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Gentlemen,
I am enjoying eavesdropping on your discussion so much. While my brain is too tied up with other Percy matters at present to match the level of discourse y’all have going, I am avidly following along and appreciating Percy being discussed as the philosopher
he was.
Write on,
Rhonda
Sent from my iPad
On Aug 2, 2020, at 3:03 PM, Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com> wrote:
Tom,
Thanks for the post.
I think I am using the term "rhetoric" in a broader sense than you are. That is to say, I am not using it as a synonym for "persuasion," though persuasive effect would certainly be a component of rhetoric. Then again, so would critical thinking--as well
as the use of logic and grammar, to round out the classical trivium--and several other skills. The rhetorical act involves everything, from start to finish, that goes into the eventual communication of what one believes to be true. It is possible to be very
skilled in many or all of those components and still to misapprehend the objective truth of the thing being examined. That was the point I was making. It follows, then, from my use of "rhetoric" that "critical thinking," especially in the way that you have
defined it (i.e. as a conscious attempt to discover truth, often in consultation with the arguments of others) cannot be, or at least should not be, divorced from the art of rhetoric. If it is divorced, it is more likely to be sophistry than rhetoric.
My use of "elegance" and "cohesion" was merely the naming of two specific elements of rhetoric, not meant to be comprehensive but rather to illustrate how portions of a skill set might be differentiated from the objective truth toward which the skill set
is being employed.
The following statement of yours is interesting:
"... regardless of how sure we may be that we've tp what's true, it never flips over into The Truth once and for all. Every conclusion, having better or worse reasons for believing it is true, is open to debate. This is, I think, is the inescapable predicament
of finite bodies that think in an infinite universe."
What you describe here is definitely accurate with regards to the individual who is attempting to perceive a truth that cannot be proven deductively. Lacking infinite knowledge, we must always make our assertions in the framework of what is more or less
probable. Aristotle explains this well in his discussion of inductive reasoning in the service of rhetoric. However, from the side of whatever is actually true (about whatever is under consideration), the once-and-for-all-ness is not subject to human error
or ignorance or blindness. In other words, the objective truth doesn't need an escape clause, like we do, to change positions based on new information.
Let's take the Catholic Church's claim to be the divinely appointed authority (and consequent protection from error) in matters of faith and morals. That claim is either objectively true, or it is not. Individuals can examine the claim, as Percy did, and
decide it is more or less probable and make their decisions accordingly, but the reality of the situation just is what it is, regardless of the finite mind's ability to assess the odds.
When you say this, "If that's Lance's confession, it sounds more like a kind politician's unapologetic 'apology' to me. I really don't see how it could warrant any kind of absolution or release," I am in complete agreement with you. And the rest of your
analysis in that paragraph seems spot on to me as well. That's why I said, in the very beginning of this discussion, that Lance is surely not about to be "absolved" by Percival when the novel ends. Yes, of course, his "confession" has been cathartic, and he
believes he has found the means of a restart, as you call it. But that is not how Percival sees it. He has something more to tell Lance. The whole novel has been leading up to this moment where Lance feels finally purged of his side of the story and is now
ready to move on and live (self) righteously in defiance of a world gone mad. And now Percival is finally ready and willing to speak. Brilliantly, his words will occur off camera.
In your final paragraph, you seem to be saying that Percy himself is, through the novel, changing the notion of sacramental confession into existential confession, as Lance perhaps does. But this is to ignore the role of Percival, who, in the final pages
of the novel, could not be more clearly distinguished from Lance. And your speculation that Percy is rejecting "the illusions of an objective moral code or truth" seems entirely unfounded, given that neither Lance nor Percival makes such a rejection. In fact,
they are united in their opposition to the modern world, which has indeed abandoned the notion of objective truth. Their solutions to that problem, however, are quite different.
