Augustine Blog Conference, Day 1

Augustine and Plato on "Going to Pieces"

Scotus on Natural Law

Descartes’ Ambivalent Relationship with Tradition
Descartes is often referred to as the “father” of modern philosophy and for good reasons.  In several of his works, Descartes speaks openly of his frustrations with his philosophical predecessors, highlighting the various ways that they contradict themselves and leave one in a state of skepticism and despair.  Although embracing fervently the scientific revolution of his day and hoping to cl

Dante’s Holistic Theological Poetry
For Dante the ultimate meaning of human history can be understood in terms of salvation history.  That is, Dante believes strongly in God’s providential guidance over human history; yet, within God’s providence there is a place for human freedom and deliberation.  God create

Augustine’s Confessions as a Re-Write of Virgil’s Aeneid
Many scholars have commented on the polyphonic (using Bakhtin’s term) character of Augustine’s Confessions, particularly his use of biblical allusions, quotations and the like.  In this post, I focus on Augustine’s superimposition of key texts from the classical tradition, specifically, Virgil

Gadamer on Symbolon and the Zegehörigkeit of Language and Reality
Gadamer understands language as having an ability to enhance the intelligibility of reality and thus make the truth of things more evident. Wachterhauser offers a way into Gadamer’s claim by turning to the latter’s claim that language and reality belong together, as language has a symbolic function.  Here Gadamer has in view the Greek understanding of a symbol (symbolon) in which a simple object, such as a piece of pottery, was broken and one half was given to the host and the other kept by the guest.  As Wachterhauser explains, this symbol was originally given as a gesture of friendship and hospitality between households that were able to visit each other only rare

Charles Taylor on Gadamer’s Hermeneutic Experience of the Other and the Changed Self
“In coming to see the other correctly, we inescapably alter our understanding of ourselves.  Really taking in the other will involve an identity shift in us.  That is why it is so often resisted and rejected.  We have a deep identity investment in the distorted images we cherish of others … If understanding the other is to be construed as fusion of horizons and not as possessing a science of the object, then the slogan might be:  no understanding the other without a changed understanding of self.  The kind of understanding that ruling groups have of the ruled, that conquerors have of the conquered—most notably in recent centuries in the far-flung European empires—has usually