From kfwils at earthlink.net Sat Apr 13 17:14:13 2002 From: kfwils at earthlink.net (Kenneth Wilson) Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 17:14:13 -0400 Subject: Hittites References: Message-ID: <00ca01c1e330$2af7c1e0$95d4bfa8@u8f5h7> I'm trying to remember where Percy wrote something like "whatever happened to the Hitites?" Can someone point me to the book and perhaps correct the wording? Thanks, Ken From daveduty at austin.rr.com Fri Apr 12 17:16:03 2002 From: daveduty at austin.rr.com (Dave Duty) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 16:16:03 -0500 Subject: Hittites References: <00ca01c1e330$2af7c1e0$95d4bfa8@u8f5h7> Message-ID: <3CB74E93.670B891@austin.rr.com> Message in the Bottle. First or second chapter -- I believe. Dave Duty Kenneth Wilson wrote: > I'm trying to remember where Percy wrote something like "whatever happened > to the Hitites?" Can someone point me to the book and perhaps correct the > wording? > > Thanks, > > Ken > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at . > Visit the Walker Percy Project at . From JamzSimp at aol.com Fri Apr 12 17:04:01 2002 From: JamzSimp at aol.com (JamzSimp at aol.com) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 17:04:01 -0400 Subject: Hittites Message-ID: <73E10504.763E97D5.0075E92F@aol.com> Fiction Hittite reference in *The Second Coming*, I believe, and essay reference in *Lost in the Cosmos*. Perhaps elsewhere too. Eric From kfwils at earthlink.net Sat Apr 13 23:54:40 2002 From: kfwils at earthlink.net (Kenneth Wilson) Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 23:54:40 -0400 Subject: Hittites References: <73E10504.763E97D5.0075E92F@aol.com> Message-ID: <003401c1e368$1be85740$31d5bfa8@u8f5h7> Thanks, Eric and Dave. And you were so fast! Ken ----- Original Message ----- From: To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 5:04 PM Subject: [percy-l] Re: Hittites > Fiction Hittite reference in *The Second Coming*, I believe, and essay reference in *Lost in the Cosmos*. Perhaps elsewhere too. > > Eric > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at . > Visit the Walker Percy Project at . From wpercy1 at mail.ibiblio.org Sat Apr 20 10:52:24 2002 From: wpercy1 at mail.ibiblio.org (Henry P. Mills) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 08:52:24 -0600 Subject: Uncanny Parallels between The Moviegoer and Up in the Air Message-ID: Dear Percy-L: This in from George Wickham of Richmond, Virginia , regarding parallels between Walter Kirn's _Up in the Air_ and The Moviegoer. Anyone care to comment? Thanks for sharing this with us, George. Henry Mills __________________ Dear Mr. Mills: I am a middle school English teacher in Richmond, Virginia and a devoted admirer of Walker Percy's books (which inspired me to climb out of an 18-year rut of a legal career and into teaching). I recently read _Up in the Air_ by Walter Kirn (featured on the cover of the "New York Times Book Review," July 8, 2001). After finishing the book I was struck by the similarities between Ryan Bingham (the protagonist in Up in the Air) and Binx Bolling of _The Moviegoer_. Here are the parallels between the two characters -- and the books -- that I found. I thought you and others involved in the study of Percy's work might be intrigued. Both characters are male, unmarried, thirty-something, first person narrators who work in the business world. Both characters tell their story of a single, transformational week in their lives (Bolling, the week before Mardi Gras, and Bingham, a week of business travel), which for each leads to a career change. Both characters have left their "native" worlds: Bolling has left the Garden District of New Orleans for a surreal suburb, and Bingham has given up his apartment altogether for the surreal Airworld. Both characters have genuine relationships with children, which they can't seem to duplicate with friends and family. (Bolling with his half-siblings and Bingham with the children of his old girlfriend, Linda). Both characters confess to a personal radio fetish. (Bolling with the "This I Believe" radio show and Bingham with christian rock). Both characters are scheduled to speak at business conferences, and both are no-shows. Both seem to be good at their jobs but are "not fully present" in their work. Both characters have old girlfriends named Linda. Both characters have sisters (Bolling's is a step-sister) who are engaged and who break the engagement (The Moviegoer) or go AWOL (Up in the Air) before their weddings. Both characters travel with their "sisters" in the post engagement/AWOL period. There is actual romantic and sexual involvement between Binx and his step-sister in The Moviegoer, and a reference to a strong attraction between brother and sister in Up in the Air. Both books have scenes in which a real-life character enters the fictional action and casts his "aura" about the scene. (William Holden in The Moviegoer and Norman Schwarskopf in Up in the Air). Both characters suffer from memory loss or catatonic states. The love interests of both characters take pills. Both characters have the "bing" sound in their names (Bin[g]x Bolling and Ryan Bingham). In Up in the Air, Bingham is writing a book (The Garage) which is a knock off on a book that another character in Up in the Air has written (The Basement). Could this be a nod by Kirn to The Moviegoer? I'd be curious as to your thoughts (or those of your colleagues) on these parallels if you have an opportunity to read Up in the Air. Sincerely, George Wickham From Nikkibar at aol.com Sun Apr 21 15:09:47 2002 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 15:09:47 EDT Subject: Uncanny Parallels between The Moviegoer and Up in the Air Message-ID: <99.25395472.29f4687b@aol.com> Sounds rather as though Mr Kirn may have been reading Mr Percy. Nikki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From armstron at ohiou.edu Sun Apr 21 17:48:29 2002 From: armstron at ohiou.edu (Ken Armstrong) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 17:48:29 -0400 Subject: Uncanny Parallels between The Moviegoer and Up in the Air In-Reply-To: <99.25395472.29f4687b@aol.com> Message-ID: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Nikki and Henry, For the uninitiated, what are the parallels? Is Mr. Kirn doing something fictionally similar to what WP did? Ken Armstrong At 03:09 PM 4/21/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Sounds rather as though Mr Kirn may have been reading Mr Percy. > >Nikki -- >An archive of all list discussion is available at >. >Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wpercy1 at mail.ibiblio.org Mon Apr 22 00:09:37 2002 From: wpercy1 at mail.ibiblio.org (Henry P. Mills) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 22:09:37 -0600 Subject: Uncanny Parallels between The Moviegoer and Up in the Air In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Ken, See for the original 4/20 post. Henry Mills __________ From: Ken Armstrong Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 17:48:29 -0400 To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Subject: [percy-l] Re: Uncanny Parallels between The Moviegoer and Up in the Air Nikki and Henry, For the uninitiated, what are the parallels? Is Mr. Kirn doing something fictionally similar to what WP did? Ken Armstrong __________ At 03:09 PM 4/21/2002 -0400, you wrote: Sounds rather as though Mr Kirn may have been reading Mr Percy. Nikki -- From armstron at ohiou.edu Fri Apr 26 10:16:30 2002 From: armstron at ohiou.edu (Ken Armstrong) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 10:16:30 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will In-Reply-To: References: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4.2.2.20020426095821.019f63f0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> It being so quiet on the list, I thought this Percy-like item might not be inappropriate. There is a book out now, The Illusion of Conscious Will, which is not about a vanishing Percy relation, but might be just the kind of thing WP would have enjoyed skewering. The following is excerpted from the review on Amazon.com: "Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. " Well. One would think the reviewer would feel some obligation, conscious will being an illusion and all, to explain how he thinks or how the author thinks this book came into being? If ever a theory displayed all the characteristics WP delineates in The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind, this must be it. Imagine the pathos of "developing a sense of responsibility and morality" with no capacity for will. TGIF and cheers to all, Ken Armstrong -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brian at beachcitygas.com Fri Apr 26 11:14:33 2002 From: brian at beachcitygas.com (Brian Neuschwander) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 08:14:33 -0700 Subject: Conscious Will References: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020426095821.019f63f0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <3CC96ED9.AAE2B1BB@beachcitygas.com> Yes, Ken. Percy's long lost cousin, Conscious Will, perfectly points us to the crisis in ontology we have inherited from the logical positivists. When physicists reduce everthing to molecles in motion with everthing deteremined at the big band, and when our sociobiologists tell us that our morality is merely an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes (found in a pocket of Will's jeans?) for our survival, it is hard to argue that Bin Laden is wrong (or right) or that high school massacres are tragic (and not merely curious). American Beauty was the raconteur of our cultural nihilism at the portal of the new millennium. But sadly it went over the heads of most people. In fact it went even deeper than the conscious will/determinism debate. For even if we have a conscious will, so what! From armstron at ohiou.edu Fri Apr 26 11:12:24 2002 From: armstron at ohiou.edu (Ken Armstrong) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 11:12:24 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will In-Reply-To: <3CC96ED9.AAE2B1BB@beachcitygas.com> References: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020426095821.019f63f0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4.2.2.20020426111018.019fb150@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> At 08:14 AM 04/26/2002 -0700, you wrote: >In fact it went even >deeper than the conscious will/determinism debate. For even if we have >a conscious will, so what! Well, for sure, if no Conscious Will, then no conversation (& no converts...), just for starters. Ken A. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tbassett at acsu.buffalo.edu Fri Apr 26 12:05:57 2002 From: tbassett at acsu.buffalo.edu (tbassett at acsu.buffalo.edu) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 12:05:57 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20020426111018.019fb150@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <1915507908.1019822757@ubppp234-44.dialin.buffalo.edu> I don't see why that's the case. Why can't actions still occur, but on grounds very different than those we would attribute the actions to if the conscious will were involved in the action coming to be? That is, a 'conversion' might still occur in the sense that a person holds beliefs and engages in actions consistent with what we would mean by 'conversion', but it wasn't the result of conscious will. If you respond that it can't be a 'conversion' because a 'conversion' *means* holding beliefs and performing actions as a result of applying your conscious will, then while your argument is true by definition, I don't know why that's so interesting. After all, Wegner's b ook -- which I haven't read -- seems to be about calling into question whether a definition like that is so useful. Reasserting the definition doesn't, therefore, seem like much of a response. If you don't take that option, then I don't see why actions like 'conversion' can't occur, but being the result of a different causal chain than what we describe when saying that a person converted as a result of her conscious will. --On Friday, April 26, 2002, 11:12 AM -0400 Ken Armstrong wrote: > At 08:14 AM 04/26/2002 -0700, you wrote: > In fact it went even > deeper than the conscious will/determinism debate. For even if we have > a conscious will, so what! > Well, for sure, if no Conscious Will, then no conversation (& no > converts...), just for starters. > > Ken A. > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at > . Visit the Walker Percy > Project at . From piat1 at bellsouth.net Fri Apr 26 07:08:42 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 07:08:42 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will References: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020426095821.019f63f0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <004101c1ed12$b9ce16d0$953efea9@D68RS511> Dear Folks- Seems to me that the drive to be conscious is the strongest drive of all. Consciousness is like going to the movies only better --it's our own life that is being shown. Being conscious of our motives and actions does not in my view necessarily mean we are freely choosing them. Nor do I understand how consciousness would be necessary for free choice to occur. I'm not even sure what consciousness is. How does consciousness differ from mere responding? I think consciousness may depend upon the ability to represent experience. That perhaps the two are somehow intimately connected and responsible for producing the sense of life occurring on two levels --the mental spiritual and the physical material. What can a conscious person do that an unconscious person can not do? Is language the answer? Is there such a thing as unconscious language? I suppose there is such a thing as mindless chatter --and perhaps this is an example of it. But my question is could we have the word (as representation) without consciousness and/or vice versa. Perhaps it is true that in the beginning (of aware life) was the word and it occurred in the garden of Eden. Best, Jim Piat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Fri Apr 26 15:16:45 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 15:16:45 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will In-Reply-To: <004101c1ed12$b9ce16d0$953efea9@D68RS511> Message-ID: As one of my many elective courses for the philosophy minor, I had to take "Philosophy of Mind." Just think, a whole semester of reading philosophers asking (and receiving various answers to) the very questions you ask below. What fun. There was no final conclusion, but to greatly simplify a complex topic, the views, if I can pull them up from my enfeebled absent-minded professor memory, were concerned with how MIND related to BODY: what is the action and relation of mind to our physical selves (are they one or separate? does one exist and not the other?), what is the substance of "mind" (must it be of biological origin or can an incredibly advanced computer mimic our brain processes to the extent that it gains "consciousness"?) and so forth (can "zombies" who look and act exactly like humans, but do not have consciousness, be considered "human"? also, various kinds of "robots" and "aliens" and "bats" (Nagel) and "qualia" (our perceptions) are hypothesized to refine and clarify their thoughts -- these philosopher of mind guys had great imaginations.) The views run the gamut from: **physicalism: (physical reductionist) Soul/spirit is reduced to psychology which is reduced to biology which is reduced to physico-chemical brain reactions. IE: Depression is just "C-fibers" firing in the brain or some such -- take a pill for it (Prozac solves all our problems). The logical positivists cited earlier said something of this sort...though they didn't necessarily do away with psychology, etc., just said it was "meaningless." **materialism (various kinds) **functionalism (various kinds) **behaviorism **dualism (various types) but basically: Mind and Body both exist but are completely separate substances (Descartes is the father of this...but it is largely "out" today in philosophical circles) **idealism: opposite of physicalism -- the only real substance is mind, or ideals, and physical manifestations are an illusion (Plato) Again, this is largely "out" today. You may wonder why I chose not to elucidate some of the views above...simply, I don't know the exact explanation (this course was two years ago and I made a (ahem) "C" in it...) I basically learned enough to know this is a really hard topic and I need to study it more. Perhaps some others of you can help out here? However, all of this is a very prominent topic of Percy's. I have just finished reading all of Percy's fiction, and it was quite clear from each of his novels that he is most certainly against the first: Physical reductionism -- and that this is a major theme of his. He laments our current postmodern society's tendency to physicalism, at the sacrifice and neglect of our spirit and soul. This is a handicap of the residents of the 20th (and 21st) century that those in centuries before us did not have to face. It is not good for any of us...in other words, while we live in the "best of times" (having a wonderful life on a physical level), we also live in the "worst of times" (spiritually --little acknowledgement or attention to this very real side of us is given in our society). But, what I didn't pick up until I started on his non-fiction (which is slower going than the fiction, I'm still on "Signposts in a Strange Land" and haven't made it to the others yet), is that he is also NOT a dualist! Of course it's obvious after the fact (Love in the Ruins and Tom More's lapsometer measuring the physical/spiritual split; the "San Andreas fault"...). This also relates to our immanence/transcendence discussion -- what Percy's saying is he's not a dualist. So what is he? Karey -----Original Message----- From: James Piat [mailto:piat1 at bellsouth.net] Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 6:09 AM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Conscious Will Dear Folks- Seems to me that the drive to be conscious is the strongest drive of all. Consciousness is like going to the movies only better --it's our own life that is being shown. Being conscious of our motives and actions does not in my view necessarily mean we are freely choosing them. Nor do I understand how consciousness would be necessary for free choice to occur. I'm not even sure what consciousness is. How does consciousness differ from mere responding? I think consciousness may depend upon the ability to represent experience. That perhaps the two are somehow intimately connected and responsible for producing the sense of life occurring on two levels --the mental spiritual and the physical material. What can a conscious person do that an unconscious person can not do? Is language the answer? Is there such a thing as unconscious language? I suppose there is such a thing as mindless chatter --and perhaps