Summer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Strawberry Moon<\/p>\n
“My experience is what I agree to attend to.” – William James<\/p>\n
Pragmatism and pragmatists are an original American (US) contribution to the history of Western philosophy.\u00a0 Since I can’t get my hands around it well, I’ll not try to explain it, though on its on my list.<\/p>\n
But.\u00a0 William James was among its founders and early proponents along with Charles Saunders Pierce and John Dewey.\u00a0 He was also an early American psychologist as was Dewey.\u00a0 So.\u00a0 James is an important guy in philosophy, psychology and the psychology of religion, The Varieties of Religious Experience.<\/p>\n
His quote above is disarmingly simple.\u00a0 On the face of it you might say, well, yeah.\u00a0 Whatever, old dude.\u00a0 If you took that perspective, you probably skipped over two important words:\u00a0 I agree.\u00a0 Now, I’m not going to get into the free will debate, very complicated at this moment in cognitive science, so I interpret this as our attention will go where we intend for it to go.\u00a0 It’s the intentional nature of the I agree that I want to lift out and underline.<\/p>\n
Why?\u00a0 It reminded me of a dilemma I spoke with Kate about just this week, “Kate, there are several things, for example, pragmatism, Taoism, aesthetics, the Enlightenment that I would like to explore in greater depth.\u00a0 The problem is that to do it I have to have sit down time, lots of it, to read complicated material and absorb it.”<\/p>\n
“Yes,” she said, “There are just aren’t enough hours in a day.”<\/p>\n
Just so.\u00a0 We have a limited amount of time, that’s a given, both day to day, and in this finite trip, life.\u00a0 How I agree to direct my attention will determine the nature of my experience.\u00a0 If I choose to garden, I will not be reading Dewey’s Reconstruction of Philosophy.\u00a0 If I choose to do Latin and translate the Metamorphosis, I cannot, at the same time, read Chuang Tzu.\u00a0 If I use time writing this blog, I cannot use the same time to write a novel.\u00a0 And so on.\u00a0 And on.<\/p>\n
Just using those examples I have chosen to direct my experience toward the garden, the soil and complex interactions within them both.\u00a0 I have chosen to fill some of my experience with Latin grammar and vocabulary and learning how to translate.\u00a0 I choose to write this blog and so have the experience of an ongoing journal\/diary\/weblog.<\/p>\n
Is there anything bad about these choices?\u00a0 No, at least not in my opinion.\u00a0 I do, though, have to reckon with what James identifies.\u00a0 Each of those choices makes other choices if not impossible at least less likely, therefore directing my stream of attention and with it my experience in one direction and not another.<\/p>\n
The point here is that you decide the type and quality of the experiences you have and those experience not only shape your life, they are your life.\u00a0 So, choose well.\u00a0 And know what your choices mean.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Strawberry Moon “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” – William James Pragmatism and pragmatists are an original American (US) contribution to the history of Western philosophy.\u00a0 Since I can’t get my hands around it well, I’ll not try to explain it, though on its on my list. But.\u00a0 William James … Continue reading Oh, You’re So Pragmatic.<\/span>