blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 82
Today's Topics:
WILLIAM BLAKE & INTELLECT, REASON, SCIENCE, EMPIRICISM
Re: psychotic reaction, Nietzsche, &c.
Re: REFLEXIVITY & PETTY BOURGEOIS PRECIOSITY
sweet Science
Christianity/Experiment stew
BLKAKE CONTRA EMPIRICISM, OR 'THER IS NO NATURAL RELIGION'
Re: sweet Science
Re: Experiment Pictures
Re: Roob's new book with Blake's pics
Re: sweet science
Mechanization versus Romanticism
Re: REFLEXIVITY & PETTY BOURGEOIS PRECIOSITY
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:56:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: marxism2@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: WILLIAM BLAKE & INTELLECT, REASON, SCIENCE, EMPIRICISM
Message-Id: <199607080156.SAA23821@igc2.igc.apc.org>
To begin to untangle Blake's attitudes towards rationality,
science, etc., we ought to be aware first of all of his use of
terminology. If he had but one word for human thought processes,
we could go by that, but it is not so. The word "science" is
sometimes used positively and sometimes negatively, as is
"experiment." The word "reason" is used pejoratively, but words
such as "intellect" and "thought" are always positive. Hence,
like many other thinkers, Blake is discriminating between
different levels and operations of reasoning processes. In
Blake's terminology, "intellect" stands at a higher level of
thought than "reason", which means the mechanical or most
superficial logical operations of the process of thought. Though
his use of words is unlike that of some other thinkers, the
distinctions he makes are familiar ones. Reason for Blake means
the most mechanical operations of thought, where intellect refers
to a grasp of the whole, which proceeds not by gradual
accumulation of particular data, but by sudden leaps and
re-organizations of the conceptual relationships among particular
data.
Blake was not a trained philosopher, and so he struggled with the
limitations of empiricism in his own peculiar manner, but he was
struggling with the fundamental tensions within the conceptual
universe of his time. And because Blake was not trained to
distinguish between the conceptual content of the science itself
and the ideological clothing and social functions in which science
was embedded, and because Blake was concerned primarily with the
imagination and not literal, material things (the one aspect of
Blake that Albright has got right), Blake could not discriminate
between the literal conceptual content of chemistry or Newtonian
physics and the philosophical/ideological role that "science" was
playing in his society. This is a flaw in Blake as a conceptual
thinker. But what is not understood is that this flaw is much
less of a flaw in Blake than the same flaw to be found in
contemporary anti-scientific social studies of science, which also
cannot distinguish between the conceptual content of science and
the ideological and social relations in which it is embedded, but
which _does_ operate on the literal plane to demonstrate that we
can't know anything. Blake was not anti-intellectual nor was he
interested in proving that nothing can be known in order to
glorify his own alienation; his fight is on another level
entirely. Blake's opposition to empiricism, as expressed in
"There is no Natural Religion" and elsewhere, is not just
opposition to the positive empiricist conception of science and
cognition; it is equally in opposition to Humean skepticism.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 22:31:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Avery F. Gaskins"
To:
Subject: Re: psychotic reaction, Nietzsche, &c.
Message-Id:
Ralph, I don't whine, but I refuse to indulge in the gutter language you in-
sist on using on this list at times. As ex-Army, I could match you expletive
by expletive, and if we met in an alley, you would find me able to handle my-
self, so hope we don't. But, expletives have no place on a list such as this.
That's what I have been trying to tell you along with the suggestion that you
are not the sole owner of the received truth.
Avery Gaskins
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 00:35:27 -0400
From: WaHu@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com, rdumain@igc.apc.org
Subject: Re: REFLEXIVITY & PETTY BOURGEOIS PRECIOSITY
Message-Id: <960708003526_571784696@emout15.mail.aol.com>
Enjoyed the review mucho.
And I am a looooong time resident of DC. And rehearsals are grueling now
because we open in 4 daze.
Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 10:01:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Nelson Hilton
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: sweet Science
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
"And isn't it strange," said the young lady, passing with
startling suddenness from Sentiment to Science, "that the mere impact of
certain colored rays upon the Retina should give us such exquisite
pleasure?"
"You have studied Physiology, then?" a certain young Doctor
courteously inquired.
"Oh _yes_! Isn't it a _sweet_ Science?"
Arthur slightly smiled. "It seems a paradox, does it not," he
went on, "that the image formed on the Retina should be inverted?"
"It _is_ puzzling," she candidly admited. "Why is it we do not
_see_ things upside-down?"
"You have never heard the Theory, then, that the _Brain_ also is
inverted?"
