I recently finished Thackeray's Vanity Fair. It's quite excellent; I highly recommend it. It's a lot to absorb, so I don't have much to say about it. One of the things that struck me in this reading (my first) was how the author goes out of his way to keep reminding the reader that they are reading a novel. And it is not difficult to see why, I think. Vanity Fair is not the world of the novel. You, I, the author -- we all are in Vanity Fair. Everyone passes through it in this world. The novel is just a sideshow in the Fair, a Performance; it has the Fair itself as a subject, but it is a Puppet Play, a distraction from the Vanity Fair that engulfs us all. Eventually we have to put the puppets up and go home, sitting down in a "not uncharitable frame of mind" to apply ourselves to our books or our business. Vanity Fair is not a novel; it is the world. The novel just gestures at it.
This looks like an interesting approach to the work.
Friday, April 22, 2005
A Different Kind of Prophet
I was quite distressed when it happened--
I quite assure you of that--
But I've been carrying burdens long ages;
why not carry the burden of the Lord?
Fancy me a prophet!
But I saw death--
and don't tell me I don't know death;
I know him when I see him
and no doubt about it--
I saw death in the road, and turned aside.
But men! They don't know what's right;
they can't open their eyes and see.
Here I am, an old girl like me,
trying to save him the trouble of dying,
and he beats me for it!
Then I said--and I swear I said it,
for the Lord Himself made me say it--
I said: "What have I done to make you beat me?"
That's what you can call practical prophecy--
straight to the point, and no denying!
And I know it doesn't sound like much,
but true oracles rarely do.
It's an easy enough riddle to guess, I imagine. After all, truth is truth whatever the source. Do you know the speaker?
I quite assure you of that--
But I've been carrying burdens long ages;
why not carry the burden of the Lord?
Fancy me a prophet!
But I saw death--
and don't tell me I don't know death;
I know him when I see him
and no doubt about it--
I saw death in the road, and turned aside.
But men! They don't know what's right;
they can't open their eyes and see.
Here I am, an old girl like me,
trying to save him the trouble of dying,
and he beats me for it!
Then I said--and I swear I said it,
for the Lord Himself made me say it--
I said: "What have I done to make you beat me?"
That's what you can call practical prophecy--
straight to the point, and no denying!
And I know it doesn't sound like much,
but true oracles rarely do.
It's an easy enough riddle to guess, I imagine. After all, truth is truth whatever the source. Do you know the speaker?
Reading for the Holy Days: Passover Edition
Sorry to be posting so many links, but it's a busy time for me and there are a lot of things of interest going on. Needless to say, I look at Passover through Christian eyes; but it's great to be in the blogosphere at Passover time. I'll post additional items of interest as I find them.
* Pesah at "Rishon-Rishon"
* Are Your Fish and Haggadah Chametz? at "sultan_knish"
* Unleavening the Hypocrisy of Power at "TikkunOlam"
* Passover Charity Brings the Redemption! at "Mystical Paths"
* The Pesah page at Judaism 101
* Passover Calendar at Chabad.org
* My favorite Passover passage in the Old Testament:
* My favorite New Testament Passover passage:
***UPDATE -- Additional Readings of Interest as I Find Them ****
* Sabbath and Passover Eve at "Hitzei Yehonatan"
* Passover Perspective at "WonderDawg"
* Seder Thoughts at "Dennis Fox's Weblog"
* A Passover Message to Pope Benedict at Newsweek (Rabbi Marc Gellman)
* Avodim hayyinu l'Pharoh b'Mitzrayim at "Mark Kleiman"
* Bedikat chametz at "Veleveteen Rabbi"
* Pesah at "Rishon-Rishon"
* Are Your Fish and Haggadah Chametz? at "sultan_knish"
* Unleavening the Hypocrisy of Power at "TikkunOlam"
* Passover Charity Brings the Redemption! at "Mystical Paths"
* The Pesah page at Judaism 101
* Passover Calendar at Chabad.org
* My favorite Passover passage in the Old Testament:
And they slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. And the priests and the Levites were ashamed, so that they consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings into the house of the LORD. They took their accustomed posts according to the Law of Moses the man of God. The priests threw the blood that they received from the hand of the Levites. For there were many in the assembly who had not consecrated themselves. Therefore the Levites had to slaughter the Passover lamb for everyone who was not clean, to consecrate it to the LORD. For a majority of the people, many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover otherwise than as prescribed. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, "May the good LORD pardon everyone who sets his heart to seek God, the LORD, the God of his fathers, even though not according to the sanctuary's rules of cleanness." And the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people. (II Chr. 30:15-20, EST)
* My favorite New Testament Passover passage:
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (I Cor. 5:6-8, EST)
***UPDATE -- Additional Readings of Interest as I Find Them ****
* Sabbath and Passover Eve at "Hitzei Yehonatan"
* Passover Perspective at "WonderDawg"
* Seder Thoughts at "Dennis Fox's Weblog"
* A Passover Message to Pope Benedict at Newsweek (Rabbi Marc Gellman)
* Avodim hayyinu l'Pharoh b'Mitzrayim at "Mark Kleiman"
* Bedikat chametz at "Veleveteen Rabbi"
Anselm's Day
It was recently Anselm's feast-day, so it seems reasonable to link to Anselmian things, even if somewhat belatedly.
