According to Gadamer, we all come to the text with different horizons. As we engage the text, our horizons, as well as our foremeanings are confirmed, altered, or perhaps a combination of both occurs. Gadamer understands textual hermeneutics as analogous to a live conversation in which, when fruitful, we have attentive listening, respect for the alterity of the other, and an interplay of give and take. Consider, for example, a conversation you’ve had in which you already anticipated ahead of time what a certain person was going to say. You need an extension on your paper, but your professor has made it clear in the past that she rarely grants such extensions. Here you approach the conversation with a fairly fixed idea of how the conversation will enfold. After class you begin to make your case for an extension, explaining that your daughter has been ill quite a bit this month, and you’ve had to keep her at home. Consequently, you were not able to complete your paper on time. At first, the likelihood of an extension without penalty seems less than hopeful. However, as the dialogue continues, your professor seems more open and in the end grants you an extension. The banality of the example aside, it does provide a window into Gadamer’s understanding of the back and forth movement of our hermeneutical experience. For example, as Gadamer explains,
A person who is trying to understand a text has to keep something at a distance-namely everything that suggests itself, on the basis of his own prejudices, as the meaning expected-as soon as it is rejected by the sense of the text itself. Even the experience of reversal (which happens unceasingly in talking, and which is the real experience of dialectic) has its equivalent here. Explicating the whole of meaning towards which understanding is directed forces us to make interpretative conjectures and to take them back again. The self-cancellation of the interpretation is dialectical not primarily because the one-sidedness of every statement can be balanced by another side-this is, as we shall see, a secondary phenomenon in interpretation-but because the word that interpretatively fits the meaning of the text expresses the whole of this meaning-i.e., allows an infinity of meaning to be represented within it in a finite way (Truth and Method, p. 465).
The latter part of the passage introduces the idea of a “self-cancellation” involved in a hermeneutical exchange. As Gadamer explains, the dialectic involved here is not simply an attempt to present the opposing viewpoint to balance out the perspective given. Rather, (I think) he means something analogous to the following. In a symphony, one has a meaningful whole, which consists of various particular parts organized in a very complex way. Each instrument group (brass, strings, woodwinds etc.) plays a different melodic line (melodic lines are analogous to sentences). These horizontal melodic lines, when considered vertically, constitute the various harmonies of the symphony (analogous to words). If we zero in on one particular harmonic moment in say the third movement of the symphony, we might find, for example, a C major triad. That C major triad can be abstracted and identified as a C major triad consisting of the notes C, E, G. However, within the larger meaning of the symphony, that C major triad, because of its function at that particular place within the whole, cannot be understand as merely a C major triad (though technically it is that); rather, it must be seen as integrally connected with all the notes that precede it, as well as all the notes that follow it. In a sense, the C major triad is both a one and a many-it is a C major triad and thus has an integral unity of meaning; yet, it is a many because of its intimate connection to and function within the symphony itself-that place where it lives and moves and has its being. The dialectical self-cancelling movement occurs due to the fact that as the C major triad emerges from the background of the whole, it must “cancel” part of itself (the whole) in order to do so. (This sounds very Heideggerian, which is no surprise given the latter’s influence on Gadamer). Yet, to avoid mis-interpretation, it must not become completely severed from the whole, lest in a very real sense it die. If this is a correct understanding of Gadamer on this point, there are some interesting Christian connections to be made.
In Foucault’s essay, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” he emphasizes that history should not be guided by any overriding criteria from outside of history. Hegel of course is an example of one engaged in the approach to history that Foucault condemns. According to Hegel, history is the unfolding of Spirit in which Spirit becomes increasingly conscious of itself and increasingly more free etc. A person operating under this methodology starts with a certain metaphysical assumption or theory and selects those events that support his/her theory. We see this at work in Hegel’s read of history in which anything that happens to contradict his vision of the telos of history is simply not part of the account. In other words, Hegel, while narrating history simultaneously and selectively erases and deletes history in order to substantiate his thesis.
Hegel isn’t the only one who falls prey to Foucault’s critique. It seems that any philosophical or theological position that advocates a suprahistorical principle which guides history teleologically would likewise be guilty. As Foucault explains, genealogy “rejects the metahistorical deployment of ideal significations and indefinite teleologies”[1] (”Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” 242). In other words, Foucault’s genealogical approach to history rejects any factors or principles that come from outside of history or that are not rooted in history. One the one hand, Foucault’s critique is absolutely valid and makes excellent sense. For example, Hegel’s account of the unfolding of Spirit in history, his ridiculous (not to mention racist) accounts of Africans and other people groups and the ultimate realization of absolute Spirit in modern Prussia fails to do justice to the complexity of history and historical events. On the other hand, is it not possible to incorporate Foucault’s warnings against contorting history into our theoretical molds while still allowing for a suprahistorical principle, or as Christians claim, a God who transcends the historical process (yet who also entered into that process in the Incarnation) and guides history to end? In other words, perhaps the complexity and contrapuntal nature of our in-time, historical existence can be acknowledged without having to deny God’s involvement in and providential guidance over the course of history. Is it the case that every aspect of both positions are mutually exclusive? That is, from a Christian point of view, can we not mine some of Foucault’s “Egyptian gold”, while leaving the “dross” behind? Of course Foucault would say, “no, you cannot and that is just my point.”
