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Peirce: CP 1.614 Cross-Ref:††
614. Now what would the doctrine that that which is admirable in itself is a quality of feeling come to if taken in all its purity and carried to its furthest extreme -- which should be the extreme of admirableness? It would amount to saying that the one ultimately admirable object is the unrestrained gratification of a desire, regardless of what the nature of that desire may be. Now that is too shocking. It would be the doctrine that all the higher modes of consciousness with which we are acquainted in ourselves, such as love and reason, are good only so far as they subserve the lowest of all modes of consciousness. It would be the doctrine that this vast universe of Nature which we contemplate with such awe is good only to produce a certain quality of feeling. Certainly, I must be excused for not admitting that doctrine unless it be proved with the utmost evidence. So, then, what proof is there that it is true? The only reason for it that I have been able to learn is that gratification, pleasure, is the only conceivable result that is satisfied with itself; and therefore, since we are seeking for that which is fine and admirable without any reason beyond itself, pleasure, bliss, is the only object which can satisfy the conditions. This is a respectable argument. It deserves consideration. Its premiss, that pleasure is the only conceivable result that is perfectly self-satisfied, must be granted. Only, in these days of evolutionary ideas which are traceable to the French Revolution as their instigator, and still further back to Galileo's experiment at the leaning tower of Pisa, and still further back to all the stands that have been made by Luther and even by Robert of Lincoln against attempts to bind down human reason to any prescriptions fixed in advance -- in these days, I say, when these ideas of progress and growth have themselves grown up so as to occupy our minds as they now do, how can we be expected to allow the assumption to pass that the admirable in itself is any stationary result? The explanation of the circumstance that the only result that is satisfied with itself is a quality of feeling is that reason always looks forward to an endless future and expects endlessly to improve its results. END
There is much brilliance in this quote but it is also an invitation to taste the delectable diet of triadic unification. I do not see bliss as real if it is not one with love, if it is not within the circle of the ontological. Now this realm is our fallible construct. It does not even have the pristine purity of pure mathematics. It is however -- ontology -- a means of understanding truth insofar as we can understand it. Any feeling in itself is a spectrum including love. It depends entirely on its meaning within the scope of ethics and aesthetics if you are engaging in Triadic Philosophy. One could feel bliss at a rank perversion in which not only is there self-degradation but concrete desecration and violent destruction of another or others. Stanley Kubrick was a master of such ironies. We must struggle with words to suggest what may indeed rest finally in the subjective recesses of areas of frequency which we cannot access. This is why Triadic Philosophy espouses ignorance not as a defect but as a sort of badge of our human condition. We knew more before we were born and will know more after. When we glimpse from where we are we may see Light. Peirce did.
I say wrestle with these things, do not repress them.
614. Now what would the doctrine that that which is admirable in itself is a quality of feeling come to if taken in all its purity and carried to its furthest extreme -- which should be the extreme of admirableness? It would amount to saying that the one ultimately admirable object is the unrestrained gratification of a desire, regardless of what the nature of that desire may be. Now that is too shocking. It would be the doctrine that all the higher modes of consciousness with which we are acquainted in ourselves, such as love and reason, are good only so far as they subserve the lowest of all modes of consciousness. It would be the doctrine that this vast universe of Nature which we contemplate with such awe is good only to produce a certain quality of feeling. Certainly, I must be excused for not admitting that doctrine unless it be proved with the utmost evidence. So, then, what proof is there that it is true? The only reason for it that I have been able to learn is that gratification, pleasure, is the only conceivable result that is satisfied with itself; and therefore, since we are seeking for that which is fine and admirable without any reason beyond itself, pleasure, bliss, is the only object which can satisfy the conditions. This is a respectable argument. It deserves consideration. Its premiss, that pleasure is the only conceivable result that is perfectly self-satisfied, must be granted. Only, in these days of evolutionary ideas which are traceable to the French Revolution as their instigator, and still further back to Galileo's experiment at the leaning tower of Pisa, and still further back to all the stands that have been made by Luther and even by Robert of Lincoln against attempts to bind down human reason to any prescriptions fixed in advance -- in these days, I say, when these ideas of progress and growth have themselves grown up so as to occupy our minds as they now do, how can we be expected to allow the assumption to pass that the admirable in itself is any stationary result? The explanation of the circumstance that the only result that is satisfied with itself is a quality of feeling is that reason always looks forward to an endless future and expects endlessly to improve its results. END
There is much brilliance in this quote but it is also an invitation to taste the delectable diet of triadic unification. I do not see bliss as real if it is not one with love, if it is not within the circle of the ontological. Now this realm is our fallible construct. It does not even have the pristine purity of pure mathematics. It is however -- ontology -- a means of understanding truth insofar as we can understand it. Any feeling in itself is a spectrum including love. It depends entirely on its meaning within the scope of ethics and aesthetics if you are engaging in Triadic Philosophy. One could feel bliss at a rank perversion in which not only is there self-degradation but concrete desecration and violent destruction of another or others. Stanley Kubrick was a master of such ironies. We must struggle with words to suggest what may indeed rest finally in the subjective recesses of areas of frequency which we cannot access. This is why Triadic Philosophy espouses ignorance not as a defect but as a sort of badge of our human condition. We knew more before we were born and will know more after. When we glimpse from where we are we may see Light. Peirce did.
I say wrestle with these things, do not repress them.