this is an example of it. But my question is could we have the word (as representation) without consciousness and/or vice versa. Perhaps it is true that in the beginning (of aware life) was the word and it occurred in the garden of Eden. Best, Jim Piat -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From piat1 at bellsouth.net Fri Apr 26 09:01:27 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 09:01:27 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will References: Message-ID: <005d01c1ed22$7a7678a0$953efea9@D68RS511> Karey Perkins wrote: But, what I didn't pick up until I started on his non-fiction (which is slower going than the fiction, I'm still on "Signposts in a Strange Land" and haven't made it to the others yet), is that he is also NOT a dualist! Of course it's obvious after the fact (Love in the Ruins and Tom More's lapsometer measuring the physical/spiritual split; the "San Andreas fault"...). This also relates to our immanence/transcendence discussion -- what Percy's saying is he's not a dualist. So what is he? --------- Dear Karey, Enjoyed your post! I don't know what Percy is or considered himself philosophically. A Christian of course --perhaps a Christian existentialist of the Peircean pragmaticist variety. I think he may have seen language as in some way mediating the dualism of mind and body. Thanks for the fun and illuminating comments. Jim Piat I wonder about the relationship between religion and philosophy. They both address some of the same questions. Is it mostly a matter of faith vs. reason? Faith were reason fails? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Fri Apr 26 16:53:05 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 16:53:05 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will In-Reply-To: <005d01c1ed22$7a7678a0$953efea9@D68RS511> Message-ID: Well, if we could figure out what he is, perhaps he is something totally new and different and I could finally narrow down my dissertation topic...(!) KP PS: I agree "language" is integral to his philosophy...this relates to what a colleague of mine is working on, the idea of "image" (or symbol...something transcendent and meaningful -- which for Percy language is a key mediator) vs. "icon" (clich?, or just the idea of a physical sign, the one for one equation that he says semioticists like to believe in, but that language really is not). I'm reading "Naming and Being" right now, in which he says that language relates to our "ontology." -----Original Message----- From: James Piat [mailto:piat1 at bellsouth.net] Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 8:01 AM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Conscious Will Karey Perkins wrote: But, what I didn't pick up until I started on his non-fiction (which is slower going than the fiction, I'm still on "Signposts in a Strange Land" and haven't made it to the others yet), is that he is also NOT a dualist! Of course it's obvious after the fact (Love in the Ruins and Tom More's lapsometer measuring the physical/spiritual split; the "San Andreas fault"...). This also relates to our immanence/transcendence discussion -- what Percy's saying is he's not a dualist. So what is he? --------- Dear Karey, Enjoyed your post! I don't know what Percy is or considered himself philosophically. A Christian of course --perhaps a Christian existentialist of the Peircean pragmaticist variety. I think he may have seen language as in some way mediating the dualism of mind and body. Thanks for the fun and illuminating comments. Jim Piat I wonder about the relationship between religion and philosophy. They both address some of the same questions. Is it mostly a matter of faith vs. reason? Faith were reason fails? -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From riddick at mail.la.utexas.edu Fri Apr 26 17:11:10 2002 From: riddick at mail.la.utexas.edu (Wade Riddick) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 16:11:10 -0500 Subject: Conscious Will Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 1790 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karey at charter.net Fri Apr 26 17:24:03 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 17:24:03 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I get that Percy thinks mind and body are integrally intertwined, mostly from "Is a Theory of Man Possible?" in _Signposts in a Strange Land_. Some quotes from Percy's essay: "What I am suggesting is that it is of little help to us scientifically to regard man as composite of body, mind, and soul and that it is a positive hindrance if we think this explains anything." and "The biologist and learning theorist can't get hold of mind and usually don't want to. The Freudian psychologist on the other hand has trouble getting out of the psyche--his own psyche and that of his patients." and "The question am trying to raise with you is whether or not we have settled for a view of man which is grossly incoherent by any scientific canon. That is to say, I wonder if through a kind of despair or through sheer weariness we have not given up the attempt to put man back together again, if indeed he was ever whole, or whether man isn't like Humpty Dumpty who fell off the wall three hundred years ago, or rather was pushed by Descartes [dualism] who split man into body and mind..." What does this mean? Obviously Percy is not dualist. Is he saying that our distinctions of mind and body are really artificial? IE: not just that they relate and interact but are the same thing? He also talks about his hospital where mental ailments are treated by physical means and physical ailments treated by mental solutions. Clearly against dualism: "But the main error, it seems to me, of both the armchair behaviorist [clearly Percy objects even to a physicalism as soft as behaviorism here] and the armchair psychologist is not the quick extrapolation from the simple hypothesis to complex human reality, but rather the willingness of both to accept the age-old split of the human creature into this strange Janus monster comprising body and mind [ie: Descartes' dualism]." He relates all of this to Charles Pierce and Noam Chomsky, both language specialists. Any insights on all of this? What "IS" Percy? What is he saying? Karey -----Original Message----- From: Wade Riddick [mailto:riddick at mail.la.utexas.edu] Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 4:11 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Conscious Will "Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. To quote the indubitable philosopher, Forrest Gump, "I think maybe it's both." If you've been breathing earlier in the day, chances are it was autonomic. Likewise, if you've ever thought about having sex at some point in your life, that is very definitely the rational influence of your genes upon your mind as they try to reproduce half of themselves. There are so many levels of rationality at work and in conflict within us, it is almost stupid to get into this debate. I thought Percy was all about stressing the importance of language having both a physical and a spiritual component - sign, symbol and referent existing in some sort of holy trinity. What did they call the heresy of denying Christ's humanity? There are literally a thousand and one chemicals I can inject in you to make you psychotic, hallucinatory or put you in some other condition which denies you conscious will. Diseases like Alzheimer's exist whether you chose to believe in them or not and they do erode your ability to believe in things. Whether it's God throwing the Book of Job at you or your fellow man or mother nature, your body can still be broken. We are imperfect creatures held up by myriad little braces and supports and knocked down by things simply amazing in their simplicity. The message of _American Beauty_ might have been that life is pretty good, even as you're losing it, but gun control is a strong runner up. I don't think the movie could exist without both. It needs that contradiciton (contra = against; dicere = to speak). Wade Riddick -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Fri Apr 26 17:28:14 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 17:28:14 -0400 Subject: plain text format.... Message-ID: Wade...here's the plain text format, I think, should I submit my others this way too? Let me know if this works. KP =================== I get that Percy thinks mind and body are integrally intertwined, mostly from "Is a Theory of Man Possible?" in _Signposts in a Strange Land_. Some quotes from Percy's essay: "What I am suggesting is that it is of little help to us scientifically to regard man as composite of body, mind, and soul and that it is a positive hindrance if we think this explains anything." and "The biologist and learning theorist can't get hold of mind and usually don't want to. The Freudian psychologist on the other hand has trouble getting out of the psyche--his own psyche and that of his patients." and "The question am trying to raise with you is whether or not we have settled for a view of man which is grossly incoherent by any scientific canon. That is to say, I wonder if through a kind of despair or through sheer weariness we have not given up the attempt to put man back together again, if indeed he was ever whole, or whether man isn't like Humpty Dumpty who fell off the wall three hundred years ago, or rather was pushed by Descartes [dualism] who split man into body and mind..." What does this mean? Obviously Percy is not dualist. Is he saying that our distinctions of