Let’s do a Plato-update. Mathematics is the key, as it was for that heavyweight wrestler (according to some rumors which even hint at championships). Very roughly speaking, philosophy to Plato was a generalization of the thinking done in geometry and arithmetic. It may not be true that Plato’s school (the Platonic Academy Academy) had a … [Read more…]
We live in a world driven by processes of evolution and development. Our human beings, individual and communal, have been created and shaped by more specific processes of evolution and development. In particular, our minds are shaped as we respond actively to reality in its concrete and abstract realms and aspects. Some Medieval thinkers made … [Read more…]
An Overview of What I’m Up To I’ve tried to concentrate on the general speculative, or `metaphysical’, task of making sense of created being, abstract as well as concrete, in light of Christian beliefs. I’ve tried to avoid too much in the way of theological speculation and certainly have and will avoid questioning the basic … [Read more…]
I’ll be publishing this essay in three parts. This first part will deal with an essay by Donald Kagan, Ave atque vale, which provides a highly summarized history of liberal arts education in the West along with a few hints toward a profound understanding of human knowledge and education and, finally, an assessment of the … [Read more…]
The anthropologist John Hawks has published a short discussion, Crazy evolution movies, which is really about wrongful understandings of evolutionary processes. He states: To be fair, this scenario [of the evolution of intelligent apes in Planet of the Apes within 2 or 3 millenia] is quite consistent with some people’s models of human evolution, in … [Read more…]
One of the problems with a good understanding of some domain is that we adopt such understandings as rigid habits of thought even when they deal with empirical matters and should be rethought as we learn more or as new possibilities emerge as a result of human activities. We forget we’re mortal creatures in a … [Read more…]
William James made a claim which should be very disturbing to those who hold mainstream views of the nature of truth: The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a … [Read more…]
Slowly do I move forward in my efforts to develop words and grammatical structures and concepts adequate to describing the social and moral setting of man as he learns to shape himself, his societies, his technologies, to better reflect and take advantage of the richness and complexity of God’s Creation. This richness and complexity can … [Read more…]
[This entry was originally published as The Christian in the Universe of Einstein: 1. An Overview on 2007/01/11. This is a slightly corrected version which will be printed under the current title, Why I Misuse the Term ‘Universe’ in my upcoming collection of weblog writings to be published as a big ebook.] In my book … [Read more…]
[This is a somewhat freewheeling response to Biblical Leadership — first given as a lecture in 1928, a chapter in the book On the Bible: Eighteen Studies, a collection of short writings taken from the various works of Martin Buber.] In the essay, Biblical Leadership, Martin Buber states: I believe that we are standing at … [Read more…]