Philosophy

The FBI’s William Gawthrop told his audience that the fight against al-Qaida is a “waste,” compared to the threat presented by the ideology of Islam itself.

By sifilings Tue, 09/20/2011 - 5:41pm

FBI Trainer Says Forget ‘Irrelevant’ al-Qaida, Target Islam
“‘The best strategy for undermining militants,’ Gawthrop suggested, ‘is to go after Islam itself. To undermine the validity of key Islamic scriptures and key Muslim leaders.’”read more

Confession of an Incurable Evidentialist, Part 3

By Jeff Brown Tue, 09/20/2011 - 12:00am

What is beauty?

The beginning of the Rock Music culture in the US is a little difficult to pinpoint, but by the time of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock,” its presence was evident to almost everyone. With the advent of Rock the youth of America possessed their own music. Their parents dismissed it as dissonant, gyrating wildness and told their children: “That isn’t music!” But the youth—particularly the Baby Boomer Generation—held on to it tenaciously. Rock/Pop has now become the world’s music to the extent that it is heard everywhere and all the time. Now teenagers listening to 100-year old hymns think, “That isn’t music!”

Many post-modern thinkers will probably tell you that the quality of music is a matter of taste, determined by culture and experience. This is a break with how people have thought, literally for millennia. It uses an argument that can easily be turned against itself (you can also say that the proposition “quality of music is merely taste, determined by culture and experience,” is simply a product of culture and experience, and perhaps not valid at all). When we talk about music or art, we also talk about the concept of beauty. I am not telling you a fairy tale when I say that there was a time when people agreed on what is good music, even if they disagreed on style preference. When and how did the change to today’s view of beauty come about? I think the change began slowly with the ideas of Immanuel Kant (and you thought it all started with Elvis, right?).read more

Confession of an Incurable Evidentialist

By Jeff Brown Mon, 08/15/2011 - 12:00am

I am an evidentialist. Having said that, I can sense that I am about to be surrounded by a host of theologians who will gladly lower their heavenly weapons at me. But before you classify me with David Hume and Bertrand Russell, let me explain what I mean. I believe that all humans apprehend truth in part through evidence (what some would call “hard evidence”). Dr. Bauder’s articles on Subjectivity and Objectivity have aroused my interest to write on the same subject. This is not meant as a contradiction of what he has said. I hope, likewise not to take anything away from what he is planning to write. Dr. Bauder was my faculty advisor, and pushed me to develop intellectually in ways I had not anticipated. I owe him a great deal for instructing me how to better tackle theology. So consider this as part of a conversation he started. I simply am entering the conversation with a different perspective.

I am an evidentialist by the definition I have given for two reasons (I would say “common sense” is one, but I know that would create more arguments than it is worth). Here are the reasons:

1. God created us to apprehend reality and thus arrive at truth (while not all truth) through the senses.

We are fascinated by scientific measuring devices and their ability to bring us knowledge: say a thermometer or a compass. Scientific measuring devices are basically (often crude) imitations of measuring apparatuses in humans, animals and plants. In humans, these measuring devices make up part of our sensory organs. For example, the rods and cones (over 100 million of them) in the retina of the eye are photoreceptors. Each registers the smallest particle of light, a photon, when it comes in the visual pathway. The incredibly high sensitivity of the retina is the reason you should not look directly at the sun.

Aristotle began his Metaphysics with the statement, “All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is our esteem for the senses; for apart from their use we esteem them for their own sake, and most of all the sense of sight…. The reason of this is that of all the senses sight best helps us to know things.” Through the senses we perceive reality quite correctly, and, combined with our current knowledge, arrive at new truth.

David’s actively measuring retinas helped him perceive the glistening reality of the night sky. Sensory experience combined with David’s knowledge of God as creator, plus the aid of the Holy Spirit caused him to produce a profound sacred statement: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4). David knew about God’s visitations to humans recorded in salvation history. It was David’s sensory experience that got him thinking and filled him with wonder at God’s condescension.read more

Does Ecclesiastes Teach Epicureanism?

By M. Osborne Thu, 06/17/2010 - 12:00am

This article originally appeared at SI July 7, ‘06.

Does Ecclesiastes teach Epicureanism? In a word, no. Despite certain passages in Ecclesiastes that “sound” Epicurean, if we take the message of Solomon as a whole and the message of Epicurus as a whole, we discover that the two views of life under the sun are quite at odds with one another. The philosopher known for “vanity of vanities,” in the final analysis, is life-affirming, and the philosopher known for “eat, drink, and be merry” actually sucks the joy out of life.

