>
> >> "His publication in 1885 of The Religious Aspect of Philosophy
> >> ...contained a new proof for the existence of God based upon the reality
> >> of
> >> error. All errors are judged to be erroneous in comparison to some total
> >> truth, Royce argued, and we must either hold ourselves infallible or
> >> accept
> >> that even our errors are evidence of a world of truth. Having made it
> >> clear
> >> that idealism depends upon postulates and proceeds hypothetically, Royce
> >> defends the necessity of objective reference of our ideas to a universal
> >> whole within which they belong, for without these postulates, “both
> >> practical life and the commonest results of theory, from the simplest
> >> impressions to the most valuable beliefs, would be for most if not all
> of
> >> us utterly impossible”. (see The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, p.
> 324)"
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> dmb says:
> >>
> >>
> >> Since Royce was offering fallibilism as "a new proof for the existence
> of
> >> God" and "the necessity of objective reference of our ideas", his
> >> fallibilism is very, very different from the fallibilism of Pragmatists
> >> like James and Pirsig. I think it's fair to say that Pirsig is NOT
> >> offering
> >> theism or objectivity. James, Dewey, and Pirsig are quite explicit in
> >> their
> >> rejection of SOM and even James, the most religion-friendly of the
> three,
> >> wrote his Varieties of Religious Experience in order to DISPUTE the
> >> religious claims made by Royce.
> >>
> >>
> >> From the Stanford Encyclopedia:
> >>
> >> "Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper
> >> understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James delivered
> >> the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments
> against
> >> Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name.
> >> James's lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience,
> were
> >> a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had
> never
> >> been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious
> >> community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the
> extraordinary
> >> religious experiences of extraordinary individuals. Royce's first
> >> education
> >> was into a strongly Protestant world view, he always retained a respect
> >> for
> >> the conventions of organized Christianity, and his writings exhibit a
> >> consistent and deep familiarity with Scripture. He sought a philosophy
> of
> >> religion that could help one understand and explain the phenomena of
> >> ordinary religious faith as experienced by communities of ordinary
> people.
> >> There was a deeper difference between them, as well, and it centered on
> a
> >> metaphysical point. Royce's 1883 insight concerning the Absolute was at
> >> bottom a religious insight. Contrary to the open-ended pluralism and
> >> pragmatism of James, Royce was convinced that the object and source of
> >> religious experience was an actual, infinite, and superhuman being."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Since Pirsig was suspicious of James for trying to sneak religion in
> >> through the back door into philosophy, imagine what he'd think of
> Royce's
> >> "respect of the conventions of organized Christianity" and his stance
> >> "contrary to the open-ended pluralism and pragmatism of James".
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Like I keep saying, trying to make this Idealistic religious fanatic
> into
> >> a Pirsigian is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. Why,
> >> why, why does John keep preaching this nonsense against all evidence and
> >> reason? This covert theism is bullshit and cannot be sustained without a
> >> huge dose of dishonesty, or ignorance, or both.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> It's fine if a person insists on being an Idealist, an Absolutist, or a
> >> advocate of conventional Christianity but it makes no sense to paint
> >> Pirsig
> >> or Pragmatism in these colors. The keys concepts of these two opposed
> >> views
> >> will crash into each other like two trains heading in opposite
> directions.
> >> It's worse than a pointless waste of time because, frankly, it's so
> >> obviously stupid. It makes me sad and angry that John is allowed to
> >> continue raining his bullshit on Pirsig and James.
> >>
> >>