Choon-Leong Seow has some helpful comments about the “time for this, time for that” poem in Ecclesiastes 3. He points out that the thrust of the section is about God’s control of times and portions. As evidence, he notes that the word “season” us normally used “of predetermined or appointed time.” More fundamentally, while the section recognizes the reality of human action (describing man as “the doer” in 3:9), the accent is on God’s action: “The word ‘sh ‘to do,... Read more
In his early work on Husserl’s treatise on the origins of geometry, Derrida highlights the critical insight that the objectivity and universality of geometric axioms depends, paradoxically, on their embodiment in writing. On the one hand, geometry is “there for ‘everyone.’” Yet, “how does geometrical ideality (just like that of all sciences) proceed from its primary intrapersonal origin, where it is a structure within the conscious space of the first inventor’s soul, to its ideal objectivity”? How do others come... Read more
Postmodernism, as I’ve indicated in previous posts, is many things, some of which are quite inimical to Christian faith. But in important respects, postmodernism – especially the thought of Derrida – is a Hebraic protest against Hellenized philosophy. In his fine recent book on Derrida, James KA Smith suggests that “In the beginning was the word” would be a “fitting epigraph” to Derrida’s Complete Works, and elaborates: (more…) Read more
Bauman suggests that postmodernity, which is the “age of contingency fur sich,” is also the age of community. Yet, the communities that are possible within postmodern culture are inherently unstable; they are “clouds of communities”: “Such communities will never be anything like Tonnies’s cosy and unreflective (cosy because unreflective) homes of unanimity. Tonnies-style communities fall apart the moment they know of themselves as communities. They vanish (if they have not evaporated before) once we say ‘how nice it is to... Read more
The arguments in favor of skepticism were summarized by Aenesidemus in the first century B.C. in his Pyrrhonian Principles . Aenesidemus brought together the arguments under “ten modes” or “ten tropes,” helpfully summarized at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/#LPA as they were stated by Sextus Empricus. The ten modes are reproduced below. (Mates refers to Benson Mates, The Skeptic Way: Sextus Empricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism [OUP, 1996], and PH to the Outlines of Pyrrhonism by Sextus Empircus). (more…) Read more
Reflecting further on the pastoral applications of Solomon’s phrase “shepherding wind”: Every believer is born of the Spirit, and blows where he wills, and a pastor is in the business of shepherding wind. In this context, “quenching the Spirit” might refer to poor shepherding that tries to suppress the wind. 1 Thess 5:19 lends some exegetical support, since the exhortation “Do not quench the Spirit” is immediately followed by “do not despise prophetic utterances.” Quenching the Spirit would thus involve... Read more
INTRODUCTION This section of Proverbs focuses on issues of image, wealth, work, and treatment of employees (vv. 8-12), and ends with two verses that deal again with the use of the tongue (vv. 13-14). The final verses connect this section to the preceding section of this chapter (12:1-7). Thus, the section on wealth and labor is surrounded by instruction concerning speech. Speech is interwoven with all areas of human life, and the Proverbs manifest this by returning to this theme... Read more
The influence of Hamlet, the play and the character, on modern literature is vast. Consider Hamlet as model for Prufrock: Zulfikar Ghose says the “I am not Hamlet” in Eliot’s Prufrock may be literal or ironic, but then adds: “the more one ponders the language of ‘Prufrock’ and of Hamlet the more one observes a striking convergence of thought. In the end of ‘Prufrock,’ the mind, having failed to perceive the vision it has sought, invents one for itself; and... Read more
Herman Melville’s Pierre (1852) was, to put it mildly, not warmly received by critics. One newspaper headlined its review with “HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY” and another reviewer complained that Melville’s fancy was diseased. Critics are divided over whether it is a grand failure or simply a failure. Updike caught the tone when he remarked that the novel “runs a constant fever pitch” and its characters are “jerked to and fro by some unexplained rage of the author’s.” In his recent Melville... Read more
Bauman distinguishes between the “legislative” notion of reason found in Kant and other Enlightenment figures and the “interpretive” rationality that characterizes much postmodern thought. The shift from the former to the latter was not accomplished all at once. Schleiermacher, for all importance in the rise of hermeneutics, was still aiming at “legislative” goals through legislative means: “Schleiermacher’s most pressing worry was not the lack of understanding, and the passage from the absence of understanding to its presence, but the danger... Read more
Leithart
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