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

["Karey L. Perkins" <karey AT charter.net>]

Mike, et al --

 

Thanks so much for this, Mike.  I've ordered Deacon's and Deledalle's books (you've mentioned Deledalle in the past), as well as several other ones on language evolution/origin of language, mostly collections of essays that would provide a diversity of perspectives, that seemed like they might provide a good background for what's happening in this area now: 

 

--Approaches to the Evolution of Language:  Social and Cognitive Bases (James Hurford, ed.)

--The Transition to Language (Oxford Linguistics) [conference proceedings]

--Language Evolution [Christiansen, ed.] (This is the one you refer to below, I believe)

--Human Language and Our Reptilian Brain: The Subcortical Bases of Speech, Syntax and Thought (Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience) (I'm assuming this will be above my head, but Percy would probably have read it and understood it)

--The Evolutionary Emergence of Language:  Social Functions and the Origins of Linguistic Form (Chris Knight, ed.)

--The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (Pinker -- I ordered this only because it seems that he should be read, he's so big in the field)

--Foundations of Language:  Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution (Jackendoff)

 

What do you think?  Some of these were mentioned in the July 15 2003 Nicholas Wade New York Times article, "Early Voices: The Leap to Language" that I had forwarded to the list a while back, that sort of reviewed new developments/books in the area.   If you know of any of these, or would recommend one over another, let me know.  It's a great area, new developments seem to abound, and it does relate to what Percy was doing -- not all of what he was doing, but some of what he had mentioned.

 

I too joined the Peirce list in search of more enlightenment on Peirce, as well as symbol/sign, and those guys are really good -- too good for me!!  I'm not following all of it -- Peirce is very wide and deep -- but as I read more of him/about him, I hope it will help.  I did print out some of the papers at the Peirce site as well as the "Memes as Signs" one you had mentioned so long ago...

 

I do not know "Lonergan" or "Minsky" but I hope I'll come across their names in the process of this reading.  I couldn't agree more about "postmodern-polluted academia"!! 

 

Percy and Peirce both mention Duns Scotus (scholastic guy) in terms of sign/symbol and realism, and I'm reading about him now.

 

Again, thanks for the input on this -- from my research on it, it seems not many people are as interested in pursuing the language theory side of Percy as the other sides.  Only 3 or so dissertations devoted peripherally to that topic, only one devoted directly to it, and it seems the linguists and semioticians and philosophers completely ignore him altogether (Why?  Because he's a novelist, so perceived as an amateur, not a professional, in semiotics?  I don't know).  So I feel kind of like I'm shooting in the dark sometimes.

 

Still struggling with the other question I had mentioned last time ("If there is a physical/biological brain location for language (surely dyadic), how is that this dyadic structure creates triadic thought? Aren't we back to Descartes' dilemma of how a mind/body interacts?").  I didn't quite understand Ken's answer:  ("More like we're already in it when we assume that the dyadic and the
triadic happen in totally different contexts. Why not one is subsumed to the other?  But can that be explained dyadically? No.")

 

Karey

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Mike Frentz

To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion

Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 11:40 PM

Subject: Re: [percy-l] language theory

Karey,

I'm sorry I really haven't gotten a chance to go back a re-look at our earlier discussion. One of the key things that I had been impressed with was Terrence Deacon's book, the Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain (1997). That is an excellent starting point for the state of the art from one scientist's perspective a half dozen years after Percy's death. Bonus is that Deacon is Peirce literate, as you'll see in his description of icon, index, and symbol.

Googling Deacon's name I just came across this link on a book on Language Evolution.
http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-924483-9
I haven't seen this book but it looks interesting at first glance. A PDF sample was available which seemed small enough that I attached it (I got it from the linked website of the softcover edition [reposted without attachment]). Deacon has been saying for several years now that he has a follow-on to Symbolic Species, called Homunculus, in preparation, but I don't think it is yet out.

I also recall that there was some interesting material on genetic-based language research about a year ago -- someplace in England I believe, but I'd have to track it down.

From my perspective, Percy seems to have come to grips with the importance of the cognizance of self in forming judgments, which is a critical last step in the understanding of knowledge (per Bernard Lonergan's approach in "Insight"). Lonergan seems to have independently developed a "Percy-like" perspective in this area, by my read (though there is no apparent connection/citing by either to the other). Tekippe makes a comment in his commentary on Lonergan ("What is Lonergan up to in INSIGHT?: A Primer") that in order "to find an adequate stress on judgement, one must go back to the medieval philosphers. Thomas Aquinas, in particular, places a strong emphasis on judgment as the single criterion of truth." (p 122). Percy, and a very small minority of only partially connected or disconnected others (e.g. Peirce, Lonergan, Aquinas), seem to be adding something in coming from a humanistic perspective that a purely scientic perspective (e.g. Deacon, Minsky, Chomsky) seem to be oblivious of (which I attribute to the lack of moorings and underlying, but apparently totally blind, agenda which appears to be prevalent in current postmodern-polluted academia (not to mention mass media). I think there is probably much in current scientific advances that could add to the track that Percy was pursuing.

Just my blathering..

Best,
Mike

On Feb 13, 2004, at 9:21 PM, Karey L. Perkins wrote:

This is addressed specifically to Mike Frentz, and generally addressed to the vast and superior collective knowledge of the Percy listserv as a group:
 
Several months ago (years?) Mike, you said, that much research/knowledge had been done/gained on language acquisition and language theory since Percy's death.  What is this, specifically?  I know the list has discussed the FOXP2 gene.  Has more been discovered/explored?  What were you referring to when you made this comment?
 
I am continuing my exploration of Percy's language theory/radical anthropology.  He seems specifically concerned with the "third element" of the triad, the human self, and what is happening there: Among other things, Percy  refers to the work of Norman Geschwind:  his discovery of a “recently evolved structure, ‘the human inferior parietal lobule, which includes the angular and supramarginal gyri, to a rough approximation areas 30 and 40 of Brodmann’” (Message in the Bottle 326).  Percy elaborates on Geschwind’s findings that this structure is not present in the macque, and only rudimentarily present in higher apes.  It seems Percy WAS interested in finding a neuro-physiological/anatomical correlate (as he discusses in this essay in Message in the Bottle).  But I would venture to guess that much work has been done since Geschwind.

 
And here's a question to throw out to all:  if there is a physical/biological brain location for language (surely dyadic), how is that this dyadic structure creates triadic thought? Aren't we back to Descartes' dilemma of how a mind/body interacts?

 
Karey

 
 
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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