Well, I've been carrying on with the work. I've been reading a lot of John Macquarrie this week who was an early influence on my thinking (and the writer who first got me interested in Heidegger). It is good to read a mainstream philosopher of religion and systematic theologian denying that the statement "God exists" is strictly true. It's this line of argument, and Tillich's religious symbols, that I'll be writing about in Chapter 4; I hope, over Christmas.
I've reached the conclusion that there is some good stuff in theology but you have to be very careful. Or perhaps I'm just reading philosophers of religion who deceptively call themsleves, or were deceptively called by others, theologians.
I have just eaten a muffin and this led me to reflect of the meaning of the word 'muffin'. Some web searching reveals that what I've eaten is called an 'English muffin' in North America and is also known as a 'hot muffin' or 'breakfast muffin'. Like toast and crumpets, it can be eaten with sweet or savoury accompaniment. But there is no way, in the UK, of distinguishing the two kinds of thing that are called 'muffins' - people hardly go around talking about 'hot' or 'breakfast' muffins in order to distinguish what I've eaten from the sweet, cake-like muffins which are baked in muffin tins. Yet another instance, I reflected, of language use being determined by an ongoing practice of reference and by the context in which words are used. Would the context invariably make it clear what kind of muffin I'm talking about? I rather doubt it.
On a different note, I came across this chap's website today. I was frankly alarmed! He surely cannot be serious when he writes
I suggest that a better test would be to shave half a person's beard off, but not tell them which half.
I love the fact that he is careful to use terms that are non-gender-specific. And if you do as he suggests, and click on the link at the bottom of the page to see him six weeks later, it becomes even more obvious that he has no regard for how other people might perceive him. Not only was he content to perform 'outdoor activities' (presumably in public) with half a beard, but was not at all worried about staying like that until the shaved half grew back and even then without trimming it so that the halves were even. Perhaps he imagines that the shorter half will 'catch up'.
I have found some evidence here and here that such things are considered fashionable but it's not at all clear that these people are not taking the piss.
Yes, yes, yes: here we are in Wordsworth Country! It makes me want to read The Prelude: I hope some kind soul will buy me a copy for Christmas. The wedding was delightful, and the 7hr drive tolerable, though we stayed in a pub called the Swinside Inn which I cannot recommend for two reasons: a) it was shit b) they turn the central heating off at 10pm.
I wanted ear muffs and some kind of nose-warming device! I had to buy a cumbrian jumper to keep me warm during the night.
Here is me enjoying the Wordsworthian atmosphere:
And here is my favourite kind of cityscape- humanity vs Nature all the way!:
More reading: voracious reading! Human potential is more than we give it credit for.
On a different note: Choral Evensong tonight, followed by drinks. Then, I'm off to Keswick tomorrow for a wedding. I shall return with a detailed account and, no doubt, some pictures.
[Edit: I'm hoping for some visitors from California. I suspect that the mere presence of the word 'California' in this post may attract some.]
I'm presently in London, trying my best not to start work on the thesis again. The next stage is to read through the second and third of three lectures by William Alston. Though a different aspect of my work has been occupying my thoughts for most of today. It will have to be taken slowly and with Stoicism.
Speaking of that ancient school of philosophy, I'm very much of the opinion that philosophy is, or ought to be, improving [Edit: I'm using this as a transitive verb.]. It should not address its questions in abstraction from lived experience but should be intimately related to life, transforming. This approach to philosophy can be discerned throughout its long history but it has received little in the way of explicit articulation, especially recently. Of course there are exceptions: this book being a notable example, with its focus on a very specific period in the history of philosophy. All of us need to start doing more philosophy of this kind.
I think a similar argument could be made with respect to language. Language does far more than simply denote objects and relationships in the 'real world', rather it constitutes and cements our engagement with that world, without which the very concept of 'world' would be meaningless. I think this is roughly what Heidegger meant when he famously claimed that language 'speaks' man. Some of the best playwrights have intuited this idea. Harold Pinter, whose superb No Man's Land I was fortunate enough to see recently, makes language world-transforming in his plays and, by extension, an instrument of power. David Mamet's style is not dissimilar and I'm very much looking forward to his lecture to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 tonight.
