Am. History & Culture
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More on Eschatology, Teleology, and Omega Points
In the course of the next several weeks I want to add layer by layer ideas that flesh out the project I described in the last post, which is to lay out elements of a post-Enlightenment Christian world view. I stated then that to be taken seriously such a worldview must effectively meet the three
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Naturalism vs. Supernatualism II
My basic assumption is that moderns don’t have a privileged position from which they can judge the validity of experiences of Being that humans have had in the course of their history. Being discloses itself in different ways at different times. And I would argue that our relationship to it at this juncture in human
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Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism I
First let’s define terms. Naturalism excludes any reference to the supernatural as false or unknowable and so not worthy of serious consideration. Any evidence of the supernatural is dismissed as potentially explainable in naturalistic terms even if not explainable now. Fox TV’s Gregory House is an exemplar of naturalism in this sense. In contrast, I
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Night & Day; Eros & Incarnation
I was reading in Safranski about the great 1929 debate between Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer at Davos. Safranski frames it as a battle between Night and Day. Heidegger’s philosophy is a night philosophy. It begins with the gesture to wipe away all facticity–the day world of things and forms–and to enter into that moment of
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We know that movie too well. We walked out, remember?
I wrote the piece below in June 2003. I’m reposting it with a few edits because I was reminded of it by Greenwald’s posts this week about America’s loss of moral stature in the world (see here and here). My piece connects with some of the things Greenwald is saying this week as well as
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Of Groupthinks & Cognitive Moments
All of us to a certain extent have slid into groupthink at one time or another. We all had to go through middle school, didn't we? We've all felt the pressure to conform our thinking to whatever were the group norms then or at other times in our life. So what is doing the thinking
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Legitimacy, Authority, Power
It might be interesting someday to try to understand better why so many Christians came to understand "belief" so narrowly as intellectual assent to certain propositions, and why it was so important to them to draw such clean lines between what was heretical and what was orthodox. Insofar as it has done this, it has
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Cosmic Dancing
I've been trying to figure out why Jacques Derrida is important, off and on, for some time now. I don't question that he is someone who is to be taken seriously, but it's an open question whether he's worth the effort, and whether there is really any there there. I think by his own rejection
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Nostalgia
As a phenomenon of postmodern culture, nostalgia is a manifestation of a deracination of both the self and culture. It arises from a deep sense of displacement, or dis-ease, with the present, and an inability to trust the future. There may well be a lurking awareness of nihilism which marks modernity. The strategy is to