Dear Professor Willett,

Thank you so much for your considerate message. Montrelay has another piece
directly addressing the question of the relation between psychoanalysis and
quantum physics, written in collaboration with Robert Montrelay, a
physicist. I believe a version of this one is available on-line, and would
interest you.

My reference to magic was, of course, ironic. But I would like to say that
I do understand and respect your methodological convictions. I think we
agree in our insistence on precision, but differ, perhaps considerably, in
what you aptly describe as the ambit of scholarship. I believe I do, like
you, follow the evidence. Like you, I have a penchant for meticulous
detail. This is one of the sources of my passion for Renaissance rhetoric;
another is that Lacan, as he states in excerpts quoted on this list, knew
and admired early rhetoric for the more ramified precedent of modern
linguistics, as a means of unfolding the poetics of the psyche. He left
most of this unfolding to us. And he had a view of time different from
yours, one which does not regard history as progress, but which believes,
like Deleuze in "Four Poetic Formulas That Might Summarize the Kantian
Philosophy" (*Critique et Clinique*) that "things succeed each other in
diverse times, but they are also simultaneous at the same time" (p. 28,
English translation). But I listen to detail, and time, differently, and
this leads me beyond, perhaps much beyond, where you would be willing to
go. I respect this.

I further want to say that I have all along admired your erudition and
precision. Would that there were more of those among Renaissance scholars
too. There *are* references to the pre-Socratics in sixteenth-century
texts, in particular those connected with pastoral. Puttenham cites
Heraclitus when he theorizes the anagram. Meres cites Thales and
Pythagoras. Certainly Simonides (I do count him a pre-Socratic -- witness
the facsinating discussion of his fragment on being and becoming in Plato's
*Protagoras*) features prominently. I am interested in how the sixteenth
century humanists repeat the thinking of these pre-Socratics -- with a
difference, as when they repeat Virgil and Theocritus. I am interested in
this difference, this diapason (another passionately inflected
musical/rhetorical category) and in how it relates to the
humanists'/pastoralists' other conceptual and psychological concerns. And I
will proudly and shamelesly say I discuss some of what I know about the
pre-Socratic resonances within the erotics of rhetoric in the Renaissance
in my book on this topic. Should you have any further references to add,
I'd be very interested and grateful.

Thank you again for your interest. With best wishes,

Dr. Shirley Sharon-Zisser
    
       
>Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 18:36:03 +0900
>Subject: Re: archaic magic
>Reply-to: [log in to unmask]
>Priority: normal
>


>Dear Prof. Sharon-Zisser,
>
>Thanks for the citation to the article on quantum mechanics and
>consciousness. I'll look it up.
>
>I do not believe in magic or the unconsciousness as it is usually
>taken to be. You know why by now. As scholars, we have to go
>where the evidence takes us, not where we would like it to go. I see
>no way the PreSocratics can do what you want them to do. I
>personally am not a materialist or, to use metaphor, an Epicurean.
>But I draw distinctions about the ambit of scholarship. I do not think,
>therefore, that anyone has a crystal ball that can see into unthinking.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Steve Willett
>
>
>==============================================
>Steven J. Willett
>University of Shizuoka, Hamamatsu Campus
>2-3 Nunohashi 3-chome, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan 432-8012
>Voice and Fax: (053) 457-4514
>Japan email: [log in to unmask]
>US email: [log in to unmask]
>
>



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