Thanks to McEvoy for his commentary and the reference to Popper and James Joyce
as evidencing the concept of ‘stream of consciousness’ introduced by William
James. We are considering the opening lines from J. L. (John Lawrence – if you
must) Ashbery’s “Die Meistersinger,” as cited by Fjeld:
“He was raising himself, like a pudding on a platter. ‘You guys know where you
are? I’m trying to figure out what in hell’s going on. So is he too,’ he added,
waving his fork at the piebald host, who pressed a napkin to his exquisite lip.
‘No need to panic, folks. Our friend is but the first in a series that may well
turn out to be infinite, if past experience is any indicator.’
The clock is running over, and an octopus wears my wallet now.”
Ashbery likes to mix what linguists call ‘registers’ – and, due to his
education, he likes to apply ‘jargon’ or terms of art of different provenances,
such as science, and that is where Popper might have something to say.
The lines above provoked a few queries from Fjeld:
“[I]n this precise instance, is it not so that the place referred to by the
speaker (what Dante earlier referred to as Purgatory) is NOT THE SAME as the
location of the speaker -- as we usually expect when some similar expression is
invoked? And, how does the speaker know what the host is trying to figure out?
Telepathy? Advance agreement? Recursive events? Ok, so how can an infinite
series be referenced as a past experience? Only, we could suppose, when the
"clock is running over." An oblique reference to Yeats -- or Shakespeare (or,
indeed, both).”
Let us focus, for the time being, on Ashbery’s reference in conditional form,
“if past experience is any indicator” – implicating it might well NOT be.
“Indicator” is almost a Peirceian piece of jargon. Past experience (which is
different from ‘experience about the past’) INDICATES… what? Well, for Ashbery,
past experience might be an indicator that a given series he is considering –
of which “our friend” is “the first” [element] – may be ‘infinite’.
Fjeld seems sceptical that a ‘past experience’ makes a reference to a series
that might be infinite (Fjeld uses the passive voice: ‘how can an infinite
series be referenced as a past experience.”
My hunch was that if the infinite referred to by Ashbery is ‘potential’ rather
than actual, the reference seems possible.
McEvoy focus on the conditional, “if past experience is any indicator” – as it
might well _not_ be (If Ashbery were less sceptical he would phrase this
differently: “Our friend is the first in a series that may be infinite, AS
EXPERIENCE has shown, regarding OTHER series of a similar type.”
But in Ashbery’s conditional format, “if past experience is any indicator”,
McEvoy notes, “may be taken as encapsulating an [anti-Popperian] inductive view
point.” McEvoy notes a problem which he finds ‘typical’ here: ““past
experience” may also be an "indicator" within [NOT an anti-Popperian inductive
approach] but a “hypothetico-deductive” one of the type Popper might favour.
McEvoy refers to Popper’s allusion to the Irish writer James Joyce's and his
“stream of consciousness” as if this expression denoted a specific
philosophical position on how the mind works (perhaps someone more informed can
tell us whether Joyce intended it this way?).”
Well, Grice found Joyce difficult – “but he knew all the right music-hall
ditties”. Indeed, in “Norah,” a film about Joyce’s days in Trieste he is seen
playing (and singing) “The man who broke the bank of Monte Carlo.” It seems
authors (and famous too) other than Joyce relied on this idea of the ‘stream of
consciousness,’ so one has to be careful. It features more in “Ulysses” than in
“Finnegans Wake” which is more like an experiment with the limits of language –
alla Witters, almost.
I’m not sure Grice would use ‘mind’ – but ‘soul,’ rather. The ‘stream of
consciousness’ may involve psychological states that, in the traditional
Graeco-Roman tradition, are not referred to as pertaining to the _mens_ or
mind, but to the soul as a whole – emotions, feelings, and such.
McEvoy clarifies things: “The expression [“stream of consciousness”],
originating with William James, may be taken to be quite distinct when it
pertains to a style of writing which tries to simulate how the mind works as if
a "stream of consciousness" [a la Joyce] as opposed to when it is unpacked to
denote a philosophical position that, for example, takes the mind as a stream
of consciously experienced 'data' (as the mind is taken to be in many forms of
"empiricism"). In other words, Joyce may not be committing any kind of
philosophical mistake in developing a literary aesthetic in terms of "stream of
consciousness", and it may be a mistake to treat him as if he were.”
Well, especially if Joyce never used the term of art originating with William
James! I would not be surprised if Ashbery used ‘stream of consciousness,’ and
explored how this may relate to infinite series! Thus, one reads in
“Abstracting the density of numbers on the number line: a quasi-experimental
study”:
[T]he boys had a real experience of the potential infinite division. On the
other hand in several studies it has been found that in questions pertaining to
infinity, girls seem to be more cautious in their conclusions, which was found
also in our previous study.”
Note the phrase, re-formulated slightly: “A has an experience of the potential
infinite” – whatever this experience is. It may not be a case of what Popper
would call ‘objective knowledge’. In any case, Grice once said that a sentence
like “I know there are infinite many stars” is a stupid thing to say!
For the record, one passage by Joyce evidencing the ‘stream of consciousness,’
identified by Ian Ellis-Jones in “James Joyce: master of literary mindfulness”
comes from the “Ulysses” and reads:
“When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes
water I makes water … Begob, ma’am, says Mrs. Cahill,God send you don’t make
them in the one pot. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings
near you. They aren’t going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm full
blooded life. Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of
words. Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice
of that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks. They
are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death is in
them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will. As we,
or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day,
their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and unweave his
image.”
Cheers,
Speranza
