From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Mon Nov 04 2002 - 10:38:24 GMT
Hi David,
I thought this bit would benefit from renaming. You asked me to be more
specific about what I thought a 'tradition' was. Broadly I'm following
MacIntyre's account, but Pirsig, usefully, includes an account of what I'm
talking about in Lila. (I've still not established to my own satisfaction
whether Pirsig is a Jamesian or whether his understanding of Buddhism and
Hinduism has given him a better account. But that can wait.)
In Ch3 (p35 of my copy) Phaedrus is considering the 'vision quest' and the
peyote experience and copies in a reference, which concludes:
"The experience is determined by the person's mental state, the structure of
his or her personality, the physical setting, and cultural influences."
I would say that my understanding of tradition focusses on structuring of a
personality and (obviously) the cultural influences. In addition, I would
say that the tradition is - by and large - determinative of whether the
experience has Quality (ie the difference between delusion and genuine
insight). That comment lends itself to misunderstanding. I'm not saying that
the tradition has the final say, more that the insight needs to be accepted
as an insight by other people before it can be seen as having Quality (I
suspect that's a tautology: people need to see it has Quality before they
can see it has Quality (!). Not sure whether that's a suffocating or
liberating tautology. Hmmm). Jesus, for example, was clearly rejected by the
'tradition' he was embedded in, but elements of that tradition (the
disciples) recognised his Quality, and developed a variant 'tradition' to
static latch the Quality he embodied. If Jesus had not been recognised as
having Quality, and if that recognition had not been incorporated within a
communal tradition preserving the insight, he would have been forgotten
after his death.
Two further things, one about James, one about MacIntyre.
What I call the 'Jamesian' account of mysticism has the following
characteristics, deriving from his 'The Varieties of Religious Experience'.
He argues, "[I] propose to you four marks which, when an experience has
them, may justify us in calling it mystical", and the four 'marks' (two
major then two minor) are:
1. Ineffability - "it defies expression, no adeaute report of its contents
can be given in words. It follows from this that its quality must be
directly experienced; it cannot be imparted or transferred to others. In
this peculiarity mystical states are more like states of feeling than states
of intellect."
2. Noetic quality - "Mystical states seem to those who experience them to be
also states of knowledge. They are states of insight into depths of truth
unplumbed by the discursive intellect"
3. Transiency - "Mystical states cannot be sustained for long."
4. Passivity - "when the characteristic sort of consciousness once has set
in, the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed
sometimes as if he were grasped by a higher power."
You referred to mystical experiences being 'noetic' - would you accept that
your position is 'Jamesian' in the sense described? If not, why not? (I'm
not wanting to put you into a box, I genuinely want to know how you
understand your position).
With regard to MacIntyre, Horse gives a very good introduction towards the
end of Lila's Child, although I don't fully agree with his equation of
MacIntyre with extreme communitarianism (that's something I'll need to me
back to in my 'Sophocles' campaign. I do very much agree that it's something
MoQ adherents need to address, though.)
Sam
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