Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Wade Riddick <riddick AT mail.la.utexas.edu>]

[Forgot to send this through my old account last night.]

Focus on interpretation and whatever differences there might be between
scientific progress vs. interpretive disciplines like literary studies or
the law.  What did Holmes mean that the life of the law is experience, not
logic?  Does a scientist look at a result from an experiment differently
than a juror weighs the words of a witness?  Why are 12 jurors needed?
What is intersubjectivity?  How do you reach the appropriate
judgment/interpretation of a given set of clues/symbols?  Are there common
religious foundations in both Percy and American law?  Failure and
redemption?  You might want to shine a spotlight on consitutional law since
it deals with the big issues of who are we, why are we hear, what should we
think?  What was Percy's view of grace and original sin?  How does this
compare to Madison's ideas in Federalists 10 & 14 (or Hamilton's idea of
"ambition checking ambition")?  Is there something anti-bureaucratic in
both habits of thought (Percy's Nazis vs. Publius' tyranny)?  What about
justice vs. revenge?  What's the point of punishment?  Revenge?  (Would
_Lancelot_ be more interesting?)  Lawyers have to use a lot of words and
deal with what witnesses have to tell them.  Do they know what "metaphor by
mistake" is all about?  Do they know something about modern interpretive
theory - forget fancy deconstruction - do they understand how different
words can be from the things they represent?  What is it lawyers have to
"diagnose?"  (Hint: the first job of any good attorney is to get paid by a
client; that's different from the first job of any good judge.)  Why do we
have freedom of speech, religion and other liberties?  Does it have to do
with the idea that grace should be freely received and that the spirit of
the message is in the message itself and not the messenger?  Steer clear of
_The Second Coming_.  Go for the essay about the astronomer who can see
things a billion light-years away but can't figure out that his wife is
about to divorce him.  Law students will understand myopia.