Varro distinguished three kinds of acting - making, acting, and a third that he identified with the verb gerere . The distinction between making and acting, Agamben notes ( Opus Dei: An Archaeology of Duty , 82-3), is ultimately from Aristotle’s distinction between praxis and poiesis , . . . . Continue Reading »
As Agamben ( Opus Dei: An Archaeology of Duty ) explains it, the shift from officium as status-specific behavior to something more like our conception of duty begins with the extension of officia to cover the human situation in general. This is already evident in the usage of Cicero and Seneca. In . . . . Continue Reading »
Cicero’s de Officiis played a massive role in the development of Western ethics, since it was considered to be a book “concerning duties.” Agamben ( Opus Dei: An Archaeology of Duty ) points out, however, that the book is not really a book of ethics but a “treatise on the . . . . Continue Reading »
“You have left your first love,” Jesus tells the church at Ephesus (Revelation 2:4). That’s a serious charge, and if we said it, it would be quickly followed by denunciations and charges of apostasy. But Jesus also knows that the same people persevere, that they test false . . . . Continue Reading »
Thomas Doherty gives a chilling example of Nazi film criticism in his Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939 . As summarized by the TLS reviewer, “Nobody sensed the power of cinema more acutely than the propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. As early as December 1930, at the German premiere of . . . . Continue Reading »
Modernism, Arthur Danto argues in What Art Is posed a fundamental challenge not only to artistic styles but to the very conception of art. As Ian Ground explains in his TLS review of Danto’s book, Danto believed that art as capable of definition even if we have lost the ability to make things . . . . Continue Reading »
The TLS reviewer of The Library: A World History gives some tantalizing examples from the book, such as “the Tripitaka Koreana (1251), housed in a monastery high in the mountains of South Korea. Its rough-hewn timbers are freighted with wooden printing-blocks comprising a complete set of the . . . . Continue Reading »
It seems that many, if not most, of Jenson’s most shocking innovations fall neatly into place once we recognize his debt to Barth, especially Barth’s doctrine of election. To wit: Election is God’s self-determination. It is not only a determination of the future of the world and . . . . Continue Reading »
In the early church, the heretics were the ones mouthing dusty truisms. The orthodox were the philosophically adventurous . . . . . Continue Reading »
According to the NASB translation, “David gave to his son Solomon the plan ( tabnit ) of the porch ( ulam ) of the temple, its buildings, its storehouses, its upper rooms, its inner rooms, and the room for the mercy seat” (1 Chronicles 28:11). David plays Moses to Solomon’s . . . . Continue Reading »
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