Techné as the ship in Mormonism's Bottle? Rorty and Alma 32

[MosiahFree]

I like to think it was providence that Elder Arnaud found me in Montreal precisely when he did. I was on the verge of total apostasy during a youthful dalliance with the Punk scene and had begged, borrowed, and even stole my way from Utah to French speaking Quebec to see the distasteful act of Anti-Nowhere League. I still clearly remember how the missionaries almost trampled me underfoot that morning there on the Rue Crescent. I was just coming off a 48 hour bender and I'm sure calling my appearance "disheveled" would have just been more polite than honest. Still they stopped and apologized striking up a conversation when they realized I was an American tourist, they asked if I had read the book of Mormon I responded (being as haughty as only young men of the world can be) with a dismissive gesture with my hand and made some remark about the book being devoid of any interesting content.

"I should know" I informed them with the airs of authority, "I'm from Utah and was raised in the church, there is no truth in any of it". That was when Elder Arnaud got a thoughtful look on his face and mumbled something, I inquired about what he said but he demurred saying it wasn't important. I persisted in my inquiries and he relented, saying something in a strange language I did not understand.

"That's wasn't French" which I stated more as a fact but meant it as a question. Elder Arnaud's face softened and he took out a small notebook and began to scribble something. While he was writing he revealed to me that he was a Roman Catholic seminarian who had just completed his first semester somewhere in Steubenville Ohio before he was baptized a Mormon and left. He tore the paper free, folding it neatly before handing it to me.

"It was Latin. You can look it up when you get home." I stuffed the paper into my wallet and we parted ways amicably. When I did finally return home to Utah I must have put the note in the leather bound quad I gotten as a high school graduation gift and before I carried on with my life. I discovered the paper perhaps a year later when I was fledgling philosophy student and thought I'd lost it forever. The note read "utrum veritas sit fortior inter vinum et regem et mulierem" (is the truth stronger when compared with wine, king, or woman?) and under the Latin was "Alma 32:27-43". Today I'm convinced that Alma 32 is the Mormon σύστημα, the standing together of all things in which enables all us Mormons to actualize that which is to be a "marvelous work and wonder" for our dispensation. From Alma 32 we are given intellectual and spiritual technology that we can bring to bear "on all good books" so that we may grow in our discernment and advance His kingdom.

There is much world of philosophy and theology that aligns with our faith, but as can be expected I found that some philosophy (especially in the 20th century) that is quite hostile to the Gospel. One example that I have in mind is Richard Rorty and his body of work. Consider the following excerpt (all page notations are from the book in the attached image):

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Then the notion of philosophy as the discipline which looks for privileged representations among this constituting the Mirror becomes unintelligible. A thoroughgoing holism has no place for the notion of philosophy as "conceptual," as "apodictic," as picking out the "foundations" of the rest of knowledge, as explaining which representations are "purely given" or "purely conceptual," as presenting a "canonical notation" rather than an empirical discovery, or as isolating "trans-framework heuristic categories." If we see knowledge as a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror nature, we will not be likely to envisage a metapractice which will be the critique of all possible forms of social practice. (p. 170-171)   

Rorty views philosophical system (both historical and contemporary) are really nothing other than ideologies, structures we can interpret rather than analyze vis-à-vis hermeneutics (see the image below). In Rorty's predictable and unoriginal reduction of Western philosophy to mere ideology, he takes away concepts like form and element and instead offers us things like social tyranny. Rorty's denial of historical and contemporary philosophical practice isn't so much because the practices are wrong or false, but rather they are simply boring and do not edify:

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In this attitude, getting the facts right (about atoms and the void, or about the history of Europe) is merely propaedeutic to finding a new and more interesting way of expressing ourselves, and thus coping with the world. From the educational, as opposed to the epistemological or the technological, point of view, the way things are said is more important than the possession of truths. (p. 359)

Indeed if we believed as Rorty would have us, missions would serve no purpose because the Gospel would be immediately compromised. See here:

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For, once again, the notion of a "theory of knowledge" will not make sense unless we have confused causation with justification in the manner of Locke, and even then it will seem fuzzy until we have isolated some entities in innerpsace whose causal relations seem puzzling. "Concepts" and "intuition" are exactly the entities required. If Kant had gone straight from the insight that "the singular proposition" is not to be identified with "the singularity of a presentation of sense"(nor, for that matter, to intellect) to a view of knowledge as a relation between persons and propositions, he would not have needed the notion of "synthesis." He might have viewed a person as a black box emitting sentences, the justification for these emissions being found in his relation to his environment (including the emissions of his fellow black boxes). The question "How is knowledge possible?" would then have resembled the question "How are telephones possible?" meaning something like "How can one build something which does that?" Physiological psychology , rather than "epistemology," would then have seemed the only legitimate follow-up to the De Anima and the Essay Concerning Human understanding. (p. 152).

The Linguistic intersubjectivity in the above passage would cast the Gospel into impotency. The building of the telephone doesn't show us the supposed non-systematic unity of propositions that detail construction nor does this activity tell us anything valuable (or to borrow from Rorty himself; edifying) about the beings who constructed the telephone. Think of our sacred rights, our precious covenants, they would become devoid because that which infuses them with meaning and purpose becomes as trivial as the boxes in Rorty's analogy.  To answer the question posed by Elder Arnaud, the precious truths we have today are stronger than anything conceivable, but that strength resides in the practical applications OF THE GOSPEL instead of the staid and boring orthodoxy of non-Mormon Christianity.

What do the good people here think? Am I correct in thinking that Alma 32 provides us with a kind of spiritual technology to enable us to grow as Saints that is housed with Mormonism? Is the philosophy of Richard Rorty antithetical to the beliefs of Latter-Day Saints?    

[Brother Bear]

This should be interesting (I mean that sincerely). 

Edited November 17, 2017 by Brother Bear

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

..................................................

Indeed if we believed as Rorty would have us, missions would serve no purpose because the Gospel would be immediately compromised. See here:

The Linguistic intersubjectivity in the above passage would cast the Gospel into impotency. The building of the telephone doesn't show us the supposed non-systematic unity of propositions that detail construction nor does this activity tell us anything valuable (or to borrow from Rorty himself; edifying) about the beings who constructed the telephone.

Or about the beings who constructed Lehi's Liahona, or Joseph's seerstone.  As usual, it matters little how such technical masterpieces were constructed, as long as they provide pragmatic function.  Indeed, the Gospel thrives on that linguistic intersubjectivity, and eschews systematic theology and philosophy as unobtainable anyhow.  Shouldn't we rather see Rorty as our friend?  After all, Rorty himself said: “Acquiring or losing belief in God is more like falling into or out of love than like winning or losing an argument.”

3 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

Think of our sacred rights, our precious covenants, they would become devoid because that which infuses them with meaning and purpose becomes as trivial as the boxes in Rorty's analogy.  To answer the question posed by Elder Arnaud, the precious truths we have today are stronger than anything conceivable, but that strength resides in the practical applications OF THE GOSPEL instead of the staid and boring orthodoxy of non-Mormon Christianity.

Just so, our sacred rites and precious covenants are made in the midst of figurative and metaphorical actions, which only represent reality.  Once again, it is orthopraxis rather than orthodoxy which reigns supreme in Mormonism -- as you yourself note.

3 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

What do the good people here think? Am I correct in thinking that Alma 32 provides us with a kind of spiritual technology to enable us to grow as Saints that is housed with Mormonism? Is the philosophy of Richard Rorty antithetical to the beliefs of Latter-Day.....................

So are we all Mosiah-free or free of Mosiah? -- via systematic oaths and covenants?  Alma 32 is indeed Mormonism's secret weapon, and we might even conjure up Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics to help us understand it:

https://aquileana.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/tecn.png .

