[MD] still going?

[John Carl]

dmb,

On 1/31/16, david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> dmb says:
>
> The Stanford Encyclopedia is considered to be among the most credible
> academic sources, right up there with philosophy Journals and University
> books. And there are many good reasons to draw the conclusion that James and
> Royce had very different views.


Jc:  I agree. But there is a lot that speaks to their comradery and
agreement, as well.  My academic sources are not bankrupt.  Carbondale
vs Stanford on american Pragmatism?  I'd take Carbondale, any day.  I
know Stanford and I know the Valley in which it resides.  And there's
people who think wikipedia is the final answer also, but if one thing
James should have taught you, final answers are not so common in
philosophy.  We have to be tolerant towards other views, if we're
going to espouse Pluralism, wouldn't you agree?

And my "other view" came from a process of inquiry that Pirsig started
and my stumbling upon Royce a real thing, an emotional reaction in the
gut that turned out to have a lot more support than I realized.  Thus
it can't be cast aside merely upon "the SEP" says.

How much of the academic world agrees that James and Pirsig are
aligned?  Should I take their opinion on ALL philosophical matters, or
just certain ones that align with my prejudices?

dmb:

It's utterly contemptible to dismiss SEP as
> if it were just some guy's opinion

Jc:  I agree, its more than that.


dmb:

or to dismiss the basic facts for being
> the result of "a wrong-headed academic bias".


Jc:  Basic facts?  Basic fact was that James and Royce were lifelong
friends and James was Royce's mentor.  Royce cites James as his
philosophical influence but James didn't have the analytical abilites
to keep up with Peirce or Royce in system-building or metaphysics.
But so what?  Neither do you or I, and Royce and Peirce didn't have
the gift of interpretation that James had, the ability to find the
depths in common and look at differing views fairly and
comprehensively and write so clearly and well.  They all contributed
their gifts to one another, they weren't in any competition.   It was
James, Royce and Peirce, tag-teaming and making American Pragmatism a
huge and continuing influence on world affairs.  It could only be a
modern interpretation, with our socialized ego competitions ingrained
from K-12-PhD. - but the kind of crass individualism at play today
should not be projected upon our more community-minded elders.

What do I say here that would be contradicted by you or your sources?

dmb:

>This is just the commonly
> heard anti-intellectual attitude that says "my ignorance is just as good as
> your knowledge".

Jc:  I can't believe you are so blind.  My ignorance?  My authority vs
your authority.  I thought you'd be convinced when I sent you that vid
clip of Hilary Putnam's enthusiasm for Royce, I thought you accepted
Putnam's academic authority?  He seems like a pretty smart guy to me.
 I know you don't like Auxier, and I don't blame you. He can be pretty
inflammatory at times and seems to have run into James scholars like
you before because he's got some pretty scathing things to say.  But
there are plenty of scholars that have taken up Royce, just as I
predicted there would be when I stumbled across him on the plaque in
the Library,  a decade ago.    But just because Auxier doesn't care
for the modern student William James, doesn't mean he despises James.
James is his favorite philosopher.  If he was stuck on a deserted
island with only one author to choose from, his choice would be James.
I've learned a lot, this past decade.  I'm not so ignorant as you
think.

dmb:

>
> William James said that he and Royce loved each other like "Siamese twins,"
> but it's also true that they were opposed philosophically and that James
> said he wanted to destroy the absolute, wanted its "scalp". Royce was an
> advocate of Idealism and Monism while James was a Pluralist and a Radical
> Empiricist. James spells out the difference is one of his essays on Radical
> Empiricism, a piece called "Absolutism and Empiricism," and the life-long
> debate between the two men is somewhat famously known as "the battle of the
> Absolute".
>

Jc:  Ok, first of all, James used hyperbole, he effused a lot with
many, many of his correspondents and part of their "feud" was dramatic
play, meant to keep things interesting.  That's not to say it was
insincere!  They had their differences, but think about the
relationship such a "battle" entails.  It keeps it dramatic.  It keeps
it interesting.  Not just for the onlooking students but for the
participants themselves.  Such a conflict is real, but it's also a
convenience that  we shouldn't (drum roll please) ABSOLUTIZE.