I would like first to correct what is probably a popular misconception of Epicureanism. Then I would like to lay out four contrasting points between the two views: their views of God (or the gods), of death, of humanity and human desire, and of the summum bonum–that is, the greatest good.

First, a word of clarification. Epicureanism has somehow earned a false reputation for reckless and dissipated hedonism. Actually, it is ascetic hedonism. The original Epicurus pursued maximum pleasure and minimum pain, but his strategy was anything but the “party till you drop” lifestyle that the word Epicurean brings to mind nowadays. Some parties bring pain, Epicurus observed. His strategy was actually one of detaching oneself from the cares and concerns of this world, to keep one’s mind free from turmoil (a state he called, in Greek, ataraxia). Instead of trying to fulfill all one’s fantastic desires, one should instead concentrate on keeping one’s desires simple, thus achieving a higher satisfaction rate. Why desire much and fail, since this is a lot of work and discomfort only to be disappointed?

What kind of worldview supported such a policy? This leads to the points of contrast.read more

The Importance of Imagination, Part 8

By Kevin T. Bauder Tue, 05/04/2010 - 12:00am

NickOfTime

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

Secondary Imagination

The primary imagination enables us to look beyond the object of perception and to see other layers of significance in it. What each of us perceives in the object is personal and, therefore, different from the perceptions of everyone else. Sometimes our perceptions are sufficiently profound and out of the ordinary to convince us that we have gained some insight into the nature of the thing that we are observing and, consequently, into the nature of the world itself.

Once we have gained an insight, i.e., a significantly different way of seeing the world, we often experience the impulse to share it. Here we find ourselves confronted with a challenge because an imaginative insight cannot (properly speaking) be communicated. In this respect it is akin to an emotional state. When we experience joy, sorrow, or anger, we can communicate to other people that we are happy or sad or mad—but we cannot communicate the emotion itself. Since emotions cannot be communicated, they must be evoked. Something other than our statement of emotion is necessary if we wish other people actually to enter into the emotion and experience it for themselves.

So it is with the insights of the imagination. When we desire to share an insight, our goal is not simply to announce to the world that we have experienced a moment of truth. Our goal is to reproduce in others the same insight that we ourselves have experienced.read more

The Importance of Imagination, Part 3

By Kevin T. Bauder Mon, 03/29/2010 - 12:00am

NickOfTime

Read Part 1, Part 2.

What I shall here call “modernity” antedates the Enlightenment. It represents a trajectory that was launched by the full development and acceptance of Nominalism during the late medieval period. Much of Western civilization followed this trajectory through the mid-to-late Twentieth Century, when it finally became untenable.

Where premoderns began with primacy of faith, moderns began with the primacy of doubt. Nothing was to be affirmed that could not be established upon clear and objective foundations. The nature of the foundation differed among different schools of moderns, but the yearning for an abstract, neutral, detached starting point is the most distinguishing feature of modernity.

Therefore, moderns had to begin with what was given, and for them that always meant the particulars of immanent reality. Moderns believed that the best way of understanding the world was to look at the world itself. They attempted to observe the world and to amass observations about it. Their core assumption was that, if they could collect enough facts and look at them long enough, then the truth was sure to emerge.read more

Philosophers and Children

By Jeff Brown Thu, 11/05/2009 - 1:00am

My doctoral studies during the past several years have been quite a challenge, since I have been forced to study (with good comprehension) many ideas and disciplines that were somewhat new to me. The thinking and writing of lots of theologians and philosophers is anything but simple. Take, for example, this explanation of man’s existence by Paul Tillich:

Man experiences himself as having a world to which he belongs. The basic ontological structure is derived from an analysis of this complex dialectical relationship. Self-relatedness is implied in every experience. There is something that ‘has’ and something that is ‘had,’ and the two are one. (Systematic Theology, I, 168)

Students of theology and philosophy often forget that the terminology they deal with is just as complex as the integrals and algorithms of higher math. Philosophical and theological thinking itself is often highly nuanced. Thoughts are long and complicated. If you try to begin reading the work ten pages in, you will often be completely lost.

What a contrast, when I open my Bible and read it—whether in English, German, Greek, or Hebrew. Its truth seems so easy to grasp, unlike that of the philosophers, who expend energy defining terms, deliberate long at placing parameters, and wrestle even with how they are to pursue an idea. It matters little whether you are reading Plato, Locke, or Heidegger—on an ascending scale of difficulty, they all demand the same mental exercises of their readers. How different the words of Jesus are! Consider this statement in Matthew 12:33-37: read more