* "Catholic Blogic" had two posts for the occasion: Anselm of Aosta, Bec, and Canterbury (a timeline for his life); Feast of St. Anselm (a list of his major writings, with summaries)
* Here's my post on Anselm's Proslogion argument: The Prayer and the Fool
* A lovely passage from the Proslogion at "Laudator Temporis Acti": Rest.
* A brief discussion of the idea of Cur Deus Homo, Anselm's work on the Incarnation and Redemption, at "verbum ipsum": The Crucified God.
* Here's a passage I posted from Cur Deus Homo: Anselm on Incarnation
* "Catholic Blogic" had two posts for the occasion: Anselm of Aosta, Bec, and Canterbury (a timeline for his life); Feast of St. Anselm (a list of his major writings, with summaries)
* Here's my post on Anselm's Proslogion argument: The Prayer and the Fool
* A lovely passage from the Proslogion at "Laudator Temporis Acti": Rest.
* A brief discussion of the idea of Cur Deus Homo, Anselm's work on the Incarnation and Redemption, at "verbum ipsum": The Crucified God.
* Here's a passage I posted from Cur Deus Homo: Anselm on Incarnation
Thursday, April 21, 2005
On a Wavering in Hume
In the manuscript of Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion we find the following passage:
This passage is scored out. Then Hume changed his mind, and wrote in the margin: "Print these lines, though eraz'd." Then he changed his mind again and scored that out. Then he printed the same sentence in the margin again. Then he scored that out again. The passage substituted for it in the final version was this one:
This wavering in Hume gives a good picture of one sort of limit one always comes up against in History of Philosophy. Because we have some of the revisions, we know that Hume wavered. But we don't know why. Was the reason a matter of language? In other words, did he feel, for whatever reason, that there was something awkward or unclear about the original passage, something that he perhaps didn't quite find definable (hence the wavering)? Was it a matter of dialogical structure, i.e., did he think that the way the first passage framed it introduced an issue he wasn't sure he wanted to bring in? Was it a matter of the argument itself, i.e., did he waver about the cogency of the original, and then finally decide to rewrite it? We can probably make some progress with these questions -- for instance, that the passage eventually substituted is much more concise is perhaps evidence of something. But there will always be a limit. And the same limit is found everywhere, just less noticeably. We can know, to a considerable degree, how passages in philosophical texts fit into their context. But we don't always know much about why this way of saying things was chosen over that way of saying things -- indeed, we don't always know what 'that way of saying things' is at all. The production of a philosophical text is a process of selection, and we rarely get any peek at that. Even when we do, as in the above case, what the peek shows us is less the nature of the selection and more just how much we don't know about the selection. On the other side of the text is a philosophical mind; but we don't actually see anything of that mind except the final selected presentation (and sometimes a few pre-revision selected presentations). What we get is a simulation of the workings of the mind of Hume (or whomever else) on a particular set of points. It is, to be sure, a simulation that comes from the very mind whose thought it is simulating, and that can be quite important. But it's a simulation, a production in which the author does more to act on us than to show us himself (and some philosophical authors go to great lengths not to show themselves much). And I think that's a limit we cannot really overcome in HoP. We can, as I noted above, make some headway on the questions that arise. But there's always that limit.
