Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Some Thoughts on Love
My love for her becomes my love for myself; my love for God
becomes my love for her; my love for her becomes my love for God; my love for
God becomes my love for myself; the two become one in spirit and body; the love
for myself, for her, and for God forms an intrinsic unity in an image of
Trinitarian Love.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Philosophical Methodology vs. the Modus Vivendi of Authentic Philosophy
I’ll probably edit and expand this later, but I had
this thought a few days ago[1] and just wanted to put it out there. Have a blessed Easter Sunday!
Academic “disciplines” are defined and constituted by their methodologies,[2] but philosophy does not have a “methodology” as such; it is a way of life, a modus vivendi ("mode of living"), a pursuit of truth in the broader sense, or the “love of wisdom” in the ancient and restricted etymological sense. Wherefore philosophy is not a “discipline” since philosophy as such transcends methodology qua modus vivendi.
“Schools of philosophy” may be considered “disciplines” since very often “schools” are defined not just by their founder or his works, but by his methodology, or by the methodology of extracting his thoughts and his way of thinking from his texts.
But such a narrowly-construed “philosophy” is dubitably philosophical, for in so reducing Philosophy to this-or-that methodology—and thereby creating a “philosophical discipline” properly so-called—the movement away from the “mode of living” has already been completed, for Philosophy is relegated to the solitary confinement of the academic department, cut off from communication with the broader world of wanderers, tourists, and pilgrims on their journey to the truth.
Only a way of living in pursuit of truth that transcends academic disciplinary methodology is worthy of the name Philosophy.
Academic “disciplines” are defined and constituted by their methodologies,[2] but philosophy does not have a “methodology” as such; it is a way of life, a modus vivendi ("mode of living"), a pursuit of truth in the broader sense, or the “love of wisdom” in the ancient and restricted etymological sense. Wherefore philosophy is not a “discipline” since philosophy as such transcends methodology qua modus vivendi.
“Schools of philosophy” may be considered “disciplines” since very often “schools” are defined not just by their founder or his works, but by his methodology, or by the methodology of extracting his thoughts and his way of thinking from his texts.
But such a narrowly-construed “philosophy” is dubitably philosophical, for in so reducing Philosophy to this-or-that methodology—and thereby creating a “philosophical discipline” properly so-called—the movement away from the “mode of living” has already been completed, for Philosophy is relegated to the solitary confinement of the academic department, cut off from communication with the broader world of wanderers, tourists, and pilgrims on their journey to the truth.
Only a way of living in pursuit of truth that transcends academic disciplinary methodology is worthy of the name Philosophy.
[1] Original fragment composed 25 March
2016, ~12:55-1:17am PST (Good Friday).
[2] This was a notion I argued
for and discussed in my Theology 401 final essay, reproduced on Philosophical Living as “The
Propriety of Magisterial Authority in Academic Theological Discourse”.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
On the Necessary Similitude Between the Mythic and the Mundane
There has been much hype in the Star
Wars community surrounding the infinite possibilities of havoc and hope which a
Disney self-emancipated from any semblance of continuity with the entire
artistic corpus of “The Maker” George Lucas—including, most especially, Lucas’
crowning masterpiece, The Prequel Trilogy—could
reap upon the Star Wars franchise. But if one conjectured possibility—time
travel or dimensional rifts—were admitted into Star Wars, it would fundamentally alter the similitude of “The Galaxy
Far, Far, Away” (GFFA) to our own, thereby destroying the power of epic myth,
in which there must be commonality and yet distance. The iconic opening line of
the saga establishes the necessity of linear progression as the means of
establishing a human manner of interacting with the GFFA: A long time ago in a galaxy far [, far] away… is only intelligible within
the framework of our everyday experience vis-à-vis
reality, that is, of a linear past and a three-dimensional expansion of space.
We exist in a linear progression of
time; time travel would turn the epic into mere science fiction. By this I do
not mean to imply that science fiction franchises such as Dr. Who, et al.
are not amazing things in themselves, but nobody would contend that they
contain the same power of epic myth that Star
Wars always had since its very debut. These create interesting moral
situations and things, but the element of time travel detaches them from our
common experience of linear temporality, in which concrete actions and choices
cause future results and which cannot be undone. Anakin's radical choice in
Star Wars III is an example. He goes down the path of the Dark Side, and
forever it "dominates his destiny". He cannot undo what he has done;
he even remarks in horror at his fundamental choice "What have I
done?!" while still in Palpatine's office; it is only in the linear
progression of his actions and his son's actions that he is able to make a
contrary choice; he cannot undo what was done, but—like us—he can make a choice
for the good no matter how much evil has been done.[1]
There is a
fundamental distinction, however, between going impossibly large distances in a
short amount of time, and going back/forwards in time itself: the former is a
mere variation of degree in a thing that bears familiarity; the latter is a
fundamentally distinct kind of interaction with time. While I concede that the
GFFA is not of necessity subject to our physical laws and often ignores them in
the Saga itself—to the horror of a post-logical modern scientific establishment
baptized in the name of the logically dubious methods of induction, inference,
and generalization—I maintain that the physical laws of the GFFA should, in
order to preserve the necessary similitude between our experience and the
experience of the epic myth, be distinguished only in degree, and not in kind,
regarding the effects—and not necessarily the causes—of those laws.[2]
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