mind and body are really artificial? IE: not just that they relate and interact but are the same thing? He also talks about his hospital where mental ailments are treated by physical means and physical ailments treated by mental solutions. Clearly against dualism: "But the main error, it seems to me, of both the armchair behaviorist [clearly Percy objects even to a physicalism as soft as behaviorism here] and the armchair psychologist is not the quick extrapolation from the simple hypothesis to complex human reality, but rather the willingness of both to accept the age-old split of the human creature into this strange Janus monster comprising body and mind [ie: Descartes' dualism]." He relates all of this to Charles Pierce and Noam Chomsky, both language specialists. Any insights on all of this? What "IS" Percy? What is he saying? Karey -----Original Message----- From: Wade Riddick [mailto:riddick at mail.la.utexas.edu] Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 4:11 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Conscious Will "Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. To quote the indubitable philosopher, Forrest Gump, "I think maybe it's both." If you've been breathing earlier in the day, chances are it was autonomic. Likewise, if you've ever thought about having sex at some point in your life, that is very definitely the rational influence of your genes upon your mind as they try to reproduce half of themselves. There are so many levels of rationality at work and in conflict within us, it is almost stupid to get into this debate. I thought Percy was all about stressing the importance of language having both a physical and a spiritual component - sign, symbol and referent existing in some sort of holy trinity. What did they call the heresy of denying Christ's humanity? There are literally a thousand and one chemicals I can inject in you to make you psychotic, hallucinatory or put you in some other condition which denies you conscious will. Diseases like Alzheimer's exist whether you chose to believe in them or not and they do erode your ability to believe in things. Whether it's God throwing the Book of Job at you or your fellow man or mother nature, your body can still be broken. We are imperfect creatures held up by myriad little braces and supports and knocked down by things simply amazing in their simplicity. The message of _American Beauty_ might have been that life is pretty good, even as you're losing it, but gun control is a strong runner up. I don't think the movie could exist without both. It needs that contradiciton (contra = against; dicere = to speak). Wade Riddick -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . From karey at charter.net Fri Apr 26 17:30:55 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 17:30:55 -0400 Subject: Conscius Will Repeat: (previous message in plain text now) Message-ID: As one of my many elective courses for the philosophy minor, I had to take "Philosophy of Mind." Just think, a whole semester of reading philosophers asking (and receiving various answers to) the very questions you ask below. What fun. There was no final conclusion, but to greatly simplify a complex topic, the views, if I can pull them up from my enfeebled absent-minded professor memory, were concerned with how MIND related to BODY: what is the action and relation of mind to our physical selves (are they one or separate? does one exist and not the other?), what is the substance of "mind" (must it be of biological origin or can an incredibly advanced computer mimic our brain processes to the extent that it gains "consciousness"?) and so forth (can "zombies" who look and act exactly like humans, but do not have consciousness, be considered "human"? also, various kinds of "robots" and "aliens" and "bats" (Nagel) and "qualia" (our perceptions) are hypothesized to refine and clarify their thoughts -- these philosopher of mind guys had great imaginations.) The views run the gamut from: **physicalism: (physical reductionist) Soul/spirit is reduced to psychology which is reduced to biology which is reduced to physico-chemical brain reactions. IE: Depression is just "C-fibers" firing in the brain or some such -- take a pill for it (Prozac solves all our problems). The logical positivists cited earlier said something of this sort...though they didn't necessarily do away with psychology, etc., just said it was "meaningless." **materialism (various kinds) **functionalism (various kinds) **behaviorism **dualism (various types) but basically: Mind and Body both exist but are completely separate substances (Descartes is the father of this...but it is largely "out" today in philosophical circles) **idealism: opposite of physicalism -- the only real substance is mind, or ideals, and physical manifestations are an illusion (Plato) Again, this is largely "out" today. You may wonder why I chose not to elucidate some of the views above...simply, I don't know the exact explanation (this course was two years ago and I made a (ahem) "C" in it...) I basically learned enough to know this is a really hard topic and I need to study it more. Perhaps some others of you can help out here? However, all of this is a very prominent topic of Percy's. I have just finished reading all of Percy's fiction, and it was quite clear from each of his novels that he is most certainly against the first: Physical reductionism -- and that this is a major theme of his. He laments our current postmodern society's tendency to physicalism, at the sacrifice and neglect of our spirit and soul. This is a handicap of the residents of the 20th (and 21st) century that those in centuries before us did not have to face. It is not good for any of us...in other words, while we live in the "best of times" (having a wonderful life on a physical level), we also live in the "worst of times" (spiritually --little acknowledgement or attention to this very real side of us is given in our society). But, what I didn't pick up until I started on his non-fiction (which is slower going than the fiction, I'm still on "Signposts in a Strange Land" and haven't made it to the others yet), is that he is also NOT a dualist! Of course it's obvious after the fact (Love in the Ruins and Tom More's lapsometer measuring the physical/spiritual split; the "San Andreas fault"...). This also relates to our immanence/transcendence discussion -- what Percy's saying is he's not a dualist. So what is he? Karey From Nikkibar at aol.com Sun Apr 28 13:50:28 2002 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 13:50:28 EDT Subject: Reading list in order... Message-ID: In a message dated 4/26/02 2:21:11 PM Central Daylight Time, karey at charter.net writes: > > > As one of my many elective courses for the philosophy minor, I had to take > "Philosophy of Mind." Just think, a whole semester of reading philosophers > asking (and receiving various answers to) the very questions you ask below. > What fun. > > There was no final conclusion, but to greatly simplify a complex topic, the > views, if I can pull them up from my enfeebled absent-minded professor > memory, were concerned with how MIND related to BODY: what is the action > and relation of mind to our physical selves (are they one or separate? does > one exist and not the other?), what is the substance of "mind" (must it be > of biological origin or can an incredibly advanced computer mimic our brain > processes to the extent that it gains "consciousness"?) and so forth (can > "zombies" who look and act exactly like humans, but do not have > consciousness, be considered "human"? also, various kinds of "robots" and > "aliens" and "bats" (Nagel) and "qualia" (our perceptions) are hypothesized > to refine and clarify their thoughts -- these philosopher of mind guys had > great imaginations.) The views run the gamut from: > > **physicalism: (physical reductionist) Soul/spirit is reduced to > psychology which is reduced to biology which is reduced to physico-chemical > brain reactions. IE: Depression is just "C-fibers" firing in the brain or > some such -- take a pill for it (Prozac solves all our problems). The > logical positivists cited earlier said something of this sort...though they > didn't necessarily do away with psychology, etc., just said it was > "meaningless." > > **materialism (various kinds) > > **functionalism (various kinds) > > **behaviorism > > **dualism (various types) but basically: Mind and Body both exist but are > completely separate substances (Descartes is the father of this...but it is > largely "out" today in philosophical circles) > > **idealism: opposite of physicalism -- the only real substance is mind, or > ideals, and physical manifestations are an illusion (Plato) Again, this is > largely "out" today. > > You may wonder why I chose not to elucidate some of the views > above...simply, I don't know the exact explanation (this course was two > years ago and I made a (ahem) "C" in it...) I basically learned enough to > know this is a really hard topic and I need to study it more. Perhaps some > others of you can help out here? > > However, all of this is a very prominent topic of Percy's. I have just > finished reading all of Percy's fiction, and it was quite clear from each > of his novels that he is most certainly against the first: Physical > reductionism -- and that this is a major theme of his. He laments our > current postmodern society's tendency to physicalism, at the sacrifice and > neglect of our spirit and soul. This is a handicap of the residents of