Paul Ricoeur, Christian philosopher, friend of Emmanuel Levinas, colleague of Jacques Derrida, is dead.
Category: Philosophy and Theology
The Order of Things
My discussion of belief and practice has in its background a larger discussion concerning what it means to be religious.
Belief and Practice
I have been carrying on an argument with Nate on one of his posts (## 5 and 7) and in his responses to one of Blake’s posts ( #23) –sort of.
The Sway of Philosophy
As I see students get excited about Heidegger or Wittgenstein or some other philosopher and the insights into their own lives and the gospel that come with that excitement, I remember my first year or so in graduate school.
Petitionary Prayer
If we remember that the Father already knows our needs and desires, then the idea of prayer is strange.
Plainness and Ornament
With many other Christian traditions, we share the admonition to plainness in speech and other aspects of life: “Let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hand” (D&C 42:40)
Interpreting Scripture
Joe Spencer, Blake Ostler, Larry, and Ivan Wolfe have started talking about the interpretation of scripture on the thread on pride.
Pride
In Book X of Confessions (chapter 39), Augustine writes about various ways of being proud.
Against an LDS Theology of Conscience
I’ve never seen the Disney version of “Pinocchio,â€? but I’ve absorbed by cultural osmosis the image of Jiminy Cricket cheerfully chirping, “Always let your conscience be your guide.â€? Our banal present-day version of conscience—and our uncritical acceptance of the concept as a stable psycho-spiritual category–belies the treacherous history of the idea.
Two Questions from Jim F. (2)
Second question (go here for the first): This question is more philosophical.
Nietzsche and Longfellow
I’m neither a Nietzsche-ologist nor a Longfellow-ologist, and it’s likely that this association has been made by others. Still, it’s something that I personally had never noticed till this morning, when it suddenly occurred to me: Nietzsche’s famous charge has already been answered (in a sense) by Longfellow — and the answer came a full decade before the charge was even made.
Relics
One of my more prized possessions is a small chunk of limestone. It is about 8 inches long, roughly the size of two fists. Its value lies in the fact that is is a piece of one of the shattered sunstones of the original Nauvoo temple.