[Michael F]

Andrew,

Not entirely just for fun, I’ll match your Kantian transcendental idealism and raise you a Schopenhauer and a Wittgenstein:

The world is my idea. – Schopenhauer

The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man. – Wittgenstein

I’m not disputing the law of causality or denying the reality of space-time. However, I do believe that, in what matters to an emotional creature such as man (and there are no values, in the axiological sense, without emotions), the world is indeed very much a product of mind – that is to say, of brain and heart. I’d submit that a major objective of religion is to change this reality; and a purpose of art can be to express, even to evoke, a changed world.

I don’t have anything very intelligent to contribute to the organic form discussion; I confess the phrase bemuses me. The limit case, for me is Dickinson, who managed to express just about everything important about human existence, so nearly perfectly, with so little variation in form. Of course, she was a genius.

And there you go: I think I have just convinced myself that that mere mortals like me should pay more attention to form, and perhaps even try to find organic form…

M