One his\u00adto\u00adri\u00adcizes only inso\u00adfar as one belongs to a mode of being in the world that is ali\u00adgned with the prin\u00adciple of \u201cdisen\u00adchant\u00adment of the uni\u00adverse,\u201d which under\u00adlies know\u00adledge in the social sciences (and I dis\u00adtin\u00adguish know\u00adledge from prac\u00adtice). But \u201cdisen\u00adchant\u00adment\u201d is not the only prin\u00adciple by which we world the earth. The super\u00adna\u00adtu\u00adral can inha\u00adbit the world in these other modes of worl\u00adding, and not always as a pro\u00adblem or result of conscious belief or ideas. The point is made in an anec\u00addote about the poet W. B. Yeats, whose inter\u00adest in fai\u00adries and other non\u00adhu\u00adman beings of Irish folk tales is well known. I tell the sto\u00adry as it has been told to me by my friend David Lloyd :<\/p>\n
\nOne day, in the per\u00adiod of his exten\u00adsive researches on Irish folk\u00adlore in rural Connemara, William Butler Yeats dis\u00adco\u00adve\u00adred a trea\u00adsure. The trea\u00adsure was a cer\u00adtain Mrs. Connolly who had the most magni\u00adficent reper\u00adtoire of fai\u00adry sto\u00adries that W.B. had ever come across. He sat with her in her lit\u00adtle cot\u00adtage from mor\u00adning to dusk, lis\u00adte\u00adning and recor\u00adding her sto\u00adries, her pro\u00adverbs and her lore. As twi\u00adlight drew on, he had to leave and he stood up, still dazed by all that he had heard. Mrs. Connolly stood at the door as he left, and just as he rea\u00adched the gate he tur\u00adned back to her and said quiet\u00adly, \u201cOne more ques\u00adtion Mrs. Connolly, if I may. Do you believe in the fai\u00adries?\u201d Mrs. Connolly threw her head back and lau\u00adghed. \u201cOh, not at all Mr. Yeats, not at all.\u201d W.B. pau\u00adsed, tur\u00adned away and slou\u00adched off down the lane. Then he heard Mrs. Connolly\u2019s voice coming after him down the lane : \u201cBut they\u2019re there, Mr. Yeats, they\u2019re there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
As old Mrs Connolly knew, and as we social scien\u00adtists often for\u00adget, gods and spi\u00adrits are not dependent on human beliefs for their own exis\u00adtence ; what brings them to pre\u00adsence are our practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One his\u00adto\u00adri\u00adcizes only inso\u00adfar as one belongs to a mode of being in the world that is ali\u00adgned with the prin\u00adciple of \u201cdisen\u00adchant\u00adment of the uni\u00adverse,\u201d which under\u00adlies know\u00adledge in the social sciences (and I dis\u00adtin\u00adguish know\u00adledge from prac\u00adtice). But \u201cdisen\u00adchant\u00adment\u201d is not the only prin\u00adciple by which we world the earth. The super\u00adna\u00adtu\u00adral can [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2069,994,2636,1116,2635,2634,2626,2632,1131,689,2633],"class_list":["post-15703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-non-classe","tag-anecdote","tag-conte","tag-conte-de-fees","tag-croyance","tag-fairy-tale","tag-fee","tag-historicisme","tag-lloyd","tag-magie","tag-rationalite","tag-yeats","post_format-post-format-quote"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testanonpertinente.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}