/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23519798]

I'm really struggling with it. If anyone here has read it I would love to get some thoughts on it

[Anonymous No.23519981]

>>23519798
Maybe try the companion that the translator wrote?

[Anonymous No.23521383]

>>23519798
I've read it. Happy to answer questions. Amazing work of philosophy/theology. Apparently there is another translation of a few shorter works of his coming out shortly as well. Have you read Hegel and Heidegger? Quite helpful. Lotta Latin from Aquinas too. Fyi, there's a glossary in back of book with many of the technical terms btw.
>>23519981
Indeed. The companion is quite good. Has several articles and a summary and a short piece by Ulrich. I also ordered the Communio issue about Homo Abyssus but it hasn't arrived yet.

[Anonymous No.23522195]

bump

[Anonymous No.23522231]

Have you read Pryzwara? Apparently that's a big influence. I found Analogia Entis, while very dense, to be more accessible, although it still presumes some familiarity with the classical tradition, St. Aquinas, Kant, and modern philosophy a bit more generally. Phenomenology a bit too, although arguably Husserl and co really are just cribbing off the scholastics anyhow to a surprising degree (Deely makes this argument).

There was a big conference in Ulrich a while back and all the lectures are up on YouTube. The associated papers are mostly freely available: https://www.communio-icr.com/articles/view/introduction-being-as-an-image-of-divine-love-a-symposium-on-homo-abyssus

Martin Bieler's "The Dramatic Question of Being," is pretty good. I love D.C. Schindler but he has a tendency to make stuff not quite accessible, sort of floating between the inaccessibility of high continental style and down to Earth presentation, doing neither all the way.

If you don't know Aquinas or Aristotle I would probably just start with Sokolowski's Phenomenology of the Human Person and Jensen's The Human Person, and then Perl's "Thinking Being," for the intro to metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.23522290]

>>23519798
>>23521383
>>23522231
is it actually worth getting into this stuff? Would it add something to my life or is it just mental masturbation? No offense I'm genuinely wondering. I haven't read much theology but something like Kierkegaard or even some Hinduist stuff I've read has actually made me a better person, would this be the same or just discussion about things that are (personally) irrelevant to me?

[Anonymous No.23522516]

>>23522290
>>23521383 here. Do you like philosophy and theology? No? Then I'd say no. Just stick to mysticism and spirituality. Some people find great value in the former, many prefer the simple wisdom of the latter category. For me personally, the book changed my life and how I viewed life. But that was mainly insofar as led to a conversion experience. Metanoia if you will. Periagoge.
>>23522231
HA is deeper and wider reaching than Pryzwara although undoubtedly influenced. HA is also, dare I say, more novel.

[Anonymous No.23522521]

>>23522516
>For me personally, the book changed my life and how I viewed life.
how so

[Anonymous No.23522548]

>>23522521
Was depressed NEET incel nihilist. Started attending mass, working a good job, getting sober, taking health seriously, fell into a relation, repaired relationships w friends and family. Idk mayne. It's not like some drug that alters your perceptions. It just clarified a lot of contemporary issues in philosophy and led me to the magnificent solutions offered by Catholic theology

[Anonymous No.23522686]

>>23522290
Yes. For me at least, it has been life changing. But it certainly doesn't come all at once. The first time I encountered Boethius' Consolation, I was able to dismiss it on modern, relativist grounds. But I also didn't really understand the classical tradition at all, and was laboring under the defective, incoherent modern conception of freedom as pure potency. Pic related was a good starting point for me on finally starting to actually "get" Plato and the classical tradition. But then the more practical authors, St. John of the Cross and Thomas Merton in particular, were quite important too. What could be more life changing, more valuable, than finally getting a glimpse of the Good, of that which has true authority?

>>23522516
I think the philosophy helps for understanding the mystical authors. For example, I was introduced to St. Bonaventure's The Mind's Journey Into God by Harmless' great book Mystics, but it only actually made sense to me after I had mastered the Neoplatonic tradition. Understanding it in terms of a "magical spirit realm" very much cheapens it and makes it seem at most like edifying fiction.

That all said, I will admit that I still find St. Aquinas and Aristotle quite dry. I do get valuable sights from them, but I have never had fun reading them the way I do with Plato, St. Augustine, or the mystics. Nietzsche was the first philosopher I ever read in depth and I can certainly see why he is the most popular with the public at large in terms of both style and message (although I've come to see that message as deeply defective).

[Anonymous No.23522697]

>>23522686
I would also say that book gets into the weeds a bit too much for a general audience when it comes to Hegel. You could always just skim the sections about secondary forces. Wallace's book just on Hegel is better for Hegel anyhow.

