[Buddha-l] sam harris at the aspen institute

[Richard Hayes]

On Sat, 2007-09-15 at 10:12 -0700, Franz Metcalf wrote:

> My master's thesis advisor (Don Gelpi, S.J.) was intellectually in love 
> with Peirce and found no conflict between his views and those of the 
> Society of Jesus, so I reckon that makes Peirce both a Buddhist and a 
> Jesuit. But the story I love about Peirce comes after James began to, 
> as Richard says, "highjack" Pragmatism. Peirce, miffed, changed the 
> name of his system to "Pragmaticism" and commented that this would 
> insure that no one else would want to steal the name again.
> 
> Like my favorite koans, this one is no doubt mythologized and 
> non-historical, but hey, it's still a good story, and good stories are 
> (and here comes the mandatory hidden Buddhist content) half the 
> spiritual life--or was it good friends to share them with?

It may be non-historical, but the quip does appear in the writings of
Peirce. He wrote that no one would kidnap a child with such a homely
name as Pragmaticism, and he criticized James for using the term
"pragmaticism" in a way that he (Peirce) would never have endorsed.
(Just between us friends, I have always loved James's pragmatism every
bit as much as Peirce's pragmaticism and have never fully understood why
Peirce was so huffy about the whole thing. I suspect Peirce may have
modelled himself on that notoriously ill-tempered Buddhist,
Dharmakiirti.)

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico