From wpercy1 at mail.ibiblio.org Wed Sep 11 22:02:52 2002 From: wpercy1 at mail.ibiblio.org (Henry P. Mills) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 21:02:52 -0500 Subject: The Moviegoer, Book discussion group In-Reply-To: <000a01c25944$fadb00e0$49d2b3d1@default> Message-ID: Dear Percy-L: Does anyone have any suggestions for Patricia? Henry Mills ---------- From: "Alan Byers" Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 20:40:28 -0700 To: Subject: The Moviegoer, Book discussion group Next month I will be leading my book group in a discussion of The Moviegoer. Do you have a discussion outline available or can you direct me to web sights which will help me organize a discussion of this book? Walker Percy is one of my favorite authors, but I've had very little experience in leading book discussions. Any help or information you can provide will be appreciated! Patricia Byers abyers at earthlink.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Thu Sep 12 00:27:37 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey L. Perkins) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 00:27:37 -0400 Subject: The Moviegoer, Book discussion group References: Message-ID: <001c01c25a14$b97b3360$0301000a@AFAC955012> The Moviegoer, Book discussion groupPatricia, Here is one site; scroll down for the questions for the Moviegoer: http://www3.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/Percy_info.html Karey Karey L. Perkins Professor of General Education DeVry University 2555 Northwinds Parkway Alpharetta, GA 30004 770-521-4900 Ext. 3527 www.atl.devry.edu/kperkins ----- Original Message ----- From: Henry P. Mills To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Cc: abyers at earthlink.net Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 10:02 PM Subject: [percy-l] The Moviegoer, Book discussion group Dear Percy-L: Does anyone have any suggestions for Patricia? Henry Mills ---------- From: "Alan Byers" Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 20:40:28 -0700 To: Subject: The Moviegoer, Book discussion group Next month I will be leading my book group in a discussion of The Moviegoer. Do you have a discussion outline available or can you direct me to web sights which will help me organize a discussion of this book? Walker Percy is one of my favorite authors, but I've had very little experience in leading book discussions. Any help or information you can provide will be appreciated! Patricia Byers abyers at earthlink.net -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sldye at bluegrass.org Thu Sep 12 10:19:05 2002 From: sldye at bluegrass.org (Steve Dye) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 10:19:05 -0400 Subject: Some Random Thoughts, Largely Unrelated, Based on Previous Discussions and Readings References: <002801c22128$114e5570$0301000a@AFAC955012> Message-ID: <005101c25a67$5aae5120$e512a8c0@d247006> FYI - the annual Percy Symposium will be held in Covington, LA on October 5. I can give out the phone number, address, etc. If anyone needs info, you can get it from the St. Tammany Parish Library in Covington. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karey L. Perkins" To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 1:52 PM Subject: [percy-l] Some Random Thoughts, Largely Unrelated, Based on Previous Discussions and Readings > Our listserv seems to have been quiet, philosophically that is, ever since > our discussion of the Catholic priests -- too controversial? > > At any rate, in an effort to spark some more conversation, I wanted to post > some thoughts. As I continue on with my reading of Percy (again, his > philosophy is slower going than the fiction, but I'm making some progress), > many observations related to previous comments we've made come to mind. > Here are some of them, not necessarily related to each other, but pick and > choose as you will: > > **1) Regarding Nikki's question a few weeks ago related to our discussion of > "consciousness", and I don't remember it exactly, but something to the > effect of, "Why bother with this conversation at all?" or rather, "What is > the importance of this conversation?" that received only one or two replies: > I wasn't sure if it was intended as a rhetorical point (i.e.: this > conversation is unimportant), or if it was intended didactically (i.e.: > here's something you should be thinking about first before you ramble on > about this topic), or if it was intended as face-value question (i.e.: > literally, why is this conversation important?)....but, I'll > take it as the latter, and offer my observations: > > I think the topic and conversation, that is, Percy's idea of consciousness > as it relates to language and "who" or "what" man is, as well > as a materialistic or dualistic or monistic view of man, is extremely > important. I think it is at the root of Percy's fiction, and that his > "Theory of Man" drives all of his fiction. To decipher what that is is to > unravel the DNA code of what he was saying, you could say. Percy seemed to > write from a "plan," mapping out the plot and the book based on what he > wanted to say philosophically, and sticking to that, unlike other authors > like Flannery O'Connor, who may have had some kind of plan in the beginning > but ended up letting the book write itself. > > Percy differentiated man from the animals (as a scientist, he understood the > world - and items in the world - in terms of classification (finding > similarities) and differentiation) based on his capacity for language -- > symbol-mongering ability is an indication of consciousness, in Percy's mind. > Symbol mongering ability, a triadic event, is also what creates a "world" as > opposed to "environment" of merely behaviorist physical organisms relating > in a stimulus-response dyadic mode. A world has "magic" and "myth." This > is mostly from Message in the Bottle, but I found it interesting that Percy > uses these words, as he was a scientist, but especially as it relates to a > conversation with a physical-materialistic friend of mine, who believes the > physical world is all there is -- when the body dies, consciousness ends -- > then, upon further questioning, proceeded to describe "consciousness" as > some kind of "magic" (same word as Percy) that arose as the physical world > (and man) evolved. > > Another point: what man is, as would be described in a "Theory of Man" not > only drives Percy's fiction and all of his interests, but it determines our > purpose and meaning for living, and therefore, all our actions and decisions > in how we live our lives. > > By the way, I mentioned the article on autism as it provided a scientific > view of the mind, rather than just philosophical, and how language related > to that, which relates to Percy's theories. That notwithstanding, I was > interested to hear Wade's account of his illness, which seemed to me rather > eerily similar to Percy's themes -- esp. in Thanatos Syndrome. Something's > "wrong with the water"... or more accurately, in today's (postmodern) world, > our means of sustenance, our world, is from anonymous sources -- our > community is one created and provided by strangers, who provide us food and > water, who create and build our homes and businesses, and we share all of > that with other strangers. Great stuff for a novel -- but more true than > Percy realized? > > **2) If Percy is a "monist" as he seems to be -- did he ever identify > himself as such? If not, why not? > > **3) Percy and gender: Percy, like most good writers, was a product of his > culture: a well-to-do, aristocratic Southern white male living in the > latter half of the twentieth century (or rather, most of it, as he was born > and raised in the early half, just wrote in the latter half) -- but his > comments/views/themes/ideas rise above his demographics (and especially so > for Percy as his concern was what it means to be human) to say something of > importance to everyone. I think specifically here, as an example, of Ralph > Ellison's Invisible Man, which was about a black Southern male, and while as > a white female (not Southern), I could not identify with many of the > SPECIFICS of his experience, because Ellison's work was true and good, it > speaks on many levels of many truths about life, society, culture, what it > means to be human (which is why it is a classic). > > All that is to say is that Percy's portrayal of women changes through the > years, indicating that he was affected by his times -- and he had the > attitude and view towards women that indicates his demographics. In "The > Moviegoer" his female characters are flatter -- Kate is more well-developed, > but Sharon is stereotyped and seen from a preppy Southern white male > viewpoint (to stereotype about preppy Southern white men, that is). While > she is true to type, she is an object. This is right after the fifties -- a > decade where many intelligent women suffered from role restrictions (not > just professional but cultural and social) and a decade which brought the > inevitable sexual revolution of the sixties (it WAS a revolt, in fact). > Remember, many intelligent female writers went crazy and killed themselves > during this decade as they tried to stifle their intelligence and uniqueness > to conform socially. "The Last Gentleman" doesn't improve much on female > roles (and I don't really like any of the women in LG, though I liked Kate > in MG). Women still are primarily just "objects" of the protagonists' > emotional and sexual desire. The same in "Love in the Ruins," where we have > three women who are objects of his desire -- but otherwise, largely > insignificant and unimportant - remaining on the periphery > (marginalized?). > > However, ironically, at the end of Percy's books, > his protagonists find their resolution and "salvation" -- > on earth, that is, and perhaps only temporary -- in the arms and home of a > "good" woman. A "good" woman, for Percy, is practical, grounded, > traditional, and sexually and morally conservative. In addition, these > "good" women "call" Percy's heroes on their faults (chastise them)...they > don't let them get away with anything. This is something of a motherly > quality, so I'm wondering if any critics have written anything about a > madonna (mother)-whore complex or theme in Percy's writing. > > Women are occasionally the carriers of the "fugue state" even more than the > men, if they are not "good" as defined previously. Kate in MG, and Allison > in SC. Perhaps Anna in Lancelot. I think this is when Percy is most > successful in his portrayal of women. I think his other "type" of the good > woman that his protagonists end up with is influenced so significantly by > his culture that it has less universal truth than other things he has to > say. > > The Second Coming is the only book (that I noticed) in which he writes at > least part of it from a female point of view. This is his second to last > book, and women are becoming more rounded, more realistic, and less > objectified in Percy's writing, as the society in general in which Percy > lives and writes becomes more liberated for women. What surprised > me is that he wrote her (Allison's) point of view so well. > > I've chosen not to do the dissertation on Percy's female characters -- not > only because there's already a book out (which I've not yet read) about that > topic that probably says it better, but because I don't think that's the > most important thing he has to say. > > But I do have a question for the listserv -- how many of us are women? I > think female Percy fans are greatly the minority -- he appeals more to men, > it has been my experience, despite the fact that he says something to > everyone. > > **4) Percy's theology: It seems that Percy writes from a Christian > existentialist viewpoint. Most of his books seem to be about deconstructing > all of our illusions about ourselves -- our habits, lifestyles, goals, that > we think are meaningful -- and deconstructing our "false" or temporary > reasons for living or being in the world, which, I take it, is anything > except God. While he doesn't mention God or Christ too much (God > occasionally pops up, like Tom More "eating Christ" in LR, and Will Barrett > searching for a sign of God in SC), the books are focusing on that place > right before we find God -- before the leap -- when we realize what we ARE > living for doesn't really work, isn't really what it's all about. > > That's all well and good. I agree with him whole-heartedly. But where I'm > struggling is that, after presenting to us this nice Christian > existentialist viewpoint, Percy has each of his characters end up with > some "good woman" in an idyllic type Garden of Eden -- whether a cabin in > Virginia (Lancelot) or a greenhouse community/business in NC (SC). His > endings are more individual/couple in his first books (our hero with his > woman secluded from the world), and end in a more communal Garden of > Eden/"utopia" in later works (our hero and his woman creating the community > that helps others). The only exception to this pattern is the Last > Gentleman. > > Is this a contradiction in Percy's message? I'm not arguing that his > protagonists should all end up as a prophet/hermit in the desert, alone with > God, a voice crying out in the wilderness, having flung off the trappings of > the world, but it seems that Percy could be saying the purpose in life, the > road to bliss and sanity, is in settling down with a good woman in a > leafy enclave and living a moral life. Where's God? > > **5) Percy's reading and the Internet: For an Internet project listing the > books Percy has read, I would suggest beginning by flipping through each > page of Message in the Bottle, and his other non-fiction too, but > especially MB. He lists dozens of people he's read -- by no means > a complete listing but a good place to start. > > **6) Books: I can find "Thief of Pierce" on the Internet, but can't find > Ken Ketner's "His Glassy Essence" which was recommended earlier. > Any ideas on how to get a hold of a copy? > > Just some thoughts. > > Karey > > Karey L. Perkins > Professor of General Education > DeVry University > 2555 Northwinds Parkway > Alpharetta, GA 30004 > 770-521-4900 Ext. 3527 > www.atl.devry.edu/kperkins > > > > > > > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at . > Visit the Walker Percy Project at . > From karey at charter.net Thu Sep 12 10:44:34 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey L. Perkins) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 10:44:34 -0400 Subject: Some Random Thoughts, Largely Unrelated, Based on Previous Discussions and Readings References: <002801c22128$114e5570$0301000a@AFAC955012> <005101c25a67$5aae5120$e512a8c0@d247006> Message-ID: <001301c25a6a$e9757f20$0301000a@AFAC955012> Steve, I am interested in the Symposium -- can you tell me how I can find out more about it? How long is it? What are the events? Contact info? Thanks, Karey ----- Original Message ----- From: Steve Dye To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 10:19 AM Subject: [percy-l] Re: Some Random Thoughts, Largely Unrelated, Based on Previous Discussions and Readings FYI - the annual Percy Symposium will be held in Covington, LA on October 5. I can give out the phone number, address, etc. If anyone needs info, you can get it from the St. Tammany Parish Library in Covington. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karey L. Perkins" To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 1:52 PM Subject: [percy-l] Some Random Thoughts, Largely Unrelated, Based on Previous Discussions and Readings > Our listserv seems to have been quiet, philosophically that is, ever since > our discussion of the Catholic priests -- too controversial? > > At any rate, in an effort to spark some more conversation, I wanted to post > some thoughts. As I continue on with my reading of Percy (again, his > philosophy is slower going than the fiction, but I'm making some progress), > many observations related to previous comments we've made come to mind. > Here are some of them, not necessarily related to each other, but pick and > choose as you will: > > **1) Regarding Nikki's question a few weeks ago related to our discussion of > "consciousness", and I don't remember it exactly, but something to the > effect of, "Why bother with this conversation at all?" or rather, "What is > the importance of this conversation?" that received only one or two replies: > I wasn't sure if it was intended as a rhetorical point (i.e.: this > conversation is unimportant), or if it was intended didactically (i.e.: > here's something you should be thinking about first before you ramble on > about this topic), or if it was intended as face-value question (i.e.: > literally, why is this conversation important?)