Von Balthasar's book on St. Maximus the Confessor was another big one for me, and D.C. Schindler's work on freedom. But then pic related was great on a different strand (and it goes out in Sufi and Zen too, Rumi and Dogen).

[Anonymous No.23522798]

>>23522686
Good post. Good points.Good book on philosophical mysticism.
>>23522697
It is not even that HA is dry. I thought it riveting. For just being a better person, I think something like Imitation of Christ is best. One does not need Aristotle nor even Plato. Nor either the numerous neoplatonic spirit flights lovely though they may be of which to read.
>>23522231
I will search lectures out on youtube. As mentioned, I ordered issue to read thoroughly. But has been slow to ship. Some of the most seemingly interesting papers such as Betz and Desmond are not online alas.

[Anonymous No.23522826]

>>23522686
>>23522697
Thank you so much for the recommendations. I feel the same way about Nietzsche, his work just flows so well. I don't agree with a lot of his points anymore too but I still have not read anything that captivated me like that. Maybe I'm a total midwit but I just get bored when things get too abstract, when there is less of an aesthetic so to say. You seem really interesting anon so could I perhaps ask for some more recommendations? I'm quite lost in life these days, and I'm getting more into literature again so I'm looking for something unique

[Anonymous No.23523089]

I used to be a devout Catholic but it's ogre for me. There's just so much evil in the world that I don't believe "the Fall" adequately explains it. Simone Weil and the Gnostics were right.

[Anonymous No.23523100]

>>23523089
exactly.

[Anonymous No.23523170]

>>23523100
Oh fuck off, you got BTFO in the last thread and had to resort to sophistry and ad hominems because you couldn't respond to any arguments.

[Anonymous No.23523185]

>>23523170
medication. posthaste

[Anonymous No.23523285]

>>23523089
>muh evil
Make a better world. I'll wait.
>simone weil
Was catholic
>the gnostics
Shit eating trannies who contribute to evil. Get real, amigo
>>23523185
Is that meant to be a reversal of expectations of sorts? Usually it's the self-proclaimed gnostics who end up taking psychiatric meds. You'll meet the most esotericists in the psych ward....

[Anonymous No.23523304]

Hehe, homo.

[Anonymous No.23523311]

>>23523285
>just be a cosmic demiurge bro
kek.

[Anonymous No.23523343]

>>23523311
>doesn't realize he's already participating in cosmic demiurgy
Ngmi

[Anonymous No.23523364]

>>23522686
I think people are sleeping on the Neothomist manuals. They are very easy to follow and teach very good lessons.

Also, weren't the books of St John of the Cross written for advanced Carmelite nuns in the illuminative stage? I think there is really a need to read some secondary material before reading him. At least a knowledge of ascetic theology.

[Anonymous No.23523400]

>>23523343
Why couldn't God create a universe without gratuitous suffering?

[Anonymous No.23523411]

>>23523285
>>simone weil
>Was catholic
She thought the OT god was deranged.

[Anonymous No.23523413]

>>23523400
You have no idea what it takes to create something out of nothing. Nor do I. But I believe Being is good. And that there are some good answers. Compossibility as per Leibnizian thought is one such example. In some ways, the light of goodness requires a shadow he says. Not that matter is bad though. We are matter. But also void. And energies and elements. Also fine tuning not to be a pseud creationist adjacent but kinda true.

Tl;dr: read Leibniz and be optimistic and idealistic

[Anonymous No.23523417]

>>23523411
She thought the Jewish understanding of God deranged not the Lord Himself.

[Anonymous No.23523443]

>>23523413
>In some ways, the light of goodness requires a shadow he says
Explain why God would be constrained by this fact. Is the act of creation pure, or impure?

[Anonymous No.23523446]

>>23523443
Compossibility would say that some suffering actually makes life better: so mostly privatio boni on yr chart. You're just too dumb to recognize that he is also a voluntarist alien. Because you don't even know paramaters of game. Though I'm sure you have some mighty clever theories. Maybe some cioranesque poetry and vaguely antinatal utilitarian calculator games.

[Anonymous No.23523460]

>>23523446
>a voluntarist alien
>suffering is a necessary ingredient for some end
Which is it?

[Anonymous No.23523489]

>>23523460
God is not constrained. Why does suffering exist? It is a good on some level we do not comprehend but barely. Pain is bad for example. But without pain life is all the more fleeting and dangerous. So eliminating suffering being assumed as the sole goal of the alien voluntarist is in fact constraining him to your limited perspective.

[Anonymous No.23523498]

>>23523489
Is that really the best answer you can come up with?

[Anonymous No.23523566]

>>23523498
The judgement we should use is not minimizing suffering but maximizing goodness and the fact that we perceive transcendentals like good and beauty and justice at all is proof our world is perfect and even yr anticosmicism relies on such values for judgement albeit twisted beyond belief.

