Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Last week I quoted from a 19th century article by Chauncey Wright, mentor of the Harvard-based Metaphysical Club, concerning the beginnings of self-consciousness in humans.  He compared it with flight in birds. I'll try to elucidate. "The derivation of this power [self-consciousness], supposing it to have been observed by a finite angelic (not animal) intelligence, could not have been foreseen to be involved in the mental causes, on the conjunction of which it might, nevertheless, have been seen to depend. The angelic observation would have been a purely empirical one." The bracketing is mine, the parenthesis is Wright's.  Our observing angel presumably is aware of mental activity in a range of animals  -- stimulus is followed (often after some gap in time as if for deliberation) by response.  Monkey sees some food out of reach. Monkey looks around, sees a long stick, uses it to extend his reach for the food.  But then a particular "naked ape" appears who ha...

 I mentioned earlier that I have been reading Albert Schweitzer's work, PAUL AND HIS INTERPRETERS, a book of, and about, New Testament scholarship first published in 1912. I write today about a phrase in a footnote.  An untranslated German phrase that is here as the title of someone else's scholarly work in the field. Das Judentum in der vorchristlichen griechischen Welt . Feeding it into a translation algorithm, I learn that the monograph cited was titled: "Judaism in the pre-Christian Greek world."   Hmmm. I took two years of German in high school.  I'm pretty sure (even though I've had plenty of time to forget what I learned there, and have availed myself of the opportunity) that I never learned that "vor" works as the prefix "pre".   From now on, I'll know. 

  A few words from Chauncey Wright, famously of the "Metaphysical Club" that gave rise to the pragmaticism of Peirce and the pragmatism of James.   "The derivation of this power [self-consciousness], supposing it to have been observed by a finite angelic (not animal) intelligence, could not have been foreseen to be involved in the mental causes, on the conjunction of which it might, nevertheless, have been seen to depend. The angelic observation would have been a purely empirical one. The possibility of a subsequent analysis of these causes by the self-conscious animal himself, which would afford an explanation of their agency, by referring it to a rational combination of simpler elements in them, would not alter the case to the animal intelligence, just as a rational explanation of flight could not be reached by such an intelligence as a consequence of known mechanical laws, since these laws are also animal conditions, or rather are more material ones, of which our ange...

In the middle of last month I wrote a brief note here about Blue Owl, a large manager of alternative assets with a lot of money at stake in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) space.  We come around to Blue Owl again, because days ago Brown University announced it is cutting its stake in Blue Owl Capital Corp., one of the broad Blue Owl family of entities-- roughly cutting that stake in half.  This bugs me because: 1) it is such a large shift that ... 2) there is likely a reason for it -- somebody at Brown knows something about Blue Owl, and  3) I don't know what they know.  Indeed, it is my job to know what is up at such places as Blue Owl, and it looks like I'm missing out on something big.   Also, to be clear: this is NOT a "divestment" from Israel.  There is a student group at Brown that presses for that, and they have had their Gaza Solidarity Encampment, but so far they have had no success in affecting Brown's portfolio, and I don't know of any Blue...

The name “Ammonius Saccas” comes down to us as part of a line of intellectual succession, the last link in a chain connecting Plato to Plotinus. Plotinus of course formulated a systematic Neoplatonic philosophy that, though I am not an adherent, seems to be both impressive and important. But we have Plotinus’ texts to study and argue about. We don’t have any such thing for Ammonius Saccas. What we have is just the predicate that usually follows his name as subject. Saccas “taught Plotinus”. And we have THE NAME, which is fascinating in itself but tantalizing. The name “Saccas” could be a reference to the "Sakyas", an Indian ruling clan. From this possibility some have spun speculation on the presence of a Vedic element in lessons he taught Plotinus. Such visual representations as we possess allow for this speculation.  He might be Indian -- he might be Egyptian -- he might be a Greek.  Such speculation is a game anyone can play. See the image above to play along. I love the b...

As is now all-too-well known, the executive branch of the US government has put its resources behind the proposition that the numbers "8647" lined out with seashells, must to any reasonable person be seen as a threat to kill the 47th President.  Hmmm. So far as I could tell from the infamous photo, we're supposed to take them to be 8 6 47.  Month, day, year.  Did anything of importance worth memorializing on a North Carolina beach happen on an 8/6/47?  Nothing much from August 6, 1947, I'm afraid.  Except that a great cornerback for the Cincinnati Bengals, Ken Riley, was born on that date. He was posthumously admitted to the Football Hall of Fame in 2023. We get to something more promising if we step back a century. During the Mexican War, on August 6, 1847 the US marines began a march on Mexico City under the command of Lt. Colonel Samuel Watson.  This historic tidbit does have some visibility or, rather, audibility, because it is the reason the Marine Cor...