For a more light-hearted take on the topic of language Stephen Fry's blog post, and the following clip, should entertain:
I have been using my Eee PC for a while now and have recently reached conclusions on how best to use it. Recall that in an earlier post I had installed UbuntuEee, which is a version of Ubuntu customized for the Eee by this man. The other option is to use Ubuntu with this customized kernel. My reasons for doing this were:
I wanted the freedom to install software outside the bundled package.
I wanted a more aesthetically pleasing OS. The default (a version of Xandros) is cruelly dubbed 'The Fisher-Price Desktop' in this thread.
I wanted to avoid Microsoft.
Note: None of the reasons are "I wanted to spend hours arsing around with an operating system". I wanted the machine to 'just work'.
Now I know very little about these things so it's unclear to me why Ubuntu doesn't work on an Eee when, presumably, it works on other machines. Anyway, it doesn't so I installed the customized version (which also didn't work), made necessary modifications to make that work and, after many hours, all was well. But then Ubuntu released a major update. My machine updated itself automatically but from the wrong source (i.e. from Ubuntu rather than from one of the non-generic repositories), something I (wrongly) thought I had guarded against. So the thing didn't work for the third time. I searched on the various fora dedicated to these matters and found ways of making modifications but, to be frank, I couldn't be arsed. I did not want a machine that had to be modified just to work properly every time a six-monthly update was released.
So I've reverted to the Fisher-Price Desktop - it works and does everything I would need a computer of that size to do. But the whole experience has taught me something about the whole business of software that is owned by a company (i.e. not free or open source): it has made me aware of just what one is paying for when one buys such software. One is paying for the fact that it 'just works'. And I have also learned that it would take more time and expertise than I have to make that happen myself. Now, I have not changed my opinion of Windows (which I think is horrid to use and bullying) but, I have learned from the 'Eeexperience', neither can my next main computer use a free operating system. So I shall turn to Apple when my ancient Toshiba laptop becomes extinct. By doing so I hope to acquire a machine that is aesthetically pleasing and 'just works'. I have not found that free software meets both criteria.
I have today entered the artworld. Wittgenstein by Eduardo Paolozzi now hangs in our flat, courtesy of Jesus College's art collection. Some (substandard) pictures follow.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
I haven't made a post for so long that I think it's about time. I have been doing more work on Tillich's conception of God, or rather his arguments for the impossibility of such a conception; planning to plunder John Macquarrie for similar points; trying to write an abstract for a conference on interdisciplinarity (which, the online edition of the OED informs me, is a word). But I haven't always been working, you understand; I can't always work. On that 'note', in fact, I shall be singing Evensong at Selwyn tonight to an unfamiliar set of preces and responses. It's insane, insane I tell you.
I've recently bought a marvellous new machine which is so small that it can be taken almost anywhere. A good friend of mine remvoved the operating system it came with and installed Ubuntu Eee. The advantage of this operating system is that it is marvellous when it works. The disadvantage is that it doesn't, yet, quite, work with the hardware, perhaps because it existed before my machine did. But I like it so much that I've decided that it's worth the battle. The real test will be when the update is released at the end of October.
I've also been initiated into the geeky world of Wi-Fi in which people in anoraks wander round constituting their world around wireless hotspots. I am typing this (guess where!) in the UL and, if you don't believe me:
Today, again in the UL, the place where all my observations take place, a man appeared next to me at the reception desk. He was wearing a black beret and was holding a copy of Revue de la Philosophie. When he spoke, he said 'Awwright?' in a distinct cockney accent.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Anthony Kenny was in College today for a conference that had been kept very quiet. Here is a picture of his head:
On a walk on Midsummer Common today I came across some of these. How lovely:
Interesting experiment described on the radio this morning in connexion with Cern. I tried part of it for myself and here is the result: I've always found it slightly disturbing that nothing can be seen to be emitted from the little bulb in the end of a remote control - now, with the aid of a digital camera, it can!
