--On Sunday, August 12, 2001 10:43 PM +0000 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Ken: If you go to my previous post, you'll see the immediately preceeding
> lines are:
>
> ======================
> [Perl]:
>    The word he used to describe the philosophers' corresponding belief in
> reality is 'infantile'. The philosopher, he said, believes in a reality
> so  stable and so objective that asking questions about it would cause no
> alterations in it. And Eliot thinks
> that that is infantile.
>
>    Now the philosopher's childlike innocence is maintained . . . etc.
> ==========================
>
> So I'm assuming the word 'infantile' comes from a direct quite from
> Eliot.

 Steve,
  That was my assumption, too, for now. So for Perl to run over then to 
"childlike innocence is maintained" is just such an odd move. I don't know 
that it portends anything, but "childlike innocence" and the "infantile" 
are so disparate...maybe in the lecture he was talking without notes, etc.

> The problem for us is that Perl has had access to unpublished TSE
> material at  Harvard and Kings College Cambridge England by permission
> from Mrs. Eliot. We  can't verify what Perl is saying or make sure that
> the context is being used  correctly, which is too bad.

  If Perl publishes his lectures, they will presumably utilize quotation 
marks, though I wonder to what extent he will be permitted to document his 
Eliot sources with direct quotations? When my Eliot professor published his 
book in 1963 (T. S. Eliot: The Metaphysical Perspective), he had to relate 
the content of Eliot's dissertation without quoting from it, though it was 
that or the next year that the dissertation itself was finally published. 
BTW, it was precisely his (my professor's) thesis that understanding the 
dissertation is a positive help in "clarifying the entire scope of his 
[TSE's] work..." (thanks, HarmTron). I believe he was right and that his 
rehashing of it is still the best thing on the dissertation. And unlike the 
thing itself (Experience and the Objects of Knowledge in the Philosophy of 
F. H. Bradley), it is written in language that even an English major (i.e. 
yours truly) could understand, which is partly why, I think, it has been so 
little acclaimed. It's rather quiet.
 Later,
 Ken