[Anonymous No.23523572]

>>23522686
You might enjoy Trinitarian Wisdom: Louis Bouyer’s Theology of the God-World Relationship by Keith Lemna. It's a wonderful book that I discovered recently.

[Anonymous No.23523580]

>>23523566
You don't know what voluntarism is. Why would a God, for whom even logical truth is contingent, be some alchemical minmaxxer?

[Anonymous No.23523593]

>>23523580
How can logical truth be contingent? It's modally necessary. Anyway God has a nature. His self relation is his nature. The logic of one and many. Why would it not be his nature to be logical? How would an illogical universe be better? Twould truly be a Humean hell. You seek an illogical universe because you are illogical yourself. Sod off. Educate thyself

[Anonymous No.23523609]

>>23523593
Because we're talking about a voluntarist alien - a supremely all-powerful, all-good God, like Marcion's Alien. A voluntarist God can make 2 + 2 = 5 and there is nothing you or I could do about it.

I never accused you of being logically inconsistent, but a God who is bound by his own nature to generate an abyss of suffering and fear is not worthy of worship. You're not a dualist, so you don't have the luxury of settling for the Zoroastrian dualism in my chart, either.

[Anonymous No.23523683]

>>23523400
Is it gratuitous? I don't know if you would find it persuasive, but you might try reading chapter 7 of Bouyer's The Seat of Wisdom. It is not a comprehensive theodicy, but it touches on several relevant issues in a penetrating fashion, albeit within the somewhat unlikely but actually apt context of explaining the Immaculate Conception. It's on libgen. Now, I would not recommend this to a total skeptic - a fedora tipper - but I infer from your remark that you are not one.

[Anonymous No.23523696]

>>23523609
>2+2=4 is bad actually, i need square circles to feel joy in life
Yr brain on gnosticism

[Anonymous No.23523701]

>>23522826
I think I mentioned all the big ones for me in this topic area: Wallace, Harmless' Mystics but also his stuff on the Desert Fathers and St. Augustine, Schindler, Sokolowski. Schindler's book on the dramatic question of being would be of interest if you like HA, it mentions Ulrich quite a bit, although it is primarily a study of von Balthasar.

Those are the ones that have really stood out to me.

A whole different area of interest to me is the application of information theory to the natural sciences and complexity studies. I really do think a lot of the work there is a great vindication of key elements of scholastic thought re a relational ontology and seeing being through a semiotic lens. However, I know of no work that actually makes this case, it's just my own conclusion after being very interested in classical metaphysics and modern Catholic philosophy but also being very interested in modern physics, complexity studies, bio semiotics, etc.

Also a vindication of Hegel's concepts about the evolution of cultures and human institutions according to reason (an information theoretic view of evolution makes it very easy to see how it could apply to institutions). Doesn't really say anything about how to live, but it is a source of wonder

[Anonymous No.23523709]

>>23523696
>2+2=4 is bad actually
if suffering is baked into Being, yes. probably a murder victim has experienced a greater and more penetrating truth about this reality in their final anguished moments than anything printed in a thousand mediocre books on theology. and I enjoy reading theology

>>23523683
>you are not one
Not a fedora by any means. I'll check it out now.

[Anonymous No.23523763]

>>23523683
I skimmed the chapter. I found it unconvincing, I don't know how we are supposed to "make holy" a creation founded on nothingness/the eternal possibility of evil. If this nothingness violates our autonomy through sin, then how can the possibility of a Fall also be a mark of our freedom?

I would love nothing more than to bask in the light of a Trinitarian God and read beautiful philosophical formulations of his nature until the end days, but that isn't supposed to be our lot down here.

[Anonymous No.23523786]

>>23523701
>dramatic question of being
You said that twice. With two authors. Does not exist. What meanst thou?

[Anonymous No.23523789]

>>23523763
>not our lot to know the good
>>God doesn't exist because I'm avoiding him >:(

[Anonymous No.23523819]

>>23523789
>child murder is just more grist for the mill of God's love bro
Now watch these pious, God-fearing Christians accuse me of sentimentality

[Anonymous No.23523827]

>>23523819
This is but unironically

[Anonymous No.23523858]

What do you guys think of Novalis?

[Anonymous No.23523883]

>>23523858
Hymns to the Night is beautiful. Not acquainted w his philosophical works. He is oft linked to Sophiology via Solovyov who is a rather curious Hegelian as well.

[Anonymous No.23523914]

>>23523701
>re a relational ontology and seeing being through a semiotic lens. However, I know of no work that actually makes this case, it's just my own conclusion
would you mind furthering? or list off reading at which there is a nexus?

[Anonymous No.23524076]

>>23523763
>a creation founded on nothingness/the eternal possibility of evil.
Creation is not founded on nothingness. Rather, freedom - which is necessary if a creature is to be made in the image of God - entails the possibility to turn away from God's will, which is necessarily to turn to nothingness -- "something relative," not absolute.

>[I]t [sin, evil] consists always in the realisation of that possibility of not being that is inherent in being created free,
>a possibility in whose absence there could not be any [free will] in creation,
>in other words no creation [in] the image of God.

> I don't know how we are supposed to "make holy" a creation founded on nothingness/the eternal possibility of evil.
As limned in that chapter, the Bible in its entirety is the story of how God is making holy that which had fallen through sin (a process which is still ongoing).

>From the very beginning, the Word intervened in man's history to cast a beam of light into the darkness created by the Fall. Narrow at first, it steadily broadened... This is what sustained and guided a history which seems, at first sight, nothing but the history of sin and its unhappy consequences. It is, of course, that; but it besides, as revelation teaches, the history of God seeking man and making contact with him... intervening ... and gradually taking control.

>If this nothingness violates our autonomy through sin
Rather, sin violates our human nature by the misuse of our freedom, by our turning away from that which is the one and only source of life.

>then how can the possibility of a Fall also be a mark of our freedom?

It is not so much "a mark of our freedom," but a possibility that necessarily arose from creating man in the image of God, for the possibility of sin necessarily arises from the grant of human freedom. Nor can it be otherwise, if we are made in God's image The alternative is a world consisting only of those creatures that came into being prior to the creation of man, not made in the image of God.

Now, would it have been better for God not to have made man, with the risk of sin that entailed? Did he err in denominating that creation "very good"? You may think so; or at least, I don't see how any other real option exists given the nature and scope of your objections. But God evidently thought otherwise, and if he was unwise in so thinking then there is no wisdom. Ultimately, it is a question of faith, then and now. "For man's salvation by God to be actually accomplished, he must freely renounce letting what seems evident to him prevail over the word spoken to him by God. This is exactly what faith is."

[Anonymous No.23524846]

>>23523914
*furthering this

[Anonymous No.23525044]

this is one of the best threads I've read in a while, good job guys

[Anonymous No.23525057]

>>23519798
How hard will I get filtered if I go into this as a brainlet who hasn't read philosophy since high school? I have a passing familiarity with every major western philosopher except the medieval ones

[Anonymous No.23525062]

>>23519798
Is there a point in reading this if you've spent a considerable amount of time with philosophical and theological literature of this kind
I kinda got burned out and I'm looking for something which does something different than >>23524076 describes. (I don't disagree with any of it, I believe it but I've read it so many times that i want to read something "different" if that makes sense).
The first few pages and the chapter titles of Ulrich sound like more of the same

[Anonymous No.23525101]

>>23525057
If you're familiar with Hegel and Heidegger you should be able to follow most of it. I got by with such knowledge. Despite lacking familiarity with Aquinas. Does require a bit of simple Latin too though. Knowing a lil of German epistemological terms helps as well. It is however very very dense. Extremely technical. Even moreso than most philosophy. Schindler jokes that his students complain that it as if written in code. It will probably make you want to familiarize yourself w medievals as well either before during or after. At least it did for me.
>>23525062
Good question. On the one hand, HA is very orthodox. So it will defend a lot of traditional catholic positions. God is love. Creation is ex nihilo. Christ is alpha and omega. But on the other hand, it does have highly creative rereadings of Hegel and Heidegger. As well as introducing some novel ways of re-looking at and re-synthesizing medieval sources.

[Anonymous No.23525111]

>>23525101
I'm not per se looking for something unorthodox, I'm looking for other aspects of theology and philosophy to explore
I guess I'm burned out on reading too much orthodox ontology and I'm looking to expand on the foundation

[Anonymous No.23525176]

>>23525111
I like ontology. Feels very primal. But ya. Don't burn yourself out on a single subject.

What are you looking for? Hermeticism and Neoplatonism and Pythagoreanism are good counterpoints to more orthodox Christian ontology. Or have you already read such? I also like a number of Frenchies wrt religion. Derrida is hit and miss but ocassionally very deep. Agamben has some interesting thoughts on religion as well. Serres, as mentioned previously methinks, has good books on Angels and Religion and Hermes. Luc-Nancy has a Deconstruction of Christianity duo of books. Some fun Anglos out there too. Milbank is popular for radical orthodoxy, Social Theory and Theology his big book is a great critique of secular reason. Many like DBH. I find him a bit smug however. Have you heard of JJ Altizer? His book on Radical Theology is a very curious almost gnostic Hegelianism. Deals with a lot of more orthodox literature and levies many complaints.


I also feel Hans Ur Von Balthasaar is a good read in similar vein of HA. Big metahistory. Meditations on the Tarot is surprisingly good too on general Christian living, howeversobeit heretical at times it may be. And speakin Balthasaar, Lubac is other big name of Nouvelle Theologie.

Speakin unorthodox.... don't forget sophiologists! Novalis, Solovyov, Florensky, Bulgakov, Martin, etc.

[Anonymous No.23525215]

>>23525111

Michel Henry is not recommended enough on here.

[Anonymous No.23525294]

>>23525176
I've read a lot on Plotinus but Plotinus himself is a serious runner up for worst major writer in the history of western philosophy, surprising that Porphyry turned out so good
I've read Watkin's book which talks about Serres, he seems interesting
Milbank's Social Theory and Theology was part of my theological awakening, I love that book to bits
We are of one mind on DBH, I'd just say really smug, and I say this as someone who knows that deep down, he believes in universalism for the non-exegetical reasons DBH brings up. He is just too annoying and his prose is not nearly as funny as he thinks it is, I can't get through beauty of the infinite because his ego occupies too much of every page
I've repeatedly heard of Altizer and the idea of reading a genuine schizo has long fascinated me
My attempt to read Balthasar is how I realised I got burnt out on the style of nouvelle theologie. Its basically my belief system but if I read another essay on how X is an expressing of self offering as manifestation of being in relation in time as gift and knuckles, I'll puke
Yes, I was really lonely in my senior year
Florensky was my first serious work of theology and it's not heretical, just a little weird, same with Bulgakov, the only parts that seem odd are the bit in the bride (or the beginning of the lamb, dont sue me) where he says the Trinity is an extra hypostasis besides the three persons and the ohne welt Gott is nicht Gott he tried to pull but neither seems actually necessary to his theology imo.
The whole sophiology stuff just seems to me like confusion in language, you can more or less smuggle all of (the good ideas of) sophiology under the banner of Maximus' Logoi as the eternal will of God straight into orthodoxy.
Solovyov died (lower case) orthodox, true story, read Florensky on his last days and the story of the apocalypse is a straight up work of actual prophecy. After a lifetime of larping, he really did it
First time I hear of a sophiologist called Martin, I'm actually curious
>>23525215
Has been on my radar for a while but his corpus is really confusing, where to start

[Anonymous No.23525298]

>>23525294
>Has been on my radar for a while but his corpus is really confusing, where to start
His Christ trilogy. I am the Truth, Incarnation, and Words of Christ.

[Anonymous No.23525319]

>>23525294
>Martin
Michael Martin has some popularizing books on sophiology. Not super deep though. Tries to link it to Christian Theosophy. Questionable. But seems a nice enough fella.
>tired of being love gifts etc
Well, I won't recommend Marion then hah. Or Pickstock.
>altizer is skitzo
Alas yes but one of the few serious Schellingian/Blakean theologians hah

What else? Hmmm

Pryzwara may appeal. More epistemological than ontological

>fun stuff
Pic related has lovely prose methinks. It's how I'm dipping into Thomism following HA

[Anonymous No.23525344]

>>23523786
Sorry, Schindler's book is on "the dramatic question of truth," see pic.

Bieler's article is actually titled: Ferdinand Ulrich’s ‘Metaphysics as Reenactment. I was misremembering it with the subtitle of HA itself.

Thinking the Nothing of Being by Rachel Coleman is also good.

[Anonymous No.23525357]

>>23523914
>>23524846
Information and the Nature of Reality is a good compilation of articles, with Davies and Lloyd contributing on the physics front and Terrance Deacon contributing on biology. Deacon's "Steps to a Science of Biosemiotics," sums up a lot of the important points in his "Incomplete Nature."

For an introduction on information theory, the Great Courses' Science of Information is actually quite good, even if it does start quite slow with the basic math of it all. The lectures on the applications across the sciences are instructive. The introductory chapters of Mueller's "Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information," are excellent too even if the core thesis will be inaccessible without understanding group theory.

But the best intro might be the popular science book "The Ascent of Information," which gets at a lot of the interesting ways to view the natural science in terms of information. "Complexity: A Guided Tour" is a really great panoramic view too.

If you're familiar with Hegel's view of history I think the connections between it and the last two books I've mentioned will start to come out in the discussions of evolution and genetic algorithms in information theoretic terms. And the idea of all effects as signs of their causes (St. Bonaventure) or things being defined by their relations will also fit right in with the IT related conceptualizations of physics, biology, etc.

Vedral's "Decoding Reality," is another decent look at physics through an informational lens. Tegmark's "Our Mathematical Universe," is less relevant, but the rewriting of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in terms of information for some observer is relevant and it's a fun boon if you like physics.

Nathan Lyons "Signs in the Dust," at least the last section on physical signs, makes the bridge between information theoretic approaches in the natural science and scholastic semiotics a bit more clear, even if he doesn't really jump on the IT side of things.

The Great Courses course on Complexity is nice and short and decent. Gleick's book on chaos is good too but maybe less essential, same with Storgatz book Synch, on the mathematics of spontaneous order, which in turn can feeds back into the IT-informed framework.

[Anonymous No.23525371]

>>23525344
Thank you!!!
>>23525357
Interesting stuff. Read a few of these. Have you read Yuk Hui? Or Isabelle Stengers? They're continentals interested in this sort of stuff. Vaguely deleuzeo-guattarian lineage. But yes. Bringing the medievals around would be instructive no doubt. Doctrines of signatures and the like. You in school? A thesis idea perhaps!

[Anonymous No.23525373]

>>23525319
>JL Marion
I was actually meaning to read his stuff on Descartes before my master turned out to be way busier than I had expected actually
>Venard
Love me some good Prose, will check out

[Anonymous No.23525425]

>>23525357
Oh and the North Holland Handbook of Philosophy of Science on complexity has a great little article by Mark Bickhard too that is relevant.

Some of these you will probably just want to Libgen because they are difficult to even find anywhere else (Mueller's work, the above). Whereas the audio version of the Ascent of Information is actually quite good and being popsci you can follow along decently well.

[Anonymous No.23525454]

>>23525371
I had not heard of them, but I will have to check them out. I always assume that someone has had the same ideas as me, and probably put them forth better than I can, and I am proven correct 99% of the time in this assumption lol. But on the idea of the information-based/complexity view so big in modern interdisciplinary science and philosophy vindicating some of the classical tradition, particularly the medievals, I've seen very little.

I am a graduate student in a philosophy program but such a thesis seems perhaps a bit much since I work, have a family, and am only part time. It seems like it would have to be a book.

Maybe it is a novel idea. Medieval philosophy is often ignored. I've seen more than a few continentals I otherwise respect laboring under the misconception that all medievals were naive realists and essentially proto-positivists, completely missing the idea behind "everything is received in the manner of the receiver."

Those that do know their medievals well tend to be more skeptical of "modernity" and analytic/science adjacent thought in particular (there are obviously exceptions), and so the two ideas seem divided by a sort of cultural gulf. Catholic philosophers for instance seem to engage more with continentals than analytics for instance, whereas the philosophy of information is pretty dominated by analytics since a lot of it relates to physics and mathematics, and it will tend to attract people interested in those.

[Anonymous No.23526274]

>>23525454
I would absolutely be interested, if you have the time to write a book. Really interesting perspective through out the thread, has been a joy to read.

[Anonymous No.23526354]

>>23519798
Read Heidegger, especially early Heidegger

[Anonymous No.23526544]

>>23519798
Homo = homosexual
Abyss = anus

[Anonymous No.23526548]

>>23526544
Catholisissies obliterated

[Anonymous No.23526818]

>>23525357
bless you anon.

[Anonymous No.23526906]

>>23519798
I'm actually in the middle of a running commentary on the entire text, see my ongoing thread on twitter: https://x.com/reg_pepe/status/1800253538280304952

>>23522231
Funny, I find Homo Abyssus to be a lot more comprehensible than Analogia Entis.

[Anonymous No.23526932]

>>23526906
>twitter
Wow. How faggy
>wait, X!
Wow. Even faggier. Kant even read tweets.

As always 4chan, keep up the frociaggine

[Anonymous No.23526937]

>>23526932
It's not the best format for sure, but there's a good community on there. In any case, I hope some of you anons here find it helpful.

[Anonymous No.23526941]

>>23526937
Copypasta some of best bits. Respond to thread. Or not.

[Anonymous No.23526954]

>>23526941
>>23526941
I've commented on over 200 pages nigga, this isn't the kind of book you can just pick a random passage from and read out of context. But people who are in the middle of reading the book may find it to be a useful reference. If you have particular questions about it I might be able to grab something.

[Anonymous No.23526960]

>>23526954
Are you finished? What have you learned so far?

Have you read Hegel and Heidegger? Familiar with scholasticism or Latin? Are these obstacles challenging for you?

Have you availed yourself to glossary in back? Or schindler companiob? Or communio lectures and articles?

