Kevin Hector offers this clarification in response to my summary of his Theology Without Metaphysics: God, Language and the Spirit of Recognition: “A crucial component of what I call ‘essentialist-correspondentist metaphysics’ is that it fits objects into predetermined categories or a . . . . Continue Reading »
Rosenstock-Huessy talks about the necessity of enemies as much as Carl Schmitt. Enemies keep us awake: “Thanks to Mr. Stalin, we have kept awake. It’s wonderful. Just, you see, have a good enemy, and you are taken care of. But your friends, beware of them. They put you to sleep. Do you . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s common to tell the history of philosophy as a calm passing-on of concepts or at least of questions. There are arguments, sometimes vigorous, but they take place in the proverbial ivory tower designed just to house philosophers. Rosenstock thinks otherwise. Philosophy arises from shock, . . . . Continue Reading »
Neither Rosenstock nor Rosenzweig were moralists. They did not believe that evil could be fought by urging people to do better, as the moralist thinks. Instead, evil is fought by creative, timely speech and action: “St. Francis did not call for others to act 0 he himself acted, and his action . . . . Continue Reading »
Cristaudo’s book is not only the best available introduction to Rosenstock-Huessy (and perhaps Rosenzweig), it is full of Cristaudo’s own insightful analyses of philosophical and cultural phenomena. This, for instance: “When the spirits of modernity were in their preliminary . . . . Continue Reading »
In his excellent Religion, Redemption and Revolution: The New Speech Thinking Revolution of Franz Rozenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy , Wayne Cristaudo explains the difference between Platonic dialogue and the dialogic thinking of Rosenzweig and Rosenstock-Huessy. Socrates dialogs, but he . . . . Continue Reading »
For all of Badiou’s aspirations to novelty, he falls into some very old early modern canards in his discussion of Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism . How, he asks, “does genuine saintliness . . . bear the ordeal of a History that is at once fleeting and monumental, one in which . . . . Continue Reading »
The title of Kevin Hector’s Theology Without Metaphysics: God, Language and the Spirit of Recognition might mislead, and Hector is careful to explain what he does not mean by metaphysics: “The term is sometimes used to designate any set of claims about that which transcends nature, or any set . . . . Continue Reading »
Anthony Ossa-Richardson’s richly detailed The Devil’s Tabernacle: The Pagan Oracles in Early Modern Thought is mainly about the role that ancient oracles played in modern thought, but he begins with a fascinating overview of the place of oracles in the classical world and the Christian . . . . Continue Reading »
The Supreme Court has two culture-war cases on its menu this term. At the NYRB , David Cole sums up several of them. Greece v. Galloway addresses the question of “whether government-sponsored religious speech violates the Establishment Clause.” Cole elaborates: “That test, which . . . . Continue Reading »
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