....but, I'll > take it as the latter, and offer my observations: > > I think the topic and conversation, that is, Percy's idea of consciousness > as it relates to language and "who" or "what" man is, as well > as a materialistic or dualistic or monistic view of man, is extremely > important. I think it is at the root of Percy's fiction, and that his > "Theory of Man" drives all of his fiction. To decipher what that is is to > unravel the DNA code of what he was saying, you could say. Percy seemed to > write from a "plan," mapping out the plot and the book based on what he > wanted to say philosophically, and sticking to that, unlike other authors > like Flannery O'Connor, who may have had some kind of plan in the beginning > but ended up letting the book write itself. > > Percy differentiated man from the animals (as a scientist, he understood the > world - and items in the world - in terms of classification (finding > similarities) and differentiation) based on his capacity for language -- > symbol-mongering ability is an indication of consciousness, in Percy's mind. > Symbol mongering ability, a triadic event, is also what creates a "world" as > opposed to "environment" of merely behaviorist physical organisms relating > in a stimulus-response dyadic mode. A world has "magic" and "myth." This > is mostly from Message in the Bottle, but I found it interesting that Percy > uses these words, as he was a scientist, but especially as it relates to a > conversation with a physical-materialistic friend of mine, who believes the > physical world is all there is -- when the body dies, consciousness ends -- > then, upon further questioning, proceeded to describe "consciousness" as > some kind of "magic" (same word as Percy) that arose as the physical world > (and man) evolved. > > Another point: what man is, as would be described in a "Theory of Man" not > only drives Percy's fiction and all of his interests, but it determines our > purpose and meaning for living, and therefore, all our actions and decisions > in how we live our lives. > > By the way, I mentioned the article on autism as it provided a scientific > view of the mind, rather than just philosophical, and how language related > to that, which relates to Percy's theories. That notwithstanding, I was > interested to hear Wade's account of his illness, which seemed to me rather > eerily similar to Percy's themes -- esp. in Thanatos Syndrome. Something's > "wrong with the water"... or more accurately, in today's (postmodern) world, > our means of sustenance, our world, is from anonymous sources -- our > community is one created and provided by strangers, who provide us food and > water, who create and build our homes and businesses, and we share all of > that with other strangers. Great stuff for a novel -- but more true than > Percy realized? > > **2) If Percy is a "monist" as he seems to be -- did he ever identify > himself as such? If not, why not? > > **3) Percy and gender: Percy, like most good writers, was a product of his > culture: a well-to-do, aristocratic Southern white male living in the > latter half of the twentieth century (or rather, most of it, as he was born > and raised in the early half, just wrote in the latter half) -- but his > comments/views/themes/ideas rise above his demographics (and especially so > for Percy as his concern was what it means to be human) to say something of > importance to everyone. I think specifically here, as an example, of Ralph > Ellison's Invisible Man, which was about a black Southern male, and while as > a white female (not Southern), I could not identify with many of the > SPECIFICS of his experience, because Ellison's work was true and good, it > speaks on many levels of many truths about life, society, culture, what it > means to be human (which is why it is a classic). > > All that is to say is that Percy's portrayal of women changes through the > years, indicating that he was affected by his times -- and he had the > attitude and view towards women that indicates his demographics. In "The > Moviegoer" his female characters are flatter -- Kate is more well-developed, > but Sharon is stereotyped and seen from a preppy Southern white male > viewpoint (to stereotype about preppy Southern white men, that is). While > she is true to type, she is an object. This is right after the fifties -- a > decade where many intelligent women suffered from role restrictions (not > just professional but cultural and social) and a decade which brought the > inevitable sexual revolution of the sixties (it WAS a revolt, in fact). > Remember, many intelligent female writers went crazy and killed themselves > during this decade as they tried to stifle their intelligence and uniqueness > to conform socially. "The Last Gentleman" doesn't improve much on female > roles (and I don't really like any of the women in LG, though I liked Kate > in MG). Women still are primarily just "objects" of the protagonists' > emotional and sexual desire. The same in "Love in the Ruins," where we have > three women who are objects of his desire -- but otherwise, largely > insignificant and unimportant - remaining on the periphery > (marginalized?). > > However, ironically, at the end of Percy's books, > his protagonists find their resolution and "salvation" -- > on earth, that is, and perhaps only temporary -- in the arms and home of a > "good" woman. A "good" woman, for Percy, is practical, grounded, > traditional, and sexually and morally conservative. In addition, these > "good" women "call" Percy's heroes on their faults (chastise them)...they > don't let them get away with anything. This is something of a motherly > quality, so I'm wondering if any critics have written anything about a > madonna (mother)-whore complex or theme in Percy's writing. > > Women are occasionally the carriers of the "fugue state" even more than the > men, if they are not "good" as defined previously. Kate in MG, and Allison > in SC. Perhaps Anna in Lancelot. I think this is when Percy is most > successful in his portrayal of women. I think his other "type" of the good > woman that his protagonists end up with is influenced so significantly by > his culture that it has less universal truth than other things he has to > say. > > The Second Coming is the only book (that I noticed) in which he writes at > least part of it from a female point of view. This is his second to last > book, and women are becoming more rounded, more realistic, and less > objectified in Percy's writing, as the society in general in which Percy > lives and writes becomes more liberated for women. What surprised > me is that he wrote her (Allison's) point of view so well. > > I've chosen not to do the dissertation on Percy's female characters -- not > only because there's already a book out (which I've not yet read) about that > topic that probably says it better, but because I don't think that's the > most important thing he has to say. > > But I do have a question for the listserv -- how many of us are women? I > think female Percy fans are greatly the minority -- he appeals more to men, > it has been my experience, despite the fact that he says something to > everyone. > > **4) Percy's theology: It seems that Percy writes from a Christian > existentialist viewpoint. Most of his books seem to be about deconstructing > all of our illusions about ourselves -- our habits, lifestyles, goals, that > we think are meaningful -- and deconstructing our "false" or temporary > reasons for living or being in the world, which, I take it, is anything > except God. While he doesn't mention God or Christ too much (God > occasionally pops up, like Tom More "eating Christ" in LR, and Will Barrett > searching for a sign of God in SC), the books are focusing on that place > right before we find God -- before the leap -- when we realize what we ARE > living for doesn't really work, isn't really what it's all about. > > That's all well and good. I agree with him whole-heartedly. But where I'm > struggling is that, after presenting to us this nice Christian > existentialist viewpoint, Percy has each of his characters end up with > some "good woman" in an idyllic type Garden of Eden -- whether a cabin in > Virginia (Lancelot) or a greenhouse community/business in NC (SC). His > endings are more individual/couple in his first books (our hero with his > woman secluded from the world), and end in a more communal Garden of > Eden/"utopia" in later works (our hero and his woman creating the community > that helps others). The only exception to this pattern is the Last > Gentleman. > > Is this a contradiction in Percy's message? I'm not arguing that his > protagonists should all end up as a prophet/hermit in the desert, alone with > God, a voice crying out in the wilderness, having flung off the trappings of > the world, but it seems that Percy could be saying the purpose in life, the > road to bliss and sanity, is in settling down with a good woman in a > leafy enclave and living a moral life. Where's God? > > **5) Percy's reading and the Internet: For an Internet project listing the > books Percy has read, I would suggest beginning by flipping through each > page of Message in the Bottle, and his other non-fiction too, but > especially MB. He lists dozens of people he's read -- by no means > a complete listing but a good place to start. > > **6) Books: I can find "Thief of Pierce" on the Internet, but can't find > Ken Ketner's "His Glassy Essence" which was recommended earlier. > Any ideas on how to get a hold of a copy? > > Just some thoughts. > > Karey > > Karey L. Perkins > Professor of General Education > DeVry University > 2555 Northwinds Parkway > Alpharetta, GA 30004 > 770-521-4900 Ext. 3527 > www.atl.devry.edu/kperkins > > > > > > > > -- > 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 . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Tpmonaghan at aol.com Thu Sep 12 11:54:39 2002 From: Tpmonaghan at aol.com (Tpmonaghan at aol.com) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 11:54:39 EDT Subject: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? Message-ID: <18.2538b980.2ab212bf@aol.com> Settling down with a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life, sounds a lot like Eden to me. God is obviously there. God did observe that was His plan, and that even before the Fall, it was not good that man should be alone and there is all that about from the rib, not the foot, not the head... from the Church fathers then the madonna and child..... As time goes by, the fundamental things apply....whether 20's, 30's, 40's, 60's, 70's, 80's and on and on and even millenniums... The Great Books, the hot bodsky bite of bourbon whiskey, chicken soup, and grits all in a cave in Lost Cove, Tennessee with Ellen and a moral life...isn't this as close to the eschaton as some of us should think of getting on this side of the river? Isn't that the good life for Tom and Ellen, and Adam and Eve, and .... And if that option is not our vocation, there is the prophet/hermit crying in the wilderness and enjoying the things of creation and studying and writing and pondering. Both approaches depend upon each other. Praying, moral living, and tending the garden are requirements for all. Percy wrote somewhere that boy and girl finding each other usually solved a lot. That would seem to be indicated as well in common experience. It's also reflected in the pop reading of Westerns...man spends 19 chapters clearing out bad guys, building fences, etc. finds woman in last few paragraphs, kisses her and book ends and life begins....or in the Romance, man clears out the bad guys, builds fences, etc. in first few paragraphs and spends 19 chapters geting around to finding girl, kissing her, etc. which it turns out is a lot more complicated than he ever thought and book ends and life begins. Actually, I just found the quote that I remembered. It is on the back cover of "More Conversations with Walker Percy" edited by Lewis A. Lawson and Victor A. Kramer..."You would like for your characters to get out of the fix they are in and achieve some kind of happiness. The best way to do it, the easiest way to do it, is to fall in love. A man falls in love with a woman or vice versa. If both happen at the same time, that's pretty good." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at loyno.edu Thu Sep 12 12:15:17 2002 From: marcus at loyno.edu (marcus at loyno.edu) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 11:15:17 -0500 Subject: Percy's take on FOXP2 language gene? Message-ID: <3d80bd95.3e00ba.0@loyno.edu> I am pretty certain that Percy would have been fascinated by the research at Stanford, Oxford and elsewhere that may point to a relatively recent genetic base for human language/symbolic capacity. Does anyone--Ken Ketner?--have any ideas how Percy might have responded to this article by Nicholas Wade? *************************************** The New York Times August 15, 2002, Thursday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 18; Column 5; National Desk LENGTH: 703 words HEADLINE: Language Gene Is Traced To Emergence of Humans BYLINE: By NICHOLAS WADE BODY: A study of the genomes of people and chimpanzees has yielded a deep insight into the origin of language, one of the most distinctive human attributes and a critical step in human evolution. The analysis indicates that language, on the evolutionary time scale, is a very recent development, having evolved only in the last 100,000 years or so. The finding supports a novel theory advanced by Dr. Richard Klein, an archaeologist at Stanford University, who argues that the emergence of behaviorally modern humans about 50,000 years ago was set off by a major genetic change, most probably the acquisition of language. The new study, by Dr. Svante Paabo and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, is based on last year's discovery of the first human gene involved specifically in language. The gene came to light through studies of a large London family, well known to linguists, 14 of whose 29 members are incapable of articulate speech but are otherwise mostly normal. A team of molecular biologists led by Dr. Anthony P. Monaco of the University of Oxford last year identified the gene that was causing the family's problems. Known as FOXP2, the gene is known to switch on other genes during the development of the brain, but its presumed role in setting up the neural circuitry of language is not understood. Dr. Paabo's team has studied the evolutionary history of the FOXP2 gene by decoding the sequence of DNA letters in the versions of the gene possessed by mice, chimpanzees and other primates, and people. In a report being published online today by the journal Nature, Dr. Paabo says the FOXP2 gene has remained largely unaltered during the evolution of mammals, but suddenly changed in humans after the hominid line had split off from the chimpanzee line of descent. The changes in the human gene affect the structure of the protein it specifies at two sites, Dr. Paabo's team reports. One of them slightly alters the protein's shape; the other gives it a new role in the signaling circuitry of human cells. The changes indicate that the gene has been under strong evolutionary pressure in humans. Also, the human form of the gene, with its two changes, seems to have become universal in the human population, suggesting that it conferred some overwhelming benefit. Dr. Paabo contends that humans must already have possessed some rudimentary form of language before the FOXP2 gene gained its two mutations. By conferring the ability for rapid articulation, the improved gene may have swept through the population, providing the finishing touch to the acquisition of language. "Maybe this gene provided the last perfection of language, making it totally modern," Dr. Paabo said. The affected members of the London family in which the defective version of FOXP2 was discovered do possess a form of language. Their principal defect seems to lie in a lack of fine control over the muscles of the throat and mouth, needed for rapid speech. But in tests they find written answers as hard as verbal ones, suggesting that the defective gene causes conceptual problems as well as ones of muscular control. The human genome is constantly accumulating DNA changes through random mutation, though they seldom affect the actual structure of genes. When a new gene sweeps through the population, the genome's background diversity at that point is much reduced for a time, since everyone possesses the same stretch of DNA that came with the new gene. By measuring this reduced diversity and other features of a must-have gene, Dr. Paabo has estimated the age of the human version of FOXP2 as being less than 120,000 years. Dr. Paabo says this date fits with the theory advanced by Dr. Klein to account for the sudden appearance of novel behaviors 50,000 years ago, including art, ornamentation and long distance trade. Human remains from this period are physically indistinguishable from those of 100,000 years ago, leading Dr. Klein to propose that some genetically based cognitive change must have prompted the new behaviors. The only change of sufficient magnitude, in his view, is acquisition of language. From b9oky at TTACS.TTU.EDU Fri Sep 13 12:09:07 2002 From: b9oky at TTACS.TTU.EDU (Kenneth Ketner) Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 11:09:07 -0500 Subject: Percy's take on FOXP2 language gene? References: <3d80bd95.3e00ba.0@loyno.edu> Message-ID: <3D820DA2.22E11A17@ttacs.ttu.edu> I don't pretend to speak as a representative of Walker. Not a spot that is proper or comfortable. However, if someone has a question about the research on FOXP2, I will be happy to shoot off my own mouth. My initial response to this article is that FOXP2 and its mechanisms while interesting, are no more interesting than genes that make possible other body parts or functions involved in speech. We can already produce mechanical speech with devices (robots, tape recorders, synthetic speech chips) but none of those entities have a language. Helen Keller produced speech before the event Walker liked to consider. She was an effective robot, in other words. She changed after she acquired language, becoming fully a person. But I could be wrong... marcus at loyno.edu wrote: > > I am pretty certain that Percy would have been fascinated by the research > at Stanford, Oxford and elsewhere that may point to a relatively recent > genetic base for human language/symbolic capacity. > > Does anyone--Ken Ketner?