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

[nikkibar AT aol.com]

Dear Fr. Basil,

 

I had invited you to contact me just before the hurricane complex hit but that disrupted things. We are neighbors and should have tea or whatever stronger you like.

 

Nikki Barranger

77130 Hwy 25 Covington

504 908 6060 (cell phone while my land line is still out.) 

 
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Lynch <padraig AT well.com>
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 21:34:55 -0800
Subject: Re: [percy-l] walker percy dissertation?

How kind of you to share this and your process. Share what's comfortable.

Patrick

On Nov 2, 2005, at 9:04 PM, KMitch2626 AT aol.com wrote:

Father Burns,

I once attempted such a project. But to make a very long story short, after many committee changes, life problems, and several rewrites, i ultimately put my dissertation aside and started a new life outside of academia. My only regret is that my work would have been a perfect resource for persons such as your self. Towards the end of my work i found all of Ketner's writing to be the most helpful on the subject. (even kinda had him on my committee at one time). I still have the roiginal abstract, although it doesnt quite capture where i ended up. I'll send you that at the bottom of this text. I'll also try to dig through some of my disks and see if there is any info i can share with you and others interested on the listserve. I lost a lot of my work due to a hard drive failure. but i think i still have some of the rough drafts of some of the capters lying around. if nothing else, they could give you some ideas and some good references to look at. Much of the philosophical work at the time, only dealt with Percy and Keirkegaard. Mine focused more on Peirce and Percy. Its definitely a project that needs to be done. However, i'm not in a spot right now to finish it. Also, I think if i ever were to try such a thing again, I'd simply revise/rewrite Lost in the cosmos. Bring it up to date, and change some of the stuff in the semioitc primer section. Let me see what if anything i can dig up for you, if you and others are interested.

somewhere lost in the cosmos,
ken mitchell
DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
Along with the rise of the natural sciences, there has been an increasing attempt to apply empirical methodologies to the study of human beings. This scientific approach has generated a wealth of fruitful insights into human nature and the workings of the
human body. However, there has been a long-standing debate within philosophy over the limits and applicability of empirical methodologies to the study of human beings. Many philosophers have argued, and I think quite convincingly, that scientific approaches yield necessary but not sufficient explanations and understandings of human activity. Instead, they suggest the need to implement a plurality of methodological approaches to persons. Hermeneutics, phenomenology, and narrative for example, are just some of the varying methods that philosophers are increasingly turning towards to study the self.  Walker Percy, perhaps best known for his
fiction, developed in his philosophical writings a philosophy of the self which addresses these issues.  He develops a non-Cartesian, semiotic account of the self which critiques empirical and reductionistic approaches to the self,  and sets forth a theoretical foundation for the use of other methodologies, especially narrative. Percy's theory emphasizes the constitutive role of language in the formation of the self, along with the self's intersubjective and narrative structure. His theory is especially interesting in that it is built upon the metaphysics, epistemology, and semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, which until recently, have been seen by many Peirce scholars as philosophically  inadequate for building a useful theory of subjectivity. My dissertation first explicates the elements of Peirce's philosophy that Percy employs, and then presents a systematic account of how Percy uses these elements to construct a semiotic account of the self.

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An archive of all list discussion is available at https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/

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