the > 20th (and 21st) century that those in centuries before us did not have to > face. It is not good for any of us...in other words, while we live in the > "best of times" (having a wonderful life on a physical level), we also live > in the "worst of times" (spiritually --little acknowledgement or attention > to this very real side of us is given in our society). > > But, what I didn't pick up until I started on his non-fiction (which is > slower going than the fiction, I'm still on "Signposts in a Strange Land" > and haven't made it to the others yet), is that he is also NOT a dualist! > Of course it's obvious after the fact (Love in the Ruins and Tom More's > lapsometer measuring the physical/spiritual split; the "San Andreas > fault"...). This also relates to our immanence/transcendence discussion -- > what Percy's saying is he's not a dualist. > > So what is he? > > Karey > > -----Original Message----- > From: James Piat [mailto:piat1 at bellsouth.net] > Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 6:09 AM > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > Subject: [percy-l] Re: Conscious Will > > > Dear Folks- > > Seems to me that the drive to be conscious is the strongest drive of all. > Consciousness is like going to the movies only better --it's our own life > that is being shown. Being conscious of our motives and actions does not > in my view necessarily mean we are freely choosing them. Nor do I > understand how consciousness would be necessary for free choice to occur. > > I'm not even sure what consciousness is. How does consciousness differ from > mere responding? I think consciousness may depend upon the ability to > represent experience. That perhaps the two are somehow intimately > connected and responsible for producing the sense of life occurring on two > levels --the mental spiritual and the physical material. What can a > conscious person do that an unconscious person can not do? Is language the > answer? Is there such a thing as unconscious language? I suppose there is > such a thing as mindless chatter --and perhaps this is an example of it. > But my question is could we have the word (as representation) without > consciousness and/or vice versa. Perhaps it is true that in the beginning > (of aware life) was the word and it occurred in the garden of Eden. > > Best, > Jim Piat > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at < > http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail>. > Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at < > http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail>. > Visit Dear Karey, If you have finished the fiction and want to go to the non fiction, I would suggest putting Signposts by for the moment and reading Lost in the Cosmos and Message in a Bottle. You will I think find the order in which you do these readings almost as important at the readings themselves. i would then (once more before going back to Signposts) get A Thief of Peirce and read the Appendix first. After finishing this go on to Singposts and and the two volumes of Conversations with Walker Percy. Finish up by reading Ken Ketner's His Glassy Essence. If you are still enthused about Percy you mingt then (but only then) fo on to the Biographies starting with Tolson's. Nikki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Sun Apr 28 14:01:22 2002 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 14:01:22 EDT Subject: plain text format.... Message-ID: <14f.d12ec04.29fd92f2@aol.com> In response to your question insofar as it relates to Charles Peirce and Choamski, Walker was very pro the former and con the latter. Nikki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From piat1 at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 28 07:49:30 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 07:49:30 -0400 Subject: plain text format.... References: <14f.d12ec04.29fd92f2@aol.com> Message-ID: <00aa01c1eeaa$c38181a0$953efea9@D68RS511> Dear Nikki, Karen, Folks- Although some Peirce scholars disagree with his self assessment, the intellectually recalcitrant Chomsky has credited Peirce as a philosopher he is close to in his own thinking about mind and thought. I think somewhere Percy says, perhaps somewhat facetiously, that he (Percy himself) only took one percent of Peirce and bent it to his own purposes (presumably Christian apologetics). Something Peirce seemed to do a bit of himself. At least those are my non own scholarly impressions as a casual reader of all three. Best, Jim Piat ----- Original Message ----- In response to your question insofar as it relates to Charles Peirce and Choamski, Walker was very pro the former and con the latter. Nikki -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Sun Apr 28 17:20:54 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 17:20:54 -0400 Subject: Reading list in order... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Nikki, Thanks very much for the reading tips -- I'll proceed as you suggested. I have (purchased, but not read yet) all of those books already, including Tolson's biography -- except I don't have A Thief of Pierce, and Ketner's book yet, so I'll get them. I also have three others: _Percyscapes_, _The Last Physician_ and _The Last Catholic Novelist_ that I was going to read after I finished Percy primary works...I'll save them for last, now. Karey -----Original Message----- From: Nikkibar at aol.com [mailto:Nikkibar at aol.com] Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 12:50 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... Dear Karey, If you have finished the fiction and want to go to the non fiction, I would suggest putting Signposts by for the moment and reading Lost in the Cosmos and Message in a Bottle. You will I think find the order in which you do these readings almost as important at the readings themselves. i would then (once more before going back to Signposts) get A Thief of Peirce and read the Appendix first. After finishing this go on to Singposts and and the two volumes of Conversations with Walker Percy. Finish up by reading Ken Ketner's His Glassy Essence. If you are still enthused about Percy you mingt then (but only then) fo on to the Biographies starting with Tolson's. Nikki -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . From dabeck at iupui.edu Sun Apr 28 18:02:03 2002 From: dabeck at iupui.edu (David Alan Beck) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 17:02:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Reading list in order... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Karey, Not to overburden you by adding another book to your growing list, but a good book that I relied on when writing my thesis is Mary Deems Howland's The Gift of the Other. She explores a much-negelected area in percean studies: his connection with Gabriel Marcel. Most of the emphasis of Percy's influences has been on Kierkegaard. But, to me, the Dane is only half the picture. It seems that Percy relied on Kierkegaard's diagnosis and Marcel's remedy. (Of course, Percy's ideas cannot be narrowed to two philosophers, but putting the two together enhances our understanding of his fiction--in my opinion.) For what it's worth. David Beck "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority." - E. B. White From piat1 at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 28 11:36:27 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 11:36:27 -0400 Subject: plain text format.... References: <14f.d12ec04.29fd92f2@aol.com> <00aa01c1eeaa$c38181a0$953efea9@D68RS511> Message-ID: <002f01c1eeca$76b25e10$953efea9@D68RS511> Apologies --I meant Karey not Karen! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Sun Apr 28 19:12:34 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 19:12:34 -0400 Subject: Reading list in order... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I first read a couple of Percy's books when I was in college in the seventies...(and that was about all he'd written then anyway.) I thought I understood what he was saying then, theme-wise, and even now in retrospect, I think that I then understood the major gist of his message fairly accurately. But, 25 years later, a college degree, a master's degree, and much of the doctoral work behind me, and 16 years of teaching literature behind me as well, I've now read his other works, and re-read the first ones. I'm floored by how much is in Percy that I completely missed. He speaks on many different levels...a simple enough level that a college student can appreciate him, but complex enough that years and much studying later, one finds much more to discover in his works. Perhaps that is what all good writers do. But one of the things (among many) that I've most noticed with Percy this time around is the amazing number of allusions in his work -- more so, I think, than your average great writer. I'm guessing it was those years of convalescence in the hospital, where he had nothing to do but read, but what I'm finding is that he is one of the most well-read writers I've ever read. This of course probably contributed not only his multitude of allusions but shaped the complexity of his philosophy. Also, while I am picking up all of these allusions this time around that I missed the first time, I'm also guessing I'm probably missing about half of them...one would have to be as well-read as Percy to get them all!! It is the secondary sources that will help with that...so thanks for the reference, James... Karey -----Original Message----- From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck at iupui.edu] Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 5:02 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... Karey, Not to overburden you by adding another book to your growing list, but a good book that I relied on when writing my thesis is Mary Deems Howland's The Gift of the Other. She explores a much-negelected area in percean studies: his connection with Gabriel Marcel. Most of the emphasis of Percy's influences has been on Kierkegaard. But, to me, the Dane is only half the picture. It seems that Percy relied on Kierkegaard's diagnosis and Marcel's remedy. (Of course, Percy's ideas cannot be narrowed to two philosophers, but putting the two together enhances our understanding of his fiction--in my opinion.) For what it's worth. David Beck "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority." - E. B. White -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . From karey at charter.net Sun Apr 28 19:15:04 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 19:15:04 -0400 Subject: plain text format.... In-Reply-To: <002f01c1eeca$76b25e10$953efea9@D68RS511> Message-ID: OK, James (it's an odd spelling, few get it right...) and (oops!)