From: ddavis@cass.ma02.bull.com (Dave Davis)
Subject: Re: Michael Siemon's "dealt with in themselves" 
Organization: Bull World Wide Information Systems Inc.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 15:53:37 GMT

Russell Turpin writes, wrt Mike Siemon's summary paragraph about 
certain interior experiences:

> More specifically, Michael's words would apply to my own
> experience, up to the last qualifying phrase, that non-religious
> interpretation does not deal with such interior experiences "in
> themselves."  (And perhaps even that applies, though I am not 
> sure yet.)

My initial response would be: Even at the most basic level, 
isn't there a existential difference between 'talking about being 
in love' and 'being in love'? Or, to try another example, is this like
the difference between trying to define or describe trust ('My trust 
in my parents is like...') and trying to convey the quality of the 
interior state represented by 'I trust my parents' ? Wouldn't this be so 
for any value of 'interior experience' ? Agreed, this observation does
not address the issue of interpretation, but I think it needful to get
it on the table.  

> This raises several questions.  What does it mean for an
> interpretation to deal with an experience "in itself"?   [...]

I would not think it apt to take feelings of love or trust, or other emotional
states or relations, as face-value knowledge about the external world 
(as contrasted with information about my interior state, which these
feelings do directly speak of) . But if information of one sort 
(not to say 'knowledge of one sort' which may be more problematic) 
may be conveyed by 'outside study' (sociologists studying love or
trust, the frequency and patterns of behaviors associated with it), then 
is it strange that think that another sort of information is conveyed
*by actually having experienced* the emotion or relation or other
interior state? This may connect to, for instance, the distinction in
French usage between 'savoir' ('to know how') and  'connaitre' 
('to be acquainted with').  An interpretation that doesn't attempt
to represent information from interior experience may be restricted 
to the domain of 'connaitre'.

I think we could agree that many such interior experiences may well 
be best represented in metaphor, such as that used in a poetic
diction. Perhaps these experiences in themselves do not convey any
communicable information (that is, info directly communicable to 
another person). Yet I do see them, in my own case, as conveying at 
least interior information for supporting my guess about the setup 
of the universe. In the consonance I 'hear' among others reporting such
interior experience, I find additional support of the same kind. This
cannot amount to 'proof' or 'connaitre' of the putative source of these
experiences. I mean, though, that it is simply different than the 
glory I see in a rainbow.

Elsewhere, Mike Siemon writes in response, 

MLS> [. . . ] I will simply observe that the phenomena at issue
MLS>are NOT part of any secular theory I have ever encountered.

Which sums it up nicely. One might go on to look at Otto's 
Idea_of_the_Holy, or Berger's Rumours_of_Angels. Or even, wrt
the glory to be seen in rainbows, Lewis' Abolition_of_Man. 

Dave Davis, ddavis@ma30.bull.com
These are my opinions & activities alone

QOTD:

     People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for
     merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a
     conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance
     to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent
     such meetings, by any law which either could be execut-
     ed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice.
     But though the law cannot hinder people of the same
     trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to
     do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to
     render then necessary. 
			Adam Smith