--have any ideas how Percy might have responded to > this article by Nicholas Wade? > > *************************************** > The New York Times > > August 15, 2002, Thursday, Late Edition - Final > > SECTION: Section A; Page 18; Column 5; National Desk > > LENGTH: 703 words > > HEADLINE: Language Gene Is Traced To Emergence of Humans > > BYLINE: By NICHOLAS WADE > > BODY: > A study of the genomes of people and chimpanzees has yielded a deep insight > into the origin of language, one of the most distinctive human attributes > and a critical step in human evolution. > > The analysis indicates that language, on the evolutionary time scale, is a > very recent development, having evolved only in the last 100,000 years or > so. The finding supports a novel theory advanced by Dr. Richard Klein, an > archaeologist at Stanford University, who argues that the emergence of > behaviorally modern humans about 50,000 years ago was set off by a major > genetic change, most probably the acquisition of language. > > The new study, by Dr. Svante Paabo and colleagues at the Max Planck > Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, is based on > last year's discovery of the first human gene involved specifically in > language. > > The gene came to light through studies of a large London family, well known > to linguists, 14 of whose 29 members are incapable of articulate speech but > are otherwise mostly normal. A team of molecular biologists led by Dr. > Anthony P. Monaco of the University of Oxford last year identified the gene > that was causing the family's problems. Known as FOXP2, the gene is known > to switch on other genes during the development of the brain, but its > presumed role in setting up the neural circuitry of language is not > understood. > > Dr. Paabo's team has studied the evolutionary history of the FOXP2 gene by > decoding the sequence of DNA letters in the versions of the gene possessed > by mice, chimpanzees and other primates, and people. > > In a report being published online today by the journal Nature, Dr. Paabo > says the FOXP2 gene has remained largely unaltered during the evolution of > mammals, but suddenly changed in humans after the hominid line had split > off from the chimpanzee line of descent. > > The changes in the human gene affect the structure of the protein it > specifies at two sites, Dr. Paabo's team reports. One of them slightly > alters the protein's shape; the other gives it a new role in the signaling > circuitry of human cells. > > The changes indicate that the gene has been under strong evolutionary > pressure in humans. Also, the human form of the gene, with its two changes, > seems to have become universal in the human population, suggesting that it > conferred some overwhelming benefit. > > Dr. Paabo contends that humans must already have possessed some rudimentary > form of language before the FOXP2 gene gained its two mutations. By > conferring the ability for rapid articulation, the improved gene may have > swept through the population, providing the finishing touch to the > acquisition of language. > > "Maybe this gene provided the last perfection of language, making it > totally modern," Dr. Paabo said. > > The affected members of the London family in which the defective version of > FOXP2 was discovered do possess a form of language. Their principal defect > seems to lie in a lack of fine control over the muscles of the throat and > mouth, needed for rapid speech. But in tests they find written answers as > hard as verbal ones, suggesting that the defective gene causes conceptual > problems as well as ones of muscular control. > > The human genome is constantly accumulating DNA changes through random > mutation, though they seldom affect the actual structure of genes. When a > new gene sweeps through the population, the genome's background diversity > at that point is much reduced for a time, since everyone possesses the same > stretch of DNA that came with the new gene. By measuring this reduced > diversity and other features of a must-have gene, Dr. Paabo has estimated > the age of the human version of FOXP2 as being less than 120,000 years. > > Dr. Paabo says this date fits with the theory advanced by Dr. Klein to > account for the sudden appearance of novel behaviors 50,000 years ago, > including art, ornamentation and long distance trade. Human remains from > this period are physically indistinguishable from those of 100,000 years > ago, leading Dr. Klein to propose that some genetically based cognitive > change must have prompted the new behaviors. The only change of sufficient > magnitude, in his view, is acquisition of language. > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at . > Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -- Kenneth L Ketner Paul Whitfield Horn Professor Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409-0002 806 742 3128 Office email: b9oky at ttacs.ttu.edu Home email: ketner at arisbeassociates.com Office website: http://www.pragmaticism.net Personal website: http://www.wyttynys.net From Nikkibar at aol.com Fri Sep 13 13:35:28 2002 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 13:35:28 EDT Subject: Percy's take on FOXP2 language gene? Message-ID: <179.e7beb1e.2ab37be0@aol.com> It would be interesting to see what results with a little gene splicing into the chimp line from our rather more verbal repertoire... Walker wouldn't approve, but the chimps might. Nikki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Fri Sep 13 14:06:23 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey L. Perkins) Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 14:06:23 -0400 Subject: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? References: <18.2538b980.2ab212bf@aol.com> Message-ID: <008101c25b50$459f3c10$0301000a@AFAC955012> Percy writes on the fourth page of _Love in the Ruins_ : "I believe in God and the whole business but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all." He continues: "Generally I do as I please. A man, wrote John, who says he believes in God and does not keep his commandments is a liar. If John is right, I am a liar." One supposes with this kind of prelude that our hero will eventually, by the end of the novel, work his way towards loving God most, (or, alternatively, God himself will do the work and eventually make his way up the list) -- whatever permutation to his real, daily life that might take (e.g.: retiring to a leafy enclave or crying out in the wilderness) but our protagonist really ends up having succeeded in accomplishing his goal of what he loves most -- women -- i.e.: finding a good woman. I agree with you that popular culture, Hollywood, etc., has that (i.e.: boy and girl finding each other) as "an" if not "the" answer to our existential loneliness, and certainly Percy does in his novels, as well as his interviews. Here's the question: Is that a SUBSTITUTE for the real thing (God) or a MANIFESTATION of the real thing? I don't want to get all Gnostic here and claim we should all lead ascetic, hermetic lives of denial, donning hair shirts and ashes each day, but really, and this is a real question here, not rhetorical, but, is God any higher on the list at the end of the novels? What is the evidence? After Percy's hero eschews everything of "this world" so he can find God, he then goes back and embraces the world. Is this how it's meant to be done? Along the same lines, to wax theological, Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden of Eden, once they had "knowledge." They can't go back - there's a mighty angel with a flaming sword guarding the entrance, pretty intimidating picture, I think. So they must turn to Christ, and make their Kingdom of Heaven "on earth," but isn't it inside them, an inner heaven, and seems to be transcendent of what's going on around them? Aren't we "in the world" but not "of the world?" I get the picture that we'll never be as comfortable or "one" with the garden experience ever after -- it's not ours to have again. Isn't that what Percy wants to say? Isn't that what the fugue states are about? In the end, it seems God should be our "all" -- though that means loving others as well, but they are not our "salvation." As Ben Jonson says, in "On My First Son," speaking of his son who as just died..."My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy," and of himself, "For whose sake, all his vows be such/As what he loves, may never like too much." Certainly, I, like Percy, really really want his characters to end up happily in love with each other and ensconced in a lush and fruitful garden living the good life for themselves and others -- "happily ever after," (hey, I'd love that for MY life, too!), but then we have a nice little romance novel or a fairy tale, not real life, and Percy seems to have gotten off-track. (Who, me, a cynic?) Karey ----- Original Message ----- From: Tpmonaghan at aol.com To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 11:54 AM Subject: [percy-l] RE: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? Settling down with a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life, sounds a lot like Eden to me. God is obviously there. God did observe that was His plan, and that even before the Fall, it was not good that man should be alone and there is all that about from the rib, not the foot, not the head... from the Church fathers then the madonna and child..... As time goes by, the fundamental things apply....whether 20's, 30's, 40's, 60's, 70's, 80's and on and on and even millenniums... The Great Books, the hot bodsky bite of bourbon whiskey, chicken soup, and grits all in a cave in Lost Cove, Tennessee with Ellen and a moral life...isn't this as close to the eschaton as some of us should think of getting on this side of the river? Isn't that the good life for Tom and Ellen, and Adam and Eve, and .... And if that option is not our vocation, there is the prophet/hermit crying in the wilderness and enjoying the things of creation and studying and writing and pondering. Both approaches depend upon each other. Praying, moral living, and tending the garden are requirements for all. Percy wrote somewhere that boy and girl finding each other usually solved a lot. That would seem to be indicated as well in common experience. It's also reflected in the pop reading of Westerns...man spends 19 chapters clearing out bad guys, building fences, etc. finds woman in last few paragraphs, kisses her and book ends and life begins....or in the Romance, man clears out the bad guys, builds fences, etc. in first few paragraphs and spends 19 chapters geting around to finding girl, kissing her, etc. which it turns out is a lot more complicated than he ever thought and book ends and life begins. Actually, I just found the quote that I remembered. It is on the back cover of "More Conversations with Walker Percy" edited by Lewis A. Lawson and Victor A. Kramer..."You would like for your characters to get out of the fix they are in and achieve some kind of happiness. The best way to do it, the easiest way to do it, is to fall in love. A man falls in love with a woman or vice versa. If both happen at the same time, that's pretty good." -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at loyno.edu Fri Sep 13 16:04:25 2002 From: marcus at loyno.edu (marcus at loyno.edu) Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 15:04:25 -0500 Subject: Percy's take on FOXP2 language gene? Message-ID: <3d8244c9.29200e.0@loyno.edu> Ken-- I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say "Helen Keller produced speech before the event Walker liked to consider. She was an effective robot, in other words. She changed after she acquired language, becoming fully a person." Do you refer to the 3-4 years of development HK went through--presumably normally--before she was afflicted by rheumatic fever? Can we assume that she acquired a lot of language before losing hearing and sight, that she might have even become "fully a person" and that she re-acquired this at the well house. "Effective robot" is a metaphor that doesn't really fit. If you look at her account, she writes that the well house moment was a sort of recovery of something she had had and lost. (I haven't look at this passage in decades, but remember it well and remember arguing with WP about it.) On FOXP2--and I, too, hestiate to try to speak for WP--he accepted evolution but insisted that a true anthropology had to notice that humans talk and other critters don't, that there is a qualitative "disconnect" that must be acknowledged by the human sciences. Doesn't FOXP2 point us in that direction? Marcus Smith >I don't pretend to speak as a representative of Walker. Not a spot that >is proper or comfortable. > >However, if someone has a question about the research on FOXP2, I will >be happy to shoot off my own mouth. > >My initial response to this article is that FOXP2 and its mechanisms >while interesting, are no more interesting than genes that make possible >other body parts or functions involved in speech. > >We can already produce mechanical speech with devices (robots, tape >recorders, synthetic speech chips) but none of those entities have a >language. Helen Keller produced speech before the event Walker liked to >consider. She was an effective robot, in other words. She changed after >she acquired language, becoming fully a person. > >But I could be wrong... > >marcus at loyno.edu wrote: >> >> I am pretty certain that Percy would have been fascinated by the research >> at Stanford, Oxford and elsewhere that may point to a relatively recent >> genetic base for human language/symbolic capacity. >> >> Does anyone--Ken Ketner?