{"id":26281,"date":"2013-05-02T11:28:50","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T16:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=26281"},"modified":"2013-05-04T11:26:45","modified_gmt":"2013-05-04T16:26:45","slug":"an-open-letter-to-mormon-thinkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2013\/05\/an-open-letter-to-mormon-thinkers\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to Mormon Thinkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Speculative<\/a>Last week I published\u00a0something<\/a>\u00a0in a prominent series at a first-rate university press. It is, I think, the most rigorous, speculative, and systematic attempt at a professional take on Mormon philosophy, ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

In close dialogue with\u00a0Bruno Latour<\/a>, the book is a thought experiment in which I reframe what \u201cgrace\u201d means in a non-classical ontology that begins by assuming the existence of an irreducible and eternally co-existent multitude of full-blown agents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mormons aren\u2019t committed to such an ontology, but we might be. And there is certainly more than one way to skin even that cat \u2014 but what I offer is, I think, one way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Some might see my failure to mention Mormonism in this book as a deficiency when it comes to doing Mormon philosophy. I can see that. And I welcome work that does otherwise. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But, for my part, the move is intentional.\u00a0Here is a book that conducts, in plain view of the world of professional philosophy, a field test of key Mormon ideas about the structure of reality and then re-reads Christianity itself in light of the results.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Further, untethered from any explicit connection to Mormonism, the ideas are left to be evaluated, borrowed, or adapted on their own merits. This is a kind of open-source, non-proprietary approach to Mormon philosophy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But whether this book turns out to be even locally influential will depend on whether anyone feels compelled to understand and disagree with it.<\/p>\n

And whether this book turns out to be influential for\u00a0<\/i>Mormons will depend on whether any\u00a0Mormons\u00a0feel compelled to understand and disagree with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The measure of influence is response, not agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you’re interested in rigorous, speculative, systematic work on Mormon ideas in the context of big questions in professional contemporary philosophy, then I may have something for you.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019ll take the time to disagree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I published\u00a0something\u00a0in a prominent series at a first-rate university press. It is, I think, the most rigorous, speculative, and systematic attempt at a professional take on Mormon philosophy, ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":26282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Speculative-Grace.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26281"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26311,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26281\/revisions\/26311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}