Finally, Rorty even speaks of Mormonism as follows:

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“The question of whether there is evidence for a belief is the question of whether there exists a certain human community which  takes certain relatively non-controversial propositions as providing good reason for that belief.  Where there is such a community, a community to which we want to belong, or to continue to belong, we have an obligation to our fellow human beings not to believe a proposition unless we can give some good reasons for doing so:  Reasons of the sort that the relevant community takes to be good ones.  Where there is no such community, we don’t.  Nobody knows what would count as non-question-begging evidence for the claims of the Catholic or Mormon Church to be the one true church.  But that does not, and should not matter to the Catholic or Mormon communities.  Biologists, on the other hand, know quite well what counts as evidence for Darwinism or Creationism.”  Richard Rorty, “The Compatibility of Science and Religion,” classroom lecture, 1:17 on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjhVk-0Vhmk .

 

[MosiahFree]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 Indeed, the Gospel thrives on that linguistic intersubjectivity, and eschews systematic theology and philosophy as unobtainable anyhow. 

I would be interested in reading more about the bolded portion of the quote above. What is it about systematic theology that is unobtainable in light of the Gospel?

[mfbukowski]

Golly.

Thems some big words an stuff.

Whare's that dang thinking cap at, anyway......   ? 

More to come if I can find it....

[MosiahFree]

1 minute ago, mfbukowski said:

Golly.

Thems some big words an stuff.

Whare's that dang thinking cap at, anyway......   ? 

More to come if I can find it....

 I look forward to your take, always looking for more notes/perspectives for my own growth, but don't feel rushed!

[clarkgoble]

I'm curious as to what Mark says as he's more fond of Rorty than I am. (I went through a brief Rorty phase my first year at BYU but then became disenchanted) That said I could reasonably be called a pragmatist of the classic (i.e. Peircean) stripe rather than the neo-pragmatism of Rorty or even Putnam. The worry, perhaps unfair, that I always had with Rorty was that the quest for truth seemed devalued into a mere battle of language games. As is still so common in a certain strain of academics power relations that unsurprisingly privileges the power of the academic in these fields becomes elevated over more traditional quests for truth. Such as one typically finds in the sciences. This is somewhat ironic given the place science had for Rorty in places like Mirrors of Nature. My qualm, again perhaps unfair, was that Rorty focused on the present ambiguities due to our knowledge and devalued the importance of seeking answers for such ambiguities.

All that said when you say, "the Linguistic intersubjectivity in the above passage would cast the Gospel into impotency," I'm having a hard time figuring out your logic. For one thing (and this likely betrays my more positive view of Heidegger than what Rorty shares) it seems to me that practices rather than propositions typically undergird our understanding of objects. To limit ourselves to propositions is to fundamentally miss what's going on. It seems like with a telephone we can immediately see the problems of limiting ourselves to language (narrowly construed). Perhaps this is what you are getting at when you talk about how it misses covenants and so forth. 

I'm not convinced Rorty can't handle such things in his linguistic framework. Certainly Wittgenstein can and he's a big influence on Rorty. But I do agree that background practices such as covenant making, promising, and so forth are important to understand. I guess I'm just not at all convinced Rorty isn't also aware of such issues.

With regards to Alma 32, while I think it is a very pragmatic conception of knowledge I also think we should read it more in terms of general old testament conceptions of truth. I've argued for this over at T&S in the past in light of the Hebrew use of 'true' which is fairly different from our more mathematical conception of true. 

Overall I just don't think Alma 32 can act as a general theory of knowledge. That's not to say it's not extremely helpful and useful but I think we as Mormons often push it well beyond what the text justifies. While I think critics often misread Alma 32 I also think that it's difficult to separate it's notion of truth from the broader Hebrew linguistic uses. It's when people read Alma 32 in terms of our more Aristotilean inspired culture that problems start popping up. Truth in most Old Testament and many BoM passages is much closer to what Aristotle calls essence. Once we understand that this is about knowing essences I think we can then avoid the misapplication of Alma 32.

 

Edited November 17, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

9 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

I would be interested in reading more about the bolded portion of the quote above. What is it about systematic theology that is unobtainable in light of the Gospel?

It is nice to have an internally consistent and fully systematic theology (such as that of Thomas Aquinas), because it answers nearly all questions and allays doubt.  The problem with that may be that it does not bear an honest relationship with the Canon of Scripture -- whether it be the Vedas, the Hebrew Bible, or the Book of Mormon.  Then too, it assumes that we have a handle on the nature of reality and on ways of accurately perceiving that reality.  David Hume and Ludwig Wittgenstein have shown us what a fool's errand that truly is.  I have tried to address some of those problems in my “Book of Mormon Theologies: A Thumbnail Sketch,” lecture delivered at the September 2012 annual meeting of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology (SMPT), at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, online at https://www.scribd.com/doc/251781864/BOOK-OF-MORMON-THEOLOGIES-A-THUMBNAIL-SKETCH .

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

 I look forward to your take, always looking for more notes/perspectives for my own growth, but don't feel rushed!

This was dictated So it is probably full of punctuation mistakes.

Well I must say that Thanksgiving week is probably not the best time for me to get involved in such a discussion.

And yes you are right that on its face Rorty's view is not directly compatible with the gospel, especially in Mirror of Nature. He clearly moderated however in later years especially in the book the Future of Religion.

But on the other hand the idea that truth is only applicable within an intersubjective community discussion, makes religious truth just as justifiable as any other kind of Truth. The only theory of truth I think which works today is some form of the deflationary theory of Truth.  I don't think there is another coherent way of thinking about truth other than some form of deflationary theory. If there was or if I could come up with one I'm sure my opinion would change.

And I gave up academic philosophy because essentially I believe that Wittgenstein is right. Ironically I did not want to spend the rest of my life proving that other people's philosophical Concepts we're simply linguistic confusions and teaching Plato 101 to undergrads. Ironically of course here I am on this board doing just that.  I mean the co-eds  were kind of cute but then I became Mormon so forget about that idea.  So I guess truth does win out over wine women and Power, even if it is deflationary. (And man, there are some wisecracks there I won't touch.... )

So we have Alma 32 but let's make sure we mix it also with D&C 93 that truth exists in spheres. Look up President Kimball speaking on absolute truth I think it was 1998. It is not Rorty but on the other hand President Kimball was not trained in Rorty either. Gladly enough. 

So in your Triad of wine women and Power, we must remember that in Alma 32 he is speaking of truth winning out over the world.

Incomplete got to go now talk to you later.

Edit completing post:

So let me get directly to the point of MY INTERPRETATION OF how I see Rorty working with Alma.

The key is the affirmation of "intuition" as opposed to the attempt at "linguistic representation".  This is why I use that Rorty quote for my siggy.

