subtitled "...Leibniz, Spinoza and the Fate of God in the Modern World," this double philosophical biography (Norton,2006) by Matthew Stewart was an interesting review for me of aspects of both philosophers' works, and I have to confess that I have not read Spinoza's Tractatus or Leibniz' Monadology (both in translation) with any slow, deep reflection since college. But this was a stimulating, if somewhat superficial, refresher of some issues I am still grappling with as I look at systematic theologies as well as newer process theologies.
Relevant to some of the legal and social ramifications of metaphysics is the different tack Stewart takes in comparing the responses to modernity of these two thinkers; it is one which he believes, as stated in his "Note on Sources" at the back, is one of his more original contributions. That is, he looks at Spinoza and Leibniz as moral and political philosophers, too. They were reacting to the rise of modern science, and as Lawrence Principe and others remind students, science and religion were forced apart only gradually. These two philosophers seem to have seen it coming, as it were, and anticipated the consequences but ironically also contributed to them.
Spinoza's seeming "God intoxication" but actual near pantheism and alleged atheism certainly remind one to regard immanence with caution and begins the challenge: materialism or radical infusion of the Divine? And how can this one Substance, be it Mind, energy, even Love, be regarded still as personal? Spinoza certainly seems to have rejected that.
Enter Leibniz- lacking the (ahistorically for the West) "zen" attitude of Spinoza (although I was surprised to learn of his interest in China as just then encountered by the Portuguese Jesuits)but committed to a new view of transcendence. We are still trying to figure out what the monads (and the Monad) are and if they help at all. Certainly the wave/particle and water/wave attributes that we can now accept as co-existing in matter (or rather, in matter/energy) thanks to the quantum perspective may be somewhat like the missing link that Leibniz sought to find. But even after Kant it still comes down to Plato and Aristotle with the former getting it right grammatically and the latter closer to a truth we can take more literally as to the complex of matter and form that every thing seems to be.
But I am still stuck with the God problem and the personal nature of Love. Whether Spinoza was motivated to eliminate God as a model for the monarchs he wanted to overthrow in favor of personal freedom of conscience and a nascent awareness of human rights, and whether Leibniz was motivated by a need to preserve the moral status quo from the anarchy of individual liberty- I leave that to Stewart to go on pondering. I am still in the theological and metaphysical woods, looking for the answer to the disappointment we feel about the seeming lack of immortality of our consciousness in any real, felt way. Even if the ashes are windowless monads, why do we want them to continue to be aware of the Love that Moves us (Dante)?
Friday, March 28, 2008
Friday, February 01, 2008
Codes and Hypertext: The Intertextuality of International and Comparative Law
The Syracuse Journal of International Law invited essays suggesting areas of further research and the creation of tools and resources for information studies related to international and comparative law. My contribution, now with the editors, suggests ways to explore literary and information theory that connect these to continuities between the print and electronic media experiences. The first paragraph is posted below:
Codes and Hypertext: The Intertextuality of International and Comparative Law
Marylin J. Raisch
Introduction
Recent discussion of scholarly communication in the emerging internet landscape of hypertext has brought the study of law into an interdisciplinary , intertextual framework . International and comparative legal research, as a major area of special inquiry for practice and scholarship, must be brought into this discussion along with the texts- primarily codes and treaties as well as constitutions and judicial opinions- which form its body of meaning. The language of its norms, whether they be of private law, contract, human rights, or religious law, resonate across cultural contexts, making comparative law and transnational understanding twin means to important ends such as peace and trade. Critical to this discussion and necessary to close this gap in international and comparative law in the global information society will be aspects of communication theory and the philosophy of technology.
Codes and Hypertext: The Intertextuality of International and Comparative Law
Marylin J. Raisch
Introduction
Recent discussion of scholarly communication in the emerging internet landscape of hypertext has brought the study of law into an interdisciplinary , intertextual framework . International and comparative legal research, as a major area of special inquiry for practice and scholarship, must be brought into this discussion along with the texts- primarily codes and treaties as well as constitutions and judicial opinions- which form its body of meaning. The language of its norms, whether they be of private law, contract, human rights, or religious law, resonate across cultural contexts, making comparative law and transnational understanding twin means to important ends such as peace and trade. Critical to this discussion and necessary to close this gap in international and comparative law in the global information society will be aspects of communication theory and the philosophy of technology.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Poison or Cure? Hitchens/McGrath debate at Georgetown
Last week I attended the debate and discussion at Gaston Hall sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs as well as something called the Ethics and Public Policy Center, with which I was unfamiliar. The title of the debate was Poison or Cure? Religious Belief in the Modern World. I take it from the program that the Ethics and Public Policy Center, unlike the Berkley Center, is perhaps more of a Christian evangelical think tank. Fortunately, the Berkley Center is a pluralist and scholarly center; otherwise I think the sponsorship would have made the event appear to someone like me to be less seriously open-minded. Even so I wish that Tom Banchoff of the Berkley Center had been moderating the discussion and not just introducing the event.
In preparation I read Vol. 1 of Alister McGrath's A Scientific Theology, Nature and found it intriguing if slow-paced. It assumed a desire to see a parallel view of "nature" (contested, but the historical versions of the term were reviewed) and Christian belief in a salvific presence and history. He never really got to a proper attempt at a theodicy. This is a pity, as he could have attempted it and been more forceful and clear in the debate with Hitchens. I did not get a chance to read Hitchens' God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything before last night so I may try to do that soon- it may answer some of the questions I will put here.