See?

The battle of the Absolute marches on.

I will also say that Royce got the last word, since he outlived James
and his Opus, The Problem of Christianity, was much of a synthesis and
an homage to The Varieties of Religious Experience.
>

dmb:

> "James abused Hegel merrily," his biography says. 'Of all mental turpitude
> and rottennesses,' he thought, Hegelianism takes the cake. 'The worst of it
> is,' James told Hall, it makes an absolute sterility where it comes.' James
> wrote Royce in February 1880, groaning that 'my ignorant prejudice against
> all Hegelians except Hegel himself grows wusser and wusser. Their Sacerdotal
> airs! And their sterility!' ...He told Xenos Clark in December 1880, 'The
> Hegelian wave which seems to me only another desperate attempt to make a
> short cut to paradise, is deluging the College this year and will, if I am
> not mistake, completely sterilize its votaries'. ...He added his by now
> reflexist reaction to Hegel ('fundamentally rotten and charlatanish'), but
> went on to concede that 'as a reaction against materialistic evolutionism it
> has a use, only this evolution is is fertile while Hegelism is absolutely
> sterile'." -- Robert Richardson, William James in the Maelstrom of American
> Modernism, page
>   214.
>

Jc:  So?  Royce agreed completely.  Royce vowed he was never much a
student of Hegel, although he did appreciate his system building
expertise.  Royce claimed Schopenhauer and James, but never Hegel.
This charge of Hegelianism has been levied at Pirsig, also, no?  So
either academics can be mistaken more often than you realize, or we've
all be barking up the wrong tree all these years trying this MoQ
thing.

dmb:

>
> There are some points in common, of course, but these are very different
> visions, from different schools of philosophy, held by people with very
> different temperaments. I see no good reason to pretend they are similar or
> compatible and l see lots of good reasons for being clear about the
> distinctions between them. Otherwise it's just the philosophical version of
> pounding a square peg into a round hole. You're only going to damage one or
> both of them in the effort. It's wreckless vandalism and if John feels
> persecuted by this obvious criticism, then he has a problem that cannot be
> solved by anyone but him.
>


Jc:  I appreciate your time.  James and Royce were very different men
who somehow became good friends and appreciated each other's
differences and argued passionately for their side without insulting
or alienating the other.   Royce admits that his language was
influenced by Hegel and he used the term 'Absolute" too much.  Perhaps
because he was trying to build a bridge to the theologians.  If so, I
agree with him on that task.  I think its important to build that
bridge, but not so that God could infect philosophy with unseeable
presupposition, but so that philosophers could infect religion with
reason.

Because God help us if Religion is allowed to continue to grow in
power without the benefit of any rationality at all.  although that
does seem to be happening.  I know this is an area of big difference
between you and me, but don't project that same difference on James
and Royce.  Royce certainly was not any kind of religionist or any
more Theistic than James.

Take care,

John the Royce-partisan.

(Go Broncos)


"I will be less deferential to James and Dewey here, but I would hold
their respective philosophies in great esteem, equal to my esteem for
Royce.  That I reject their readings of Royce does not imply that I
reject their own philosophical perspectives, or that I automatically
agree with Royce and disagree with James or Dewey when they part ways.
Very often I side with James or Dewey on philosophical points , even
if I don't think they have understood what Royce was arguing.  In this
book it may appear that am a Royce-partisan when the fact is that I am
only a defender of the proper understanding of Royce's genuine
position.  I would want that kept in mind by readers.  My own
philosophical commitments are not primarily under discussion here, but
if they were, they would be closer to Whitehead than to Royce."

Randall Auxier, pg. 8,   Time, Will and Purpose