--Lewis Carroll, _Sylvie and Bruno_, ch. 17
(thanks to Tom Vogler)
Given many other associations with "sweet," one might imagine that "sweet
Science" is not just physiology but erotics--"golden pleasures" grow into
the "golden a(r)mour of science": knowledge ("scientia") intellectual,
imaginative, and carnal. (Note the language two pages earlier, 137.2:
"sweet delights of amorous play")
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 08 Jul 1996 11:51:56 -0500
From: Mary Beth Jipping
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Christianity/Experiment stew
Message-Id: <199607081651.LAA05328@biochem4.iupui.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
I've been listening for about 3 months to your discussions and comments.
Thanks a bunch. I'm a biochemist working in enzyme kinetics to keep food on
the table and a neophyte poet. (I first got interested in Blake through
Greg Brown's _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ and have been reading the
rest more closely for the last year.)
Why hasn't anyone mentioned the _Tao Te Ching_? If they have, could someone
direct me to the archive posting?
>(I know what Bloom says about it in his footnote, and I know that "science"
>formerly referred to "knowledge" more generally, but I thought this might
>be an interesting morsel to toss into the Christianity/Experiment stew.)
---MBJ
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 07:47:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: marxism2@jefferson.village.virginia.edu, tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu
Subject: BLKAKE CONTRA EMPIRICISM, OR 'THER IS NO NATURAL RELIGION'
Message-Id: <199607081447.HAA24877@igc4.igc.apc.org>
Another time perhaps I will broach the topic of why Blake's piece
is called "There is no Natural Religion" and not "A Logical
Critique of Empiricism," but much of both versions of this work
consists of the latter. I go by my old and familar, dog-eared
Keynes edition.
First version, proposition II: "Man by his reasoning power can
only compare & judge of what he has already perciev'd. III. From
a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none could deduce a
fourth or fifth." Second series, proposition II: "Reason, or the
ratio of all we have alrwady known, is not the same that it shall
be when we know more."
This is of course a critique of Lockean and Humean pretensions to
be able to base cognitive generalizations upon sense impressions
and their combinations alone. Blake suggests that knowledge
involves not just sensations but something more. Note second
series, proposition I: "Masn's perceptions are not bounded by
organs of perception; he percieves more than sense (tho' ever so
acute) can discover." Remember how threadbare English empiricist
philosophy was compared to other philosophical traditions.
(Remember Marx's comment that the German idealists, not the
materialists or empiricists, were the ones who advanced the
understanding of active human cognition.) Blake criticizes that
very philosophy to show that no progress would be possible were
the empiricist model of cognition to be true. Blake is convinced
that the human mind's capacity goes beyond the power to measure
and compare discrete quantities, that progress in knowledge
involves dialecfical leaps that go beyond the mere accumulation of
empirical generalizations, or, in modern terms, that theories are
underdetermined by sense data. This notion is a commonplace in
the philosophy of science at least since Einstein.
Blake, of course, is not interested the relation of scientific
theories to empirical verification, but rather in the defense of
the faculty of poetic imagination, hence the other propositions
about desire and infinity. However, knowing no other discourse
besides antinomian Christianity and British empiricism, Blake
lacks the tooks to cast his ideas in the form of a logically
elaborated dialectical philosophy, so he formulates his
propositions in terms of the poetic genius and prophetic
imagination. Hence, first series, proposition VI: "Conclusion.
If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the
Philosophical & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all
things, & stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same
dull round over again."
Isn't this obvious?
There's more, however. Blake recognizes the skeptical
implications of being locked up in that which is provable by a
priori reasoning. All of modern spketicism is based on the
assumption that we can't really know anything objective because we
can't prove we can, given that there is no absolute proof of any
scientific generalization by induction, and further, that we can
never prove that we correctly perceive the external world, but
only know that we perceive our own perceptions. In other words,
our practical engagement with the world that produces knowledge
transcends the limits of formal proof. Blake refutes the modern
narcissistic skeptic, from Hume to Derrida, in the conclusion of
the second series:
"Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things, sees God.
He who sees the Ratio only, sees himself only."
Blake recognized that Humean skepticism was just one more form of
a prioristic philosophy, that tries to deduce the world, in this
case its unknowability, by means of the old fashioned static, a
prioristic mode of reasoning. This was quite an accomplishment,
given that it took decades more for Engels to appear on the scene
to point out that empiricist skepticism was but a new twist on the
old metaphysical mode of reasoning.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 11:08:11 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: sweet Science
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Nelson:
Do I take it that the Marriage between Art and Science has been
indefinitely postponed? Listening to Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana, or
reading William Blake, I would say so!