... last message was to David, not James! -----Original Message----- From: James Piat [mailto:piat1 at bellsouth.net] Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 10:36 AM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: plain text format.... Apologies --I meant Karey not Karen! -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Sun Apr 28 20:22:53 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 20:22:53 -0400 Subject: thomasism Message-ID: Re: other sources on Percy and Percy's diverse resources and many allusions...here's a reference/review sent by a friend, from December 2000 _American Political Science Review_ . The review is by Thomas L. Pangle. See below. Karey -----Original Message----- From: ken denney [mailto:kdenney at mindspring.com] Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2002 10:16 PM To: Karey Perkins Subject: thomasism Here, in prose weighty enough to sink a battleship, is an excerpt from a review of a book called Postmodernism Rightly Understood: The Return to Realism in American Thought by Peter Augustine Lawler. KD =========================== The unsuccessful attempt to dispose of Bloom is meant to remove the competition from what Lawler so compellingly elaborates and explores in the subsequent, constructive chapters: the Christian writings of Walker Percy, bolstered by the Augustinian sociological class analysis of Christopher Lasch. Here, Lawler contends, we find the authentic, because Thomistic, rationalism, which shows that reason finds its fulfillment, without truncation, in Christian faith and which proves that only reason so conceived can adequately comprehend humanity as constituted by self-conscious erotic mortality. But in fact Lawler has to show that Percy abandons Thomas's core Aristotelian teleology in the name of a farrago comprising the "tradition of Anglo-Saxon empiricism" (p. 84), a tendentious shot-gun marriage of creationism and Darwinism (pp. 88-9), and a Heideggerian "experience" of the human as "alien" in "a cosmos that is otherwise dyadic" or "stimulus-response" (p. 80). What Percy calls his "Thomistic science is, Lawler admits, in truth "a combination of Pierce's semiotic empiricism and Heidegger's [atheistici existentialism" (p. 97). It is then not surprising that although lip service is paid to "natural law," no attempt is made (in the manner of authentic Thomists such as Vitoria, Suarez, or Pieper) to give the much needed argumentative defense of that core Thomistic doctrine. Above all, Thomas's moral grounding in Aristotle's Politics and Ethics, culminating in the peak of aristocratic greatness of soul as the foreshadowing of the contemplative life understood as the only intelligibly divine life, as the life whose acknowledged supremacy ought to be the beacon of inspiration for every rational human soul, shrinks almost out of sight. With all this subtracted, what is left of Thomas's argument for Christianity as the completion of Aristotelian (the only integral) rationalism? Lawler's illuminating introduction to Percy as a truly weighty thinker for our time would grow in strength through a franker acknowledgment of the problematic gulf between Percy and genuine Thomism, then through a fairer and less evasive dialogue with the challenging alternative conception of divinity and of humanity found in classical, socratic Aristotelian rationalism. From Nikkibar at aol.com Mon Apr 29 10:48:11 2002 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 10:48:11 EDT Subject: plain text format.... Message-ID: <8a.17cc0ac5.29feb72b@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/02 2:26:56 PM Central Daylight Time, piat1 at bellsouth.net writes: > > Dear Nikki, Karen, Folks- > > Although some Peirce scholars disagree with his self assessment, the > intellectually recalcitrant Chomsky has credited Peirce as a philosopher he > is close to in his own thinking about mind and thought. I think somewhere > Percy says, perhaps somewhat facetiously, that he (Percy himself) only took > one percent of Peirce and bent it to his own purposes (presumably Christian > apologetics). Something Peirce seemed to do a bit of himself. > > At least those are my non own scholarly impressions as a casual reader of > all three. > > Best, > Jim Piat > > ----- Original Message ----- > > >> >> >> In response to your question insofar as it relates to Charles Peirce and >> Choamski, Walker was very pro the former and con the latter. >> >> Nikki -- >> > --An archive of all list discussion is available at < > http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail>. > Visit Dear Jim, Yes, the partial use of CSP by Walker is discussed at length in the letters between Walker and Ken Ketner in A Thief of Peirce, (hence the title of the book) but later on Walker seems to have confirmed his nearly entire embrace of Pragmaticism in the Jefferson Lecture. Nikki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Mon Apr 29 10:50:36 2002 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 10:50:36 EDT Subject: Reading list in order... Message-ID: I've not seen those collateral reads you mentioned. I would stress again that it is quite important to read the Appendix first in ATOP. Nikki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Mon Apr 29 10:54:54 2002 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 10:54:54 EDT Subject: Reading list in order... Message-ID: <62.1eec4009.29feb8be@aol.com> As a follow-up, you and Karey would do well to go to Lewis Lawson's excellent paper from the Percy Symposium now in our Archives dealing with the profuund kinship (I hesitate to say influence) between Walker and Mann, particularly in the early books. Nikki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From PARLINS at culver.org Mon Apr 29 12:52:29 2002 From: PARLINS at culver.org (Parlin, Steven) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 11:52:29 -0500 Subject: Percy's Favorite Books Message-ID: <580A6654EC74D511B41600034779BEDE330187@EXCHANGESERVER> Does anyone know if an anthology has ever been complied of Percy's favorite books? Steve -----Original Message----- From: Karey Perkins [mailto:karey at charter.net] Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 6:13 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... I first read a couple of Percy's books when I was in college in the seventies...(and that was about all he'd written then anyway.) I thought I understood what he was saying then, theme-wise, and even now in retrospect, I think that I then understood the major gist of his message fairly accurately. But, 25 years later, a college degree, a master's degree, and much of the doctoral work behind me, and 16 years of teaching literature behind me as well, I've now read his other works, and re-read the first ones. I'm floored by how much is in Percy that I completely missed. He speaks on many different levels...a simple enough level that a college student can appreciate him, but complex enough that years and much studying later, one finds much more to discover in his works. Perhaps that is what all good writers do. But one of the things (among many) that I've most noticed with Percy this time around is the amazing number of allusions in his work -- more so, I think, than your average great writer. I'm guessing it was those years of convalescence in the hospital, where he had nothing to do but read, but what I'm finding is that he is one of the most well-read writers I've ever read. This of course probably contributed not only his multitude of allusions but shaped the complexity of his philosophy. Also, while I am picking up all of these allusions this time around that I missed the first time, I'm also guessing I'm probably missing about half of them...one would have to be as well-read as Percy to get them all!! It is the secondary sources that will help with that...so thanks for the reference, James... Karey -----Original Message----- From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck at iupui.edu] Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 5:02 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... Karey, Not to overburden you by adding another book to your growing list, but a good book that I relied on when writing my thesis is Mary Deems Howland's The Gift of the Other. She explores a much-negelected