(urth) OFF LIST Re: Wolfe and Materialism

Fri Feb 11 08:42:13 PST 2011

Whoops. I obviously forgot to change the address line. My apologies.

I'll add something substantive, then:

The interesting thing about approaching Wolfe from the direction that Lane 
outlines below is that the "spiritual" meanings of what can otherwise be seen as 
merely physical phenomena in Wolfe can be seen as at once physically real AND 
spiritually meaningful. And we can do that without just saying that they are 
metaphorically or symbolically meaningful.

For example, when Sev brings the New Sun, it could, physically, just be a 
complicated Hiero/grammate plot to travel backwards in time and ensure that they 
were created by whatever humans eventually evolved into (or whichever version of 
that "alien conspiracy" story we currently believe). But that evolution could 
also be literally spiritual, even if it isn't quite up the level of actual 
salvation.

My difficulty with finding real spiritual/supernatural events in the plot of New 
Sun has always been that I could figure out ways that what happens is 
metaphorically full of religious meaning...but it so often seemed possible to 
reduce it to some other physicalist/materialist/Hiero conspiracy explanation. 
With Lane's model, though, when Sev brings about Urth's evolution/salvation, it 
can be at once a mere physical event but also a step on the ladder of, as he 
says, "reconciling spirit with matter."

It would take me some work to find textual evidence that this is what Wolfe 
thinks is what's going on, but I think it's an idea worth sticking with for a 
bit.

Craig

________________________________
From: Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Fri, February 11, 2011 10:30:09 AM
Subject: (urth) OFF LIST Re:  Wolfe and Materialism

Lane,

I'll write off line so as not to bore the rest with non-Wolfe stuff. But I 
almost wrote my dissertation on the relationship between Spinoza and Milton's 
materialism, with a lot of reference to other early modern materialists. But I 
found out that a couple of others were doing the same thing. There's a 
fascinating book by one of my advisors, though, about Milton's philosophical 
relation to other "materialist" debates of the time: Stephen Fallon's _Milton 
Among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in 17th Century England.

And, years ago, I had to teach a course on Philosophy of Mind. I had the same 
suspicions about Kim as you said. And speaking of Phil of Mind, there's no 
better book to enrage undergraduates than Ryle's _Concept of Mind_. It provides 
such a succinct  conceptual and argumentative structure for responding to any 
and every objection that it drives them crazy when they can't get out of its 
circle. Been awhile since I've thought about that book, so thanks for making me 
free associate a bit!

On Wolfe, though, I love this:

>> The sense of redemption or of reconciliation of matter with spirit  is then a 
>>heroic process that runs counter to the natural inclinations  of things.

That actually makes a fair bit of sense and is worth rethinking what's going on 
in New Sun, I think. It's also very Miltonic, so automatically like it. :)

Thanks for the great post!

Craig

________________________________
From: Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Fri, February 11, 2011 10:17:38 AM
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfe and Materialism

The modern usage of materialist as ontological naturalist/physicalist is an 
unfortunate hangover of a terminology shift.  Two hundred years ago people that 
believed only in physical things would be called materialists because we did not 
have any idea about atomic science.  Now we call them physicalists because 
"matter" seems so inadequate, however they mean the same thing (unless one talks 
to Jaegwon Kim, who is really a dualist but too scared to admit it).

I wouldn't even call Milton's position materialism, as it sounds much more like 
Spinoza's version of modal monism, or even something like Leibniz' monadology.

We could, of course, be approaching this from the wrong side, starting with 
matter, when we should be starting with spirit.  A pure and eternal unchanging 
essence (eidolon, spirit, universal soul) is a common 
top-of-the-ontological-pyramid feature of a lot of the mythic/philosophical 
systems Wolfe pirated for BOTNS, as well as a defining feature of the ontologies 
of the early church fathers.

That pure Spirit substance is then filtered or refracted or corrupted as it 
leaves the Ain Soph Dei or whatever and gets down the lowly earth-world of 
imperfect, temporary and flawed beings such as us, where it is now instantiated 
not as eternal and unchanging spirit but now base matter.

The sense of redemption or of reconciliation of matter with spirit is then a 
heroic process that runs counter to the natural inclinations of things.

LH

On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 10:05 AM, Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com> wrote:

Just a note that there are quite a variety of "materialisms" out there. Perhaps
>one that would be interesting to think of in relation to Wolfe would be Milton.
>
>Milton was a materialist. But he was also, obviously, not an atheist. For
>Milton, matter and spirit were on the same continuum, and spirit was just
>"refined" matter. Technically, Milton gets categorized as a "monist" meaning
>there's only one substance, rather than a dualist who says that mind/soul and
>body are two different "things."
>
>In his theological writings, Milton says this right out, but you can also get a
>much more beautiful version in Paradise Lost (5. 469-490) when Rafael explains
>it to Adam. I'll quote it below, but I'd point out that this kind of
>"materialism" might be interesting to think about, particularly in relation to
>the notion that, with Wolfe, mimicking something can help you become that 
thing.
>Perhaps, like Milton, Wolfe is saying something along the lines of: "lowly
>matter gets refined into a more spiritual state when it behaves like something
>more pure/moral/spiritual/whatever."
>
>Rafael to Adam:
>
>
>O Adam, one Almighty is, from whom
>All things proceed, and up to him return,
>If not deprav’d from good, created all
>Such to perfection, one first matter all,
>Indu’d with various forms, various degrees
>Of substance, and in things that live, of life;
>But more refin’d, more spirituous, and pure,
>As nearer to him plac’t or nearer tending
>Each in thir several active Spheres assign’d,
>Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
>Proportion’d to each kind. So from the root
>Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
>More aery, last the bright consummate flow’r
>Spirits odorous breathes: flow’rs and thir fruit
>Man’s nourishment, by gradual scale sublim’d
>To vital spirits aspire, to animal,
>To intellectual, give both life and sense,
>Fancy and understanding, whence the Soul
>Reason receives, and reason is her being,
>Discursive, or Intuitive; discourse
>Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,
>Differing but in degree, of kind the same.
>
>
>
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