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

[Thomas Gollier <tgollier AT gmail.com>]

Charles,

Thank you for posting that note from Walker Percy. It brings a lot together for me philosophically

when it comes to 'The Moviegoer'. For one thing it puts a new prominence on its links to Kierkegaard.

And from Kierkegaard, it's a direct link back to Hegel, although I'm not sure how familiar Percy was

with Hegel.

In the 'Phenomenology of Spirit' Hegel asserts the unhappy consciousness must "reputdiate" its self-

conscious existence as it turns to reason and objectivity in general. But I think a better word would

been to sublate (aufheben) that subjective actuality of our existence into our reason and objectivity.

This is precisely what Hegel does in the rest of the 'Phenomenology', what Kierkegaard was trying to

to, and what I think Binx was searching for in this novel. The problem is that its presence, being 

sublated, is invisible and not directly expressible objectively.

And, the way this note ends. Kate was aware of the absolute priority of this subjective actuality for us

from the death of her fiance, just as Binx was from his near-death experience in the war, but she was 

at a loss with regard to it. What better way to express their relationship than:

"I'm afraid."

"I know."

What can I say? Thanks again,

Tom

On Sat, Aug 17, 2024 at 9:36 AM <lowry.charles AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Mes amis,
>
> I think you will all find this very interesting.  About two weeks ago list member and long-time Percy friend Marcus Smith sent me a file which he tried to post to the list but which was rejected as too large.  After some technical adjustments, it is presented here.
>
> Sincere thanks to Marcus for sharing this material, and to Henry for maintaining this wonderful venue.
>
> I note that these comments from Walker Percy were written less than a year before his death, May 10, 1990.
>> 

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