-Randall Albright
> "And isn't it strange," said the young lady, passing with
>startling suddenness from Sentiment to Science, "that the mere impact of
>certain colored rays upon the Retina should give us such exquisite
>pleasure?"
> "You have studied Physiology, then?" a certain young Doctor
>courteously inquired.
> "Oh _yes_! Isn't it a _sweet_ Science?"
> Arthur slightly smiled. "It seems a paradox, does it not," he
>went on, "that the image formed on the Retina should be inverted?"
> "It _is_ puzzling," she candidly admited. "Why is it we do not
>_see_ things upside-down?"
> "You have never heard the Theory, then, that the _Brain_ also is
>inverted?"
> --Lewis Carroll, _Sylvie and Bruno_, ch. 17
>(thanks to Tom Vogler)
>
>Given many other associations with "sweet," one might imagine that "sweet
>Science" is not just physiology but erotics--"golden pleasures" grow into
>the "golden a(r)mour of science": knowledge ("scientia") intellectual,
>imaginative, and carnal. (Note the language two pages earlier, 137.2:
>"sweet delights of amorous play")
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 11:16:11 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Experiment Pictures
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Elisa writes:
>I don't think Blake was confused; I think he saw Newton and Locke as
>Urizenic priests, priests who exalted reason inappropriately and marginalized
>the possibilities offered by the imagination.>>>>>>
Well... that was their thing (reason). But Locke is about as kind and
gentle in comparison with Hobbes as you can get. Why not demonize a real
Urizenic guy like Hobbes? Or how about the sadistic people in the Spanish
Inquisition who tortured people, made Galileo recant?
Science in and of itself is nothing. It's how it's used. By retreating into
Christianity and mysticism, Blake has sealed himself off from some of the
major thinkers of his age. And I'd like to hear more than the one quote
from "Jerusalem" where he finally allows a 3-fold Newton and Locke (Bacon,
too?) to come riding on their chariots... God save me from the Apocalypse.
You're right to call him a millenialist, Elisa. I remember another time
"they" thought Christ was coming. A history friend of mine told me it was
in Russia, and everyone built these bomb shelters and just kind of
waited....
Good quote from "The Four Zoas", Jennifer. Where else do you see him
building up to that statement?
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 19:23:35 MET
From: "DOERRBECKER D.W."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Roob's new book with Blake's pics
Message-Id:
July 8th, 1996
I almost fully agree with Michael Anderson's favourable short take on
Alexander Roob's *Das hermetische Museum: Alchemie & Mystik* (1996).
However, I find that the
> ... quality [of the plates] is outstanding ...
only if
> ... compared to the [recent marred reimpressions of the cheap]
Oxford editions > and those 1$ [???] editions from Dover.
The standard of colour reproductions in the Taschen editions is, at
best, uneven, and Roob (who, of course, is not to be held responsible
for what is part of the publisher's job) would probably agree.
> Roob is working on a translation of Blake's later works and started
> assembling an archive of images to aid in his translation. I assume that
> he's in need of money, so he put this book together and Tashen, known for
> its well-made but inexpensive art books, decided to release it.
Hopefully, Roob's translation of *Milton* will be published by Ritter
in Klagenfurt, Austria in the not-so-far-away future. Read side-
by-side with Hans-Ulrich Moehring's recent translation of the
same epic (1995) into German, it will allow for an exemplary
comparative study of the *creative* aspects of the translator's work.
But, first of all, Roob is an artist, not a translator. The sections
from his pictorial `novel' *CS* that I have seen are breathtaking
examples of contemporary draughtsmanship--highly recommended to those
subscribers who feel drawn toward modern art as well as to Blake. In
any case, we ought to be grateful to Michael Anderson for pointing
out this "Blake sighting/citing", especially since Roob's
pictorial anthology offers such a `handy' blockbuster introduction
(700+ pages in crown 8vo.) to the visualization of "the process of
alchemy" and of the hermetic tradition.
Since Michael Anderson writes from Tuebingen, may I add that yet
another artist-translator, similarly fascinated with Blake's verbal
and visual art is living in that small university town? His name is
Dieter Loechle, and he mounted an exhibition of his Blake-related
prints and drawings at Tuebingen university library in spring 1995.
The catalogue/exhibition handbook contains a number of Loechle's
Blake translations plus short essays by him on Blake and by Susanne
Padberg on Loechle. Presumably, copies of this publication and of the
limited editions of two portfolios of prints are still available from
the Galerie Druck & Buch in der Buchhandlung Hugo Frick
(Nauklerstrasse 7, D-72074 Tuebingen, Germany).
