Two American Phenomenologists: Peirce & Whitehead

Some years ago in my twenties when I lived in Bellingham, Washington, I read a good deal of Husserl, the “father of phenomenology.” I I also read Peirce’s “Love, Chance, and Logic,” which vaguely alluded to the “practice” of phenomenology. Peirce also alluded to the so-called sightings of supernatural phenomena, which he did not dismiss outright, as any pure rationalist would in those days.

Much later I came across Whitehead’s dialogues with a Boston journalist which went on for several years. While at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he taught philosophy at Harvard until he retired in 1937. He died ten years later.

Several years ago I glanced at some of his more major works, and I finally attempted to tackle “Process and Reality,” the chapters 9 and 10 of which are said to be very difficult to understand. I guess I’ll find out when I get there.

What I’ve known all along about Whitehead is that he is thorough and systematic in his thinking, although in “Process and Reality” some would view as rather scattered at best, or loosely cohering. But an evaluation and judgment such as this is a matter for each individual who has read his works to decide. None of us are or should be bound by the notions of our neighbors; even distant, unknown neighbors. Some of us remain inclined to do our own thinking, regardless of the opinion of the common crowd — or even the opinion of learned academics who often believe themselves to be the final word on the matters which they’ve been studying and teaching for years.

But Peirce himself has a very interesting view on this sort of thing, and here it is:

From “How to Make Our Ideas Clear”

“Many a man has cherished for years as his hobby some vague shadow of an idea, too meaningless to be positively false; he has, nevertheless, passionately loved it, has make it his companion by day and by night, and has given to it his strength and his life, leaving all other occupations for its sake, and in short has lived with it and for it, until it has become, as it were, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone; and then he has waked up some bright morning to find it gone, clean vanished away like the beautiful Melusina of the fable, and the essence of his life gone with it.”