For me "intuition" is a direct "raw feel" unmediated by language.  Rorty says those are impossible. Here Rorty and I part company.  BUT he is useful for the demonstration that language does not represent "reality"

I say they are not only possible BUT raw feels ARE what we call "reality".   I see the color red.   The color red is NOT the word" red" which in no way "corresponds" to the direct intuitive experience of "red"

Wittgenstein shows this with optical illusions- the rabbit and the duck illusion for example

Here I think is Rorty's most concise explanation of what he wants to avoid:  Page 21-22 of Contingency Irony and Solidarity.   Full PDF of the book- much clearer than "Mirror of Nature"  http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/rorty/rorty_CIS_full.pdf
 

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 To drop the idea of languages as representations, and to be thoroughly Wittgensteinian in our approach to language, would be to de-divinize the world. Only if we do that can we fully accept the argument I offered earlier - the argument that since truth is a property of sentences, since sentences are dependent for their existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths. For as long as we think that "the world" names something we ought to respect as well as cope with, something personlike in that it has a preferred description of itself, we shall insist that any philosophical account of truth save the "intuition" that truth is "out there." This institution amounts to the vague sense that it would be hybris on our part to abandon the traditional language of "respect for fact" and "objectivity" - that it would be risky, and blasphemous, not to see the scientist (or the philosopher, or the poet, or somebody) as having a priestly function, as putting us in touch with a realm which transcends the human. On the view I am suggesting, the claim that an "adequate" philosophical doctrine must make room for our intuitions is a reactionary slogan, one which begs the question at hand. 12 For it is essential to my view that we have no prelinguistic consciousness to which language needs to be adequate, no deep sense of how things are which it is the duty of philosophers to spell out in language. What is described as such a consciousness is simply a disposition to use the language of our ancestors, to worship the corpses of their metaphors. Unless we suffer from what Derrida calls "Heideggerian nostalgia," we shall not think of our "intuitions" as more_ than platitudes, more than the habitual use of a certain repertoire of terms, more than old tools which as yet have no replacements 

 I can crudely sum up the story which historians like Blumenberg tell by saying that once upon a time we felt a need to worship something which lay beyond the visible world. Beginning in the seventeenth cen: tury we tried to substitute a love of truth for a love of God, treating the world described by science as a quasi divinity. Beginning at the end of the eighteenth century we tried to substitute a love of ourselves for a love of scientific truth, a worship of our own deep spiritual or poetic nature, treated as one more quasi divinity. The line of thought common to Blumenberg, Nietzsche, Freud, and Davidson suggests that we try to get to the point where we no long(!! worship anything, where we treat nothing as a quasi divinity, where We;! treat everything - our language, Ol,;.~' conscience, our community - as~ product of time and chance. To reach this point would be, in Freud's words, to "treat chance as worthy of determining our fate." In the next chapter I claim that Freud, Nietzsche, and Bloom do for our conscience what Wittgenstein and Davidson do for our language, namely, exhibit its sheer contingency.

 

So how on earth does this make life easier for the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Let's look at Rorty now as the enemy against whom we want to defend- in this most convincing and sophisticated statement of the deflationary theory of truth, essentially saying there IS no truth?

Do we actually have "wordless" experiences??   Notice that Rorty's entire argument is based on us NOT having "wordless experiences" and yet I would argue that indeed the "burning in the bosom" - or really any experience of the world "out there" IS in fact wordless.

There are countless examples- but I am now just giving the bare bones of the argument.  MY argument hinges on my view that we do have direct experience not associated with words.  In the instant of perception we feel awe or surprise or anything- note the word "FEEL" BEFORE we have a word for it.  My favorite description is driving over a hill and instantly being struck by a magnificent vista of nature- the most beautiful landscape you have ever seen.

Or step outside of the tent on a clear night in the wilderness and look at the stars?  

What is your reaction?   I would say first sheer awe.   Perhaps we might say, after amoment of contemplation something vacuous like "Beautiful!" the most ambiguous non- word in English.   Or perhaps "Wow"!

Hardly a "representation of reality" or an attempt at doing so.

So for me. what Rorty would call "non linguistic intuition" remains viable.   For me - that instant IS reality- it NOT it' representation.  Raw feels and raw perception IS the only reality we can know, and where Rorty goes wrong.

So if Rorty is WRONG about intutions - direct experience or raw feelings- then he is wrong about the possibility of a testimony because that IS direct unmediated non linguistic experience.   It is Intelligence flowing into our hearts,  It is peace, it is calm, it is the feeling of love and the feeling that something is "right" WITHOUT words intervening.  In short, if Rorty is wrong we can experience God wordlessly

But he IS completely right concerning language!   Because reality is raw feels, words cannot REPRODUCE reality.   The word "red" is how we communicate the raw experience- the perception - of the "color red" but it is a paltry black and white squggle on a page allegedly corresponding to the rich, warm, bright glorious color which is also sometimes scary when it causes us to perceive "blood".

The word is not and can never be the experience of red.   We cannot use words to communicate what red is to someone who is color blind.

So what does this have to do with Alma?   Alma essentially affirms intuition and raw feels as producing more positive intuitions and raw feels, and accurately predicting what makes us happy- and happiness is of course another raw feel or direct experience in our hearts.

Alma 32 28

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28 Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

So IF Rorty's best argument against God is based on the idea that we cannot experience feelings wordlessly, and we CAN in fact experience things wordlessly, we can throw out that part of his argument and see that that leaves a huge loophole in his argument that allows us to accept testimony as a raw emotional experience and yet we can retain the rest of his argument about reality and words.  So the worst he can throw at us is that we cannot experience without words?

At the worst those are only words themselves which also do not correspond to reality!!!!

Essentially he is an anti-realist who believes that words do not "correspond to reality"

His essential argument for that is expressed in my siggy below and we need not address that right now.  BUT THAT IS AN ARGUMENT WE NEED TO COMBAT SCIENTISM

So if we retain that portion of Rorty's argument that helps us and yet affirm Alma's point about intuition or the spirit being raw "reality" as we perceive it, 

That means that we can experience God directly but not speak about it except in approximations which can never "correspond" to what God "really is"

And as Rorty shows below the only way we can communicate is through language which is an imperfect way of representing reality- so what we SAY about God is automatically wrong, and to be verified subjectively by each individual for themselves. 

AND then we can see scientific knowledge as a wholly different language game for an entirely different way of perceiving reality by eliminating feelings from the start.

The presumption of science from the beginning is that it is not about values or feelings or anything about which we feel PASSION, it is a language game for a community intentionally being DISPASSIONATE and dealing with pure observation from the get- go.

And so we meet Kuhn.  Science is not about "reality" it is about organized paradigms and theories that work for awhile until evidence causes us to change

So science and religion are two different ways of intentionally seeing the world- they are perspectives.  There is no one perspective that always produces positive results- we must see truth and reality within the contexts of pragmatic use.   We use religion to give us purpose in life and a sense of knowledge of where we belong in the universe.   Morality and ethics are linked there and help us in the same area.

Science is about how things work - it is more about the mechanics of the world and religion is about the purpose we create for ourselves.  Different spheres.

Well thats a longy.

I hope it helps.  Gonna be pretty busy from now out but I will pick up the thread when I can.

Edited November 17, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

So we have Alma 32 but let's make sure we mix it also with D&C 93 that truth exists in spheres. Look up President Kimball speaking on absolute truth I think it was 1998.

Think you meant 1978. But I agree with your point completely that there are very different narratives on truth in the scripture. Typically for any passage there's numerous ways to read it. However many have noted the fairly platonic nature of D&C 93's take on truth which in some ways is very much at odds with Alma 32 although in other ways can be reconciled. (For people other than Mark, Peirce the founder of pragmatism in many ways had strong platonic & hegelian elements in his thought about truth)

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Think you meant 1978. But I agree with your point completely that there are very different narratives on truth in the scripture. Typically for any passage there's numerous ways to read it. However many have noted the fairly platonic nature of D&C 93's take on truth which in some ways is very much at odds with Alma 32 although in other ways can be reconciled. (For people other than Mark, Peirce the founder of pragmatism in many ways had strong platonic & hegelian elements in his thought about truth)

Yep 78 is right. 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1978/09/absolute-truth?lang=eng

Yep Plato is embedded in all religious discourse in the West - that is why we need a restoration of theology which has not yet happened obviously.    For those so inclined I think that Dewey's "Reconstruction of Philosophy"

And this goes to the systematic theology problem.   Out with Neoplatonism and scholasticism and in with hermeneutics

If language cannot speak accurately about "reality" then alleged theology goes out the window as poetry.  That's nice but we cannot take it as philosophy or an attempt to convey TRVTH etched in stone- only scriptural interpretation

So in short in my opinion that is where Mormonism needs to be headed- scriptural interpretation, and taking scripture as matter unorganized and expressing new perspectives on how it should be interpreted.

