Dear Harvey,
Thank you for your interesting remarks about Dewey and co. It is really funny that you should mention the Alexander technique: my sister, Philippa Rands, has recently finished training as an Alexander technique person.
In referring to aim-oriented empiricism I was referring to my specific view that we have to see science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the physical comprehensibility and knowability of the universe. Although James, Dewey and Peirce were all empiricists, they did not, as far as I know, defend that version of empiricism.
The quotation you cite from Dewey is interesting, and the first sentence, especially, sounds a bit like wisdom-inquiry, but not so much what follows.
Some time ago I did read some of Dewey's stuff on the mind/body problem, and I think I can remember being dissatisfied with an instrumentalistic element in this thought. I wonder whether James, Dewey or Peirce would have approved of my approach to "The human world/physical universe" problem - the proper generalization, in my view, of the mind/brain problem - as set out in my very earliest publications in 1966 and 1968, and in my book "The Human World in the Physical Universe: Consciousness, Free Will and Evolution" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001)? I think they would have disapproved of the physicalism, and the bifurcation of nature into the physical and experiential - even though I do argue for a version of the identity thesis. Its very much on my mind at the moment as I have just finished writing an article summing up my work on the two basic problems of my working life: (1) How is life of value possible in the physical universe? (2) What kind of inquiry can best help life of value to flourish in the physical universe?
Thanks again for your email.
All good wishes,
Nick
www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Harvey Sarles
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: Write a review of of Is Science Neurotic?
Nick,
About your/our relationship with American Pragmatists: There's a bit more to the story of pragmatism -aim-oriented empiricism. I agree that there is not much directed toward empiricism in the works of James, Dewey, and Peirce. There is, however, a good bit of Dewey which relates to the study of the human body - but it is usually dispensed with by philosophers. In his later life, he studied Alexander Technique - managed a neck/upper back issue, and wrote a good deal about this - but only as Intoductions and Comments to Alexander's work (See: "The Resurrection of the Body." - I'll attach the most interesting (to me, at any rate) quote which leads (me...) to questions of the "obvious" about our being, and toward wisdom." Much of Pragmatism, from Peirce to Dewey has been the attempt to "undo" or "get around" the Western dualism of mind and body: wise? I think so.
Dewey's good friend, George Herbert Mead, was much more directed toward the study of the human - my major teacher, Ray Birdwhistell, followed Mead's ideas of Symbolic Interactionism, in which Mead sent his students out to study the human-in-interaction. His vision (Mind, Self, and Society) "inverts" the very idea of the individual, as "emerging" from a "transformational" relationship with others, and becoming an individual self/I via development. Others in this line include Erving Goffman - also a student of Birdwhistell in the Meadian line. I'm currently crafting a piece I call "The Grand Inversion" which might lead us to rethink the human in many senses. Mead's ideas (with K. Lorenz' on Imprinting) have only recently been taken into the study of Child Development as "Attachment Theory."
So, whether it's (American) Pragmatism, or particular thinking of certain thinkers, I think there is something here to pursue wisdom. We are, after all, "measurers" of the world - and if we have (we have!) characterized the human poorly or incompletely, then we need to rethink how we have thought about the world. Much of my work and thinking is to "observe ourselves observing" - The Body Journals, Language and Human Nature, etc.
From Dewey: “No one would deny that we ourselves enter as an agency into whatever is attempted and done by us. That is a truism. But the hardest thing to attend to is that which is closest to ourselves, that which is most constant and familiar. And this closest ‘something’ is, precisely, ourselves, our own habits and ways of doing things as agencies in conditioning what is tried or done by us...the one factor which is the primary tool in the use of all these other tools, namely ourselves, in other words, our own psycho-physical disposition, as the basic condition of our employment of all agencies and energies, has not even been studied as the central instrumentality.” (Dewey, John, “Introduction” in Alexander, Frederick Matthias, Constructing Conscious Control of the Individual, New York. E.P. Dutton, 1923. xxxii)
Best,
Harvey
On Jun 14, 2007, at 7:25 AM, Nicholas Maxwell wrote:
Dear Terry,
How very nice to hear from you. And thank you for your offer. I would be delighted if you were to review "Is Science Neurotic?". Do you have a copy of the book? Let me know if you need me to get a review copy sent to you, and I will see what I can do. (Or does your library have a copy? Or could you order one through your library?)
In your review you should feel free to say absolutely what you want to say, and shouldn't worry at all about saying something I might not agree with. In particular, of course make the point that it is a pity I don't explore the link with the American Pragmatists.