area in percean studies: his connection with Gabriel Marcel. Most of the emphasis of Percy's influences has been on Kierkegaard. But, to me, the Dane is only half the picture. It seems that Percy relied on Kierkegaard's diagnosis and Marcel's remedy. (Of course, Percy's ideas cannot be narrowed to two philosophers, but putting the two together enhances our understanding of his fiction--in my opinion.) For what it's worth. David Beck "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority." - E. B. White -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . From armstron at ohiou.edu Mon Apr 29 15:34:45 2002 From: armstron at ohiou.edu (Ken Armstrong) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 15:34:45 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will In-Reply-To: <004101c1ed12$b9ce16d0$953efea9@D68RS511> References: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020426095821.019f63f0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4.2.2.20020429151929.04204660@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Jim, Just a note, really. Your post below really grabbed me with the first sentence. But by the time I got to the first sentence of the second paragraph, my head was spinning. >Seems to me that the drive to be conscious is the strongest drive of all. >Consciousness is like going to the movies only better --it's our own life >that is being shown. Being conscious of our motives and actions does not >in my view necessarily mean we are freely choosing them. Nor do I >understand how consciousness would be necessary for free choice to occur. > >I'm not even sure what consciousness is. How does consciousness differ >from mere responding? Quite a feat, Jim, to declare consciousness the strongest drive of all (I'm not sure, though, where the drives are kept) and then declaring yourself ignorant of what consciousness is. And THEN of all the *$(@#$*%$ things, devolving to consciousness being no different from stimulus/response! Well, heck, man, no wonder you don't understand how consciousness would be necessary for free choice to occur! All I can say, with some expectation of being understood, is that Percy would indeed have been willing to deflate (much better than I, obviously) the idea that will is illusion. I notice no one took me up on my question of how that book came into being. Stimulus/response d'yer suppoze? Cheers, Ken Armstrong -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From piat1 at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 29 13:48:34 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 13:48:34 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will References: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020426095821.019f63f0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020429151929.04204660@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <006c01c1efa6$174fa630$953efea9@D68RS511> Dear Ken Armstrong, Thanks for the comments. You wrote: >> Quite a feat, Jim, to declare consciousness the strongest drive of all (I'm not sure, though, where the drives are kept) and then declaring yourself ignorant of what consciousness is. OK I withdraw the comment about consciousness being a drive. But seriously I still not sure what it is. How would you define it? What do you think is its function? Do you think it can occur in the absense of the ability to symbolize? >> And THEN of all the *$(@#$*%$ things, devolving to consciousness being no different from stimulus/response! Well I didn't mean to imply that was a done deal --only that I could not explain to my own satisfaction how consciousness differed from "mere" responding other than qualitatively. >> Well, heck, man, no wonder you don't understand how consciousness would be necessary for free choice to occur! But Ken, I'm all ears. Seriously, this is a subject of great interest to me and I would enjoy any explantions or suggestions you might have. I'm not being flip. It does seem to me that consciousness plays some sort of role in choice. But when I get down to trying to specify how or why conciousness would be necessary --or even what exactly I mean by free choice I never seem to get very far. >> All I can say, with some expectation of being understood, is that Percy would indeed have been willing to deflate (much better than I, obviously) the idea that will is illusion. I notice no one took me up on my question of how that book came into being. Stimulus/response d'yer suppoze? >>Well, I suppose that the author might argue something along those lines. But supposing the author said the book came about as a result of many discussions. Does this mean that free will was necessarily involved, that the process was fully conscious or that consciousness was necessary for the book to have been produced. Granted I think it is unlikely that the author would argue that consciousness did not even accompany the process by which the book developed but as you know correlation does not necessarily imply cause. (Moreover there is some experimental evidence that consciousness occurs after one makes a choice --not concurrently or before.) Cheers, Jim Piat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From piat1 at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 29 14:05:17 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 14:05:17 -0400 Subject: plain text format.... References: <8a.17cc0ac5.29feb72b@aol.com> Message-ID: <007a01c1efa8$6ef15b20$953efea9@D68RS511> Yes, the partial use of CSP by Walker is discussed at length in the letters between Walker and Ken Ketner in A Thief of Peirce, (hence the title of the book) but later on Walker seems to have confirmed his nearly entire embrace of Pragmaticism in the Jefferson Lecture. Nikki -- Dear Nikki, Yes, I think Percy was having some fun with his friend Ken Ketner in making these remarks and I've no doubt that Percy understanding of Peirce went right to the marrow of Peirce's triadic concept of representation --now if I could only grasp one percent of what either were saying I'd be well on my way! Thanks-- Jim Piat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From armstron at ohiou.edu Tue Apr 30 07:48:45 2002 From: armstron at ohiou.edu (Ken Armstrong) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 07:48:45 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will In-Reply-To: <006c01c1efa6$174fa630$953efea9@D68RS511> References: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020426095821.019f63f0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020429151929.04204660@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4.2.2.20020430071416.019fc540@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> At 01:48 PM 04/29/2002 -0400, you wrote: > >>Well, I suppose that the author might argue something along those > lines. But supposing the author said the book came about as a result of > many discussions. Does this mean that free will was necessarily > involved, that the process was fully conscious or that consciousness was > necessary for the book to have been produced. Granted I think it is > unlikely that the author would argue that consciousness did not even > accompany the process by which the book developed but as you know > correlation does not necessarily imply cause. (Moreover there is some > experimental evidence that consciousness occurs after one makes a > choice --not concurrently or before.) Jim, Granted correspondence does not imply cause (thinking it did, M. McLuhan would say, was why NASA's focus was on overcoming the power of gravitational force rather understanding levity), let's take our loosely used terms as precisely as we can. The question is not just whether consciousness is involved in the book's coming into being, but conscious will. Did the author decide to write a book? Or is will an illusion? I submit to you that the willful act of seriously presenting an argument for the non-existence of will is the plague of dyadic thinking, right down to the end of excluding the legitimacy of triadic thinking. it would be funny if it weren't happening. Josiah Royce created a schematic for cognition (perhaps hoisted from Peirce?). On a line put perception, conception, and interpretation. To steal my lit. theory professor's example: are the stars out tonight? That question calls for perception. Why is it that when I turn the key in the ignition, my car won't start? That calls for conception. Why is it that when I move my lips and make faces at an interlocutor, I think I am communicating? That calls for interpretation. We live in a percept-concept oriented society, where the drive, as exhibited in Wegner, is to subdue all phenomenon to the percept-concept model. This is the world that WP is consciously reacting against in much of his writing, esp. e.g. The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind. It is, as someone else pointed out, the dualist world where one side is always trying to subdue the other, and in this time of the heyday of science, the humanity of the person is the constant target of people like Wegner, Dennet, and all the lords and ladies of dyadic thinking whom logic fails when they are asked to reflect on their own actions. Ironically, to the degree that Wegner is unconscious of this situation, he lacks the "conscious will" to address the situation that he thinks he's addressing. This does not prove him correct. Yrs., Ken Armstrong -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From piat1 at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 30 08:59:18 