--have any ideas how Percy might have responded to >> this article by Nicholas Wade? >> >> *************************************** >> The New York Times >> >> August 15, 2002, Thursday, Late Edition - Final >> >> SECTION: Section A; Page 18; Column 5; National Desk >> >> LENGTH: 703 words >> >> HEADLINE: Language Gene Is Traced To Emergence of Humans >> >> BYLINE: By NICHOLAS WADE >> >> BODY: >> A study of the genomes of people and chimpanzees has yielded a deep insight >> into the origin of language, one of the most distinctive human attributes >> and a critical step in human evolution. >> >> The analysis indicates that language, on the evolutionary time scale, is a >> very recent development, having evolved only in the last 100,000 years or >> so. The finding supports a novel theory advanced by Dr. Richard Klein, an >> archaeologist at Stanford University, who argues that the emergence of >> behaviorally modern humans about 50,000 years ago was set off by a major >> genetic change, most probably the acquisition of language. >> >> The new study, by Dr. Svante Paabo and colleagues at the Max Planck >> Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, is based on >> last year's discovery of the first human gene involved specifically in >> language. >> >> The gene came to light through studies of a large London family, well known >> to linguists, 14 of whose 29 members are incapable of articulate speech but >> are otherwise mostly normal. A team of molecular biologists led by Dr. >> Anthony P. Monaco of the University of Oxford last year identified the gene >> that was causing the family's problems. Known as FOXP2, the gene is known >> to switch on other genes during the development of the brain, but its >> presumed role in setting up the neural circuitry of language is not >> understood. >> >> Dr. Paabo's team has studied the evolutionary history of the FOXP2 gene by >> decoding the sequence of DNA letters in the versions of the gene possessed >> by mice, chimpanzees and other primates, and people. >> >> In a report being published online today by the journal Nature, Dr. Paabo >> says the FOXP2 gene has remained largely unaltered during the evolution of >> mammals, but suddenly changed in humans after the hominid line had split >> off from the chimpanzee line of descent. >> >> The changes in the human gene affect the structure of the protein it >> specifies at two sites, Dr. Paabo's team reports. One of them slightly >> alters the protein's shape; the other gives it a new role in the signaling >> circuitry of human cells. >> >> The changes indicate that the gene has been under strong evolutionary >> pressure in humans. Also, the human form of the gene, with its two changes, >> seems to have become universal in the human population, suggesting that it >> conferred some overwhelming benefit. >> >> Dr. Paabo contends that humans must already have possessed some rudimentary >> form of language before the FOXP2 gene gained its two mutations. By >> conferring the ability for rapid articulation, the improved gene may have >> swept through the population, providing the finishing touch to the >> acquisition of language. >> >> "Maybe this gene provided the last perfection of language, making it >> totally modern," Dr. Paabo said. >> >> The affected members of the London family in which the defective version of >> FOXP2 was discovered do possess a form of language. Their principal defect >> seems to lie in a lack of fine control over the muscles of the throat and >> mouth, needed for rapid speech. But in tests they find written answers as >> hard as verbal ones, suggesting that the defective gene causes conceptual >> problems as well as ones of muscular control. >> >> The human genome is constantly accumulating DNA changes through random >> mutation, though they seldom affect the actual structure of genes. When a >> new gene sweeps through the population, the genome's background diversity >> at that point is much reduced for a time, since everyone possesses the same >> stretch of DNA that came with the new gene. By measuring this reduced >> diversity and other features of a must-have gene, Dr. Paabo has estimated >> the age of the human version of FOXP2 as being less than 120,000 years. >> >> Dr. Paabo says this date fits with the theory advanced by Dr. Klein to >> account for the sudden appearance of novel behaviors 50,000 years ago, >> including art, ornamentation and long distance trade. Human remains from >> this period are physically indistinguishable from those of 100,000 years >> ago, leading Dr. Klein to propose that some genetically based cognitive >> change must have prompted the new behaviors. The only change of sufficient >> magnitude, in his view, is acquisition of language. >> >> -- >> An archive of all list discussion is available at . >> Visit the Walker Percy Project at . > >-- >Kenneth L Ketner >Paul Whitfield Horn Professor >Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism >Texas Tech University >Lubbock, TX 79409-0002 >806 742 3128 > Office email: b9oky at ttacs.ttu.edu > Home email: ketner at arisbeassociates.com > Office website: http://www.pragmaticism.net > Personal website: http://www.wyttynys.net > >-- >An archive of all list discussion is available at . >Visit the Walker Percy Project at . > From brian at beachcitygas.com Sun Sep 15 20:47:16 2002 From: brian at beachcitygas.com (Brian N) Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 17:47:16 -0700 Subject: FOXP2 Further Research References: <3d80bd95.3e00ba.0@loyno.edu> Message-ID: <3D852A14.F3C80BC8@beachcitygas.com> Does this FOXP2 research explain why the gene apparently becomes occluded about the age of 14 or 15? And why its reemergence is seems to come later and later if at all? Brian (Forgive me. I live in Santa Cruz.) From apridgen at pinehurst.net Mon Sep 16 10:06:13 2002 From: apridgen at pinehurst.net (Allen Pridgen) Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 10:06:13 -0400 Subject: Percy and Burke Message-ID: <3D85E554.74CB2E7B@pinehurst.net> Does anyone know of James Lee Burke's knowledge,appreciation, ... of Walker Percy, or Percy's knowledge, opinion, ... of Burke's fiction? Thanks. Allen Pridgen From masonb at epiphany-lcms.org Mon Sep 16 11:25:33 2002 From: masonb at epiphany-lcms.org (Mason) Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 10:25:33 -0500 Subject: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? In-Reply-To: <008101c25b50$459f3c10$0301000a@AFAC955012> Message-ID: A quick introduction before my suggestion- My name is Mason Beecroft and I am a Lutheran pastor in the suburban ruins of Houston. Walker Percy's "Lost in the Cosmos" caught my attention as I was considering how one might go about instructing people about the Christian faith in this strange time and place. Of course I fell in love with his work and have read all of his published works except for "The Last Gentleman." I have been listening to these discussions for several months and enjoy the range of issues.... Karey- The questions about what it looks like to "find God" in Percy's novels have also attracted my attention. Although subtle, I believe the sacramental and incarnational aspects of his Roman Catholic faith are key in what it looks like to find God. You wrote: They can't go back - there's a mighty angel with a flaming sword guarding the entrance, pretty intimidating picture, I think. So they must turn to Christ, and make their Kingdom of Heaven "on earth," but isn't it inside them, an inner heaven, and seems to be transcendent of what's going on around them? Aren't we "in the world" but not "of the world?" Percy wrote in his essay "Another Message in a Bottle" that "the incarnational and sacramental dimensions of Catholic Christianity are the greatest natural assets of a novelist." I don't think Percy would agree that the Kingdom of Heaven is "inside them, an inner heaven" or "transcendent." Rather, I think that Percy uses earthy, physical, human relationships to argue that the love of God is made known through such visible signs. St. Augustine defined a sacrament as a visible sign of an invisible reality whereby God communicates His grace. For Christians, the incarnation of Jesus Christ is THE sacrament-- God became man in a time and a place and lived among us, dying, and rising again... the Christian message is particular, earthy, visible, historical, and physical. And there are the other sacraments- Holy Baptism, Holy Communion, etc. But there is also a sacramental aspect to our relationships with other human beings. We cannot escape our time and place. Our God chose a time and a place. We cannot escape our physicality (nor do we desire to escape lest we be accused of docetism or gnosticism). Our God chose the incarnation. I think that Percy uses such "worldly" relationships to highlight such sacramental and incarnational aspects of Christianity. Of course this may just be a sacramental Christian finding what I desire to find, but I don't think so... I would love to hear any input on Percy's understanding of some of the Vatican II statements on the dignity of humanity and how these might have influenced his work. Mason Beecroft -----Original Message----- From: Karey L. Perkins [mailto:karey at charter.net] Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 1:06 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] RE: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? Percy writes on the fourth page of _Love in the Ruins_ : "I believe in God and the whole business but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all." He continues: "Generally I do as I please. A man, wrote John, who says he believes in God and does not keep his commandments is a liar. If John is right, I am a liar." One supposes with this kind of prelude that our hero will eventually, by the end of the novel, work his way towards loving God most, (or, alternatively, God himself will do the work and eventually make his way up the list) -- whatever permutation to his real, daily life that might take (e.g.: retiring to a leafy enclave or crying out in the wilderness) but our protagonist really ends up having succeeded in accomplishing his goal of what he loves most -- women -- i.e.: finding a good woman. I agree with you that popular culture, Hollywood, etc., has that (i.e.: boy and girl finding each other) as "an" if not "the" answer to our existential loneliness, and certainly Percy does in his novels, as well as his interviews. Here's the question: Is that a SUBSTITUTE for the real thing (God) or a MANIFESTATION of the real thing? I don't want to get all Gnostic here and claim we should all lead ascetic, hermetic lives of denial, donning hair shirts and ashes each day, but really, and this is a real question here, not rhetorical, but, is God any higher on the list at the end of the novels? What is the evidence? After Percy's hero eschews everything of "this world" so he can find God, he then goes back and embraces the world. Is this how it's meant to be done? Along the same lines, to wax theological, Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden of Eden, once they had "knowledge." They can't go back - there's a mighty angel with a flaming sword guarding the entrance, pretty intimidating picture, I think. So they must turn to Christ, and make their Kingdom of Heaven "on earth," but isn't it inside them, an inner heaven, and seems to be transcendent of what's going on around them? Aren't we "in the world" but not "of the world?" I get the picture that we'll never be as comfortable or "one" with the garden experience ever after -- it's not ours to have again. Isn't that what Percy wants to say? Isn't that what the fugue states are about? In the end, it seems God should be our "all" -- though that means loving others as well, but they are not our "salvation." As Ben Jonson says, in "On My First Son," speaking of his son who as just died..."My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy," and of himself, "For whose sake, all his vows be such/As what he loves, may never like too much." Certainly, I, like Percy, really really want his characters to end up happily in love with each other and ensconced in a lush and fruitful garden living the good life for themselves and others -- "happily ever after," (hey, I'd love that for MY life, too!), but then we have a nice little romance novel or a fairy tale, not real life, and Percy seems to have gotten off-track. (Who, me, a cynic?) Karey ----- Original Message ----- From: Tpmonaghan at aol.com To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 11:54 AM Subject: [percy-l] RE: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? Settling down with a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life, sounds a lot like Eden to me. God is obviously there. God did observe that was His plan, and that even before the Fall, it was not good that man should be alone and there is all that about from the rib, not the foot, not the head... from the Church fathers then the madonna and child..... As time goes by, the fundamental things apply....whether 20's, 30's, 40's, 60's, 70's, 80's and on and on and even millenniums... The Great Books, the hot bodsky bite of bourbon whiskey, chicken soup, and grits all in a cave in Lost Cove, Tennessee with Ellen and a moral life...isn't this as close to the eschaton as some of us should think of getting on this side of the river? Isn't that the good life for Tom and Ellen, and Adam and Eve, and .... And if that option is not our vocation, there is the prophet/hermit crying in the wilderness and enjoying the things of creation and studying and writing and pondering. Both approaches depend upon each other. Praying, moral living, and tending the garden are requirements for all. Percy wrote somewhere that boy and girl finding each other usually solved a lot. That would seem to be indicated as well in common experience. It's also reflected in the pop reading of Westerns...man spends 19 chapters clearing out bad guys, building fences, etc. finds woman in last few paragraphs, kisses her and book ends and life begins....or in the Romance, man clears out the bad guys, builds fences, etc. in first few paragraphs and spends 19 chapters geting around to finding girl, kissing her, etc. which it turns out is a lot more complicated than he ever thought and book ends and life begins. Actually, I just found the quote that I remembered. It is on the back cover of "More Conversations with Walker Percy" edited by Lewis A. Lawson and Victor A. Kramer..."You would like for your characters to get out of the fix they are in and achieve some kind of happiness. The best way to do it, the easiest way to do it, is to fall in love. A man falls in love with a woman or vice versa. If both happen at the same time, that's pretty good." -- 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 . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey at charter.net Mon Sep 16 14:48:27 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey L. Perkins) Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 14:48:27 -0400 Subject: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? References: Message-ID: <001601c25db1$a53c9240$0301000a@AFAC955012> Thanks for the response -- I have a couple of thoughts/questions, one related to this, and one not: (a) This is for Ken, but anyone who is familiar with Peirce can respond: What is "abduction"? Percy talks about it some, contrasts it with induction and deduction, but I'm still not clear on it. The dictionary was little help. (I haven't gotten to reading Peirce yet, which I imagine should clarify it.) (b) Good points, Mason, I think you're on target. Here's another thought: How does Percy show this transition? i.e.: from God fourth to God first? It's very symbolically illustrated in the Second Coming as Will Barrett goes through a death/rebirth experience in the cave (like Ellison's Invisible Man) and then literally falls out of it into the arms of his true love. But how is he, or any of the characters in Percy's novels, different? How is God in his life? And, what about the "dark night of the soul"? Those times of barrenness (externally - the Job experience) where the world fails, but God is there? Perhaps that's just not Percy's particular message, but to me it's a big part of the God experience. It's easy to be a believer when times are great. KP ----- Original Message ----- From: Mason To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 11:25 AM Subject: [percy-l] RE: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? A quick introduction before my suggestion- My name is Mason Beecroft and I am a Lutheran pastor in the suburban ruins of Houston. Walker Percy's "Lost in the Cosmos" caught my attention as I was considering how one might go about instructing people about the Christian faith in this strange time and place. Of course I fell in love with his work and have read all of his published works except for "The Last Gentleman." I have been listening to these discussions for several months and enjoy the range of issues.... Karey- The questions about what it looks like to "find God" in Percy's novels have also attracted my attention. Although subtle, I believe the sacramental and incarnational aspects of his Roman Catholic faith are key in what it looks like to find God. You wrote: They can't go back - there's a mighty angel with a flaming sword guarding the entrance, pretty intimidating picture, I think. So they must turn to Christ, and make their Kingdom of Heaven "on earth," but isn't it inside them, an inner heaven, and seems to be transcendent of what's going on around them? Aren't we "in the world" but not "of the world?" Percy wrote in his essay "Another Message in a Bottle" that "the incarnational and sacramental dimensions of Catholic Christianity are the greatest natural assets of a novelist." I don't think Percy would agree that the Kingdom of Heaven is "inside them, an inner heaven" or "transcendent." Rather, I think that Percy uses earthy, physical, human relationships to argue that the love of God is made known through such visible signs. St. Augustine defined a sacrament as a visible sign of an invisible reality whereby God communicates His grace. For Christians, the incarnation of Jesus Christ is THE sacrament-- God became man in a time and a place and lived among us, dying, and rising again... the Christian message is particular, earthy, visible, historical, and physical. And there are the other sacraments- Holy Baptism, Holy Communion, etc. But there is also a sacramental aspect to our relationships with other human beings. We cannot escape our time and place. Our God chose a time and a place. We cannot escape our physicality (nor do we desire to escape lest we be accused of docetism or gnosticism). Our God chose the incarnation. I think that Percy uses such "worldly" relationships to highlight such sacramental and incarnational aspects of Christianity. Of course this may just be a sacramental Christian finding what I desire to find, but I don't think so... I would love to hear any input on Percy's understanding of some of the Vatican II statements on the dignity of humanity and how these might have influenced his work. Mason Beecroft -----Original Message----- From: Karey L. Perkins [mailto:karey at charter.net] Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 1:06 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] RE: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? Percy writes on the fourth page of _Love in the Ruins_ : "I believe in God and the whole business but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all." He continues: "Generally I do as I please. A man, wrote John, who says he believes in God and does not keep his commandments is a liar. If John is right, I am a liar." One supposes with this kind of prelude that our hero will eventually, by the end of the novel, work his way towards loving God most, (or, alternatively, God himself will do the work and eventually make his way up the list) -- whatever permutation to his real, daily life that might take (e.g.: retiring to a leafy enclave or crying out in the wilderness) but our protagonist really ends up having succeeded in accomplishing his goal of what he loves most -- women -- i.e.: finding a good woman. I agree with you that popular culture, Hollywood, etc., has that (i.e.: boy and girl finding each other) as "an" if not "the" answer to our existential loneliness, and certainly Percy does in his novels, as well as his interviews. Here's the question: Is that a SUBSTITUTE for the real thing (God) or a MANIFESTATION of the real thing? I don't want to get all Gnostic here and claim we should all lead ascetic, hermetic lives of denial, donning hair shirts and ashes each day, but really, and this is a real question here, not rhetorical, but, is God any higher on the list at the end of the novels? What is the evidence? After Percy's hero eschews everything of "this world" so he can find God, he then goes back and embraces the world. Is this how it's meant to be done? Along the same lines, to wax theological, Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden of Eden, once they had "knowledge." They can't go back - there's a mighty angel with a flaming sword guarding the entrance, pretty intimidating picture, I think. So they must turn to Christ, and make their Kingdom of Heaven "on earth," but isn't it inside them, an inner heaven, and seems to be transcendent of what's going on around them? Aren't we "in the world" but not "of the world?" I get the picture that we'll never be as comfortable or "one" with the garden experience ever after -- it's not ours to have again. Isn't that what Percy wants to say? Isn't that what the fugue states are about? In the end, it seems God should be our "all" -- though that means loving others as well, but they are not our "salvation." As Ben Jonson says, in "On My First Son," speaking of his son who as just died..."My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy," and of himself, "For whose sake, all his vows be such/As what he loves, may never like too much." Certainly, I, like Percy, really really want his characters to end up happily in love with each other and ensconced in a lush and fruitful garden living the good life for themselves and others -- "happily ever after," (hey, I'd love that for MY life, too!), but then we have a nice little romance novel or a fairy tale, not real life, and Percy seems to have gotten off-track. (Who, me, a cynic?) Karey ----- Original Message ----- From: Tpmonaghan at aol.com To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 11:54 AM Subject: [percy-l] RE: a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life and where's God? Settling down with a good woman in a leafy enclave and living a moral life, sounds a lot like Eden to me. God is obviously there. God did observe that was His plan, and that even before the Fall, it was not good that man should be alone and there is all that about from the rib, not the foot, not the head... from the Church fathers then the madonna and child..... As time goes by, the fundamental things apply....whether 20's, 30's, 40's, 60's, 70's, 80's and on and on and even millenniums... The Great Books, the hot bodsky bite of bourbon whiskey, chicken soup, and grits all in a cave in Lost Cove, Tennessee with Ellen and a moral life...isn't this as close to the eschaton as some of us should think of getting on this side of the river? Isn't that the good life for Tom and Ellen, and Adam and Eve, and .... And if that option is not our vocation, there is the prophet/hermit crying in the wilderness and enjoying the things of creation and studying and writing and pondering. Both approaches depend upon each other. Praying, moral living, and tending the garden are requirements for all. Percy wrote somewhere that boy and girl finding each other usually solved a lot. That would seem to be indicated as well in common experience. It's also reflected in the pop reading of Westerns...man spends 19 chapters clearing out bad guys, building fences, etc. finds woman in last few paragraphs, kisses her and book ends and life begins....or in the Romance, man clears out the bad guys, builds fences, etc. in first few paragraphs and spends 19 chapters geting around to finding girl, kissing her, etc. which it turns out is a lot more complicated than he ever thought and book ends and life begins. Actually, I just found the quote that I remembered. It is on the back cover of "More Conversations with Walker Percy" edited by Lewis A. Lawson and Victor A. Kramer..."You would like for your characters to get out of the fix they are in and achieve some kind of happiness. The best way to do it, the easiest way to do it, is to fall in love. A man falls in love with a woman or vice versa. If both happen at the same time, that's pretty good." -- 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 . -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From b9oky at TTACS.TTU.EDU Mon Sep 16 16:29:54 2002 From: b9oky at TTACS.TTU.EDU (Kenneth Ketner) Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 15:29:54 -0500 Subject: Abduction, not kidnapping but guessing References: <001601c25db1$a53c9240$0301000a@AFAC955012> Message-ID: <3D863F41.D70A596E@ttacs.ttu.edu> THE CENTURY DICTIONARY SUPPLEMENT volume 11, New York: The Century Company, 1910, page 1: Abduction, n. 3. In the logical system of C.S. Peirce, reasoning from consequent to antecedent; the acceptance on probation (or more absolutely) of a hypothesis to explain observed facts; the deriving of a suggestion from observation. Peirce argued that all reasoning can be successfully classified under three main types: abduction, deduction, induction. Basically abduction is guessing. He argued that humans have a natural instinct for guessing (abduction) and that all the findings of science have to begin as abductions of individual persons. The result of an abduction is a hypothesis, which is nothing in itself and requires vigorous testing. One uses deduction and previous knowledge to infer possible observable consequences of the hypothesis plus previous knowledge. Then one uses these possible observable consequences and previous knowledge to design an experiment to test the hypothesis, thus allowing nature to give the answer to the hypothesis under test. Formally a hypothesis is a declarative sentence, but held only provisionally, so logically a hypothesis is fundamentally an open question. If one decides an open question by consistency with previous beliefs, that is what Peirce called the Method of Tenacity; if one decides a question by appeal to consistency with a respected person or institution (solely on the basis of respect, or fear if one is oppressed) that is what Peirce called the Method of Authority; if one decides a question by way of consistency with a fashion, that is what Peirce called the A Priori Method; if one designs experiments to allow nature to answer the question in a communal and public way, that is what Peirce called the Method of Science. There is an Abduction/Deduction/Induction cycle (ADI), in that typically one continues the process recycling upon itself until a confirmed hypothesis emerges. Perception is this process at a fast rate and unconsciously done. There is a big connection between abduction and Semeiotic, Peirce's theory of signs (see PERCY'S article in the last issue of DOUBLETAKE MAGAZINE, winter 2002 issue). So in everyday language Abduction is Guessing Deduction is Necessary Reasoning Induction is Experimental Design. In a rare bit of consistency with previously established terminology (in line with Peirce's Ethics of Terminology), the computer science world has adopted abduction as the term for the hypothetical aspect of Artificial Intelligence research, one of the hardest nuts to crack. That may be because Peircean Abduction assumes there is already an intelligence present (otherwise known as a human, or The Scientist, or The Guesser), so it may take a while to get a fully intelligent artificial device. Anyhoo, there is a lot on abduction in the computer science world, and they usually give some credit to Peirce even though sometimes it is misguided or downright wrong: as in their often heard slogan that "abduction is inference to the best explanation (of a puzzling event)." The problem there is that after abduction only, we don't know if this hypothesis is the best - that would only come after completing the ADI cycle. There is a good deal on this in the book Percy "made" ;) me write, HIS GLASSY ESSENCE. > "Karey L. Perkins" wrote: > > Thanks for the response -- I have a couple of thoughts/questions, one > related to this, and one not: > > (a) This is for Ken, but anyone who is familiar with Peirce can > respond: What is "abduction"? Percy talks about it some, contrasts > it with induction and deduction, but I'm still not clear on it. The > dictionary was little help. (I haven't gotten to reading Peirce yet, > which I imagine should clarify it.) > -- Kenneth L Ketner Paul Whitfield Horn Professor Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409-0002 806 742 3128 Office email: b9oky at ttacs.ttu.edu Home email: ketner at arisbeassociates.com Office website: http://www.pragmaticism.net Personal website: http://www.wyttynys.net From piat1 at bellsouth.net Mon Sep 16 21:52:52 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 21:52:52 -0400 Subject: Abduction, not kidnapping but guessing References: <001601c25db1$a53c9240$0301000a@AFAC955012> <3D863F41.D70A596E@ttacs.ttu.edu> Message-ID: <001201c25dec$eef47b60$0101a8c0@D68RS511> Dear Ken, I thoroughly enjoyed your brief and CLEAR account of abduction, deduction and inference. If you have the time and interest I would also love for you to give a brief account of Peirce's categories and indicate how they tie in with these forms of reasoning. BTW, I read your HIS GLASSY ESSENCE and found it a delight. What I liked most about it was that Peirce's ideas (often in his own words) were selected and organized in way that assisted me in following their natural (historical and logical) development. And you did not preach at me but instead concentrated on presenting his ideas plainly, carefully and in context so that I could begin to understand them and draw my own conclusions as to their significance. The love and respect you have for your topic shines through and I think your book will be prized most by those share your affection. A credit to your subject! Thanks, Jim Piat From karey at charter.net Mon Sep 16 22:01:47 2002 From: karey at charter.net (Karey L. Perkins) Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 22:01:47 -0400 Subject: Abduction, not kidnapping but guessing References: <001601c25db1$a53c9240$0301000a@AFAC955012> <3D863F41.D70A596E@ttacs.ttu.edu> <001201c25dec$eef47b60$0101a8c0@D68RS511> Message-ID: <00a601c25dee$2e8653b0$0301000a@AFAC955012> Ken, I, too, appreciated the definition and it makes better sense now. As I was reading Percy, I was getting the impression that "abduction" was "intuition" -- how different is that from "guessing?" How would you differentiate the two, or would you? Second question: did PERCY publish in Doubletake in Winter 2002? (Hmmm...he's been busy in the afterlife, hasn't he?) Or is this a chapter from his unpublished manuscript "Symbol and Existence"? I saw that it is at UNC-Chapel Hill and wondered if it was worth the 8 hour drive to go look at it...has anyone read it/seen it? The reason I ask is I think the dissertation is going to be on this topic after all -- Percy's semiotics, as it relates to Peirce, et al...really fascinating stuff, don't you think? So I'll be reading your book(s) (Ken) and may have lots more questions but I'll try to keep them to a minimum! Karey ----- Original Message ----- From: James Piat To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 9:52 PM Subject: [percy-l] Re: Abduction, not kidnapping but guessing Dear Ken, I thoroughly enjoyed your brief and CLEAR account of abduction, deduction and inference. If you have the time and interest I would also love for you to give a brief account of Peirce's categories and indicate how they tie in with these forms of reasoning. BTW, I read your HIS GLASSY ESSENCE and found it a delight. What I liked most about it was that Peirce's ideas (often in his own words) were selected and organized in way that assisted me in following their natural (historical and logical) development. And you did not preach at me but instead concentrated on presenting his ideas plainly, carefully and in context so that I could begin to understand them and draw my own conclusions as to their significance. The love and respect you have for your topic shines through and I think your book will be prized most by those share your affection. A credit to your subject! Thanks, 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 b9oky at TTACS.TTU.EDU Tue Sep 17 12:39:41 2002 From: b9oky at TTACS.TTU.EDU (Kenneth Ketner) Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 11:39:41 -0500 Subject: Abduction, not kidnapping but guessing References: <001601c25db1$a53c9240$0301000a@AFAC955012> <3D863F41.D70A596E@ttacs.ttu.edu> <001201c25dec$eef47b60$0101a8c0@D68RS511> <00a601c25dee$2e8653b0$0301000a@AFAC955012> Message-ID: <3D875ACE.F98E982D@ttacs.ttu.edu> Yes, Percy wrote the essay in DOUBLETAKE MAGAZINE probably about 1960. I lay unpublished, probably because it appeared incomplete. I began studying it and wrapping my brain around it. One day while driving to work (I get some good thoughts that way) it hit me that if one adds the three words now at the end of the essay as published in DOUBLETAKE, it is complete. So I discussed this with Mrs. Percy and after consideration she offered my edition of the piece to Walker's friend, Robert Coles, the main man of DOUBLETAKE, and so it was published. It is significant for Percy scholarship because it shows the early and strong influence of Peirce's Semeiotic (not contemporary semiotics -- there's a vast difference) in Walker's approach. You employ guessing all the time -- each of us does -- so we are all masters of it. To learn more about it, observe yourself when guessing and compare notes with other guessers. Guessing produces hypotheses -- statements of possibility. Just don't fall in love with your hypotheses. They are for torturing, not for loving. Those that survive the torture are the components of objective thought (which some call science). Some survivors get re-tortured as the years go by, after new evidence or new methods appear. Hence a healthy (open-minded and level-headed) guesser is what we call a rational person. In Peirce, guessing is not intuition. For Peirce, 'intuition' has at least two senses, and like 'sign' (which has at least 2 senses), one must be careful which sense is in action at the time. 