Pragmatism

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:04 am By Peter Leithart

In his very readable The Metaphysical Club (2001), Louis Menand gives a number of pithy summaries of pragmatism, its sources, its varieties, and its fundamental beliefs. The common attitude or idea among pragmatists has been “an idea about ideas.” Whatever their differences, pragmatists “all believed that ideas are not ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered, but are tools – like forks and knives and microchips – that people devise to cope with the world in which they find themselves. They... Read more

Between, and child actors

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:47 pm By Peter Leithart

Everyone lives between times, and is the intersection of past and future. Everyone is always already taught, and always anticipating or actually teaching and ruling. Rosenstock-Huessy writes, “‘He’ never exists, but is always between two times, two ages, as son and father, layman and expert, the end of one era and the beginning of another.” Modern psychology is fundamentally ill-founded because it ignores this reality and attempts to isolate the thought of the individual. At the heart of the psychological... Read more

Double Procession

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:53 pm By Peter Leithart

No generation ought to be determined by the spirit of the sons. As a matter of simple fact, the world is never occupied by a single generation. For a generation to be healthy, the spirit of the sons must mingle with the spirit of the fathers. The Spirit must proceed from both the Father and the Son. Modern history has seen many denials of this cultural double procession: Youth culture is the spirit of the son without the father. Educational... Read more

Thy Word is Truth

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:51 pm By Peter Leithart

Near the end of his prayer in 2 Samuel 7, David confesses his confidence in Yahweh’s promises concerning David’s house, saying “Thy words are truth” (v. 28). Jesus echoes this words in John 17:17. The connection seems to be a fruitful one, and perhaps there are more verbal links than this. At least we can suggest that Jesus prays for the ultimate fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. The establishment of a house for David is fulfilled in the unity of... Read more

Rigor

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

I and many of my friends have been criticized for our supposed lack theological rigor. It’s meant as an insult. I take it as a compliment. Rigor has its place. But it’s not the be and end all of theology. A Turretin is necessary for consolidating a Reformation. He could never have started a Reformation. Plus, I don’t think even the rigorous are as rigorous as they pretend to be. They also know and see and confess more than they... Read more

Proverbs 16:20-24

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

INTRODUCTION 16:20 starts a new section of the chapter, as Solomon returns again to the issue of speech. Waltke sees two sections here, verses 20-24 and 25-30. The first section focuses on the benefits of wise and winning speech, while the second section focuses negatively on destructive speech. Verse 20 introduces the theme of the section by tying speech to the “good,” and the following verses spell out the good things that the right kind of speech brings. Verses 20-24... Read more

Genius critics

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:42 pm By Peter Leithart

Artists never accepted the attribution of genius as readily as theorists and bourgeois admirers applied it. Artists knew too much about the recalcitrantly physical qualities of words, paint, stone, ink, and sounds for that. Artists are as interested in technique as in inspirations. But for Kant genius was the criterion of artistic value, and from the beginning, the genius of the artist had to be matched by the genius of the observer and critic. How, after all, could the work... Read more

History of purity

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:43 pm By Peter Leithart

Gadamer says, “One day someone should write the history of ‘purity.’” He cites one H. Sedlmayr, who “refers to Calvinistic purism and the deism of the Enlightenment.” Kant would play a key role: He “linked himself directly with the classical Pythagorean and Platonic doctrine of purity.” Gadamer wonders whether “Platonism is the common root of all modern ‘purism.’” Read more

Seeing as

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:02 am By Peter Leithart

Contrary to empiricism, perception is never pure, never merely a response to stimulus. That it is is merely a kind of “epistmological dogmatism” (Gadamer), which can only be defended if all instinct and fantasy is removed. In actual life, we never perceive without instinct or fantasy, and so “pure perception, defined as adequacy of response to stimulus, is merely an ideal limiting case.” All our perception is perception-as: We see things as objects with shapes and colors, hear sounds as... Read more

Museums, Agents of relativism

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am By Peter Leithart

Aesthetic consciousness – the capacity to abstract the aesthetic component in all perception, so as to view everything “aesthetically” – also implies, Gadamer argues, a particular notion of simultaneity. Because it abstracts the aesthetic value of the work, and downplays or ignores all other aspects of an aesthetic object, the work is removed from its place in the world, its relation to the artist, its location in a tradition of art. It is valued only for itself, not as an... Read more