So stated like that, we can do a kind of systematic story about out personal vision of what the scriptures are about.  Hypothetical example:

"I think Genesis can be interpreted in terms of the beginnings of human life where emerge from the womb creating for us 'light" and then we enter the trials of life as Adam and Eve and we learn....."   etc

One could therefore have a "systematic hermeneutic or interpretation" of scriptures in a consistent way without claiming it was "the way things really are".

Any theology which claims to tell of "things as they are" cannot be supported.   Or it could take the form in orthopraxis of something like spiritual exercises we have found works to enable us to become closer to God.

And that's my story and I am stickin to it

PS  I think Peirce ultimately has a correspondence theory of truth and you don't.   I think that is where we disagree with about Peirce.   But we have been around and around about that!

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Out with Neoplatonism and scholasticism and in with hermeneutics

Well I'm not sure they are necessarily as opposed as you suggest. There's very Derridean and Heideggarian takes on neoPlatonism that are very interesting. Sara Rappe's Reading Neoplatonism as I recall was interesting in that regard. Although it's been long enough I'm not sure I trust my memory too well on the book. While I can understand why the non-discursive aspect of neoPlatonism seems at first glance to be at odds with hermeneutics in an other way it gets at Derrida's insight that to read a text is to make an other text.

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I think Peirce ultimately has a correspondence theory of truth and you don't.

Peirce's take on truth is a bit complex, somewhat like Heidegger's is. Heidegger doesn't dispute correspondence but argues it's not fundamental. Likewise I think Peirce doesn't have trouble with certain kinds of correspondence but that the correspondence is to a future stabilization through inquiry and development. Whether one takes that as realism and a claim about an actual future or as a regulative concept based upon how we use the term truth is not really agreed upon. (Although I think the latter interpretation is more popular) But truth is what is fated to be believed eventually. Thus truth is a kind of idealized belief. Current beliefs are true to the degree they correspond to this fated truth and are determined by the real.

So I don't think it's misleading to call that correspondence but it's not correspondence in a normal Kantian or Cartesian sense.

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If language cannot speak accurately about "reality" then alleged theology goes out the window as poetry.

I don't think we can say that without analyzing what "accurate" means. Again I can reject the Kantian or Cartesian senses without necessarily throwing out the notion of accuracy. 

Turning things around, I think the problem with Rorty is that he's so caught up in the present than he neglects "transcendence" in any of its many guises. That is the relation of "accuracy" in terms of being true to what is unspoken. Now of course Rorty is right that as soon as we talk of this we're then caught up in language with all of the criticisms he applies. However Rorty effectively (I think anyway - you might disagree) wants to more or less say there is no thing of language if by that we mean reference to something outside of language. Whereas I tend to think it's precisely that feature of language which is most important about language. While there's no transcendent word outside the text I'm not sure we should dismiss the notion of outside. (Or if you prefer non-being) The error of modernism as I see it is, to borrow a Nietzschean phrase, the belief there is an other world. That is a transcendent that is an other world yet somehow with the properties of this world. That is to have non-being really be a kind of being. Yet if you throw that notion off I don't think we need throw transcendence off with it.

All that said I'm not sure that has much to do with theology except in more traditional Jewish, Christian or Islamic senses. I'm rather partial to Brigham Young's view that theology is much more of what I'd term anthropology. That's perhaps more compatible with a broadly Rorty project so long as we appreciate the unknown. (That is I don't think anything goes in theology anymore than it does in physics) Put an other way traditional Christianity, especially in the 20th century, tended to throw out the anthropological aspects of God such as angels, divine intervention and often the human nature of Christ as God. In preference they, like Nietzsche warned, embraced God as Being and the echoes of the neoplatonism remnant still in Christianity. (This is especially true of early 20th century figures like Tillich but I think still applies to much of the Christian intellectual class) Mormonism (and particularly Brigham Young with his anti-platonic elements added to the endowment) instead discarded God as Being and event God as attributes and focused only on God as acting person with a history one might approach hermeneutically. I appreciate that type of theology.

Edited November 18, 2017 by clarkgoble

[MosiahFree]

Thank you for thew replies thus far. I have some reading and thinking to do before I can hope to offer a meaningful reply. Until then!

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Well I'm not sure they are necessarily as opposed as you suggest. There's very Derridean and Heideggarian takes on neoPlatonism that are very interesting. Sara Rappe's Reading Neoplatonism as I recall was interesting in that regard. Although it's been long enough I'm not sure I trust my memory too well on the book. While I can understand why the non-discursive aspect of neoPlatonism seems at first glance to be at odds with hermeneutics in an other way it gets at Derrida's insight that to read a text is to make an other text.

Peirce's take on truth is a bit complex, somewhat like Heidegger's is. Heidegger doesn't dispute correspondence but argues it's not fundamental. Likewise I think Peirce doesn't have trouble with certain kinds of correspondence but that the correspondence is to a future stabilization through inquiry and development. Whether one takes that as realism and a claim about an actual future or as a regulative concept based upon how we use the term truth is not really agreed upon. (Although I think the latter interpretation is more popular) But truth is what is fated to be believed eventually. Thus truth is a kind of idealized belief. Current beliefs are true to the degree they correspond to this fated truth and are determined by the real.

So I don't think it's misleading to call that correspondence but it's not correspondence in a normal Kantian or Cartesian sense.

I don't think we can say that without analyzing what "accurate" means. Again I can reject the Kantian or Cartesian senses without necessarily throwing out the notion of accuracy. 

Turning things around, I think the problem with Rorty is that he's so caught up in the present than he neglects "transcendence" in any of its many guises. That is the relation of "accuracy" in terms of being true to what is unspoken. Now of course Rorty is right that as soon as we talk of this we're then caught up in language with all of the criticisms he applies. However Rorty effectively (I think anyway - you might disagree) wants to more or less say there is no thing of language if by that we mean reference to something outside of language. Whereas I tend to think it's precisely that feature of language which is most important about language. While there's no transcendent word outside the text I'm not sure we should dismiss the notion of outside. (Or if you prefer non-being) The error of modernism as I see it is, to borrow a Nietzschean phrase, the belief there is an other world. That is a transcendent that is an other world yet somehow with the properties of this world. That is to have non-being really be a kind of being. Yet if you throw that notion off I don't think we need throw transcendence off with it.

All that said I'm not sure that has much to do with theology except in more traditional Jewish, Christian or Islamic senses. I'm rather partial to Brigham Young's view that theology is much more of what I'd term anthropology. That's perhaps more compatible with a broadly Rorty project so long as we appreciate the unknown. (That is I don't think anything goes in theology anymore than it does in physics) Put an other way traditional Christianity, especially in the 20th century, tended to throw out the anthropological aspects of God such as angels, divine intervention and often the human nature of Christ as God. In preference they, like Nietzsche warned, embraced God as Being and the echoes of the neoplatonism remnant still in Christianity. (This is especially true of early 20th century figures like Tillich but I think still applies to much of the Christian intellectual class) Mormonism (and particularly Brigham Young with his anti-platonic elements added to the endowment) instead discarded God as Being and event God as attributes and focused only on God as acting person with a history one might approach hermeneutically. I appreciate that type of theology.

I don't know how you think it is possible to speak of things outside of language without using language.

Can you form an English sentence without using English?

Language is literally all we have to talk about if we are using language. 

It is inconceivable for me to think of it in any other way.

As Francis said: "Teach the gospel continuously.  When necessary use words."

That is Alma 32. 