Hitchens had a typcially theatrical and bold "take no prisoners" approach to what he sees as the horrors of religion and the immoral implications of the doctrines of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The debate was not fully joined insofar as McGrath spoke only of Christianity. Hitchens said at the outset that he would not deal with other monotheisms, then went on to stray from his own limitation to address them all in the course of the evening.
Here are the questions I might have put after hearing the debate:
To Hitchens: Many scientists have been amazed by the success of mathematics and is predictive powers in applied physics and the like. What do you make of it? Not a loaded question but one he should have been asked since he is a journalist and McGrath a scholar of both biochemistry and theology.
To Hitchens again: You stated that even many people who call themselves religious confess that the scriptures of their faith are really metaphorical in most parts or embody myth or legend. However, exegesis of these texts uses the same method of "peeling the onion" as is used in other textual criticism without implying, as you do, that such a method calls into question the truth value or legitimacy of the ideas contained therein. It does so no more than learning (as we did) that Thomas Wise, a bibliographer and (later revealed) con man forged a first edition of Jane Austen's work. Discovering that made the nature of her work more clear and interpretation more sound. It did not call into question the value of studying the works of Jane Austen.
To McGrath: Is religion really the only source of morality?
To McGrath again: do we not have to answer to the apparent indifference of a loving God to suffering? Is this not still the greatest barrier to the moral rationality of monotheistic belief? Is the sacrifice of Jesus (as opposed to his teaching) not violent and hard to explain since it must be at once foreordained and yet freely chosen by him in some way?
McGrath puts much store on the Incarnation and the Logos in the first volume of his study and the latter notion carries many interesting implications. I am still peeling this onion myself.
Finally, Hitchens said in a quick response that he did not want to endorse any confusion between the supernatural and the transcendent or "numinous," implying his disbelief in the former but leaving me with the impression that he had something more to say about the latter. I hope that the moderator's closing suggestion that we "do this again" by having a "part II" of the debate with the two adversaries might actually take place so that Hitchens might develop this with more scholarship (as opposed to mere cleverness)and McGrath might take a stronger stand in some areas, perhaps more like Dorothy Sayers in The Mind of the Maker. Still some real problems there but strong overall.
I will post link to the webcast which they said would be up by sometime this week.
In preparation I read Vol. 1 of Alister McGrath's A Scientific Theology, Nature and found it intriguing if slow-paced. It assumed a desire to see a parallel view of "nature" (contested, but the historical versions of the term were reviewed) and Christian belief in a salvific presence and history. He never really got to a proper attempt at a theodicy. This is a pity, as he could have attempted it and been more forceful and clear in the debate with Hitchens. I did not get a chance to read Hitchens' God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything before last night so I may try to do that soon- it may answer some of the questions I will put here.
Hitchens had a typcially theatrical and bold "take no prisoners" approach to what he sees as the horrors of religion and the immoral implications of the doctrines of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The debate was not fully joined insofar as McGrath spoke only of Christianity. Hitchens said at the outset that he would not deal with other monotheisms, then went on to stray from his own limitation to address them all in the course of the evening.
Here are the questions I might have put after hearing the debate:
To Hitchens: Many scientists have been amazed by the success of mathematics and is predictive powers in applied physics and the like. What do you make of it? Not a loaded question but one he should have been asked since he is a journalist and McGrath a scholar of both biochemistry and theology.
To Hitchens again: You stated that even many people who call themselves religious confess that the scriptures of their faith are really metaphorical in most parts or embody myth or legend. However, exegesis of these texts uses the same method of "peeling the onion" as is used in other textual criticism without implying, as you do, that such a method calls into question the truth value or legitimacy of the ideas contained therein. It does so no more than learning (as we did) that Thomas Wise, a bibliographer and (later revealed) con man forged a first edition of Jane Austen's work. Discovering that made the nature of her work more clear and interpretation more sound. It did not call into question the value of studying the works of Jane Austen.
To McGrath: Is religion really the only source of morality?
To McGrath again: do we not have to answer to the apparent indifference of a loving God to suffering? Is this not still the greatest barrier to the moral rationality of monotheistic belief? Is the sacrifice of Jesus (as opposed to his teaching) not violent and hard to explain since it must be at once foreordained and yet freely chosen by him in some way?
McGrath puts much store on the Incarnation and the Logos in the first volume of his study and the latter notion carries many interesting implications. I am still peeling this onion myself.
Finally, Hitchens said in a quick response that he did not want to endorse any confusion between the supernatural and the transcendent or "numinous," implying his disbelief in the former but leaving me with the impression that he had something more to say about the latter. I hope that the moderator's closing suggestion that we "do this again" by having a "part II" of the debate with the two adversaries might actually take place so that Hitchens might develop this with more scholarship (as opposed to mere cleverness)and McGrath might take a stronger stand in some areas, perhaps more like Dorothy Sayers in The Mind of the Maker. Still some real problems there but strong overall.
I will post link to the webcast which they said would be up by sometime this week.
Reviving the blog with reflections on rationality, broadly conceived
In reviving this blog I hope to create space for my own reflections and the articulation of my thoughts concerning many points of convergence among important issues in law, religion, and the philosophy of science. Since my field is information, my own stance will be critiqued and at times even deconstructed for clarity.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Revived blog
Like the phoenix rising from its ashes, and in this case my laziness and cold tea bags, I once again have decided 'tis better to have y blogged and shared than never to have blogged at all. Or words to that effect, as Peter Sellers once said in a long-ago LP comedy album to which my brother Jeff and I are probably the only remaining ones still referring. I'm actually going to have to copy posts out of a handwritten journal in order to get started again, just because the journal has so much in it that I want to say. Until then,....
Friday, November 18, 2005
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