'Intuition1' isCartesian foundationalism, there are priviledged and certain basic foundations of knowledge. Peirce wrecked Descartes in his series of 3 essays: Questions Concerning Certain faculties Claimed for Man, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities, and Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic (these three in effect consititute a 3 chapter book, and they mark a major fault-line in the history of thought, a location where the old ends and something new begins). 'Intuition2' refers to observational method in logic and mathematics; it is a fallible (noncertain) and experimental approach to understanding the methods employed in mathematical and logical research. 'Sign1' is that which represents an object to an interpretant. "His wave was a sign of greeting." The object was an intent to greet, the sign of that intent was the wave, to the interpretant (some other person intended as the recipient of the intent to greet). Sign1 is best dropped and replaced with 'representamen' to avoid confusion. 'Sign2' is an entire triadic sign relation: in the above example of greeting, it is the nonreducible triadic relation among the greeter's intent, the wave, and the recipient. This is the 'sign' of Peirce's Theory of Signs, or Semiotic. (Semeiotic spoken as see-my-OH-tick is terminologically and linguistically correct, and honors prior scientists in the tradition such as Locke or the Greek physicians, whereas semiotics is a mixed bag arbitrarily strung together; compare semeiotic with logic with rhetoric with the german semiotik with the french semiotique, not with the uncontrolled tendency in english to add ics on everything in sight.) Peirce never used a triangle to represent a sign relation (because on his well articulated approach, that would represent a sum of three dyadic relations, which he clearly proved cannot constitute a triadic relation); instead he represented triadic relations as a large dot with three lines emerging from it (see my essay in THIEF OF PEIRCE at page 213). The categories are nothing but types of relational forms: Firstness = all those relations whose external form is that of a monadic relation; Secondness = all those relations whose external form is that of a dyadic relation; Thirdness = all those relations whose external form is that of a dyadic relation. The categories are complete, because the nonreduction theorem that triadic relations cannot be constructed from dyadic relations was established by Peirce and recently re-proven at the highest level of mathematical rigor by Robert Burch (again see my stuff in THIEF); one aspect of the nonreduction theorem is that triadic relations can be used to construct all other relation types. ALL TOGETHER NOW, SAY IT -- See-my-OH-tick is the main part of Prag-MAT-i-siz-em. Once again, where your brain goes your lips will follow, ALL TOGETHER NOW, anda won anda twoa.... > "Karey L. Perkins" wrote: > > Ken, > > I, too, appreciated the definition and it makes better sense now. As > I was reading Percy, I was getting the impression that "abduction" was > "intuition" -- how different is that from "guessing?" How would you > differentiate the two, or would you? > > Second question: did PERCY publish in Doubletake in Winter 2002? > (Hmmm...he's been busy in the afterlife, hasn't he?) Or is this a > chapter from his unpublished manuscript "Symbol and Existence"? I saw > that it is at UNC-Chapel Hill and wondered if it was worth the 8 hour > drive to go look at it...has anyone read it/seen it? > > The reason I ask is I think the dissertation is going to be on this > topic after all -- Percy's semiotics, as it relates to Peirce, et > al...really fascinating stuff, don't you think? So I'll be reading > your book(s) (Ken) and may have lots more questions but I'll try to > keep them to a minimum! > > Karey > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: James Piat > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 9:52 PM > Subject: [percy-l] Re: Abduction, not kidnapping but guessing > > Dear Ken, > > I thoroughly enjoyed your brief and CLEAR account of abduction, > deduction > and inference. If you have the time and interest I would also love > for > you to give a brief account of Peirce's categories and indicate how > they tie > in with these forms of reasoning. > > BTW, I read your HIS GLASSY ESSENCE and found it a delight. What I > liked > most about it was that Peirce's ideas (often in his own words) were > selected > and organized in way that assisted me in following their natural > (historical > and logical) development. And you did not preach at me but instead > concentrated on presenting his ideas plainly, carefully and in context > so > that I could begin to understand them and draw my own conclusions as > to > their significance. The love and respect you have for your topic > shines > through and I think your book will be prized most by those share your > affection. A credit to your subject! > > Thanks, > Jim Piat > > -- > 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 . -- Kenneth L Ketner Paul Whitfield Horn Professor Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409-0002 806 742 3128 Office email: b9oky at ttacs.ttu.edu Home email: ketner at arisbeassociates.com Office website: http://www.pragmaticism.net Personal website: http://www.wyttynys.net From piat1 at bellsouth.net Tue Sep 17 23:04:59 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 23:04:59 -0400 Subject: Abduction, not kidnapping but guessing References: <001601c25db1$a53c9240$0301000a@AFAC955012> <3D863F41.D70A596E@ttacs.ttu.edu> <001201c25dec$eef47b60$0101a8c0@D68RS511> <00a601c25dee$2e8653b0$0301000a@AFAC955012> <3D875ACE.F98E982D@ttacs.ttu.edu> Message-ID: <002101c25ec0$2cc73620$0101a8c0@D68RS511> Dear Ken, Thanks for the further explanations! Jim Piat From matjen6295 at spearnet.net Fri Sep 20 00:47:05 2002 From: matjen6295 at spearnet.net (matjen6295) Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 22:47:05 -0600 Subject: Percy's take on FOXP2 language gene? References: <3d8244c9.29200e.0@loyno.edu> Message-ID: <001301c26060$c67839d0$f4c9ea43@toodee> How do I get off this Listserv? ----- Original Message ----- From: To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 2:04 PM Subject: [percy-l] Re: Percy's take on FOXP2 language gene? > Ken-- > > I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say "Helen Keller produced speech > before the event Walker liked to > consider. She was an effective robot, in other words. She changed after she > acquired language, becoming fully a person." > > Do you refer to the 3-4 years of development HK went through--presumably > normally--before she was afflicted by rheumatic fever? Can we assume that > she acquired a lot of language before losing hearing and sight, that she > might have even become "fully a person" and that she re-acquired this at > the well house. "Effective robot" is a metaphor that doesn't really fit. > If you look at her account, she writes that the well house moment was a > sort of recovery of something she had had and lost. (I haven't look at > this passage in decades, but remember it well and remember arguing with WP > about it.) > > > On FOXP2--and I, too, hestiate to try to speak for WP--he accepted > evolution but insisted that a true anthropology had to notice that humans > talk and other critters don't, that there is a qualitative "disconnect" > that must be acknowledged by the human sciences. Doesn't FOXP2 point us in > that direction? > > Marcus Smith > > >I don't pretend to speak as a representative of Walker. Not a spot that > >is proper or comfortable. > > > >However, if someone has a question about the research on FOXP2, I will > >be happy to shoot off my own mouth. > > > >My initial response to this article is that FOXP2 and its mechanisms > >while interesting, are no more interesting than genes that make possible > >other body parts or functions involved in speech. > > > >We can already produce mechanical speech with devices (robots, tape > >recorders, synthetic speech chips) but none of those entities have a > >language. Helen Keller produced speech before the event Walker liked to > >consider. She was an effective robot, in other words. She changed after > >she acquired language, becoming fully a person. > > > >But I could be wrong... > > > >marcus at loyno.edu wrote: > >> > >> I am pretty certain that Percy would have been fascinated by the > research > >> at Stanford, Oxford and elsewhere that may point to a relatively recent > >> genetic base for human language/symbolic capacity. > >> > >> Does anyone--Ken Ketner?--have any ideas how Percy might have responded > to > >> this article by Nicholas Wade? > >> > >> *************************************** > >> The New York Times > >> > >> August 15, 2002, Thursday, Late Edition - Final > >> > >> SECTION: Section A; Page 18; Column 5; National Desk > >> > >> LENGTH: 703 words > >> > >> HEADLINE: Language Gene Is Traced To Emergence of Humans > >> > >> BYLINE: By NICHOLAS WADE > >> > >> BODY: > >> A study of the genomes of people and chimpanzees has yielded a deep > insight > >> into the origin of language, one of the most distinctive human > attributes > >> and a critical step in human evolution. > >> > >> The analysis indicates that language, on the evolutionary time scale, is > a > >> very recent development, having evolved only in the last 100,000 years > or > >> so. The finding supports a novel theory advanced by Dr. Richard Klein, > an > >> archaeologist at Stanford University, who argues that the emergence of > >> behaviorally modern humans about 50,000 years ago was set off by a major > >> genetic change, most probably the acquisition of language. > >> > >> The new study, by Dr. Svante Paabo and colleagues at the Max Planck > >> Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, is based on > >> last year's discovery of the first human gene involved specifically in > >> language. > >> > >> The gene came to light through studies of a large London family, well > known > >> to linguists, 14 of whose 29 members are incapable of articulate speech > but > >> are otherwise mostly normal. A team of molecular biologists led by Dr. > >> Anthony P. Monaco of the University of Oxford last year identified the > gene > >> that was causing the family's problems. Known as FOXP2, the gene is > known > >> to switch on other genes during the development of the brain, but its > >> presumed role in setting up the neural circuitry of language is not > >> understood. > >> > >> Dr. Paabo's team has studied the evolutionary history of the FOXP2 gene > by > >> decoding the sequence of DNA letters in the versions of the gene > possessed > >> by mice, chimpanzees and other primates, and people. > >> > >> In a report being published online today by the journal Nature, Dr. > Paabo > >> says the FOXP2 gene has remained largely unaltered during the evolution > of > >> mammals, but suddenly changed in humans after the hominid line had split > >> off from the chimpanzee line of descent. > >> > >> The changes in the human gene affect the structure of the protein it > >> specifies at two sites, Dr. Paabo's team reports. One of them slightly > >> alters the protein's shape; the other gives it a new role in the > signaling > >> circuitry of human cells. > >> > >> The changes indicate that the gene has been under strong evolutionary > >> pressure in humans. Also, the human form of the gene, with its two > changes, > >> seems to have become universal in the human population, suggesting that > it > >> conferred some overwhelming benefit. > >> > >> Dr. Paabo contends that humans must already have possessed some > rudimentary > >> form of language before the FOXP2 gene gained its two mutations. By > >> conferring the ability for rapid articulation, the improved gene may > have > >> swept through the population, providing the finishing touch to the > >> acquisition of language. > >> > >> "Maybe this gene provided the last perfection of language, making it > >> totally modern," Dr. Paabo said. > >> > >> The affected members of the London family in which the defective version > of > >> FOXP2 was discovered do possess a form of language. Their principal > defect > >> seems to lie in a lack of fine control over the muscles of the throat > and > >> mouth, needed for rapid speech. But in tests they find written answers > as > >> hard as verbal ones, suggesting that the defective gene causes > conceptual > >> problems as well as ones of muscular control. > >> > >> The human genome is constantly accumulating DNA changes through random > >> mutation, though they seldom affect the actual structure of genes. When > a > >> new gene sweeps through the population, the genome's background > diversity > >> at that point is much reduced for a time, since everyone possesses the > same > >> stretch of DNA that came with the new gene. By measuring this reduced > >> diversity and other features of a must-have gene, Dr. Paabo has > estimated > >> the age of the human version of FOXP2 as being less than 120,000 years. > >> > >> Dr. Paabo says this date fits with the theory advanced by Dr. Klein to > >> account for the sudden appearance of novel behaviors 50,000 years ago, > >> including art, ornamentation and long distance trade. Human remains from > >> this period are physically indistinguishable from those of 100,000 years > >> ago, leading Dr. Klein to propose that some genetically based cognitive > >> change must have prompted the new behaviors. The only change of > sufficient > >> magnitude, in his view, is acquisition of language. > >> > >> -- > >> An archive of all list discussion is available at > . > >> Visit the Walker Percy Project at . > > > >-- > >Kenneth L Ketner > >Paul Whitfield Horn Professor > >Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism > >Texas Tech University > >Lubbock, TX 79409-0002 > >806 742 3128 > > Office email: b9oky at ttacs.ttu.edu > > Home email: ketner at arisbeassociates.com > > Office website: http://www.pragmaticism.net > > Personal website: http://www.wyttynys.net > > > >-- > >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 BMclaughlin at nazarene.org Tue Sep 24 16:17:13 2002 From: BMclaughlin at nazarene.org (Bryon McLaughlin) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 15:17:13 -0500 Subject: Reading list in order... Message-ID: I'm cleaning out my e-mail and came across this entry. Can you elaborate on what you meant by Marcel's remedy? Thanks. Bryon McLaughlin -----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 dabeck at iupui.edu Tue Sep 24 18:41:57 2002 From: dabeck at iupui.edu (David Alan Beck) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 17:41:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Reading list in order... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work was on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John. They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term) with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe Marcus or Nikki can chime in.). David Beck "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day." - Albert Einstein From wpercy1 at mail.ibiblio.org Tue Sep 24 23:32:10 2002 From: wpercy1 at mail.ibiblio.org (Henry P. Mills) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 22:32:10 -0500 Subject: 11th Annual Walker Percy Symposium to be held Oct. 5th Message-ID: Dear Percy-L: ___________________ ANNOUNCEMENT ___________________ 11th Annual Walker Percy Symposium The public is invited to attend the St. Tammany Parish Library's 11th Annual Walker Percy Symposium to celebrate Southern Literature and Covington's most famous author. Saturday, October 5th - 9am -1pm St. Joseph Abbey, 75376 River Road, Covington, LA The Symposium will begin at 8:45 am with registration and a continental breakfast and will end at around 1:00 pm with a light lunch. Scheduled speakers include Covington resident and psychologist David Schoen and author Josephine Humphreys. Actors Jeff Portell and Shelly McCook will make a return appearance to perform scenes from Percy's writings. The event is free and open to the public. Please visit our web site at http://www.sttammany.lib.la.us for more information. To register, please call Annette Holcomb (annette at mail.sttammany.lib.la.us) or Dianne Kaack at 871-1220. ____________________________ Henry P. Mills, Director and Editor The Walker Percy Project http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy From christopherboss at hotmail.com Wed Sep 25 09:11:57 2002 From: christopherboss at hotmail.com (christopher boss) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 09:11:57 -0400 Subject: Reading list in order... Message-ID: david, i'm so curious to hear more about your grad work. from what i've read of your posts, it sounds as if we've be travelling parallel roads in our thoughts on percy. i wrote my master's thesis on percy, specifically on the importance of secondary characters to tom and will's quests--i used marcel's notion of "intersubjectivity" extensively throughout my argument. i essentially argued that the secondary characters were the means by which tom and will discovered "authentic" living. love to hear more of your thoughts. chris boss >From: David Alan Beck >Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > >To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > >Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... >Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 17:41:57 -0500 (EST) > > >In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work was >on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to >best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern >society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't >found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to >the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one >finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John. >They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one >example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding >himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term) >with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but >Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the >necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more >incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed >in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe >Marcus or Nikki can chime in.). > >David Beck > >"One cannot help but awe when he contemplates >the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the >marvelous structure of reality. It is enough >if one tries merely to comprehend a little of >this mystery every day." > - Albert Einstein > > > >-- >An archive of all list discussion is available at >. >Visit the Walker Percy Project at .
Christopher R. Boss
Lecturer
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, NC  28723
_________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From RGray at montreat.edu Wed Sep 25 09:31:26 2002 From: RGray at montreat.edu (Gray, Rich) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 09:31:26 -0400 Subject: Conference on Christianity and Literature Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS The Uses of Evil in Literature - Temptation, Fall, Redemption, Growth Mercer University hosts the 2003 annual meeting of the Southeastern Region of the Conference on Christianity and Literature April 10-12, 2003 Keynote speaker: poet Dana Gioia Send completed papers on all aspects of Christianity and literary study to Dr. Rich Gray via email to: rgray at montreat.edu. Or send via surface mail to: Rich Gray Department of English and Languages Montreat College, Box 1267 Montreat, NC 28757 In addition, selections for the reading of poetry, sketches, stories and excerpts of novels up to 15 minutes reading time are requested. Creative writing should be sent to Dr. John Dunaway via email to: dunaway_jm at Mercer.EDU. Or send via surface mail to: John Dunaway Department of French Mercer University 1400 Coleman Avenue Macon, GA 31207 Deadline for Submissions: February 1, 2003 The program committee also invites papers on: ? Christian conceptions of beauty and truth. ? Film interpretation and Christianity. Graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to participate. For more information on the Conference on Christianity and Literature, go to: http://www.acu.edu/academics/english/ccl/southeastregion.htm Walker Percy's novels and essays would be ideal works to write on for this meeting. I hope several members of the Percy listserve submit papers. Rich Gray From BMclaughlin at nazarene.org Wed Sep 25 10:33:51 2002 From: BMclaughlin at nazarene.org (Bryon McLaughlin) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 09:33:51 -0500 Subject: Reading list in order... Message-ID: David Beck, Thank you for the response. That makes a lot of sense. I took a graduate course on Percy in seminary and had difficulty figuring out his ties to Kier. beyond a superficial level with regard to solutions to the dilemnas of existence. Percy's appropriation of Marcel seem to me to be a better explanation of where Percy ended up. Further, it just makes more psychological sense. Autonomy and self-actualization is difficult to imagine, if not impossible, without "the other(s)." Thanks for taking the time to respond. Bryon McLaughlin -----Original Message----- From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck at iupui.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 5:42 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work was on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John. They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term) with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe Marcus or Nikki can chime in.). David Beck "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day." - Albert Einstein -- An archive of all list discussion is available at . Visit the Walker Percy Project at . From dabeck at iupui.edu Thu Sep 26 19:02:29 2002 From: dabeck at iupui.edu (David Alan Beck) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 18:02:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Reading list in order... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Chris, Yes, it sounds as if your ideas are the other side of the proverbial coin. My focus was on the main characters and, it sounds like, you are showing intersubjectivity from the secondary characters. An interesting perspective. One member of my grad committee thought that I was too much in agreement with Percy and didn't offer enough challenges to his ideas. But, as I saw it, it wasn't as if I hadn't thought about weaknesses in his philosophy; it was just that, from the first time I read Percy (Love in the Ruins, which was introduced to me while I was an undergrad by the professor who made the above criticism), I realized that I had found a--sorry for the cliche--kindred soul. It was just as Percy said, in one of the Conversation books, that a bored person on an ordinary Wednesday reading a book about a bored person on an ordinary Wednesday makes a connection (triadic?). Anyway, it is goood to see that Marcel's books are becoming available once again (both volumes of Mystery of Being are back in print--at a reasonable price at that). I'd like to hear more of your ideas. -David On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, christopher boss wrote: > david, > > i'm so curious to hear more about your grad work. from what i've read of > your posts, it sounds as if we've be travelling parallel roads in our > thoughts on percy. i wrote my master's thesis on percy, specifically on the > importance of secondary characters to tom and will's quests--i used marcel's > notion of "intersubjectivity" extensively throughout my argument. i > essentially argued that the secondary characters were the means by which tom > and will discovered "authentic" living. > > love to hear more of your thoughts. > > chris boss > > > >From: David Alan Beck > >Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > > > >To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > > > >Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... > >Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 17:41:57 -0500 (EST) > > > > > >In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work was > >on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to > >best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern > >society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't > >found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to > >the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one > >finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John. > >They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one > >example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding > >himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term) > >with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but > >Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the > >necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more > >incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed > >in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe > >Marcus or Nikki can chime in.). > > > >David Beck > > > >"One cannot help but awe when he contemplates > >the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the > >marvelous structure of reality. It is enough > >if one tries merely to comprehend a little of > >this mystery every day." > > - Albert Einstein > > > > > > > >-- > >An archive of all list discussion is available at > >. > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at . > > > > >
Christopher R. > Boss
>
Lecturer
>
Western Carolina University
>
Cullowhee, NC  28723
> > > _________________________________________________________________ > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com > > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at . > Visit the Walker Percy Project at . > > > David Beck "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day." - Albert Einstein From dabeck at iupui.edu Thu Sep 26 19:23:38 2002 From: dabeck at iupui.edu (David Alan Beck) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 18:23:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: Reading list in order... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Bryon, I think the Kierkegaard connection is a strong one, especially his ideas of repetition and rotation (especially in MG); but, to me, what Percy seems to draw on the most are K's three spheres of existence: the aesthetic, ethical, and the religious). My argument was that he relied on the aesthetic and the ethical of K., but he replaced, for the most part, K's religious with Marcel's intersubjectivity. What I've been focusing on in my fiction class is that violence is seen as a substitute for intersubjectivity (albeit a poor one). (For those list veterans I apologize for the repetition.) I compare Lancelot with Palahinuk's Fight Club. While I'm sick of teaching both books, I find that my best response to Percy is through these similar but contrasting books. FC, with its irony, irreverance, and quick, fast-paced scenes, along with its nihilism, appeals to the MTV generation. While FC ends in a scary, paranoid type of hopelessness, L. offers a light of hope to the reader. Students seem to relate to both (though I'd love to teach MG again, a book that most of them despised). Maybe I'll use Love in the Ruins next semester. Enough ramblings. Feel free to agree, disagree, etc. We need to do some collective CPR to get this list breathing again. -David On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Bryon McLaughlin wrote: > David Beck, > > Thank you for the response. That makes a lot of sense. I took a graduate course on Percy in seminary and had difficulty figuring out his ties to Kier. beyond a superficial level with regard to solutions to the dilemnas of existence. Percy's appropriation of Marcel seem to me to be a better explanation of where Percy ended up. Further, it just makes more psychological sense. Autonomy and self-actualization is difficult to imagine, if not impossible, without "the other(s)." Thanks for taking the time to respond. > > Bryon McLaughlin > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck at iupui.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 5:42 PM > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... > > > > In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work was > on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to > best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern > society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't > found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to > the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one > finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John. > They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one > example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding > himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term) > with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but > Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the > necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more > incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed > in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe > Marcus or Nikki can chime in.). > > David Beck > > "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates > the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the > marvelous structure of reality. It is enough > if one tries merely to comprehend a little of > this mystery every day." > - Albert Einstein > > > > -- > 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 . > > > David Beck "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day." - Albert Einstein From marcus at loyno.edu Thu Sep 26 20:42:06 2002 From: marcus at loyno.edu (marcus at loyno.edu) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 19:42:06 -0500 Subject: Reading list in order... Message-ID: <3d93a95e.7d8030.0@loyno.edu> This is an interesting and useful discussion and I don't want to rain on the parade. But how often does Percy's fiction contain "someone finding himself"? Aren't his protagonists more often caught up in stumbling from illusion to painful insight? I think the K'aard connection and marcel's "intersubjectivity" are there as theoretical templates, but is this theory in any way verified in the fiction? Aren't matters energized on the negative side, the specter of the nihilistic, and yet remain tentative on the positive side? I think Percy was too honest to try to fake it. My wet Isidorian comment. Marcus >Bryon, >I think the Kierkegaard connection is a strong one, especially his ideas >of repetition and rotation (especially in MG); but, to me, what Percy >seems to draw on the most are K's three spheres of existence: the >aesthetic, ethical, and the religious). My argument was that he relied on >the aesthetic and the ethical of K., but he replaced, for the most part, >K's religious with Marcel's intersubjectivity. > >What I've been focusing on in my fiction class is that violence is seen as >a substitute for intersubjectivity (albeit a poor one). (For those list >veterans I apologize for the repetition.) I compare Lancelot with >Palahinuk's Fight Club. While I'm sick of teaching both books, I find that >my best response to Percy is through these similar but contrasting books. >FC, with its irony, irreverance, and quick, fast-paced scenes, along with >its nihilism, appeals to the MTV generation. While FC ends in a scary, >paranoid type of hopelessness, L. offers a light of hope to the reader. >Students seem to relate to both (though I'd love to teach MG again, a book >that most of them despised). Maybe I'll use Love in the Ruins next >semester. > >Enough ramblings. Feel free to agree, disagree, etc. We need to do some >collective CPR to get this list breathing again. >-David > > >On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Bryon McLaughlin wrote: > >> David Beck, >> >> Thank you