The words maybe the seed but the seed must be planted for it to grow without further interference of language. The seed must be planted to grow what is real within our hearts. The fruit it bears exists in the reality of how we live our lives but is itself beyond language. It is testimony in our hearts.

Brother Wittgenstein was ultimately a Mystic and so am I.

Long Live Mormon fideism! 

Maybe someday I will actually learn how to stop talking about it.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

God is Man and man is god.

Is there a Meta-Modern Mormon out there who understands the power of that for post moderns?

 

[MosiahFree]

On 11/17/2017 at 10:10 AM, clarkgoble said:

All that said when you say, "the Linguistic intersubjectivity in the above passage would cast the Gospel into impotency," I'm having a hard time figuring out your logic.

Rorty gets to his psychologism because in his analysis of Kant he rejects the transcendental ego and the resulting synthesis in favor of some kind of theory of predication (he never gives in explanation of just what that theory is), there is a huge hole in the text where (in the very least) there should be an analytical account for the unity of propositions (would we not demand something similar from the nominalists?). There is nothing there to give us how propositions are to be intelligible. What good is our kerygma at that point?   

[MosiahFree]

On 11/17/2017 at 11:12 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

It is nice to have an internally consistent and fully systematic theology (such as that of Thomas Aquinas), because it answers nearly all questions and allays doubt. 

 Is this how you understand the term "systematic theology"?

Quote

The term "systematic theology" has come to be understood as "the systematic organization of theology." But what does "systematic" mean? Two main understandings of the term have emerged. First, the term is understood to mean "organized on the basis of educational or presentational concerns." In other words, the prime concern is to present a clear and ordered overview of the main themes of the Christian faith, often following the pattern of the Apostles' creed. In the second place it can mean "organized on the basis of presuppositions about method." In other words, philosophical ideas about how knowledge is gained determine the way in which material is arranged. This approach is of particular importance in the modern period, when a concern about theological method has become pronounced. 

Christian Theology: An Introduction, McGrath, Alister E. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford U.K. 3rd edition, 2004, p. 143.

 

On 11/16/2017 at 11:50 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Just so, our sacred rites and precious covenants are made in the midst of figurative and metaphorical actions, which only represent reality.

In Rorty's account, there would be no representation at all. Nothing we ever said could.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

 Is this how you understand the term "systematic theology"?

 

Quote

The term "systematic theology" has come to be understood as "the systematic organization of theology." But what does "systematic" mean? Two main understandings of the term have emerged. First, the term is understood to mean "organized on the basis of educational or presentational concerns." In other words, the prime concern is to present a clear and ordered overview of the main themes of the Christian faith, often following the pattern of the Apostles' creed. In the second place it can mean "organized on the basis of presuppositions about method." In other words, philosophical ideas about how knowledge is gained determine the way in which material is arranged. This approach is of particular importance in the modern period, when a concern about theological method has become pronounced. 

Christian Theology: An Introduction, McGrath, Alister E. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford U.K. 3rd edition, 2004, p. 143.

 

Is that how you understand Thomism?  Do you understand Thomistic catechism as logically consistent, based on normative assumptions and postulates?  The way we understand Euclid?

Quote

In Rorty's account, there would be no representation at all. Nothing we ever said could.

That reminds me of Wittgenstein using the ladder of logic (philosophy) to get up into the loft of understanding, and then kicking the ladder away -- saying that one cannot use logic or philosophy to gain understanding.  More than a touch of nihilism there, which I do not credit to either Wittgenstein or Rorty.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[MosiahFree]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Is that how you understand Thomism?  Do you understand Thomistic catechism as logically consistent, based on normative assumptions and postulates?  The way we understand Euclid?

Interesting questions and I'll do my best to answer all three. I'll start with laying a little groundwork on Thomism:

Quote

There are factors that make it difficult to establish a judgment about original Thomism with exhaustive precision and so a few preliminary observations are in order. First, consider Aquinas's works themselves. These compositions include such a broad diversity of literary genres, that to distill common themes from works as dissimilar in kind as biblical exegesis, systematic compendiums, and Aristotelian commentaries make up a hermeneutical challenge.  Furthermore, the same works were written over a period of more than twenty years, during which time Aquinas achieved his own intellectual maturity, and so we can reasonably expect to encounter development of thought even within the corpus itself. In fact, Aquinas's earliest adherents noticed that on certain points of theology or philosophy their master spoke better in his Summa theologiae than he had earlier in his Sentences. One of these, Peter of Bergamo (d. 1482), even produced a concordance whose purpose was to explain apparent contradictions in the works of Aquinas, that is, where "Divus Thomas videtur sibimet contradicere."

A Short History of Thomism, Cessario O.P., Romanus. The Catholic University of America Press, Washington D.C. 2005, p. 19. 

Cessario goes on to state:

Quote

These complexities, though real, are not insuperable, and some agreement does indeed exist as to what constitutes the main lines of Thomism. For instance, Leonard A. Kennedy, although he interprets Thomism in a broadly inclusive sense, has produced a catalog of Thomists who wrote between the years 1270 and 1900. Kennedy, it is true, acknowledges that there are no universally agreed on criteria for answering the question: Who is a Thomist? Instead, he adopts what are described as fairly liberal criteria, such as an indication in the title of a work that the author aims to follow the mind of Aquinas ("ad mentem Divi Thomae"), or that an author produced a book of a certain kind, for example, a commentary on one of Aquinas's own works, especially on the Summa theologiae, or a statement of alleged Thomism by either the author himself or one of his historians. Using these criteria, Leonard Kennedy lists a total of 2,034 Thomists who worked between the years 1270 and 1900.

A Short History of Thomism, Cessario O.P., Romanus. The Catholic University of America Press, Washington D.C. 2005, p. 20-21

With that in mind I'd to like to quote McGrath again but picking up where I left off:

Quote

 

In the classic period of theology, the subject matter of theology was generally organized along lines suggested by the Apostle's creed or Nicene creed, beginning with the doctrine of God and ending with eschatology. Classic models for the systematization of theology are provided by a number of writings. The first major theological textbook of western theology. is Peter Lombard's Four Books of the Sentences, complied at the University of Paris during the twelfth century, probably during the years 1155-58. In essence, the work is a collection of quotations (or "sentences"), drawn from patristic writers in general, and Augustine in particular. These quotations were arranged topically. The first of the four books deals with the Trinity, the second with creation and sin, the third with incarnation and Christian life, and the fourth and final book with the sacraments and the last things. Commenting on these sentences became a standard practice for medieval theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, dating from a century later, surveyed the totality of Christian theology in three parts, using principles similar to those adopted by Peter Lombard, while placing greater emphasis on philosophical questions (particularly those raised by Aristotle) and the need to reconcile the different opinions of patristic writers. 

Two different models were provided at the time of the Reformation. On the Lutheran side, Philip Melanchthon produced the Loci communes ("Commonplaces") in 1521. This work provided a survey of the main aspects of Christian theology, arranged topically. John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion is widely regarded as the most influential work of Protestant theology. The first edition of this work appeared in 1536, and its definitive edition in 1559. The work is arranged in four books, the first of which deals with the doctrine of God, the second with Christ as mediator between God and humanity, the third with the appropriation of redemption, and the final book with the life of the church. Other more recent major works of systematic theology to follow similar lines include Karl Barth's massive Church Dogmatics.

In the modern period, issues of method have become of greater importance, with the result that the issue of "prolegomena" (see p. 148) has become significant. An example of a modern work of systematic theology which is heavily influenced by such concerns is F.D. E. Schleiermacher's Christian Faith, the first edition of which appeared in 1821-2. The organization of material within this work is governed by the presupposition that theology concerns the analysis of human experience. Thus Schleiermacher famously places the doctrine of the Trinity at the end of his systematic theology, whereas Aquinas placed it toward the beginning.

