![]() Mind and Body: From René Descartes to William James |
Story EvolutionDalke/Madsen/Gibfried A trialogue triggered by Grobstein's Writing Descartes ... ![]() Michael McGrath, All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir |
Emily:
Dear Anne,
Ok, here's what I've been musing: as a Unitarian Universalist, I have a
different take on the situation that seems to call Sam to inner reflection...
while UUs do emphasize the need to know oneself and reflect on one's actions,
there are two or three of our seven principles we hold near and dear that
speak directly to the Descartes process and the idea of story sharing. One is
our first principle, which recognizes
So all these stories, told by all these people, are each in
and of themselves of worth, told by people of worth, and there is a
respectful, active listening that is imbued by this principle which also I
think connects to the Quaker practice of active listening? And the fourth
principle, which allows everyone
seems to connect both to the first principle, and also to the idea
that each person of worth and dignity is going to go about their search their
own way.... and the seventh principle, which promotes
I am not saying
that Sam is not all about respect for others, which I can see he is, I guess
I just come at it from the idea that you must respect each individual AND the
inextricable way that we are already depending upon each other and the world.
So while inner reflection is valuable, one cannot escape the fact that we are
so associated as to make even inner reflection a "thinking out loud process."
This is what I think the Descartes dialogue has done... placed inner
reflection in conversation with other inner reflection, resulting in a
shimmering web (or perhaps hole-y web) of associations, conflicts, and
revelations. I think I share some of Sam's reticence about putting ourselves
out there/ taking everything in, but as you have noticed, both he and I have
consented to being "posted" and "archived" and "linked to," so it must not
have bothered us much.
Anne:
Thanks, Em, for writing again...your meditations have nudged me to notice the thread of religious ways of thinking that have appeared, briefly but insistently, throughout these dialogues. I want to try and pick up some of them here, see if we can figure out the degree to which they are compatible, or not, with "getting it less wrong."
First: Descartes. My understanding is that he was applying his technique of "hyperbolic doubt" not to get rid of religous belief, but actually to ground it on firmer foundation: By dedicating his Meditations to the divinity school of the University of Paris, Descartes was announcing that his philosophy was consistent, so far as he was concerned, with traditional Catholic theology....Descartes announces at the opening that there are two driving issues behind the Meditations: proving the existence of God and the immortality of the soul through natural reason.
Now whatever Descartes intended (I doubt we can trust his explanation here), what he unleashed, of course, was a procedural method that has made quite a contribution to shaking the foundations of received belief. What I'm wondering now is just how compatible (any?) religious ways of knowing are with the profound skepticism being explored in what you call this "shimmering web...of revelations."
Religion has frequently been invoked in these pages: As you note, Sam Dalke speaks of Quakerism. Lucy Darlington's dialogue evokes both "zenishness" and "shamanism." Jody Cohen's makes mention of the Buddhist wisdom that we are seeking futilely for a "solid foundation." Wil Franklin says that he is left "with only one option...to not be skeptical, to have FAITH." Elizabeth Catanese has spoken about the meditative slowness, the "beautiful loneliness" she can enter into, when she's not being drawn by the " intellectual stimulant drug" that is Serendip. Paul Grobstein, who initiated these dialogues, said in a 1995 interview for The Scientist that if "you broaden science and reduce the strictures of some religions, they are essentially the same thing"--that is (as I understand it), each is a process of intutions, testing against experience, offered up, re-tested....infinitely. I myself have never experienced any sort of disjunction between my religious and intellectual lives; as I said at the Science and Spirit site,
The exploratory seeking that Quakers call "continuing revelation," the process of constantly "testing" in a social context, against what others know, what one knows oneself, against new experience and new information...are activities that, ideally, can be practiced in both the religious and the intellectual realms.
And yet, I find myself still worrying the hunch that these two processes are not entirely compatible. One reason I'm wondering about this has to do with a letter I just received from Diane Gibfried, in response to our conversation, elsewhere, about The Accessibility and Assailability of Art .
Diane:
It fascinates me that art can heal a culture or an individual.
I don't think art stops the conversation, but I believe it takes it deeper to
a place where you stay longer and to a place where you have a lot less
control over how you respond. Maybe it stops the words, but it does not stop
the conversation.
I am still thinking ....
...but now I am thinking that in a conversation someone listens and then
someone responds and then someone listens
so I am wondering about the listening of art
and also when I read a good poem or just that line in the pamphlet about
Ayacucho "there was a clandestine meeting of artists"... I can spend a year
or two with that, or even something someone says
it has a similar kind of effect of staying long and listening and not having
control over responses as art so words can do it
but when people respond to art with words-- it's often way to heavy footed--
or awkward - (I don't like when people go around talking about art in
museums because that is talking ABOUT art and not listening) but poetry could
do it or music and some words could do it.
I recently spent a week in a Trappist monastery, where for the most part,
everyone is silent. Of course, there is reading going on and there is art on
the walls.. but there is very little conversation like "How do you do" type
stuff. I know it sounds crazy, but you are on your own there and can do
whatever you like. The monks have their strict observance of prayer, which
is cool too in an ancient way, a sort of spiritual clock of life, which I
enjoy. But I usually wander around through corn fields and wheat fields and
watch the pond. Watching the pond is the best. I saw a frog circle dance
with Baryshnokov leaping frogs at the pond that made me laugh. And there are
amazing birds. Meals are eaten in silence. Anyway, my point is that there is
a bond of intimacy that develops with the people you are with, even though
you are not talking, even though you don't even know their names. And there
is a reverence for experience that is allowed to happen because there is not
so much noise. And maybe that has something to do with art conversation as
well.
Oh God, Anne, you have got me going again...
Thanks.
One of the reasons I have been "wandering" around in Ayacucho and Peruvian
history all summer... is that the indigenous people of Ayacucho were abused
on two sides, by their government and by the Shining Path. Words cannot
adequately express the violent crimes of rape and murder that both sides
committed because they held these people in a trap of suspicion, disrespect
and mistrust with a tremendous disregard for their value as a people and
their lives. I talked to a woman who has worked in Peru for years with
artists and artesans (I found out later she just happens to be a Dominican
nun). She sent me some literature and some words that held me were: "there
was a clandestine meeting of artists". Because they had NO VOICE, the
artists got together and made art about what was happening. This is one
place where art continues the conversation, IS the conversation and maybe is
the only adequate conversation. And where I believe art has a tremendous
capacity to heal.
Anne:
I'm not quite sure what God has to do with it. More pointedly, I'm (slowly, slowly) learning that reverence is not the guide, healing not the goal of the Descartes dialogues. Certainly there are no presumptions, amid all this exploration of "getting it less wrong," that there is something fundamentally wrong that needs to be righted. Certainly there is no presumption of arriving at a place of sure and steady stillness, where all will be right....
I'd be very glad to hear more from both of you about how you understand this intersection (or its absence....?)
In the meantime, inbetween time, Anne and Sam took a trip to the Promised Land....