Best,
Mike
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1. Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 25 (Thomas Gollier)
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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 15:25:03 -0700
From: Thomas Gollier <tgollier AT gmail.com>
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
<percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 25
Message-ID:
<CAMVPF1Ftj_55BrafJ6MSB5V8iabcLuU_1AYdDhzum9yAj=hSdg AT mail.gmail.com>
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Mike,
Good to hear from you.
You brought me up short with your reference to me teaching a "rhetorical
skill set," since I'm adamantly opposed to
mixing rhetoric, in the sense of persuading others, with critical thinking.
However, the standard of "consistent and
complete" ? I not sure where "elegant and cohesive" came from ? is the
basis of persuading others, but critical
thinking, while it uses the same standard, is more concerned with
persuading oneself as to what one should believe
is true. Critical thinking, at its best, is a self-conscious back-and-forth
collective effort toward discovering
truth. While "consistent" may be deductive, however, "completeness" is
inductive, so regardless of how sure we may be
that we've tp what's true, it never flips over into The Truth once and for
all. Every conclusion, having better or
worse reasons for believing it is true, is open to debate. This is, I
think, is the inescapable predicament of
finite bodies that think in an infinite universe.
What I found more interesting, though, and that you find, presumably on the
basis of an objective moral code, both
"Lance *and* Margot to be untrustworthy in serious ways." If that's Lance's
confession, it sounds more like a kind
politician's unapologetic "apology" to me. I really don't see how it could
warrant any kind of absolution or
release. At first, their relationship was "transactional." He offered the
Southern aristocracy; she offered Texas
money. And, they did seem to share the common objective of refurbishing of
their house. But when the house was done,
he remarks, she seemed to be done too. If the relationship were purely
transactional, the transaction was completed,
and each could have simply moved on. But no, the confession consists in the
explanation or recounting of how
something more had formed in their marriage, what I am calling a "moral
bond" between them, and that she, not Lance,
had betrayed it. He even seems to try to convince himself that the sexual
infidelity should not be such a big
deal, but it is, and it irrevocably broke that bond between them with such
finality that he must have video evidence
of the act itself. His "confession" is a matter of coming to understand the
causes and consequences of what had
happened, the crimes he had committed, so as to find the absolution or
release that would allow a restart to his
life. Is that even possible after such crimes?
Personally, what I really like about this novel is that it sharpens the
contrasts and contours of Percy's
existentialism, and in the process it, somewhat paradoxically, makes his
personal Catholicism more comprehensible to me.
He seems to take the "confession" ? the thing that apparently attracted him
to Catholicism in the first place ? and
makes it into something different from the repentance and forgiveness (that
is not forgiveness) it is within the
Church. I would argue more generally that he rejects the depersonalizations
of abstract Gods and Churches, the
illusions of an objective moral code or truth. Perhaps that's a bit
speculative? But he does, I think, try to the
bring or give what truth those things can have for us to bear on our actual
existence.
Thanks
Tom
On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:35 PM Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Tom,
>
> You're not annoying me. I appreciate the dialogue. I'll try to respond.
>
> I'll start with your question: " How does the notion of a 'hierarchy of
> subjectivity' come from the possibility of infinite subjective
> interpretations and the fact some of those interpretations are better than
> others?"
>
> It comes contained in the last part of your question itself: "... the fact
> that some of those interpretations are better than others." If some
> interpretations are better than others, a hierarchy is by nature already
> established and an objective standard is likewise already implied.
>
> When you speak of how you grade student writing, you are talking about
> evaluating their display of a rhetorical skill set, not about their grasp
> of the truth. Those are two different things. Either one can be judged
> hierarchically. Elegance and cohesiveness of communication make a scale
> that is independent of what is true. One person may offer an elegant
> defense and plenty of cohesive reasoning as to why the earth is flat.
> Another person might stumble through a weak defense of the spinning globe.
> We might rank the former ahead of the latter in the skill set of rhetoric,
> but we might rank the latter ahead of the former in his apprehension of the
> truth as to the physical nature of the earth.