Bless!
>t. one of few who have read whole thing here, absolutely loved it altho yes hard to speak of succinctly

[Anonymous No.23527001]

>>23526960
I'm not finished, I'm just starting Part B. This isn't my first time reading the book, I first read it two years ago. I felt like reading it again, and thought that doing a commentary would be helpful in my own understanding. It quickly became apparent that it was a bigger task than I anticipated, but I'm enjoying it still. I'm basically reading it twice, I read a chapter or so and then read it again as I comment on it. I understand the book at a much deeper level the second time around, and see many things falling into place that I didn't really get before. I've come to appreciate it on an even deeper level now that I can follow it relatively well. My biggest takeaway has been how truly "purely philosophical" it is despite the common theological excursions. I'm trying to work out precisely the relation between the message of the book and the "trinitarian ontologies" that are somewhat in vogue nowadays. Basically, what exactly does the revelation of the trinity add to our knowledge of being as being?

I am familiar with both Hegel and Heidegger, as well as Aquinas and Scholastic thought in general, and also modern figures like Balthasar and Bernard Lonergan. I don't know Latin yet, but that isn't really an issue. It would be much more of an obstacle not knowing Hegel, especially the Logic. I've skimmed the glossary, but I have carefully read the companion and available Communio resources. I've also had the chance to talk to David and Adrian Walker directly about it, which has definitely been helpful. Thanks for your interest.

[Anonymous No.23527080]

>>23527001
>purely philosophical
Indeed. It bridges the gap like no other. Faithful to both Athens and Jerusalem.
>relation to trinitarian ontologies
Good question. I've been meaning to check out The Theses Toward a New Trinitarian Ontology book speaking of. Would you recommend?
>thanks
No, thank you!

[Anonymous No.23527121]

>>23527080
The Klaus Hemmerle book? I actually haven't read it yet, though I've heard it's good. The difficulty is the best books on participation don't deal much with the trinity, and the trinitarian ontologies generally fall into confusion. Multiplicity is simply an aspect of participated being, and thus it's incorrect to say that it's "only intelligible as grounded in the difference of the trinitarian persons" or something like that (I think that's how Marion says it). Creaturely difference is intelligible in the unity of being, but somehow takes on new meaning and significance in light of the trinity. Part of what I'm trying to accomplish in this is more carefully delineating where exactly that boundary lies.

[Anonymous No.23527158]

How do I reach the level where I can discuss/study/debate this kind of material without constantly needing to reference or Google stuff? A philosophy PhD?
I've never been to college, I just lurk this board and deeply enjoy threads like this one even if half the discussions go over my head.

[Anonymous No.23527230]

>>23527158
Start with the Greeks

>>23527080
Also check out William Desmond if you haven’t already, his project is very similar to Ulrich’s exposition of being in HA

[Anonymous No.23527286]

>>23527158
>discuss/study/debate this kind of material without constantly needing to reference or Google stuff
read the top discussed philosophers books
>A philosophy PhD?I've never been to college, I just lurk this board and deeply enjoy threads like this one even if half the discussions go over my head.
you don't need it, a phd or college degree doesn't make you a different human being. The PhD havers just read them and debate a lot which you can do right now.

[Anonymous No.23527431]

>>23526906
I don't have Twitter; so could you screenshot some of your tweets and post 'em here?

[Anonymous No.23527476]

>>23523100
>sum total of conscious experiences forms a kind of horrific field of suffering
Sauce for this? It seems to me to be mostly mundane and peaceful, interspersed with some times of suffering that are counterbalanced by joy and pleasure. Seems to add up to zero, or close to it.

[Anonymous No.23528180]

>>23527431
I'll post it all if you want

[Anonymous No.23528182]

>>23528180
Do it.

Why is image deep fried?

[Anonymous No.23528201]

>>23521383
>>23522231
hey y'all seem to read lots of modern Catholic philosophy is there anyone who actually takes late heidegger/nieztche (with sort of heidegger's view) seriously?
Basically anything Catholic stuff I've read on it has been shockingly bad/has basic misunderstandings if it talks about it at all (except for Gabriel Marcel's tragic wisdom). It's sort of my fundamental attitude toward things now so would be nice to see someone seriously engage with it... I know jp II and a couple others were influenced by Marcel though I'm not sure how far they went with him. (fully on anti-systematic philosophy and truth as non-propositional stuff, endo's silence is actually a pretty good portrayal of it... really funny to see how bad academics misunderstand it because it's directly attacking them)

Is ulrich just a midwit who only talks about being and time? No clue why people keep talking about that when the author himself moved past it. (except that the later stuff is dangerous to the state-academic complex)

I tend to avoid secondary sources after being so disappointed by them, they seem much more concerned with "refuting" strawmen of respected people rather then actually learning from them.

