Mormon Philosopher Facing Discrimination?

[clarkgoble]

On 4/14/2018 at 2:20 AM, mfbukowski said:

And there won't be any as long as philosophy is viewed with suspicion.

Is philosophy viewed with suspicion? I've never found that. I've certainly met people who think it pointless. But then in a certain way I think it's pointless too.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Is philosophy viewed with suspicion? I've never found that. I've certainly met people who think it pointless. But then in a certain way I think it's pointless too.

Seriously?

Go to LDS dot org and search "philosophies of men" and see what you get.  Overall positive or negative?   Pretty obvious - if you find ONE positive reference I would be surprised.

Here is a recent one- https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/valiant-in-the-testimony-of-jesus?lang=eng

The irony is if and when Mormonism is able to convey to the world that we are 1- Humanists, 2- Materialists and as solid philosophically as Phenomenology,  Heidegger, Kuhn, Plantinga, Nagel. Wittgenstein, Pragmatism and more, we will lose the stigma of the laughing mobs at the play "The Book of Mormon".

Yes we "just believe", with perfect philosophical justification!

I suppose we do not want to appeal to New York Times editors but that is the problem- if we could get the validity of the Spirit through their skulls, we could convert the world in all its secular muck. THEY would be the ones criticizing the idiots who wrote the play.    I thought it was great that Harold Bloom understood us, and I think that without changing our beliefs we could do much more to combat his misunderstandings because HIS misunderstandings as a sympathetic critic reflect those of the brightest critics out there.  As you probably know, Rorty was close to Bloom and that is one of the many reasons I use Rorty as the poster-child for "almost Mormons" who are still over on the wrong side of the line as atheists.

If we produced some real philosophers who could give these guys a run for their money and actually take them on directly, charitably,  on their own turf ,  explaining our positions in a credible way, there is no end to how impressive that could be to secular society

I mean look at this article- and Stephen does a great job, but he does not know the philosophy and does not have the training to get it completely right.

We need some guys who can do that. 

https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2011/11/14/harold-bloom-on-the-mormon-breakthrough

We will never convert the Harold Blooms of the world, but those guys are highly influential and if they simply had a positive image of the church to convey, there is no telling what it could do for us.  Bloom had the beginnings of that but we have no one with the credibility to stand up to him.

James Faulconer possibly does, but I think he is constrained from doing so.  

 

Edited April 16, 2018 by mfbukowski