Christian Theology: An Introduction, McGrath, Alister E. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford U.K. 3rd edition, 2004, p. 143-144 

So I think asking if Thomism is an example of systematic theology I would say "no" on the grounds that the question mixes categories. A discrete body of theological work can be an example of systematic theology, but not something like a school of thought or a religion because those go far beyond a work of theology.  To your second question I would say "yes" but point out that the criteria "logically consistent, based on normative assumptions and postulates" doesn't capture the entirety of how "systematic theology" is understood by theologians here in English speaking world. Finally, to the third question I would simply answer that I do not consider the works of Euclid to be examples of systematic theology. 

Now that I've laid all that out I'd like to revisit this statement:  

On 11/16/2017 at 11:50 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Indeed, the Gospel thrives on that linguistic intersubjectivity, and eschews systematic theology and philosophy as unobtainable anyhow. 

I must disagree and insist that Mormons have already produced works of systematic theology. Indeed I would go farther and say that some of those works are penetrating and so magisterial in scope that they belong next to Aquinas, Calvin, Barth, and Bultmann. To give more substance to my disagreement and to furnish an example of Mormon systematic theology, here is just a part of the table of contents for LeGrand Richards' timeless and erudite A Marvelous Work and a Wonder:  

Quote

 

Chapter 1.......... page 1
"The Position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"
Statement of Nationally Prominent Commentator--A Missionary Church--Classification of Christian Churches--A Catholic Utterance--Elder James E. Talmage and the Congress of Religious Philosophies--The Most Important Message to the World.

Chapter 2.......... page 7
"The Visit of the Father and the Son"
Joseph Smith's Own Story--The Worship of False Gods--The Strange Gods of Christendom--Could You Gaze Into Heaven Five Minutes.

Chapter 3.......... page 16
"Personality of the Father and the Son"
Man Created in the Image and Likeness of God--Moses' Testimony of the Personality of God--Paul's Testimony of the Personality of God--Stephen's Testimony of the Personality of God--John's Testimony of the Personality of God--The Resurrected Lord--Joseph Smith's Testimony of the Personality of Jesus--Scriptures Often Misunderstood Concerning the Personality of God--The Oneness of the Father and the Son.

Chapter 4.......... page 25
"False Doctrines and Universal Apostasy"
Apostasy from the Truth--Erroneous Teachings of the Christian Churches--Doctrine of Predestination--One Heaven and One Hell--God Cannot be a God of Confusion--Mission of the True Church--Contemporary Opinions Affirming the Great Apostasy--Bible Predictions Foretelling the Great Apostasy.

Chapter 5.......... page 34
"A Marvelous Work and a Wonder to Come Forth"
Necessity for a Restoration--The Restitution of All Things--God's Kingdom in the Latter Days--Restoration of the Gospel Foretold--The Calling of Joseph Smith.

Chapter 6.......... page 42
"The Coming Forth of The Book of Mormon"
Visit of Angel Moroni to Joseph Smith--Professor Charles Anthon Fulfills Isaiah's prophecy--Moroni's Prediction Concerning Joseph--Book of Mormon Prophets Commanded to Keep Records--The Book of Mormon, A New Witness for Christ--Testimony of the Three Witnesses to The Book of Mormon--The Lord's Promise Concerning The Book of Mormon.

Chapter 7.......... page 56
"The Book of Mormon Fulfills Bible Prophecies" 
Possible Reason for Erroneous Assumption that No Other Scriptures Are to Come Forth--The Lord's Prophecy Concerning Other Scriptures--Jesus Visited His Other Sheep-The House of Judah and the House of Joseph--Significance of Joseph's Dream--The Stick of Joseph (The Book of Mormon)--A Voice from the Dust.

Chapter 8.......... page 71
"Evidences of the Divinity of The Book of Mormon"
Testimony of Witnesses--"Translated by the Gift and Power of God"--The Urim and Thummim--Origin of the American Indians--Wasgoe Indian Legend--Nephi's Testimony--Supplementary Reading--Contemporary Effort to Establish the Origin of the American Indian--A Choice Land--A Tourist's Testimony--Dr.Willard Richards' Testimony--The Promised Witness to the Truth of The Book of Mormon.

Chapter 9.......... page 83
"Restoration of Priesthood Authority"
Visit of John the Baptist--Restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood--Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods--Limitations of the Aaronic Priesthood--Nature of the Melchizedek Priesthood--Calling and Ordination Necessary to Authority--The Calling and Ordination of Paul--The Church of Jesus Christ "A Royal Priesthood"--Offices in the Priesthood--The Church Should Be Fully Organized--The Future of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Chapter 10.......... page 97
"The Ordinance of Baptism"
The Baptism of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery--Little Children Not to be Baptized--The Fallacy of Infant Baptism--Children to be Blessed--Baptism by Immersion for Remission of Sins--Repentance to Precede Baptism--Baptism, a Requisite to Salvation--Baptism, a Second Birth--Baptism of Cornelius--John's Baptism Confirmed in These Latter Days.

Chapter 11.......... page 111
"The Mission of the Holy Ghost"
Laying on of Hands for the Gift of the Holy Ghost--A Scripture Misunderstood--The People of Ephesus Receive the Holy Ghost by the Laying on of Hands--Personality and Mission of the Holy ghost--Howthe HolyGhost Ministers--Mission of Holy Ghost--Limited Ministrations of the Holy Ghost Without Laying on of Hands-The Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ.

 

Just based on the small sample above, I'm not sure how A Marvelous Work and a Wonder could *not* be considered a work of systematic theology.

 

13 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

That reminds me of Wittgenstein using the ladder of logic (philosophy) to get up into the loft of understanding, and then kicking the ladder away -- saying that one cannot use logic or philosophy to gain understanding.  More than a touch of nihilism there, which I do not credit to either Wittgenstein or Rorty.

 Do you mean the last two numbered propositions from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus?

Quote

6.54  My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

7.  Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

C.K. Ogden translation.

Do you think the above has relevance to the topic? Or did you have another passage in mind?

[Robert F. Smith]

On 11/20/2017 at 12:07 AM, MosiahFree said:

.................................
So I think asking if Thomism is an example of systematic theology I would say "no" on the grounds that the question mixes categories. A discrete body of theological work can be an example of systematic theology, but not something like a school of thought or a religion because those go far beyond a work of theology.  To your second question I would say "yes" but point out that the criteria "logically consistent, based on normative assumptions and postulates" doesn't capture the entirety of how "systematic theology" is understood by theologians here in English speaking world.

Scholars generally consider Thomism to be a grand systematic theology and use it as a prime exemplar not only of scholasticism, but of how a systematic theology can be both internally valid, yet not descriptive of the real world, or of actual biblical theologies.

Quote

Finally, to the third question I would simply answer that I do not consider the works of Euclid to be examples of systematic theology. ...................

I mentioned Euclid only to compare the systematic way in which he formulated internally consistent and logical axioms and postulates to create a wonderful way of understanding plane geometry.  That does not  mean that there are not other sorts of dimensional geometry, only that a system can be constructed which is internally consistent.  You apparently entirely missed my point, and  that is also why you don't understand the fundamental nature of a systematic theology.

Quote

I must disagree and insist that Mormons have already produced works of systematic theology. Indeed I would go farther and say that some of those works are penetrating and so magisterial in scope that they belong next to Aquinas, Calvin, Barth, and Bultmann. To give more substance to my disagreement and to furnish an example of Mormon systematic theology, here is just a part of the table of contents for LeGrand Richards' timeless and erudite A Marvelous Work and a Wonder:  
Just based on the small sample above, I'm not sure how A Marvelous Work and a Wonder could *not* be considered a work of systematic theology.

I know of no Mormon or non-Mormon scholar (except you) who even suggests that any LDS systematic theology has ever been written, much less that LeGrand Richards wrote one.  Your take on expositions of Mormon theology are certainly novel.

Quote

 Do you mean the last two numbered propositions from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus?

Do you think the above has relevance to the topic? Or did you have another passage in mind?

Yes.  Yes.  No.  I was first introduced to that useless ladder notion by Prof. Nathan Rotenstreich, when I was a student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1966.  Not only was Wittgenstein self-contradictory in that instance, but he was making a point common among philosophers today that analytic logic has little value in exploring reality, leaving us without much faith in those wonderful systems which rest on a foundation of sand.  My take on all that is that the existentialist dilemma is understandable, and that the rejection of a god based on such a crumbling foundation is likewise understandable.  The systematic theologies of the world are no substitute for an epistemology worthy of the name.  No tradition, no matter how magisterial and august, is a substitute for an adequate way of knowing for oneself.  Ignoring that issue is the primary cause of rampant secularization in the West.  At least science and reason seem to have actual value.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[MosiahFree]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You apparently entirely missed my point, and  that is also why you don't understand the fundamental nature of a systematic theology.

Do you think Alister McGrath's definition of systematic theology is correct or is it incorrect?

[clarkgoble]

On 11/18/2017 at 9:06 AM, mfbukowski said:

I don't know how you think it is possible to speak of things outside of language without using language.

Oh they fully agree. That's why you have Heidegger, Derrida and others adopting the language of negative theology and some mystic traditions like Meister Eckhart in order to make a point about this "other" to language. Say what one will about the neoplatonist's ontology, but they were at least very aware of the linguistic and logic issues here.

In a certain sense Nietzsche's criticism of platonism doesn't really apply to these figure nor many of the neoplatonists who were careful here. To them there is no "other world" at all in the sense Nietzsche means. To the degree one avoids reifying this "other" to language one can ask if there's really a problem.

On 11/18/2017 at 9:06 AM, mfbukowski said:

Can you form an English sentence without using English? Language is literally all we have to talk about if we are using language. 

Yes but then this gets at the distinction between using language to represent something and using language to direct someone to an awareness without representing it. 

This isn't something mystic I should note. We all recognize that our experiences aren't exhausted by what we say about them. To talk about walking is not the same as the practice of walking.

Getting back to Rorty the question then becomes whether Rorty has Heidegger correctly or not. (Here thinking of his essay in the Cambridge Companion to Heidegger) I think Rorty gets Heidegger fundamentally wrong missing the forest for the trees. Obviously some think Rorty gets Heidegger right though. I should note I've not read Rorty's Essays on Heidegger and Others so I can't claim to fully know everything he's written. I'm more thinking of that particular paper from the Cambridge book which I think is reprinted in Essays on Heidegger and Others. "Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the Reification of Language"

On 11/19/2017 at 2:58 AM, MosiahFree said:

Rorty gets to his psychologism because in his analysis of Kant he rejects the transcendental ego and the resulting synthesis in favor of some kind of theory of predication (he never gives in explanation of just what that theory is), there is a huge hole in the text where (in the very least) there should be an analytical account for the unity of propositions (would we not demand something similar from the nominalists?). There is nothing there to give us how propositions are to be intelligible. What good is our kerygma at that point?   

I think one can reject the Kantian ego without necessarily ending up with Rorty's theory of language. Arguably pragmatism arises precisely by that move early on by Peirce. While I prefer the later Peirce (say 1893 onward) the early Peirce of the 1870's has already made those moves. So without defending Rorty (who to me just has a distorted type of pragmatism) I'll just say one can reject Kant in a defensible way here.

That said, I think the critique of Rorty as descending into psychologism is fair. Although he is careful to keep elements of pragmatism in doing that. That is he makes fairly reasonable requests about difference following's Peirce's "for a difference to be a difference it must make a difference." But I think the tendency by James and others to treat that difference psychologically is problematic. It's certainly not Peirce's sense of it which was much more the consideration of a physicist and chemist.

17 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

Do you think Alister McGrath's definition of systematic theology is correct or is it incorrect?

I can't speak for Robert but I'd say it's hard to reconcile to the Mormon approach. I think McGrath is much more focused on theology as done in the 19th and 20th century. I think Mormons have attempted systematic works but typically don't systemize very much. Orson Pratt comes closest I'd say. I'm not sure I'd count Richards although there's certainly elements of a systematizing tendency. McConkie might be the figure most would point to yet there's a strong nominalistic aspect to McConkie. He tends to shy from discussing the foundational elements which are so characteristic of modern systematic theology. Even Pratt, while he at least tries, is pretty weak stuff in that regard.

[Robert F. Smith]

18 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

Do you think Alister McGrath's definition of systematic theology is correct or is it incorrect?

When he is describing Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, or the works by Calvin, and Barth, he is correct. Otherwise his definition is far too loose and unsystematic.  Few Mormons are even qualified to undertake such a task, and those who are qualified see no point to it -- instead they nibble around he edges of the subject as if it were a dangerous singularity waiting to swallow them and all their presuppositions into its abyss.

[mfbukowski]

14 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Oh they fully agree. That's why you have Heidegger, Derrida and others adopting the language of negative theology and some mystic traditions like Meister Eckhart in order to make a point about this "other" to language. Say what one will about the neoplatonist's ontology, but they were at least very aware of the linguistic and logic issues here.

In a certain sense Nietzsche's criticism of platonism doesn't really apply to these figure nor many of the neoplatonists who were careful here. To them there is no "other world" at all in the sense Nietzsche means. To the degree one avoids reifying this "other" to language one can ask if there's really a problem.

Yes but then this gets at the distinction between using language to represent something and using language to direct someone to an awareness without representing it. 

This isn't something mystic I should note. We all recognize that our experiences aren't exhausted by what we say about them. To talk about walking is not the same as the practice of walking.

Getting back to Rorty the question then becomes whether Rorty has Heidegger correctly or not. (Here thinking of his essay in the Cambridge Companion to Heidegger) I think Rorty gets Heidegger fundamentally wrong missing the forest for the trees. Obviously some think Rorty gets Heidegger right though. I should note I've not read Rorty's Essays on Heidegger and Others so I can't claim to fully know everything he's written. I'm more thinking of that particular paper from the Cambridge book which I think is reprinted in Essays on Heidegger and Others. "Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the Reification of Language"

I think one can reject the Kantian ego without necessarily ending up with Rorty's theory of language. Arguably pragmatism arises precisely by that move early on by Peirce. While I prefer the later Peirce (say 1893 onward) the early Peirce of the 1870's has already made those moves. So without defending Rorty (who to me just has a distorted type of pragmatism) I'll just say one can reject Kant in a defensible way here.

That said, I think the critique of Rorty as descending into psychologism is fair. Although he is careful to keep elements of pragmatism in doing that. That is he makes fairly reasonable requests about difference following's Peirce's "for a difference to be a difference it must make a difference." But I think the tendency by James and others to treat that difference psychologically is problematic. It's certainly not Peirce's sense of it which was much more the consideration of a physicist and chemist.

I can't speak for Robert but I'd say it's hard to reconcile to the Mormon approach. I think McGrath is much more focused on theology as done in the 19th and 20th century. I think Mormons have attempted systematic works but typically don't systemize very much. Orson Pratt comes closest I'd say. I'm not sure I'd count Richards although there's certainly elements of a systematizing tendency. McConkie might be the figure most would point to yet there's a strong nominalistic aspect to McConkie. He tends to shy from discussing the foundational elements which are so characteristic of modern systematic theology. Even Pratt, while he at least tries, is pretty weak stuff in that regard.