for the response. That makes a lot of sense. I took a graduate course on Percy in seminary and had difficulty figuring out his ties to Kier. beyond a superficial level with regard to solutions to the dilemnas of existence. Percy's appropriation of Marcel seem to me to be a better explanation of where Percy ended up. Further, it just makes more psychological sense. Autonomy and self-actualization is difficult to imagine, if not impossible, without "the other(s)." Thanks for taking the time to respond. >> >> Bryon McLaughlin >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck at iupui.edu] >> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 5:42 PM >> To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion >> Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... >> >> >> >> In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work was >> on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to >> best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern >> society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't >> found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to >> the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one >> finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John. >> They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one >> example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding >> himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term) >> with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but >> Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the >> necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more >> incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed >> in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe >> Marcus or Nikki can chime in.). >> >> David Beck >> >> "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates >> the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the >> marvelous structure of reality. It is enough >> if one tries merely to comprehend a little of >> this mystery every day." >> - Albert Einstein >> >> >> >> -- >> 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 . >> >> >> > > >David Beck > >"One cannot help but awe when he contemplates >the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the >marvelous structure of reality. It is enough >if one tries merely to comprehend a little of >this mystery every day." > - Albert Einstein > > > >-- >An archive of all list discussion is available at . >Visit the Walker Percy Project at . > From dabeck at iupui.edu Thu Sep 26 21:54:53 2002 From: dabeck at iupui.edu (David Alan Beck) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 20:54:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Reading list in order... In-Reply-To: <3d93a95e.7d8030.0@loyno.edu> Message-ID: Marcus, I think the connection is far from theoretical. While nothing said implies a "happy-ever-after" ending, what is evident (at least from my reading) is that ALL of Percy's fiction supports the Marcelian belief that one moves towards authenticity through intersubjectivity. The Lancelot and Fr. John relationship was given as my example. My copy is on campus, so I can't offer direct quotes to support my assertion. But at the end, Percy makes it clear that, for the first time, L "sees" Fr. John. Who knows what Lance will do when he gets out? But the possibility exists that he will see that true life comes from a relationship with other. In the Last Gentleman, a form intersubjectivity occurs between "the engineer" and Sutter. Instead of going off alone, Sutter refuses his isolated quest and stops his Edsel, waiting for Barrett. Is everything "healed" by this enounter? We don't know. But, like Lancelot, the ending gives the reader the hope that these two will help each other become the person he was meant to be. In Love in the Ruins, More finds intersubjectivity through Ellen (and discovers the mystery and "sacredness" of each moment). Is he completely whole? No. He still has a small part of him that longs to heal the soul through science: "I still believe my lapsometer can save the world--if I get it right.... Even now I can diagnose and shall one day cure: cure the new plague, the modern Black Death, the current hermaphroditisim of the spirit, namely: More's syndrome..." So indeed More's "healing" is only partial and the intersubjectivity he is experiencing is tenuous at best (i.e. see Thanatos). You wrote: > in any way verified in the fiction? Aren't matters energized on the > negative side, the specter of the nihilistic, and yet remain tentative on > the positive side? I think Percy was too honest to try to fake it. > I agree that the negative is a possibility, but what makes Percy so unique is that, as you said, Percy is a realist, but his realism isn't nihilistic. The possibility of new possibilities is there; but the characters walk a razor's edge between nihilism and hope. The endings are open for either possibility. But to see the sacred, the hope that is "under our noses" isn't something one (or Percy) has to fake. That is what, in my opinion, separates Percy from most contemporary writers: he is realistic enough to see the nihilistic tendencies of our culture; but he is wise enough to see that nihilism doesn't have to have the last word. Well, from the sublime world of ideas to the "dirty" reality: my three year-old daughter is standing here without a stitch on, waiting for her abstracted father to give her a bath (right now she is singing a song about Timmy the Turtle). Time to sign off. Any thoughts? -DB On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 marcus at loyno.edu wrote: > This is an interesting and useful discussion and I don't want to rain on > the parade. But how often does Percy's fiction contain "someone finding > himself"? Aren't his protagonists more often caught up in stumbling from > illusion to painful insight? I think the K'aard connection and marcel's > "intersubjectivity" are there as theoretical templates, but is this theory > in any way verified in the fiction? Aren't matters energized on the > negative side, the specter of the nihilistic, and yet remain tentative on > the positive side? I think Percy was too honest to try to fake it. > > My wet Isidorian comment. > > Marcus > > > >Bryon, > >I think the Kierkegaard connection is a strong one, especially his ideas > >of repetition and rotation (especially in MG); but, to me, what Percy > >seems to draw on the most are K's three spheres of existence: the > >aesthetic, ethical, and the religious). My argument was that he relied on > >the aesthetic and the ethical of K., but he replaced, for the most part, > >K's religious with Marcel's intersubjectivity. > > > >What I've been focusing on in my fiction class is that violence is seen as > >a substitute for intersubjectivity (albeit a poor one). (For those list > >veterans I apologize for the repetition.) I compare Lancelot with > >Palahinuk's Fight Club. While I'm sick of teaching both books, I find that > >my best response to Percy is through these similar but contrasting books. > >FC, with its irony, irreverance, and quick, fast-paced scenes, along with > >its nihilism, appeals to the MTV generation. While FC ends in a scary, > >paranoid type of hopelessness, L. offers a light of hope to the reader. > >Students seem to relate to both (though I'd love to teach MG again, a book > >that most of them despised). Maybe I'll use Love in the Ruins next > >semester. > > > >Enough ramblings. Feel free to agree, disagree, etc. We need to do some > >collective CPR to get this list breathing again. > >-David > > > > > >On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Bryon McLaughlin wrote: > > > >> David Beck, > >> > >> Thank you for the response. That makes a lot of sense. I took a > graduate course on Percy in seminary and had difficulty figuring out his > ties to Kier. beyond a superficial level with regard to solutions to the > dilemnas of existence. Percy's appropriation of Marcel seem to me to be a > better explanation of where Percy ended up. Further, it just makes more > psychological sense. Autonomy and self-actualization is difficult to > imagine, if not impossible, without "the other(s)." Thanks for taking the > time to respond. > >> > >> Bryon McLaughlin > >> > >> > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck at iupui.edu] > >> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 5:42 PM > >> To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > >> Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... > >> > >> > >> > >> In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work > was > >> on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to > >> best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern > >> society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't > >> found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to > >> the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one > >> finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John. > >> They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one > >> example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding > >> himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term) > >> with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but > >> Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the > >> necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more > >> incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed > >> in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe > >> Marcus or Nikki can chime in.). > >> > >> David Beck > >> > >> "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates > >> the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the > >> marvelous structure of reality. It is enough > >> if one tries merely to comprehend a little of > >> this mystery every day." > >> - Albert Einstein > >> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> 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 . > >> > >> > >> > > > > > >David Beck > > > >"One cannot help but awe when he contemplates > >the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the > >marvelous structure of reality. It is enough > >if one tries merely to comprehend a little of > >this mystery every day." > > - Albert Einstein > > > > > > > >-- > >An archive of all list discussion is available at > . > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at . > > > > > David Beck "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day." - Albert Einstein From piat1 at bellsouth.net Thu Sep 26 22:33:44 2002 From: piat1 at bellsouth.net (James Piat) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 22:33:44 -0400 Subject: Reading list in order... References: Message-ID: <007801c265ce$4d07cb60$0101a8c0@D68RS511> Well I agree with you both -- Percy sets the table as you both describe and a fine feast it is. But I think it's self serve --homestyle. Draw your own conclusions. At least he presents something worth thinking about. And that's no small accomplishment. Answers we've got everywhere but what good are they if we don't understand the questions? That's where Percy has been most helpful to me -- awakening me to the deafening silence of my own slumber. Best wishes, Jim Piat From apridgen at pinehurst.net Fri Sep 27 10:25:40 2002 From: apridgen at pinehurst.net (Allen Pridgen) Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 10:25:40 -0400 Subject: Reading list in order... References: <3d93a95e.7d8030.0@loyno.edu> Message-ID: <3D946A65.BA7ABE37@pinehurst.net> Marcus is right on target. Percy says the journey is a matter of "fits and starts" toward some fullness of being, consciousness, self, ..., not a steady progression toward ontological completeness. Waiting and watching is the most useful existential posture. Allen marcus at loyno.edu wrote: > This is an interesting and useful discussion and I don't want to rain on > the parade. But how often does Percy's fiction contain "someone finding > himself"? Aren't his protagonists more often caught up in stumbling from > illusion to painful insight? I think the K'aard connection and marcel's > "intersubjectivity" are there as theoretical templates, but is this theory > in any way verified in the fiction? Aren't matters energized on the > negative side, the specter of the nihilistic, and yet remain tentative on > the positive side? I think Percy was too honest to try to fake it. > > My wet Isidorian comment. > > Marcus > > >Bryon, > >I think the Kierkegaard connection is a strong one, especially his ideas > >of repetition and rotation (especially in MG); but, to me, what Percy > >seems to draw on the most are K's three spheres of existence: the > >aesthetic, ethical, and the religious). My argument was that he relied on > >the aesthetic and the ethical of K., but he replaced, for the most part, > >K's religious with Marcel's intersubjectivity. > > > >What I've been focusing on in my fiction class is that violence is seen as > >a substitute for intersubjectivity (albeit a poor one). (For those list > >veterans I apologize for the repetition.) I compare Lancelot with > >Palahinuk's Fight Club. While I'm sick of teaching both books, I find that > >my best response to Percy is through these similar but contrasting books. > >FC, with its irony, irreverance, and quick, fast-paced scenes, along with > >its nihilism, appeals to the MTV generation. While FC ends in a scary, > >paranoid type of hopelessness, L. offers a light of hope to the reader. > >Students seem to relate to both (though I'd love to teach MG again, a book > >that most of them despised). Maybe I'll use Love in the Ruins next > >semester. > > > >Enough ramblings. Feel free to agree, disagree, etc. We need to do some > >collective CPR to get this list breathing again. > >-David > > > > > >On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Bryon McLaughlin wrote: > > > >> David Beck, > >> > >> Thank you for the response. That makes a lot of sense. I took a > graduate course on Percy in seminary and had difficulty figuring out his > ties to Kier. beyond a superficial level with regard to solutions to the > dilemnas of existence. Percy's appropriation of Marcel seem to me to be a > better explanation of where Percy ended up. Further, it just makes more > psychological sense. Autonomy and self-actualization is difficult to > imagine, if not impossible, without "the other(s)." Thanks for taking the > time to respond. > >> > >> Bryon McLaughlin > >> > >> > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck at iupui.edu] > >> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 5:42 PM > >> To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > >> Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order... > >> > >> > >> > >> In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work > was > >> on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to > >> best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern > >> society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't > >> found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to > >> the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one > >> finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John. > >> They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one > >> example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding > >> himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term) > >> with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but > >> Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the > >> necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more > >> incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed > >> in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe > >> Marcus or Nikki can chime in.). > >> > >> David Beck > >> > >> "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates > >> the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the > >> marvelous structure of reality. It is enough > >> if one tries merely to comprehend a little of > >> this mystery every day." > >> - Albert Einstein > >> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> 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 . > >> > >> > >> > > > > > >David Beck > > > >"One cannot help but awe when he contemplates > >the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the > >marvelous structure of reality. It is enough > >if one tries merely to comprehend a little of > >this mystery every day." > > - Albert Einstein > > > > > > > >-- > >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 .