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 08:59:18 -0400 Subject: Conscious Will References: <4.2.2.20020421174625.00cd5880@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020426095821.019f63f0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020429151929.04204660@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4.2.2.20020430071416.019fc540@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <00ca01c1f046$d7096a60$953efea9@D68RS511> Dear Ken, Thanks for these further comments. You wrote: >>The question is not just whether consciousness is involved in the book's coming into being, but conscious will. Did the author decide to write a book? Or is will an illusion? I submit to you that the willful act of seriously presenting an argument for the non-existence of will is the plague of dyadic thinking, right down to the end of excluding the legitimacy of triadic thinking. it would be funny if it weren't happening. But Ken it is you who is supposing that folks who argue against free will are engaged in the willful act of presenting an argument for the non-existence of will. One could also argue that even as one speaks his words and thoughts are not the product of his free will but are determined by circumstances external to his illusory sense of personal agency. >> Josiah Royce created a schematic for cognition (perhaps hoisted from Peirce?). On a line put perception, conception, and interpretation. To steal my lit. theory professor's example: are the stars out tonight? That question calls for perception. Why is it that when I turn the key in the ignition, my car won't start? That calls for conception. Why is it that when I move my lips and make faces at an interlocutor, I think I am communicating? That calls for interpretation. We live in a percept-concept oriented society, where the drive, as exhibited in Wegner, is to subdue all phenomenon to the percept-concept model. This is the world that WP is consciously reacting against in much of his writing, esp. e.g. The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind. It is, as someone else pointed out, the dualist world where one side is always trying to subdue the other, and in this time of the heyday of science, the humanity of the person is the constant target of people like Wegner, Dennet, and all the lords and ladies of dyadic thinking whom logic fails when they are asked to reflect on their own actions. Ironically, to the degree that Wegner is unconscious of this situation, he lacks the "conscious will" to address the situation that he thinks he's addressing. This does not prove him correct. Ken you've got so many ideas mixed together and packed into the paragraph above I've no good sense of how to respond. I think meaning and representation are triadic in the Peircean sense, but I'm not sure what this says about free will, consciousness or the motives and logical talents of folks like Dennett and Wegner (or anyone esle for that matter;) I will say that I don't think a scientific approach to the study of man is an assault on his humanity --more likely it's an indirect assualt on man's religious faith. But it is not my desire to pit science against faith as I think there is room for both. I am very interested in the Percy-Peirce notion of triadic meaning and am always eager to learn new ways in which it can help me to understand the mystery of consciousness and will. So I am with you in spirit if not in understanding and I thank you again for the comments. Best, Jim Yrs., Ken Armstrong -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From piat1 at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 30 13:19:48 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 13:19:48 -0400 Subject: Fw: [peirce-l] Re: Existence Message-ID: <012701c1f06b$3d2498a0$953efea9@D68RS511> Dear Ken, Folks -- Ken, your comments got me to thinking further and I thought you might be interested in this post I sent to the Peirce list thread on Existence. Perhaps our views of this matter are not so far apart. Best, Jim > To be is not merely to exist. The fullness of being is triadic and suffused > with meaning. To merely exist without meaning is a tale told by an idiot > full of sound and fury signifiying nothing. But even less than a meaningless > existence is that saddest of all modes known as unrealized potential. > Potential is a form of being that lacks existence in the same way that > existience is a form of being that lacks meaning. > > Peirce did speak of a relation less than monadic (the zero relation) which > one might suppose is mere nothingness or non being. On the other hand he > precluded on principle a form of being beyond the triadic as it was his > contention that the nature of meaning and of the true triad was such that > all higher relationship were simply elaborations of the triadic pattern. > > Qualities or properties do not exist as such. To exist qualities must be > actualized as objects. Similarly objects do not have meaning. To be > meaningful objects must be represented or interpreted. > > > I think it is important to distinguish betwen identity and equivalence. > Identity refers to the unique relationship objects have with themselves such > that no two objects are identical any more than a single object can be in > more that one place at the same time. Identity is a property found only at > the dyadic mode of being or existance. On the other hand equivalence is a > property of triadic relations or meaning. Objects which are not identical > at the level of existance (ie different objects as opposed to the same > object in a different place) can none the less be equivalent (in a sense > "identical") at the representational level. That is to say they are > equivalent for all intents and purposes or for some intent or purpose. > > > In my view the existentialist didn't have it quite right. Man is not > defined by the fact that his existence preceeds his essence, but by the fact > that neither essence nor existence by itself is meaningful. Meaning is the > consequence of the triadic joining of essence and existence. Meaning > resides in the sign or triad and man is a sign. From dabeck at iupui.edu Tue Apr 30 22:55:12 2002 From: dabeck at iupui.edu (David Alan Beck) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 21:55:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Fw: [peirce-l] Re: Existence In-Reply-To: <012701c1f06b$3d2498a0$953efea9@D68RS511> Message-ID: Some of this talk about conciousness and will, etc. reminds me of a time several years ago when I was reading the Catholic theologian Raymond Brown. He was exploring the incarnation. He said that to be fully human, Jesus had to experience doubt. Jesus knew that it would all work out in the end, but the specifics were cloudy. (In that way, he took on our nature, filled with doubts and uncertainties.) Brown argued that Jesus had to experience that sense of uncertainty to experience human existence. Anyway, I kept thinking about this idea (with which I agree), wondering if he were God how could he doubt? To be God is to be omniscient, etc., so how could there be doubt? To get to the point, I talked with a New Testament scholar at St. Vladimir's seminary about my problem. We talked for about ten minutes and he said, "You've take on a noble task. While conteplating such "truths", you must also realize that you will have to come to one of two conclusions: either you file it away in the "mystery" box or resign yourself to live with a constant headache. Some mysteries just won't be solved on this side of reality." Maybe as I get older, I'm becoming lazier. I used to fill up notebooks on these philosophical musings. But over the past few years, I've expanded my mystery box and have been able to file away several issues that produced more confusion and headaches than necessary. After all, isn't our very existence, in many ways, a mystery. (As Marcel calls it--another shameless plug for Marcel--the Mystery of Being.) Sorry if this sounds like an intellectual cop-out. Who knows? Maybe it is. David Beck "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority." - E. B. White From piat1 at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 30 17:26:14 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 17:26:14 -0400 Subject: Fw: [peirce-l] Re: Existence References: Message-ID: <001701c1f08d$a88de110$953efea9@D68RS511> Dear David, You wrote: > Maybe as I get older, I'm becoming lazier. I used to fill up notebooks on > these philosophical musings. But over the past few years, I've expanded my > mystery box and have been able to file away several issues that produced > more confusion and headaches than necessary. After all, isn't our very > existence, in many ways, a mystery. (As Marcel calls it--another shameless > plug for Marcel--the Mystery of Being.) > > Sorry if this sounds like an intellectual cop-out. Who knows? Maybe it is. > > David Beck And maybe it isn't --THANKS I needed that old timer. I'm not getting any younger myself!!! And I love that EB White below too! Not for man --for myself -LOL That's a quality I like about Percy's essays --he takes on the mysteries without either getting mired in plaques and tangles or making some hollow cartoon of them. Somehow he lays them open and helps me to appreciate their majesty in a way I can live with. Jim > > "I would feel more optimistic about a bright > future for man if he spent less time proving that > he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness > and respecting her seniority." > - E. B. White