tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post115464024457493138..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Tim and the GermansAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-1154810561198526472006-08-05T16:42:00.000-04:002006-08-05T16:42:00.000-04:0020 out of 10- sniffing out Baptists, Calvinists, L...20 out of 10- sniffing out Baptists, Calvinists, Lutherans and other heretics. God’s just given me the gift of discernment on those evil spirits. I’m kidding… sort of. The comment about the heterodoxy of the commonly held view of scripture coming out of these traditions flowed out of an incredible amount of angst built up ever since the time I had points taken off of my Bible grad for asking too many questions. Wholly unnecessary but boy does it feel good.<BR/><BR/>1. 5 out of 10 I’m sensing a grudge against the germans. I’d give you half credit on this one but with some clarification. Gadamer and other germans are very sensitive to their philosophic genealogies especially after Hegel. This can produce both the philosophic elitism but also a very revealing self consciousness that allows for a great deal of honesty as well. I think your accusation of indistinguishable german philosophies except for those who really care is much more accurate between Kant and Hegel than the period between Hegel and Gadamer.<BR/>2. 9 out of 10. Ouch! Right on about the Nazis. Very passive but I am asking for just one point because he never joined the nazi party and by the end of the war had managed to remain uninvolved. So I’m going to argue that he actively didn’t join the Nazi party. Certainly no Bonhoeffer but still not a Heidegger who removed the dedication to his Jewish teacher and mentor during the rise of the Naziis in his work Being and Time.<BR/>3. 0 out of 5. I’ve never read anything seedy about him but that’s probably just because he hid it better. So maybe we should assume you get at least half credit. This could be semantics but… I think I smell a Baptist. And not the sweet old grandfatherly Billy Grahm southern demo kind either. The point I would like to make, which the AVI may agree with me once I clarify is that PERSONAL ETHICS DO NOT EXIST. Ethics by nature are always communitarian. From a Jewish French philosopher (emmanuel levinas) who came out of the concentration camps made the point: it is our encounter with the other which reveals that at the base of our existence is a responsbility to the other. Ethics necessitates community and personal responsibility by the nature of being ethics and it is quite possible that ethics be the fundamental discipline of philosophy but that’s a long debate. This does not require a social determinism in which the indvidual is abdicated from responsibility but neither does it fall prey to the typically evangelical fallacy of believing that simply changing hearts will change society. To state that one could hold morality that is corporate rather than personal or personal rather than corporate creates a dualism that is contrary the nature of ethics qua ethics.<BR/>4. 0 out 10 Sorry, this is a strong Heidggerian. He’d be running in circles and debate with Habermas and Derrida. Maybe some similar theory. But from my understanding pretty different approaches and I doubt there was much cross pollination.<BR/>5. 10 out of 10. Ha! Good call. I’m just surprised you didn’t throw in the-fact-that-english-translations-of-german-always-have-really-long-hyphenated-phrases-that are-used-as-if-they-are-single-words-over-and-over-again.<BR/><BR/> You’re identifaction with Gadamer as a more mainline protestant thinker and infusing it into evangelicalism underestimates the philosophy program at NP. In my opinion the philosophy department at NP is one of the best things it has going. While small I wouldn’t trade it for any other Christians schools philosophy department and it’s allowed me to keep up with U Chicago philosophy students (and have a wonderful time making fun of wheaton philosophy students). All that to say Gadamer’s Truth and Method would be most closely linked to the orthodox catholic theological school of Bernard Lonergan and his famous work Insight.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-1154659880454671762006-08-03T22:51:00.000-04:002006-08-03T22:51:00.000-04:00But it was so plausible.I have a friend of many ye...But it was so plausible.<BR/><BR/>I have a friend of many years - an ex-girlfriend who led Tracy and I to Christ in 1975 and Jonathan's godmother, in fact - who would just make up plausible-sounding things and pass them off as true. Many years later she confessed that they were not meant to play games on people, but to simply appear knowledgeable and intriguing. She would say things like "your body responds differently and your digestion is more efficient when you sit down while eating," or "Italian surnames which have definable meanings are usually indications of lower class backgrounds, though they may be far back. The more elevated names don't have translateable meanings." I believed both of those things for years, and even repeated them to other people.<BR/><BR/>You would like her.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-1154657163896826422006-08-03T22:06:00.000-04:002006-08-03T22:06:00.000-04:00My secret goal in life is to be so ambiguously dry...My secret goal in life is to be so ambiguously dry that I can say whatever I want, whenever I want, and make it utterly impossible to slap a dementia label on me. Anyway....the acronymed nihilist stalker is fiction. My brother is real.bs kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-1154651866285995822006-08-03T20:37:00.000-04:002006-08-03T20:37:00.000-04:00You are much to talented in your evasiveness for m...You are much to talented in your evasiveness for me. I can't tell when you're smirking and when you're being straight.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-1154649415047434482006-08-03T19:56:00.000-04:002006-08-03T19:56:00.000-04:00Yeah, I just made that up. Sorry.Yeah, I just made that up. Sorry.bs kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-1154649218579579352006-08-03T19:53:00.000-04:002006-08-03T19:53:00.000-04:00You're kidding.I'll bet I got the philospher right...You're kidding.<BR/><BR/>I'll bet I got the philospher right anyway, though.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-1154641430242241842006-08-03T17:43:00.000-04:002006-08-03T17:43:00.000-04:00Nice post. However, my guess is that the "Tim" wh...Nice post. However, my guess is that the "Tim" who posted was not actually my brother, but actually an acronym for "Time is Meaningless", the chosen name of a nihilist who's been stalking me for a couple months. Armed with this knowledge, your response is basically worthless, but because of the commentors chosen life style, my guess is he will not get back to reading it. The Coen Brothers were right, nihilism is exhausting.bs kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com