>
> The same is true when we look at a piece of literature: one person might
> write beautifully about something that goes quite astray of what the story
> means while another person might struggle in attempting to articulate what
> is essentially a deep understanding of that same story. Of course, we are
> most pleased when the two skills--communication and apprehension--are
> joined in a single work. Take, for example, Tolkien's marvelous essay (a
> lecture, actually), "The Monsters and the Critics." Prior to that lecture,
> many well-known scholars had failed to grasp both the artistic genius and
> the deep layers of meaning in *Beowulf*. In fact, they disdained many of
> the very things that Tolkien was able to rescue--and not because his
> subjective interpretation was more popular. It wasn't. In fact, it wasn't
> fully known until he put it into words, but when he did, many objective
> truths about the poem were made manifest to anyone who cared to see them
> and especially to those who had always had a sense for them but lacked the
> articulation. In short, Tolkien's interpretation was better than that of
> prior critics, and people knew it. They knew it because it is possible for
> humans to recognize when something is objectively true, especially when it
> provides relief against that which has been less than fully true.
>
> What I am asserting here seems in direct opposition to what you say a
> little later in your post: "I propose to my students that the reason for
> objectively seeking out different interpretations is not to pick the right
> one." My first thought about this is that there might not be a "right one."
> The presence of several interpretations is no guarantee that any of them
> has a good grasp on what is being interpreted. Alternatively, they might
> all be basically "right," more or less, though perhaps with differing
> levels of rhetorical effectiveness. In any case, I would always encourage
> my students to compare and contrast, to evaluate arguments, to measure what
> they read against reality, insofar as they have access to it. When the
> object is truth, then everyone--critics and readers--is essentially working
> together toward the same goal, though some with more success than others.
>
> But it sounds like, for you, the object is not so much truth as it is to
> work out a kind of subjective *average *in one's own mind. You say, "[The
> reason for seeking out different interpretations] is to get a non-objective
> sense of the center and most comprehensive comprehension of all those
> various interpretations." There is nothing wrong, of course, with
> understanding a variety of interpretations, but if the end of that
> understanding is merely to find the center of that variety, then we have
> diverted our gaze from the object under consideration and shifted it to the
> amalgamated opinion of the considerers. This is not exactly pure
> subjectivism, which would be interested only in one's own opinion, but it
> is a kind of preoccupation with potential means rather than the use of
> those means toward their natural end: to arrive at truth regarding the
> object under consideration.
>
> In your paragraph about morality, I'm not sure I follow the shift from
> moral code to moral bond. To recognize a moral code, whether subjective or
> objective, is a different mental act than to trust a neighbor not to harm
> you. The former is concerned with classification (i.e. this is good, this
> is evil) while the latter is concerned with prudential judgment (I predict
> that you will not burn my house down). So once again, both acts can be
> present: I can judge (whether accurately or not) that someone's burning
> down my house would be an evil act even as I also judge (whether accurately
> or not) that I do not think you will commit this act. Then if you do
> actually burn down my house, I will know that my trust was misplaced; the
> house will go up in smoke, but the classification of arson as evil will be
> quite untouched by those flames.
>
> It's true that if this happened, I would no longer trust you not to burn
> my house down. And yes, it's also possible, depending on how much I trusted
> you to begin with, that I might start to doubt, in general, my judgment of
> who is trustworthy and who is not. But to lose trust in others or in one's
> ability to assess the trustworthiness of others is not the same as losing
> the sense that some things are moral and that other things are immoral.
>
> I too find Lance and Margot to be untrustworthy in serious ways. The acts
> that reveal their untrustworthiness are also acts I understand to be
> objectively immoral. I would argue further that to even speak of trust and
> distrust once again implies an objective sense of morality in the one who
> trusts or distrusts. What makes us trust someone are typically things
> understood to be morally good: honesty, forthrightness, patience,
> stability, etc.. What makes us distrust someone are typically things
> understood to be morally bad: lying, deception, short-temperedness,
> fickleness, etc.. We know these things. Deep down.
>
> Mike
>
>
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