--DW Doerrbecker (who's *not* being paid for this advert, but happens
to be aquainted with Loechle, Moehring, and Roob)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:28:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ruegg Bill
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: sweet science
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Boxing was known as the "sweet science," I believe, at the time Blake
wrote this line. Notice the pun on "reigns"...
* * *
Bill Ruegg http://www.ucet.ufl.edu/~bruegg/
"The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." --Will Blake
On Sun, 7 Jul 1996, J. Michael wrote:
> What do people make of the last line of _The Four Zoas_:
>
> "The dark Religions are departed & sweet Science reigns"
>
> ?
>
> (I know what Bloom says about it in his footnote, and I know that "science"
> formerly referred to "knowledge" more generally, but I thought this might
> be an interesting morsel to toss into the Christianity/Experiment stew.)
>
> JM
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:44:56 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Mechanization versus Romanticism
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Mechanization. Dreadful thing, isn't it? And a recurring theme through
Blake and beyond. And yet, what is one to do? How can romanticism be turned
into pragmaticism to make the world a better place? How is a computer, in
and of itself, BAD?
The world in which Blake lived has largely disappeared from England. It's
now a "post-industrial" society. The chimney sweepers are gone. Clean
industries like software have taken their place. People from the poorer
nations of the European Community, particularly Spain, flock to London for
what we might consider "bad" jobs. They're happy just to HAVE jobs.
In the meantime, in the Third World, I think Blake would be screaming.
Manila is a pigpen. Bangkok is better, but that's not saying much. Beijing
is Smog Central overlaid on Stalinist boulevards. And yet if you ask a
great many of the citizens, "Are you happier now than 10 years ago?" The
answer is often an unequivocal "Yes!" They WANT Coca-Cola. They WANT
rollerblades. They WANT Arnold Schwarzenegger films. In fact, one of the
saddest things I saw outside of Jakarta was a truck with a hand-painted
Rambo holding a machine gun. Next to it was the slogan: "American Way." Oh.
Great. So they're losing, in Indonesia, their high arts like gamelon and
wayung kulit, because the kids would rather watch "90210" on TV. And it's a
free world, isn't it? In China, they lost their rug making capability
because Mao killed or "re-trained" the great rug artisans. Blake would be
depressed, indeed, by this turn of events.
But there's a deeper problem involved. I call it:
THE ESCALATOR DILEMMA.
We're all on an escalator. And as much as we can try to turn back and run
against the tide, the overriding current is... toward further
industrialization. What are we going to do? How do we keep romanticism and
yet pragmatically deal with this tidal wave we're riding? How can we make
recycling profitable for corporations as well as cities and towns? How do
we encourage population growth to slow down (particularly with a Pope who
often says "BREED!")? These are some of the major issues of our time. How
can Blake help? Or is he frozen in the time in which he wrote? Can he
inspire people to keep their local crafts, can we hear him echoed in
someone like David Bowie or Yeats... or how about just in how he was
keeping handwriting alive at a time that typesetting was taking over
everything? How much is "against the tide" and how much do we appreciate
those who bucked the tide, like Blake?
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:47:39 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: REFLEXIVITY & PETTY BOURGEOIS PRECIOSITY
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Ralph Dumain writes:
>What is most ironic in all this folderol about reflexivity is how
>limited in scope and character this precious self-consciousness of
>the petty bourgeois is, and how unconscious it is of so many
>things.>>>>>>>>
Mr. Dumain... what are you talking about? In fact, why are you studying
Blake? Are you using the "Jew, give up your counting gold" from "The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell" as a connection with Marx? I've never seen you
try to discuss the relationship in a positive way. This most recent tirade
of a post doesn't illuminate your approach much, either. Usually I see
laundry lists of books that you ask others whether you should or shouldn't
buy. What do the good books say and how do you interact with (or glean
from) them? Since Nietzsche is obviously in the doghouse with you, do tell
how Marx, who has his own problems with reductionist mechanistic reasoning,
compared to Nietzsche's faith in the Dionysian, is better for a comparison
with William Blake? Jesus, too, was anti-marketplace, come to think of
it.........
Books are not Bibles upon which we should fall in deference and interact.
Blake is not only a poet. He is one of the greatest visual artists of all
time. In fact, I would argue in something like "The Book of Urizen", he
tells more through his visual art than his poetry does. How does that fit
into your VIEW of Blake. And I capitalize VIEW because that's all it is.
It's not the objective truth, it's just your subjective VIEW.
