It may interest the regulars around here (hi, Ben!) to see Marilynne Robinson tackle metaphysics in the latest Commonweal.
Though it deals with some standard subject matter on this blog, the article veers between being actually interesting and [yawn]. Honestly, I stopped halfway through, concluding only that Robinson is Annie Dillard in stained glass. Still, I feel I ought to give it another run, and I thought it fair to bring it to your attention as well.
I should also mention that as intriguing and elegant as the "fine-tuned universe" theory is, I still have the damndest time getting around Douglas Adams' brilliant little puddle analogy (fourth quote down, I couldn't source it any more precisely).
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2 comments:
Well, i feel only this about the third of MRs take on 'mind' that i managed to get through:
why do so many thinkers think that they have to re-invent the wheel by defining their own terms and arguments from scratch? Take for instance, 'Mind'. Philosophy has been using this word very specifically for millenia. They have built a veritable mansion of ideas in the name of this single word, with the great philosophers adding new rooms, and the lesser ones doing re-decorating. Now - SOMETIMES, a building needs bulldozing - to create an empty space to get clarity once again. No problem. But Robinson (see also my comment on Ayn Rand who does the selfsame thing) is trying to build a very similar mansion, all on her own, in the plot right next to the already established awesome mansion developed by the western philosophical tradition. her essay was hard to follow, and asked that we readers go along with her, even though what we might come to understand would only be relevant to those who speak Robinsonian. It just seems like a waste of time, and makes me wonder why authors like MR felt the need to deliberately exclude so many of the eager and brilliant contributions from the past. In the end, she is just increasing the number of un-needed words in the world. She should have instead just dusted off any of the books on her shelf titled 'meditations' and written a good book review. OR written great stories that illumine the baffle of being for us viscerally. Oh wait - she did that already. Thanks, Ms. Robinson.
You totally nailed something that was nagging me about the article, yeah. It's interesting that whenever classic terms get misappropriated, it's usually being done by a non-philosopher wading into the debate as if they were the first person to do so, as if there wasn't centuries or millennia of arguments already existing. Or perhaps they simply aren't aware of it, though I suspect it's more likely they see themselves (and everything I've read about Rand seems to uphold this) as Game Changers, unique among thinkers, when they're actually just muddying the water.
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