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

[marcus AT loyno.edu]

I agree that this has been an energetic discussion.  But are we being too
rapsodic?  Even Gnostic?  Humans may be unique in their having "the ability
for wonder, self-awareness, and symbolization (a word?) that rocks
don't...this is the FALL of man (a fall "up" according to some theologians)
that separates him from the rest of the world."  

But we also fall "down."  We can and do use words and symbols to lie.  As
far as I know, that is also a sign of our uniqueness.

Marcus Smith

PS  Thomas Sebeok once argued--and Percy was in the audience--that some
insects use symbols to deceive (a spider that makes a fake insect offering
to distract the female for mating purposes), but I wasn't persuaded and
neither was Percy.  Maybe he changed his mind after the summer in Toronto,
but I never heard him say so.


Maybe   Not only in terms of man's difference from the
rest of the world, but his ability to be comfortable and at peace with that
world -- that's something we have to "re-find" and the animals don't.  Do
we
re-find it through language?  The "joy" of naming?


>Hi Jim...
>
>This has been a wonderful discussion!!  In my quick and probably
inaccurate
>count, 28 e-mails were generated in two days and all on the very topic of
my
>dissertation, so thanks to everyone!!  However, I have only had time to
sift
>through some of them (too much to handle on such short notice) so far, and
>contrary to Ken Ketner's exhortation that we be objective as possible in
our
>investigations, with our hypotheses always open to modification, I have
>sought only those that support my/Percy's argument!  : )
>
>Really, I plan to sort through all of these later and examine them in more
>depth (and then subject my hypotheses to modification).  I do have a
>question for Steve though, who said that he was teaching a course on this
>next semester -- What is the name and the nature of the course?  And, do
you
>teach at a parochial institution or how much leeway is allowed for
>discussing religious beliefs?
>
>To address your thought below, Jim,  I do think the universe is "God's
>thought" if you will, in that it is creation and lives that creation and
>lives the presence of God by being itself -- for example, trees have far
>more "consciousness" than Westerners believe, and such people as Native
>American understood this.  If anything, humans are the ones that fail at
>living "God's thought."  However, humans have the ability for wonder,
>self-awareness, and symbolization (a word?) that rocks don't...this is the
>FALL of man (a fall "up" according to some theologians) that separates him
>from the rest of the world.  Not only in terms of man's difference from
the
>rest of the world, but his ability to be comfortable and at peace with
that
>world -- that's something we have to "re-find" and the animals don't.  Do
we
>re-find it through language?  The "joy" of naming?
>
>Karey
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: James Piat
>To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
>Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 5:42 PM
>Subject: Re: [percy-l] Re: animals, order, symbol, self-consciousness, and
>The Fall of Man
>
>
>Dear Karey,
>
>I half agree with you.  I like your positive account of what language is
>and I agree that your friend Ken has not adequately addressed this issue 
--
>but I think you are mistaken (along with Percy) in the view that non human
>animals (and indeed even so called inanimate rocks) don't participate in
the
>world of symbolic thought  -- God's thought.  Course if you had quoted me
>even once I'd have forgone this quibble, but under the circumstances 
--just
>kidding of course.
>
>Jim Piat
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Karey L. Perkins" <karey AT charter.net>
>
>
>> To Ken and interested listeners --
>>
>> First of all, in both the e-mail below and previously, you (Ken D.)are
>> disagreeing with Percy on the wrong grounds --
>
>(snip)
>> the animals come up in his argument but they
>> really aren't what the argument is all about
>
>(snip)
>-- it is about understanding
>> the nature of language, and hence, the nature of man.
>
>
>--
>
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>
>Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
>
>--
>
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http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail
>
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>