Well I disagree with your analysis of many if these philosophers, but a lot if it is nuances because in the big picture our positions are so close, the only thing we have to differ on is the nuances.

But the big difference is that I see language as not "representing" anything in the "real world" except perceptions which are all results of mental states. So we have mental states by cultural convention symbolizing other mental states so that even thinking of them as "representing " something other than mental states is, sorry but I will use the word " naive".

I see it as a tautology that all we "know" is human mental states. 

How could it be any other way?

How did all the "things" that we know become our thoughts if they are not mental states?

 

[MosiahFree]

On 11/20/2017 at 2:45 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

Scholars generally consider Thomism to be a grand systematic theology and use it as a prime exemplar not only of scholasticism, but of how a systematic theology can be both internally valid, yet not descriptive of the real world, or of actual biblical theologies.

Well I’d have to disagree with this assessment. I think the place to begin is with the term “scholasticism” and what encompasses that term:

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With the masters of logic of the mid-eleventh century that age of scholasticism may be said to begin; it lasted for roughly three hundred years, that is, from 1050 to 1350, from Berengar to Wyclif. How then are we to define scholasticism?

For a century and more historians have agreed to use the term as a synonym of ‘medieval’ when treating  of systems of thought. Scholastic philosophy or “scholasticism’ has consequently become a current and unavoidable label. This has created a difficulty for more recent scholars, for when regarded more closely ‘scholasticism’  proved unsusceptible of formal definition or description. It is indeed, formally speaking, a meaningless term. A ‘scholastic’ was originally one who learnt or who taught in a school, specifically in a school of the middle ages, and scholastic philosophy is the kind of philosophy taught in those schools. Thus the term of itself tells us no more than that medieval thought was beaten our and handed down in the daily give-and-take of the public schools.

The Evolution of Medieval Thought, Knowles, Daivd. Longman Group, Essex UK, 1998 (2nd edition). p.79

Knowles goes on to tell us:

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Though more homogenous than either ancient or modern thought, it is nevertheless a tapestry whose design varies both vertically and horizontally. On the one hand Platonism and Neoplatonism, and later, and to a less extent, Averroism and Avicennism, existed side by side with Christian Aristotelianism of varied strength; on the other hand, the teachers of ‘mere’ or ‘pure’ philosophy, who in the early days had been restricted to elementary logic, came gradually to inherit the whole corpus of Aristotelian and Arabian doctrine...In other words, there was in the medieval world, as in the modern, a variety (if only a limited variety) of systems of thought, as also a steady disintegration or rather delimitation of the spheres of theology and philosophy which resulted in the emergence of the latter as an autonomous, self-sufficient, if also very self-critical discipline. 

The Evolution of Medieval Thought, Knowles, Daivd. Longman Group, Essex UK, 1998 (2nd edition). p.81

Much later in his comments on the life of Aquinas and notes that it is an error to believe that the work of Aquinas is the most characteristic of medieval philosophy:

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It is still a common belief, and a common error that the teaching of Aquinas, besides being the most complete and coherent and in the opinion of many the most intellectually satisfying system of the middle ages, was in addition the most characteristic and the most influential. This belief has been considerably strengthened by the great, though often misrepresented influence exerted by Aquinas over the single supreme poet of the middle ages. Dante knew his Summa well enough and could apply it to any situation he wished, but he is even less of a pure Thomist than Thomas is a pure Aristotelian. Moreover, Dante speakings for himself, not for his world. When he began to write, and still more when he died, the academic climate had changed from that of the decade of his birth. Thomism, from 1290 to the early sixteenth century, was only a unit, and at times a small unit, in the European pattern of thought. It was only with the counter-Reformation, and still more with the nineteenth century, that the thought of Aquinas came to be regarded as in some respects synonymous with Catholic philosophy. As Gilson remarks with great felicity, at the end of his review of Aquinas, in the thirteenth century ‘St. Thomas may not have been fully acclaimed by his age, but time was on his side…’ 

The Evolution of Medieval Thought, Knowles, Daivd. Longman Group, Essex UK, 1998 (2nd edition). p. 241

Make note of the name “Gilson” (referencing Etienne Gilson) because we’ll get to him shortly. Now earlier in the thread I quoted the Italian scholar Romanus Cessario (who also is a Dominican Brother) to the effect that “Thomism” was a broad term that cast its shadow over a variety of thinkers who hold mutually exclusive beliefs about a variety of topics. I feel that it is a categorical error talk about “Thomism” as a single system; to ask if “Thomism” is a “systematic theology” is akin to asking, “Is Phenomenology a systematic theology?” I had thought that citing a former editor of The Thomist would be sufficient, but I can make use of other sources. Here is an entry under Thomism:

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A philosophical-theological movement based upon leading ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas. Successive generations have taken his philosophy as the starting point for their own speculations and have developed his ideas in many directions. Thomism, as ongoing enterprise with its own schools and disputes, is particularly associated with the Catholic Church, although much of his theology has proved acceptable to Christians of a wide variety of denominations and his theological teachings are by no means peculiar to the Catholic Church...and in the nineteenth century, after a period of decline, it gained renewed vigour as a result of a papal bull commending the study of Aquinas. Neo-Thomism, which was in part a result of that bull, is still with us. Among its exponents are Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson.

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich. Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, 1995. p. 873.

Notice Etienne Gilson mentioned again. For those readers curious about the 19th century resurgence of Thomism here is a little snippet of historical context:

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Theology had suffocated under Pio Nono [Pious IX]. Great and original theological work was done far from Rome in the German Catholic universities, and by isolated and idiosyncratic figures like John Henry Newman in England….Leo [Leo XIII] was determined to change this. In 1879 he made Newman a cardinal, an extraordinarily eloquent gesture given that Cardinal Manning believed, and often said, that Newman was a heretic. The Roman authorities disliked and feared modern historical inquiry, which they thought was anti-Catholic and skeptical. On 1881 Leo opened the Vatican Archives to historians, including Protestant historians...and with the encyclical Aeterni Patris of 1879 he initiated a renaissance in Thomistic and scholastic studies to break the straitjacket of the Roman schools. 313-314

Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, Duffy, Eamon. Yale University Press, New Haven Connecticut, 2014 (4th edition). p.313-314

With that little digression out of the way, I can address this:

On 11/20/2017 at 2:45 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

I mentioned Euclid only to compare the systematic way in which he formulated internally consistent and logical axioms and postulates to create a wonderful way of understanding plane geometry.  That does not  mean that there are not others sorts of dimensional geometry, only that a system can be constructed which is internally consistent.  You apparently entirely missed my point, and  that is also why you don't understand the fundamental nature of a systematic theology.

Well The Elements does plod along in a deductive manner (it is geometry after all) and that sort of deduction doesn’t really crop up often systematic theologies or in Thomism for that matter. In regards to Thomism here is a small passage from Etienne Gilson in a section of a book on Thomas Aquinas called ‘The Spirit of Thomism’:

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But Thomism is not a system if by this is meant a global explanation of the world deduced or constructed, in an idealistic manner, from a priori principles. The content of the notion of being is not such that it can be defined once and for all and set forth in an a priori way.

The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Gilson, Etienne. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame Indiana, 1994. p.358

So in summation, I think your characterizing of Thomism is simply wrong and doesn't do our common faith any credit to do so. I can't imagine our Roman Catholic friends here appreciate it.

On 11/20/2017 at 2:45 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

I know of no Mormon or non-Mormon scholar (except you) who even suggests that any LDS systematic theology has ever been written, much less that LeGrand Richards wrote one.  Your take on expositions of Mormon theology are certainly novel.

Well thank you!

I'll have more to say Re: Systematic Theology when time permits, but I felt I should do Thomism the justice is deserves when being spoken of by Non-Thomists.