When we consult reason, all causes and effects seem equally explicable a priori; nor is it possible to assign either of them, by the mere abstract contemplation of their nature, without consulting experience, or considering what we have found to result from the operation of objects. And if this proposition be true in general, that reason, judging a priori, finds all causes and effects alike explicable; it must appear more so, when we compare the external world of objects with that world of thought, which is represented as its cause. If reason tells us, that the world of objects requries a cause, it must give us the same information concerning the world of thought: And if the one seems to reason to require a cause of any particular kind, the other must require a cause of a like kind. Any proposition, therefore, which we can form concerning the cause of the former, if it be consistent, or intelligible, or necessary, must also appear to reason consistent or intelligible or necessary, when apply'd to the latter, such as you have described it; and vice versa. It is evident, then, that as far as abstract reason can judge, it is perfectly indifferent, whether we rest on the universe of matter or on that of thought; nor do we gain any things by tracing the one into the other.
This passage is scored out. Then Hume changed his mind, and wrote in the margin: "Print these lines, though eraz'd." Then he changed his mind again and scored that out. Then he printed the same sentence in the margin again. Then he scored that out again. The passage substituted for it in the final version was this one:
If reason (I mean abstract reason, derived from enquiries a priori) be not alike mute with regard to all questions concerning cause and effect; this sentence at least it will venture to pronounce, That a mental world or universe of ideas requires a cause as much as does a material world or universe of objects; and if similar in its arrangement must require a similar cause. For what is there in this subject, which should occasion a different conclusion or inference? In an abstract view, they are entirely alike; and no difficulty attends the one supposition, which is not common to both of them.
This wavering in Hume gives a good picture of one sort of limit one always comes up against in History of Philosophy. Because we have some of the revisions, we know that Hume wavered. But we don't know why. Was the reason a matter of language? In other words, did he feel, for whatever reason, that there was something awkward or unclear about the original passage, something that he perhaps didn't quite find definable (hence the wavering)? Was it a matter of dialogical structure, i.e., did he think that the way the first passage framed it introduced an issue he wasn't sure he wanted to bring in? Was it a matter of the argument itself, i.e., did he waver about the cogency of the original, and then finally decide to rewrite it? We can probably make some progress with these questions -- for instance, that the passage eventually substituted is much more concise is perhaps evidence of something. But there will always be a limit. And the same limit is found everywhere, just less noticeably. We can know, to a considerable degree, how passages in philosophical texts fit into their context. But we don't always know much about why this way of saying things was chosen over that way of saying things -- indeed, we don't always know what 'that way of saying things' is at all. The production of a philosophical text is a process of selection, and we rarely get any peek at that. Even when we do, as in the above case, what the peek shows us is less the nature of the selection and more just how much we don't know about the selection. On the other side of the text is a philosophical mind; but we don't actually see anything of that mind except the final selected presentation (and sometimes a few pre-revision selected presentations). What we get is a simulation of the workings of the mind of Hume (or whomever else) on a particular set of points. It is, to be sure, a simulation that comes from the very mind whose thought it is simulating, and that can be quite important. But it's a simulation, a production in which the author does more to act on us than to show us himself (and some philosophical authors go to great lengths not to show themselves much). And I think that's a limit we cannot really overcome in HoP. We can, as I noted above, make some headway on the questions that arise. But there's always that limit.
Interesting
As you might have guessed from previous posts, since it's the big news item at the moment, I've occasionally been browsing papacy-related material online in my break periods. There's an interesting article in the National Catholic Reporter which has a 1997 statement from Ratzinger on whether the Holy Spirit picks the Pope. His answer: Kind of, but in a sense not really: "There are too many popes the Holy Spirit would obviously not have picked."
Busy, Busy
I've been swamped with grading and other work, which is why the posts have been (relatively) few and largely uninteresting. It will pick up again in a few days.
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