A problem is coming into view for me. For the last two decades, it has seemed true to me that we have three fundamental factors that shape our being: The first factor is intuition, and intuition’s “object”, everyday, immediate givens — those real entities we encounter and interact with in the course of our practical … Continue reading Metanoia and the triad
Susan just read the latest rewrite of the introduction of my book, and made a remarkable observation about ideologies. Her response was to this passage: Unfortunately, the progress I made understanding texts with obscure meanings was gained at the expense of the understandability of my own thoughts, which were becoming obscure and poetic. I found … Continue reading Ideological conversion versus metanoia
Michael Fishbane describes metanoia beautifully and precisely: …But then it may happen that the thoughtless ordinariness of daily life is jolted and gives way to a more elemental specificity. Suddenly something occurs that claims us with an overwhelming intensity, and floods our sensibilities without any accompanying thoughts of its human meaning. Rather, the sense of … Continue reading Fishbane on metanoia
An existential crisis occurs when a person faces a truth that can neither be ignored nor considered. The truth cannot be ignored because it has been noticed. Now that it has been noticed, it is re-noticed wherever it applies, and it is impossible to un-notice when this new truth obtrudes. It has become part of … Continue reading It’s just an existential crisis
I’ve used the word “natural” to four very different ways, and each is defined against a different opposite. These are each The first two are the boring obvious ones. Natural versus manmade. Is it from the wilderness, or is it from our own hands? Natural versus supernatural. Does it obey the laws of nature, or … Continue reading Natural as opposed to what?
Faith is not the same as doctrine. Faith is a way of believing: faith is subject. Doctrine is what is believed: doctrine is object. Faith is not the degree of certainty in a belief. Faith is not quantitative. Faith is the quality of belief, the particular way a belief is conceived. If a doctrine is … Continue reading Faith, doctrine and sheer bullshit
If something in my life becomes unbearably distressing and I force myself to withdraw and stop reacting and instead to recollect myself — the explicit output of this work is rarely “What you understood as bad is actually acceptable.” It is more often “It is acceptable that this bad thing is bad.” This is similar … Continue reading How it goes
A. Long ago, (perhaps informed by experiences sitting in meditation?) even before I began intensive philosophical study, I adopted a psychology of “subpersonalities“. I’ve talked about it dozens of ways, but the language orbits a single conviction: our personal subjects are microcosmic societies, composed of semi-independent intuitive units. One of the main reasons I came … Continue reading Multipersonal perplexity
My Jewish friend sent me this text: I’m fascinated with reconciliation. I still think the left cannot reconcile with the right… it has to come from the right. Or it won’t go anywhere, and the left’s best move is scorched earth. My reply: As you know, I often say “Jews go first,” When I say … Continue reading Who goes first?
I love words, and I love concepts. My house is stuffed with books, many of them purchased for the sake of a single perfect sentence. But this love of articulate concept is set against what has not yet been conceived or articulated, and that, in turn, is set against what is forever inconceivable and ineffable. … Continue reading ‘Wisdom
Thinking about religion in an appreciatively or tolerant way from a standpoint that sees itself as having overcome the need for religious belief is the furthest thing from understanding religion. This religion-appreciating standpoint — which sees intense awe or the excitement of discovery as a genuine substitute for religious feeling and the gestalt shifts resulting … Continue reading Nietzsche vs liberal theology
I can feel how this process of writing a book is changing me. It is changing how I think, feel and speak, which is strange because what I believe I’m doing is conveying a philosophy I’ve been using, more or less unchanged since at least 2014 and maybe as early as 2011 (basically, once Latour … Continue reading Changed by writing
I am designing a vocabulary for discussing how understanding works, with special emphasis on the relationship between existing understandings, failures of understanding, (also known as perplexities), and extremely novel understandings (also known as epiphanies). All my subjects of interest — design, philosophy and religion — are urgently concerned with epiphanies. But each is concerned with … Continue reading Conceptive vocabulary
Myriad ways to experience the world are possible, and these ways of seeing the world correspond with particular orderings of intuitive activity. * Can you perceive this dancer to be spinning clockwise and then to be spinning counter-clockwise? Can you feel what kind of effort you are making? There may be inner-chatter associated with your … Continue reading The Click
Susan and I have been debating what wisdom is. We each felt the other’s view was incomplete. I thought her conception was overlapping too much with prudence; she thought mine reduced wisdom with mere open-mindedness. (Actually, she was right.) As we turned the question and viewed it from multiple angles, it became clear, as is … Continue reading Methodic wisdom
In Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Rorty repeatedly busts Heidegger for inventing fake etymologies. The accusation extends beyond the incorrectness of the claims — the very impulse to excavate more primordial and immediate meanings is impugned. This is fascinating to me because I wholeheartedly share Heidegger’s love of etymologies, and Heidegger is a nasty enough son-of-a-bitch … Continue reading Fake etymologies
Susan keeps asking if there might be an upside to the wokeness convulsion our society is undergoing. She hopes it might inspire people to have conversations they might not have otherwise had and to develop real empathy. I’m pretty sure this hope is an expectation widely shared among progressives. I think the entire project is … Continue reading Susan’s hope, my hope
There are positive metaphysics which make assertions about reality beyond what can be experienced, and there are negative metaphysics which deny the possibility of making such assertions. A person who has worked at thinking through problems that started out unthinkable — who had to begin with confronting unthinkability and overcoming it by finding new modes … Continue reading Recognizing possibilities of transcendence
The heart of morality is the call to transcendence: we are meant to exist as ourselves toward reality that is not us (alterity). These are the proper terms of transcendence: self transcending toward alterity within a shared ground of infinite reality. This is very different from that common conception of transcendence that opposes a mundane … Continue reading Esoteric summary
If Levinas is right — and I believe he is — it is no accident that the person I know whose formula for intellectual victory was to “contain and comprehend” the other was also among the most amoral people I’ve known. Whether he behaved admirably or despicably, the only judgment that weighed on him was … Continue reading Contained and comprehended