An Argument: P1)Appearances are everything. P2) Reality is nothing. P3)Reality is better than appearance. C) So, aim at nothing. I am interested in how the argument can be read either as a recommendation of giving up or as a recommendation of overcoming. Either one reads the conclusion as the statement of the worthlessness of aiming …
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John 3:8, transformation, wind, Plato’s MENO.
In John 3:8 Jesus attempts to cloak moral/spiritual transformation in an earthly figure that Nicodemus (who should understand given his status as a teacher in his community) can understand. He uses the analogy of birth. Nicodemus does not understand. Jesus’ response? Another earthly analogy involving wind. (Paraphrase) Listen man, don’t balk at what I am …
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Exemplar Causality and Salvation/Transformation
“Exemplar Causality” can be found in Bonaventure and Aquinas. The idea is old and its mention in conversation just the other day has sent me off like a rocket. The ancient question of transformation, reform, development, progress is always due attention. It is in the most significant sense the question of change, with the edition …
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On the obvious
Large numbers of humans have turned their necks and settled their eyes and ears upon the words of Buddha, Socrates and Jesus. And there are others. But any one of these is in some sense enough. And while I do not now claim that they were essentially the same in their message, I assert similarity …
Self-mutilation
A feature of living organisms is how broad the range is of conditions under which they can adapt and survive. The conditions under which they can flourish is much smaller. Take slavery for example: humans can persist under very adverse conditions where they are greatly hampered and restricted from engaging in human activity freely, under …
On living well…
If living well is possible in this world, and I believe unabashedly that it can be approximated, it will involve committing ourselves in a way that will create challenges. Note that I began with living well. Such a beginning presupposes knowledge, and such knowledge, or its discovery, is not here the point. My interest is …