My last encounter with the American Pragmatists was via a delightful book called "The Metaphysicians' Club" I found it fascinating, a marvellous book. Over the years, American philosophers have occasionally made the point that I owe more to the Pragmatists than I acknowledge. Once, at a talk I gave in Greensboro I was told it was all in Dewey, in his "Logic of Inquiry".
But I can't see it. For three reasons.
First, the Pragmatists defended versions of knowledge-inquiry (the philosophy of knowledge), and very definitely did not defend wisdom-inquiry. Dewey's "Logic of Inquiry" has terminology in common with mine - problem-solving and so on - but the framework is knowledge-inquiry, not wisdom-inquiry. (To emphasize the useful aspect of science and knowledge is not at all the same thing as to uphold wisdom-inquiry.)
Second, there is nothing like aim-oriented empiricism in any of the Pragmatists' writings - James, Dewey, Peirce.
Third, I defend the representational conception of truth, not the pragmatist conception, which seems to me thoroughly misconceived. I certainly argue that values play a vital role in science, and the search for truth per se is a nonsense, but that is a quite different point. Science, in my view, seeks important truth - but still truth in the representational sense as corresponding to the facts ("p" is true if and only if p).
If there is a link, it comes through Popper. Peirce, in some respects, anticipates Popper, and my work can be regarded as a development of Popper's. But that makes it a rather tenuous link, in my view.
Best wishes,
Nick
www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Terry Bristol
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 8:13 PM
Subject: Re: Write a review of of Is Science Neurotic?
Nick –
I would be happy to write a review – probably in the Bulletin for Science, Technology and Society. I fully support your theme. But I would probably need to remark that it is a pity that you don't develop the link to the American Pragmatists.
Yours,
Terry
Terry Bristol, President <http://www.isepp.org>
Institute for Science, Engineering and Public Policy
3941 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland OR 97214
503-531-8730, cell 503-819-8365
“Science would be ruined if it were to withdraw entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are wanderers-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.” Benoit Mandelbrot
================
> On 6/9/07, Nicholas Maxwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Friends of Wisdom,
>>
>> Would anyone like to
>> write a review of my book "Is Science Neurotic?" (Imperial College Press,
>> 2004)? It would be for Metapsychology Online Reviews. In my book I spell
>> out the case for wisdom-inquiry, but begin by arguing that neurosis needs to
>> be interpreted as a methodological notion. "Rationalistic neurosis" is a
>> condition that arises when any aim-pursuing entity misrepresents its aims.
>> It is in this sense that science is "neurotic". It is often argued that
>> psychoanalytic theory does not match up to the exacting standards of
>> science. My argument rather turns this on its head, in that it is science
>> which does not match up to the exacting standards of psychoanalysis
>> interpreted methodologically.
>>
>> Details about
>> Metapsychology Online Reviews, guidelines for reviews, and the editor,
>> Christian Perring, are below. A copy of my book sits in Christian Perring's
>> office, awaiting a reviewer.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Nick Maxwell
>> www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
>>
>> Copy of Email from Christian Perring:-
>>
>> I am looking for prompt and careful reviewers for
>> Metapsychology Online Reviews
>> (http://www.mentalhelp.net/books ) (ISSN 1931-5716).
>> Either a Ph.D. or ABD in Philosophy, Psychology, or other
>> behavioral sciences is preferable. Ideally, reviews should
>> draw connections between the subject of the book and issues
>> in mental health, psychopathology, normality or emotions.
>>
>> Guidelines at
>> http://alien.dowling.edu/~cperring/revguide.htm
>>
>> Deadline for reviews: October 1, 2007
>>
>> If interested, please e-mail me at
>> [log in to unmask] with
>>
>> * your name
>> * e-mail address
>> * mailing address (even if you have given it previously)
>> * list of books you are interested in (the more you list,
>> the more likely you can get a book to review)
>> * an explanation of your competence to review the books
>> (especially for books that many people are likely to want
>> to review)
>> * details of your ability to write for a diverse readership.
>>
>> Once assigned, books will be sent out in the next couple of
>> weeks.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Christian Perring
>>
>>
>> Christian Perring, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Dowling
>> College
>> Home page: http://alien.dowling.edu/~cperring/
>> Editor of Metapsychology Online Reviews: http://www.mentalhelp.net/books
>> Office Phone: (631) 244-3349
>> Dept Philosophy, Dowling College, 150 Idle Hour Blvd, Oakdale, NY 11769, USA
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
