In his superb commentary on the Vulgate of the Song of Songs ( Song of Songs (Brazo’s Theological Commentary on the Bible) , p. 28), Paul Griffiths asks what Solomon means by talking about grazing among the lilies. He answers: “This, in the Song, is something the lover is said by his . . . . Continue Reading »
Medieval Christian thinkers were sometimes aware of the tensions between Aristotle’s ideal of magnanimity and Christian virtues like humility. According to Tobias Hoffmann’s essay in Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1200-1500 . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Political Authority and Obligation in Aristotle (Oxford Aristotle Studies) , p. 173, Andres Rosler questions whether gratitude for the benefits of socialization are enough to obligate someone to obey the regime in which he was socialized. Is gratitude sufficient basis for political . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Habermas and Theology , Nick Adams sums up Habermas’s project as an effort to answer this question: “how can there be moral debate between members of different traditions?” Habermas’s answer, Adamss says, is “simple in conception”: “Habermas argues . . . . Continue Reading »
I summed up Gadamer’s discussion of beauty and light a few days ago, but here is Gadamer himself speaking to the subject ( Truth and Method (Continuum Impacts) , pp. 482-7). Following Aristotle and Aquinas, he argues that “‘Radiance’ . . . is not only one of the qualities of . . . . Continue Reading »
Language is a prison-house to much post-structuralist theory. Not to Gadamer. I suspect that this is related to the fact that he is comfortable with finitude. Language seems a prison-house only to those who still long for some way to escape creaturliness. Language is a prison-house only for . . . . Continue Reading »
One might characterize Gadamer’s project as one of recognizing the virtue of necessity. We cannot understand the past, he points out, without involving ourselves in it; even if we could slice ourselves from our understanding of the past then it would no longer be we who understand it. No . . . . Continue Reading »
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