On a different note, my wife and I watched L'Ennui yesterday evening. I found it very absorbing to begin with but am of the opinion that the ending ruined it. Up to that point, it had been an almost meditative film (in the vein of Caché) on the theme of obsession, romantic jealousy and the like. It felt, at the end, that all this was undermined for no better reason than to introduce a bit of plot. How unlike French cinema! More positively, the film made me aware of the quality of Charles Berling's acting. Not only was it marvellously frenzied and totally convincing but also very different from L'Heure d'été, the last film I happen to have seen him in on the local Silver Screen.
As I write, I am drinking ([un]bottled) Guinness for medicinal purposes.
Interesting piece in The Guardian yesterday, arguing that Christianity is a religion of deception. I confess (God help me) that I found myself sympathetic with Mr Bradnack's arguments (and there is evidence that I am not the only blogger-ordinand in this position).
His arguments apply only to the specific expression of Christian doctrine that is the creed - but how influential an expression! Some people I know doubt the value of using the creed liturgically but, as we all know, liturgies are not immune to development and change. Thus, if the Liturgical Commission accepted arguments like Mr Bradnack's, it would surely have excised the creed from the (modern) liturgy. Many people take the view he describes in his final paragraph and interpret some of the claims as metaphor. But how could such people, as they persist in saying the creed as part of the liturgy, respond to his accusation that they "mouth the words to deceive the gullible that they must believe them"? One does not need to know exactly who 'the gullible' are, or how many of them there are in one's congregation, to be pretty sure that some people will in fact be taking the credal claims literally. I can't see any easy answer to Mr Bradnack's charge.
I can recommend that anyone plagued by these questions (and who doesn't mind them multiplying) read the novella San Manuel Bueno, Mártir (1930) by the Spanish philosopher and writer, Miguel de Unamuno. (There's an online version, alas only in Spanish, here.) Speaking of Unamuno, there's an interesting contrast between his views and those of Mr Bradnack. Whereas Bradnack takes the Church's opposition to Galileo and Darwin as instances of its committment to bad science, Unamuno (in his Tragic Sense of Life, p. 72) interprets it as a defence against the rationalism which, in his view, badly distorts our understanding of the nature of human being. He interprets it as the defence of 'life' in all its irrationality. I can't help thinking that Unamuno goes too far. Defending the non-rational dimension of human nature is one thing (so far, so good); being out and out anti-rational is quite another.
On a more mundane level, I spent too much money today in Heffers Sound and Heffers. I bought Bach's complete sonatas and partitas for violin and a history of psychiatry.
Well, as promised to all those fans of soft-furnishings, here's some evidence of how much of a difference a change of curtains can make to one's flat. Here is what we had before: Horrid, aren't they? Words should have failed me but instead my wife and I put up with this pair of monstrosities for almost a year. They were too long, wasted space and just look at the way they were fitted (I apologize in advance for this one): My parents very kindly came up today and helped to create this veritable nirvana: Yes, the curtain has literally been drawn aside to reveal that depth behind all things and beyond all things, especially curtains.
Two totally unrelated issues. Here, firstly, is one of my better cups of Monsoon Malabar, though the splodge in the middle hardly counts as 'art':
Secondly, I'd like to share with you a comment from a comic genius, a perceptive satire on the nature of religion. Listen to it here.
Today, in the University Library, I had a look (in the West Room) at John Cottingham's very recent Festschriftin the hope of some enlightenment about his philosophy of religion, a critique of which presently comprises a chapter of my thesis. Both happily and frustratingly, his work was not criticized along my lines. Cottingham's own contribution to this volume, however, furnished me with some interesting ideas and pleasing quotations. I cannot resist reproducing my favourite. Cottingham is discussing the difference in style between 'analytic' and 'continential' philosophy; analytic philosophers behave, he says,
as if locutions like 'it seems to me as if I may now be being appeared to red-ly' must automatically trump declarations like 'the conceptuality of rednees posits itself phenomenologically in the domain of subjectivity'. Both sorts of jargon tend to make me see red.
[Reference: 'The Self, the Good Life and the Transcendent' in N. Athanassoulis and S. Vice (eds.) The Moral Life: Essays in Honour of John Cottingham (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 231-274, 233.]
If any of my coterie of readers has an overbearing interest in soft furnishings, they should look out for tomorrow's post. 'tis the Eve of the Curtain Saga!
