Samhain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Thanksgiving Moon<\/p>\n
Tracking down a quote from a Mary Oliver book led me to Plato and to his Symposium, in particular a portion dedicated to the mysteries of love.\u00a0 It reminded me of my initial excitement in studying philosophy, created in large part by J. Harry Cotton, a professioral stereotype at Wabash College.\u00a0 He wrapped tobacco in a light paper plug, inserted it into his pipe, applied a match and away we went into the history of Western philosophy, J. Harry’s head wreathed in tobacco smoke.\u00a0 He often quoted whole pages of Plato or Aristotle in Greek, showing us the key words on the blackboard, explaining the intricacy of their translation and how an interpretation could turn on a single word.\u00a0 I’d never met any one like J. Harry and my memory of him is still fond.<\/p>\n
The excitement he stirred slowly winked out when I had to transfer to Ball State University, out of money for Wabash.\u00a0 There the logical positivists still reigned, even though their star had already fallen in graduate schools across Europe and the US.\u00a0 At Ball State I had the opposite of J. Harry, Robert something.\u00a0 He was the head of the department and an avowed enemy of all metaphysics and a champion of philosophy as clarifier of scientific language.\u00a0 What exactly do we mean by cold?\u00a0 Hot?\u00a0 Solid?\u00a0 Gas?\u00a0 Not unimportant question in a techn0-scientific age, but hardly inspiring.\u00a0 At least to me.<\/p>\n
I finished out my philosophy major, but added one in anthropology because my passion for it, once lit, did not go out.\u00a0 This was all a long, long time ago.\u00a0 I graduated from Ball State in 1969, so that’s, what?\u00a0 41 years and another millennium in the past.<\/p>\n
What is truth?\u00a0 Justice?\u00a0 Beauty?\u00a0 How do we know what we know?\u00a0 What is a sound argument?\u00a0 What is a weak one?\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 How have ideas about these big questions changed over time?\u00a0 And why?\u00a0 What do they matter now, in our world?\u00a0 This was what interested me and the logical positivists had nothing to teach me in regard to them.\u00a0 Perhaps it’s not surprising that I ended up in Seminary, where those questions still matter and where there are answers and the history of the answers.<\/p>\n
Ironically, of course, I have come to inhabit the flattened, anti-metaphysical world of the logical positivists, but not from the perspective of clarification and rejection of metaphysics, but from the standpoint of existentialism.\u00a0 In this new world, which I’ve inhabited since 1991 or so, gnothi seauton, know thyself,\u00a0 inscribed over the door within the Temple of Apollo at Delphi that lead to the Oracle, has been my holy writ.\u00a0 Rather than books full of poetry, creation myths, messiahs and anti-Christs, I have two words.\u00a0 They’re enough for me, though.\u00a0 More than enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Samhain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Thanksgiving Moon Tracking down a quote from a Mary Oliver book led me to Plato and to his Symposium, in particular a portion dedicated to the mysteries of love.\u00a0 It reminded me of my initial excitement in studying philosophy, created in large part by J. Harry Cotton, a professioral stereotype at Wabash College.\u00a0 … Continue reading An Ancientrail, Still Traveled<\/span>