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

[Mike Frentz <mfrentz AT bbn.com>]

If anyone is seriously interested in this question, Deacon's book
"The Symbolic Species"  (1997) has by far the most lucid
description I've read of how symbols are composed (composable) from
Peircean icons and indices.  His work on the origins of language
(and the virtual absence of it in all species but our own) is very much
in line with Percy's insight, but very well grounded in contemporary
hands-on scientific experimentation and findings.

Someone on Peirce-L also noted that Deacon's Homunculus book is still
cited as being underway on his website.  Something to look forward
to.


Mike


At 05:16 PM 8/17/2003 -0400, you wrote:

Thanks...I think that's what I was looking for.  But again, it's still pretty mysterious.
 
KP
 
----- Original Message -----
From: James Piat
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2003 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Peirce/Percy

Percy says in several places that Susanne Langer dropped the ball and he intended to pick it up -- he says it in the essays, the conversations, etc.  But only one place do I recall that he actually says WHAT she dropped -- what she missed.  I believe it was early in my reading, in "Message," but I don't remember what it was and I'm going to have to go back and look.  I thought someone else might have been familiar with it.
 
Dear Karey,
 
Perhaps the passage you are looking for is on page 220 of _The Message in the Bottle_ . A footnote in Percy's essay "Culture: The Antinomy of the Scientific Method".
 
"As Susanne Langer says, we may, if we like, interpret language as a sequence of events entailing signs, sounds in the air, vibrations of ear drums, nerve excitation, brain events, response and so on.  All  this does happen.  But something has been left out and it is the most important thing of all. It is that the symbol symbolizes something." 
 
Cheers,
Jim Piat

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An archive of all list discussion is available at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail

Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy