I am excited to announce that Pete Rollins, philosopher, author, and founder of Ikon in Northern Ireland is coming to town. A group of MHGS students are making this happen . . . I love it. The evening event will be Thursday, Dec 10 and hosted at MHGS. I’ll post the exact time as I [...]
In one of the courses I get to guide this term, we’re using Michael Polanyi’s ground breaking text, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. As I’ve been preparing and revisiting Polanyi I am undone by his courage, as he stands between science and philosophy; winning few nods from his peers, but changing the world. Thomas Kuhn, Leslie Newbigin, and Brian McLaren are just a few of the many people whose world’s were changed by this book.
In his follow-up book to Personal Knowledge, he writes:
“We must conclude that the paradigmatic case of scientific knowledge, in which all faculties that are necessary for finding and holding scientific knowledge are fully developed, is the knowledge of approaching discovery.
“To hold such knowledge is an act deeply committed to the conviction that there is something there to be discovered. It is personal, in the sense of involving the personality of him who holds it, and also in the sense of being, as a rule, solitary; but there is no trace in it of self-indulgence. The discoverer is filled with a compelling sense of responsibility for the pursuit of a hidden truth, which demands his services for revealing it. His act of knowing exercises a personal judgment in relating evidence to an external reality, an aspect of which he is seeking to apprehend” (Polanyi, Tacit Dimension, 1967, p. 24-5)
Damn that’s good.
peace, dwight
Antinomy is a term used in logic and epistemology, which, loosely, means a paradox or unresolvable contradiction. Click here to listen.
Antinomy
(chorus)
Antinomy, antinomy, antinomy–
it’s not merely one but it’s two QEDs–
antinomy, antinomy, antinomy–
contradictory results from the same premises!
(Despite what one thinks–both can’t be believed!)
Immanuel Kant said the world can’t begin
then thought better of it, and said it can’t end;
how better adjoin separate theses as these
but publicize them as Kant’s antinomies?
(chorus)
Old Zeno thought space a remarkable thing
(somewhat as we think of a pig on the wing);
Achilles could not catch a Testudines
if burdened by so many antinomies!
(chorus)
We search for the truth till the end of the day–
but closer approaching seems farther away–
an infinite effort our destiny be–
the lover of wisdom’s own antinomy!
(chorus)
One of the great thinkers of our time has died. On Friday, October 8 2004, Jacques Derrida died at a Paris hospital of pancreatic cancer; he was 74. Read the The Times, Guardian or Washington Post stories.
As Christ-followers we trust the Spirit to guide us into all truth.
I wonder whether the “return to religion” in philosophy is a reaction to the loss of hope that truth could be found through objective means. So philosophers in order to justify their pursuits turn to the transcendent to regain their hope for truth.
Peace, dwight