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Welcome to the Home Page of
Roger Bissell, the Muse-Seeker
Revised
Welcome to my Home Page on
Dear Cyberbrothers and Sisters:
In the waning years of my sixth decade here on Mother Earth, I find that Father
Time has blessed me with more hobbies and interests than I know what to do
with! Neither a polymath, nor a true Renaissance Man,
I am better described as a Muse-Seeker -- hence the title of my home page.
A Muse-Seeker is a person who follows his or her inspiration, wherever it may
lead, in search of discovery and enlightenment. Muse-Seeking is neither
dedicated single-mindedness, nor crass whim-worship. The Muse-Seeker is the
spiritual equivalent of the Hunter-Gatherer. I track and pursue the hidden
truth, the elusive data, the unexpected pattern.
Among the sources of my inspiration, as you will see by clicking on the
hyperlinks below, are philosophy, music, psychology, and genealogy. And
although I'm a full-time working musician, happily married, and the father of
five children, I have still managed to publish essays in each of these areas in
journals, magazines, and books. ***9/99
FLASH*** See below for my latest publication, "Music and Perceptual
Cognition" in Vol. 1, No. 1 of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.
The pieces you can access from this website are just a small sample. Some day I
will add a lot more and organize it better, so just because you don't see it
here yet, don't assume I'm not interested in it!
Also, squeaky wheels do get grease. If something I have promised for
later intrigues you, you might be able to convince me to move up my timetable
for writing and posting it on this web site, so let me hear from you. For now,
I hope you find something of interest that will encourage you to keep coming back!
Click here The Art of the Duo for ordering information and other details on my new CD (with pianist Ben Di Tosti).
Click here Muse Seeker for the Secret Headquarters of the Muse-Seeker aka Roger Bissell. At present, it contains an introductory essay on personality type, showing how the work on temperament theory by David Keirsey logically leads to ways to group personalities according to their cognitive style and their behavioral style. Before long, I hope to expand this essay, and to add another piece entitled "Will the Real Apollo Please Stand Up? A Comparison of David Keirsey and Ayn Rand on the Apollonian Spirit."
Click here Family and Friends for a web page with
links devoted to my immediate family and close friends. This is a work in
progress, as are those on whom it focuses!, so please
bear with me as I learn the arcane features of scanners and HTML files and
hyperlinks. ***01/02 Flash!!***
Click here Colleagues and Cohorts for a web page
with links devoted to bandleaders and jazz colleagues.
Click here Mind Matters! for a review of Roger
Sperry's Science and Moral Priority and other essays on the nature of
the mind-body relationship and free will vs. determinism, logic, epistemology,
number theory, and philosophy of mathematics. Among them will be an original
essay applying Ayn Rand's theory of measurement-omission to the theory of
propositions and syllogisms and one deriving a new formula for generating
Pythagorean triples. Also included are my 1973 essay, "On the Fine Art of
Thawing Out Frozen Abstractions" and an
autobiographical piece on the rise and fall of my attempted career in
mathematics. This area may also be the place I decided to include my work on
ethical theory, showing how Aristotle's form of egoism involves not only one's
survival as a living organism, and one's flourishing as an individual human
being, but also one's generativity as a social being.
Without contradiction, one's rational self-interest and long-term happiness
might require that one risk or even give up one's life in trying to save one's
spouse or one's children. As of January 12, 2000, I am happy to announce, I
have posted here my early work on the issues of late-term abortion and
child-support. All too many of my acquaintances have trouble acknowledging that
children have a right to support from their parents, and that late-term fetuses
ought to have the same right to life as prematurely born babies.
Click here Music, Music, Music!
for an essay on the nature of "perfect
pitch" and other essays on music and art-related subjects. Later on, look
for an autobiographical essay on my musical training and career, as well as
some character sketches of unforgettable characters I've worked with during the
past 30 years. Also, I will soon be posting a piece showing how Ayn Rand's
faulty understanding of musical perception probably undermined her efforts to
integrate music with the rest of the arts in her seminal essay "Art and
Cognition." ***1999 UPDATE*** This essay, "Music and Perceptual Cognition," is
included in Vol. 1, No. 1 of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. See
below!! ***2003 UPDATE*** A more
wide-ranging essay, “Art as Microcosm,” portions of which were delivered in
June 2002 to The Objectivist Center’s Advanced Seminar at UCLA, is now slated
for publication in Vol. 5, No. 2 (Spring 2004) of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. In it, I examine the nature of art
in general and architecture and music in particular. ***12/03 FLASH*** 11 years ago this month (Dec.), I did a jazz duo
on trombone with pianist Ben Di Tosti.
It is finally in the printing and manufacturing process and will be available
for purchase in January of 2004. For information on how to order it, click here: The Art of the Duo
Click here Achilles Tendencies for the Home Page
of Achilles Tendencies aka Roger Bissell. This page contains
an outline of a projected manuscript comparing the ancient Greek model of
temperament with the two modern versions advocated by Hans Eysenck
and David Keirsey. In addition, as of June 4, 1999,
there are links to two new papers. One, "Achilles Tendencies: Exploring
Human Frailties and Personality Type," is an application of knowledge
about the four thinking and feeling attitudes to understanding various areas of
human relationships. Special attention is given to Virginia Satir's
four modes of non-leveling communication and four parallel ways in which people
exhibit lack of appropriate independence in their personal relationships
(either by being codependent or by practicing a "counterfeit" form of
independence). The other paper, "Keirsey's
'Mirror Temperaments' and the MBTI: a new bridge between type and
temperament," shows how Keirsey's
temperament-related ideas of role-directive, role-informative, cooperative, and
utilitarian are most accurately captured by the four thinking and feeling
attitudes of Myers-Briggs theory.
Finally, click here Bissell Histories and Mysteries, for
Home Page of Bissell family genealogy. On it you will find information about
and links to books and newsletters I have published and intend later to
publish, as well as a parody essay, "Why I Like
Genealogy," based on Ayn Rand's remarkable piece on stamp-collecting
written some years ago for the Minkus Stamp
Journal. Also, click here Van Boskirk with an O!
for the Home Page of Van Boskirk
family genealogy. At this point, I am just interested in connecting up my
great-great-great-great-grandfather, Richard Van Boskirk
(1764-1830), to the main Van Buskirk family, though
eventually I will write a book about him and his over 2000 descendants, most of
whom could probably care less about this obsession of mine!
Hey, everybody! A brand new journal is starting up in September 1999, and one
of my essays is in the very first issue! Check out the table of contents for
Vol. 1, No. 1 of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, which includes my
essay "Music and Perceptual Cognition." Just click here: Journal of Ayn Rand Studies ***2003 Update*** I now have a number of essays and reviews in this
journal, as you can see from the online table of contents at the journal
website. During 2004 and 2005, two more pieces will be published, including
“Art as Microcosm” and “Langer and Camus: Unexpected Post-Kantian Affinities to
***12/03 Flash!!*** Another new journal
is due to start up in 2005, and I have been asked to contribute to it. Stephen Boydstun, former editor and publisher of Objectivity, is inaugurating a journal
dedicated to “engaging and extending the philosophy of Ayn Rand in the
following areas: metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of
science, theory of value and virtue, and esthetics,” and will have “special
emphasis on
[Note to new guests of this webpage: prior
to its reorganization on 9/29/99, there had been 835 visitors. Thanks for
coming, and stop in again soon!--REBissell]