>That thousands of so-called
>intellectuals could convince themselves that such a paltry,
>narcissistic view of the world shows any common capacity of
>intellect at all, let alone genius -- the apotheosis of all of
>reflective thought -- should tip us off that something has gone
>terribly wrong.>>>>>
Yes, terribly wrong. Like the entire Existentialist movement. Like people
fighting totalitarianism under the guise of Marx or "socialism, the Burmese
way" as a guise for repression. Actually, I too believe Marx was a
romantic, and many of his ideas have been subsumed under what we call the
"welfare state." But talk about tyrannies, Mr. Dumain! Did you travel to
any of those iron curtain countries before they fell? China was a really
nice one... and even now they are "fascist" because they still keep an iron
grip on free speech. Cuba could be better if we didn't embargo them to
death. Actually, Cuba has the highest literacy rate and longest lifespan, I
believe, in the Caribbean. Not bad, considering their repression of other
elements in their society!
>Another striking feature is how thin and pale the abstractions
>employed by these philosophers are to explain their predicament
>and the society that produces them.>>>
Nietzsche is pale and thin? Maybe for you. In fact, I wouldn't care if you
disregarded him totally in your studies except that I find it hard to
figure out what your studies really are! Why do you continued to even bring
him up in your tirade if you're onto such greater things than poor old
Friedrich was thinking about!
>underlying assumptions of all of "western thought,">>>>>
Actually, people ranging from Blake to Marx thought they understood
"underlying assumptions to all of 'western thought.'" What's inherently bad
in trying to make an imaginative connectivity?
>show how serious the debilitating influences of alienation are on
>the human mind, how crippling alienated existence is on the most
>refined intellects>>>>>
Alienated? I feel plugged in! But this is all far away from Blake!
>In fact, the debilitation comes from one and the same source,
>meaning that the professional intellectual can no longer pose as
>the repository of universality.>>>>>
Ah-hah! You have more in common with Camille Paglia than perhaps you know,
Mr. Dumain! She too blames the academic establishment, but unlike you, she
encourages people to THINK FOR THEMSELVES, not trust in books upon books to
give them the answers. She asks that people engage critically and
creatively with source texts, which in fact she does quite brilliantly at
times! Yes, it's that "professional intellectual" that's to blame. Maybe
you can expound more on this dilemma!
>What is most galling is how old all this is. For Marx (with the
>assistance of Engels) disposed of the precious self-consciousness
>of the petty bourgeois intellectual in THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY in
>1845-1846, his biggest mistake being in not getting this work
>published in his lifetime.>>>>>>>
But of course! And what has that got to do with your work on Blake?
>Another sad observation that can be made by anyone who chooses to
>actually think through the history of thought in social
>development, is how utterly counterrevolutionary the development
>from Nietzsche to Derrida is.>>>>
Tragic! What kind of revolution are you in favor of, Mr. Dumain? Getting
rid of the five senses? Overrunning commerce with its inherent evils in
favor of... what? An eye for an eye? To each man or woman, whatever they
can bring to the commonwealth?
>For the expose of the alienated,
>religious character of "philosophy" came not from Nietzsche but
>from Ludwig Feuerbach, representing a moment in the progressive
>and affirmative development of a social and intellectual project.>>>>>>>
Ah, Ludwig! The missing key in it all! Again, what has this got to do with
Blake?
>Ultimately, it was Marx who pulled together the various threads of
>philosophical, economic, and sociological knowledge to create a
>total picture of the development and maldevelopment of human
>powers under the hierarchical organization of society and the
>division of labor.>>>>>>>>
Yes, it was Marx. He tied it all together in a nice little bow! Forget
Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Levi-Strauss, and God save us from semioticians,
deconstructionists, or people like Coleridge and HIS theory on artists in
perspective of their time. What about artists themselves, like Blake,
Lawrence, Kafka, Orwell, or Camus? They had philosophies as described in
their art.
What Marx once imagined, has now been proven to be.... a utopia! (Well, not
completely. Every time a mega-merger happens, I think of his late
capitalism phase...) What about other ECONOMISTS, which Marx was: people
like Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Keynes, and more. I've
always like Jean-Baptiste Say... Say's Law: the one about letting free
markets do their work. No, let's leave it to Marx! He had all the
answers!... pulling together the awesome "threads of philosophical,
economic, and sociological knowledge to create a total picture of the
development of human powers..." And you say Nietzsche is too
all-encompassing? Or too arrogant?
And I ask once again: what has this all got to do with William Blake? How
are you making connections between a Romantic artist and a Romantic
economist?
-Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
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End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #82
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