[Anonymous No.23528221]

>>23528201
as a side note I feel like the existentialist sort of metaphysics would be SUPER interesting in terms of relations to ecclesiology and the magisterium. For me it totally like removed all issues I had with Church politics/that drama and imo helped me get into a much better relationship with the Church as it's actually present, as a thing and not as a human organization. Charles Taylor's retrieving realism on that quite a bit. Marshall Mcluhan's Medium and the Light as well also reflected how totally apathetic many members of the Church's intellgentsia were to those sorts of ideas.

academic scam artists acting like their ideas are what leads to the push and pull of cultural issues and what matters in the Church are pitifully hilarious for how little they get what's actually occurring. (Mcluhan was on some kind of a board at the Vatican to discuss it but they all just totally ignored him)

https://youtu.be/BY_HilE1UcE (people trashing Nietzsche while praising malick/endo is also very funny)

Also curious what your guys' issue with Nietzsche is, I find people's issues with him to be very illuminating.

[Anonymous No.23528296]

>>23528201
What part of Nietzsche? Alsdair MacIntyre deals with his ethics in a fairly compelling and fair manner in After Virtue and in other places.

Robert Wallace isn't Catholic (at least I don't think) but his book on Plato and Hegel deals with the criticisms of Nietzsche and Hume. In particular, I think Nietzsche's conception of freedom in terms of potency (his brand of fatalism not withstanding) and an absence of an understanding of reflexive or social freedom is fairly discrediting.

I think this is a real problem in his work, the reason even academics fall into endless "no true Nietzschean" arguments whenever they take umbridge with an opposing ethical stance. The desire for "what is truly good," and for truth ("all men by nature desire to know") as just another appetite on par and competing with wanting to take a dump or fap is, to say the least, unconvincing.

I don't even think they believe it. Nietzsche, with his boner for historical greatness, doesn't ever get round to any real dramatic trans valuation and I think this is because deep down he recognized this.

[Anonymous No.23528370]

>>23519798
There's a glossary in the back! This book humiliated me as well. I revisited it 6 months late and it seems that really familiarizing yourself with Thomism and potentially Von Balthasar.

[Anonymous No.23528406]

>>23528201
>>23528221
Catholic here who has read HA. Ulrich starts out with being and time and structural philosophu but then goes into the poetic and dramatic dimensions of history in a theological manner so I'd say your criticism is off base. Also, late Heidi and late Nietzsch are continuous with their earlier thoughts imho. McLuhan though is indeed goodish. I have a bit of allergy to American psychedelic thinkers however. A bit too hippie. Charles Taylor is a lot of fun however. Witty old Hegelian snob. RIP.

I actually like Nietzsche personally. Was just rereading Thus Spake the other days. There are some broad strokes I agree with him on. Lovey prose. Inspirational as hell in youth: But in general, I find his particular views oft distasteful nowadays. Especially WTP. Some of his thoughts on transvaluation remain dear to my heart however. I think we need a renewed platonism not a reverse or anti platonism as per the French strain a la Deleuze. Too much diabolical freedom of potency as others mentioned. Deconstruction can only go so far before self destruction. Yet. Love must be constantly transvaluated: philosophy is praxis of transvaluation. But we must not lose sight of transcendentals in our hearts or noetic vision vis a vis theoria. Or think them nothing but useful, or worse yet useless, fiction.

>existential christians
Do you like Tillich? He is a popular pseudo Heideggerian Christian. There's also Stein as a Catholic student of Husserl or Heidegger iirc. Haven't read 'em yet. Kierky is nice too ofc imo. Underrated and overrated at same time. Umm. Eckhart? Hah. I kid. But. Umm. Who else. Oh ya. Lubac has an anti Nietzsch book called Drama of Human Atheism. And Balthasaar's Christian and Anxiety deals w existential themes well methinks as well.

[Anonymous No.23529131]

>>23528406
What's wrong with Eckhart?

[Anonymous No.23529179]

>>23529131
Nothing. He's just not an existentialist unless definition is stretched. He's a fab guy however.

[Anonymous No.23529188]

>>23529131
Pretty much exactly what the Church said IMO. I think he is in many respects a great thinker, but the way in which his words are so easily twisted so as to produce the New Age "gnostic" or "Buddhist" Eckhart show that they did sort of have a point, even if such issues would have been better handled in a less aggressive way. And for his part, Eckhart himself said he never wanted to mislead anyone away from doctrine and apologized if that was ever the outcome. In the end it was a few of his statements that got the "axe" (and they ended up being copied anyhow), not his corpus or his person. Sometimes you see it presented like he was excommunicated or something, which is not the case.

He had a knack for presenting simple ideas in novel ways that really make you think, but at the same time this sometimes tips a bit overboard.

[Anonymous No.23529689]

>>23528182
>Do it.
Sure
>Why is image deep fried?
Best quality available in the UK