i’ve been pretty busy this morning writing up some things. One thing i’d like to point out is my development page (link). i am offering web hosting and web design services, both separately and together. It’s all quite affordable. i have some links to previous projects. Additionally, of course, this site has been designed and set up by me. Mandie and i are in a tight spot right now and this is something that i can do alongside my school work. Please spread the word about it.
Monthly Archive for April, 2006
i’d like to take the time right now to invite everyone to a summer reading group. We’ll be reading primarily modern philosophy (so far, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit are definitely on the list) and possibly some of Aristotle. It’s mainly for some students at my university as we begin preparing for our comprehensive exams, but i’d like to invite others who are interested in reading a bit and discussing that reading. The discussion format will be a group blog i am setting up on my site. Email me @ christopher@impleri.net if you are interested. We’re planning to start mid-June and work through August.
Too often, there is a confusion among Christians (Protestants especially) as to how faith and works play into grace and salvation. My take on the whole issue is, admittedly, circular. Quite simply, it goes like this: a person is saved by grace and only by grace. Nothing else. No other “sola” is needed. Furthermore, it cannot be somehow measured or verified in this life. Belief in that salvation by grace is the beginning of faith. As faith grows, good works come as a result of that faith. Yet, as humans in this life, those good works are the only tangible things we can “measure.” Of course, this does not mean that someone who did a lot of good works (say Mother Teresa) gets a better spot in heaven, more gold in her heavenly clothing, or anything else. Sorry, but the only thing those “saved” get in “heaven” is face-to-face contact with the God of everything. Nor does that mean that someone who does no good works is not getting into “heaven.” This doesn’t even mean that someone who does a lot of evil works while claiming to be a Christian isn’t getting into “heaven.” To reduce salvation to some kind of measureable object is in effect reducing something infinite like grace into something finite like works.
- Read for Knowledge Problems:
- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume
- Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein
- Read for Nietzsche Study:
Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche- Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche
- The Antichrist, Nietzsche
- On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche
- The Gay Science, Nietzsche
- Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche
- Nietzsche and Christianity, Karl Jaspers
- Total Presence, Thomas Altizer
- Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology, Mark Taylor
- Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, J. Kellenberger
- Read for Fundamentalism
- Terror in the Mind of God, Mark Juergensmeyer
- Islamic Fundamentalism Since 1945, Beverley Milton-Edwards
The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, Bassam Tibi
- Read for Comprehensive Exam
- Republic, Plato
- Apology, Plato
- Phaedo, Plato
- Cratylus, Plato
- Parmenides, Plato
- Timaeus, Plato
- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume
- Misc. Reading
- Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- On Certainty, Wittgenstein
- Primer on Postmodernism, Stan Grenz
- Eldest, Christopher Paolini
Phew…a couple of books down and out.
The structuralists (see “Language”) were quickly followed by what became known as the post-structuralists. They saw many of the problems inherent to structuralism and sought to find a better way to conceptualize language.
Lacan
Lacan first saw the problem of seeing language as purely sound waves. His most famous example is that of the restroom door. Suppose a boy and a girl were on a train approaching a train station. When they both see the restroom doors, the boy may say “we’re at the boy’s room.” The girl, finding this wrong, would suggest “no, we are at the girl’s.” The truth is, though, they were at both. The problem is that the two doors (each a signified) were identical except for the placard above them (signifier). Lacan then suggests that the signifier enters in the signified to form the sign. Without that signifier, it would be impossible to determine which door leads to which restroom.
Derrida
Later philosophers would suggest that language is primarily a written form, but they were quickly dismissed upon discovering that many undeveloped cultures do not have a written language. In Derrida, we find an idea that language is both written and spoken. His famous example is that of differance. In French, difference and differance are pronounced exactly the same. Difference is a “real” word that translates as “difference” (amazing!), yet differance is one Derrida coined. As Derrida said, differance “is not: it has neither existence nor essence” (Differance, 111). It comes from primarily two other words defer (meaning “to put off”) and differ (”to be unlike”) while using a gerundive ending to place the word between active and passive voice. The basic reasoning for this term was to suggest that language is in flux as a fluid object. The idea of a clear, stable meaning (which was found in the structuralists) was rejected. The meaning of a word could only be described by using other words. In other words, language is self-referential.
Blanchot
The self-referential idea of language enters into what becomes the postmodern discourse and becomes a key point. Yet, it is Maurice Blanchot who kills any possible obsession with language. In his The Writing of the Disaster, Blanchot points out that language is unable to do some very important things as it encounters its own walls. Blanchot speaks of the disaster (well, more of dis-aster, coming from the etymology of the word used to imply cataclysmic events such as a star falling) as being the limits of language. Language is unable to fully grasp the dis-aster. Blanchot ultimately concludes that language is highly over-rated.
Meaning
Here is the primary activity of language, yet it is not simply some kind of concrete definition. Some languages make a distinction between the meaning of a word (i.e. how does the dictionary define it?) and the sense of a word (i.e. how is it used in its current context?). By making this distinction, we can account for idiomatic expressions. “Kick the bucket” is no longer bound to one’s foot striking a bucket but can be extended to imply one’s death. This will be important when trying to interpret texts as it requires a context. This sentiment can be found in Derrida’s statement that “there is nothing outside the text.” There is so much relevant to a given text that the interpretation requires but yet this context is so often excluded on the basis of it being irrelevant. When we get to the problem of hermeneutics, we will see that the context of a given text includes all of history coming up to that point and the culture in which it was written. An informed interpretation of the book of Daniel may not be the “common sense” literal reading of it.
