Peter J. Leithart

Hamann does believe, as many postmoderns do, that we have no access to reality without language. But for Hamann this does not mean that we suffer “linguistic claustropobia,” or “outsidelessness.” Dickson again: “the fact that perceiving and understanding are . . . . Continue Reading »

Hamann says that the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation does not, despite its apparent attention to the human author, really honor the author. This is because historical-critical interpretation is “castrated,” removing all passion and kerygmatic intention. Dickson . . . . Continue Reading »

Cryptic as always, Hamann writes ( Aesthetica in Nuce ): “Speak, that I might see you! — This desire was fulfilled in creation, which is an address to the creature through the creature.” Dickson notes that this suggests that creation pre-exists itself such that its desire is . . . . Continue Reading »

Hamann can repeat this Derridean scandal, quite literally. As Gwen Dickson puts it, “Hamann’s conception of language as speech as a ‘translation’ reveals that at the basis of his thinking there is no language-world dichotomy; language, after all, is part of the world, and . . . . Continue Reading »

Athanasius insists that the Word is one, while creatures are many. He anticipates the Arian objection that there is also oneness in creation - one earth and one son. But the oneness of the creation is different from the oneness of the Word. Creatures are one “with respect to its own . . . . Continue Reading »

When the Arians claim that the Father made the Son to make the world, they imply that it is unworthy of God to be so directly involved in the details of the created world. Athanasius ( Orations Against the Arians ) sees that the Arian God is prissy, disdainful of making things and so handing the . . . . Continue Reading »

Rorty: “Great systematic philosophers are constructive and offer arguments. Great edifying philosophers are reactive and offer satires, parodies, aphorisms. They know their work loses its point when they period they were reacting against is over. They are intentionally peripheral. Great . . . . Continue Reading »

Some scattered notes on Isaiah 33, the product of listening to students comment on the passage in exams throughout the week. 1) Verse 1 includes an interesting variation on the lex talionis. Destroyers will be destroyed, and the treacherous will be dealt with treacherously. But the justice that the . . . . Continue Reading »

Milbank points out in detail how the sacred/secular dualism was undermined in medieval life: “monasteries were also farms . . . the church saw to the upkeep of bridges which were at once crossing places and shrines to the Virgin . . . the laity often exercised economic, charitable, and . . . . Continue Reading »

Milbank, summarizing and critiquing the work of Pierre Manent, suggests that “there was, from Machiavelli through Hobbes to Montesquieu and Hegel, a bias toward the primacy of evil.” Honoring good was “the everyday unexceptional reality,” but not “the normative . . . . Continue Reading »