Yet, perhaps this mining activity is what biblical theology attempts to do by distinguishing between first (diachronic) and second (synchronic or synthesizing) readings of Scripture. That is, Christian exegetes must to be careful not to allow second reading synthetic conclusions to flatten unduly the terrain of the first reading material. In other words, we shouldn’t be too quick to harmonize the tensions in Scripture, as the diachronic dissonances might themselves be revelatory and instructive. For example, as some scholars suggest, the NT itself shows us that there were differing and competing theologies among Christians (Paul and the Jewish Christians come to mind, also the different emphases in the synoptics); yet, these different and even opposing groups and theologies still found unity in the Christ-event (his death and resurrection) and were unified by means of the rituals connected with these events (as it the case for the Church throughout history). If this is the case, then perhaps those communal tensions and differing doctrinal emphases have something important to teach us today not only about the nature of Scripture itself but also about the difficulties of ecclesial existence. If dissonances existed then among God’s people and were not fully resolved (as the NT itself suggests) and in fact were needed as mutual correctives to one another, then why should we think that something analogous should not be the case today as we continue to struggle to “translate” the Gospel and all its implications for this-world-living in contemporary society? This is not to say that we should not make every effort to pursue ecumenical unity (which also involves acknowledging genuine differences) and to pray that the Church would be one. However, it is to suggest that jumping too quickly to resolves the tensions and harmonize the discordant voices of Scripture might be to miss the fact that God has purposed a-tonal moments in his symphony and that these aspects of revelation speak to us as well. Reading Scripture diachronically (as well as eschatologically)[2] and connecting its time to our time and seeing ourselves as part of the narrative of salvation history, may, as Rowan Williams puts it,
encourage us to take historical responsibility for arranging and exploring how the gospel is going to be heard in our day. It can do this because it shows us a history (inside and outside the text) of real and harsh divisions that is both taken up and “overtaken” by grace. It suggests that what matters is not our ability to finish our business or to secure consensus, as if Christ would be “audible” only in this mode, but our readiness to decide, to take sides, as adult persons, and to live with the consequence and cost of that within the disciplines we share with other Christians of openness to the judgement of the Easter mystery. These disciplines we share with both past and present, with those near and distant, those we agree with and those we resist, those who are congenial and those who are not” (On Christian Theology, 59).
Notes
[1] Lawrence Cahoone. From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology. London: Blackwell.
[2] None of this is meant to suggest that synthesizing should be done away with as something inherently evil. The Church needs great minds like those of Thomas Aquinas and others who have helped move the Church forward by engaging in great synthesizing projects. So too the Church today must be willing to cautiously re-synthesize as history unfolds and new challenges arise.
Here’s my quarterly non-academic post–an ipod recording of me playing a solo jazz guitar version of Lennon and McCartney’s tune, “Yesterday” (to listen to the recording, click the arrow below).
There are, however, a few philosophical questions that I can’t resist asking: how is the identity of the tune, “Yesterday,” retained when I have re-harmonized the melody and added notes to and subtracted notes from the melody? Also, clearly I have interpreted/performed the tune in a way that exceeds the intention of the “original authors,” yet, the piece is still clearly recognizable as Lennon/McCartney’s tune, “Yesterday.” What are the implications for “authorship”? What view of interpretation best captures the phenomena that emerge–an interpretor as co-author with a productive role? If so, what are the givens of the tune itself that function as limiting structures–structures that both allow for new re-interpretations and allow the tune to emerge in an identifiable way (while simultaneously dis-allowing any and every interpretation to count as “legitimate”)?
“Expressing the real is an arduous job. But when you take it into your head to express existence, you will very likely encounter nothing but the nonexistent. What is certain is that at the very moment when I endeavored to grasp my being, Sartre, who remains ‘the Other,’ by naming me shattered my last illusion. While I was telling him:
My negritude is neither a tower nor a cathedral
It reaches deep down into the red flesh of the soil
It reaches deep into the blazing flesh of the sky
It pierces opaque prostration with its patience
[Césaire, Notebook of a Return
to My Native Land,
trans. Rosello and Pritchard, p. 114].
While I, in a paroxysm of experience and rage, was proclaiming this, he reminded me that my negritude was nothing but a weak stage. Truthfully, I’m telling you, I sensed my shoulders slipping from this world, and my feet no longer felt the caress of the ground. Without a black past, without a black future, it was impossible for me to live my blackness. Not yet white, no longer completely black, I was damned. Jean-Paul Sartre forgets that the black man suffers in his body quite differently from the white man” (Black Skin, White Masks, 116-17).
As Sartre explains, negritude is the antithesis of the assertion [not Sartre's personal belief] of the supremacy of the white (the thesis). Thus, negritude is the moment of negativity; a moment to be overcome. In contrast to Césaire’s and Senghor’s understanding of black consciousness as an “absolute density,” Sartre presents negritude as a lack, as a “minor term” in the syllogism.[1] How might we understand Fanon’s statement, “Without a black past, without a black future, it was impossible for me to live my blackness”? Here one could perhaps apply Derrida’s insights while simultaneously expanding them by way of Fanon’s critique of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. According to Derrida, the meaning of a person’s life is always constituted at the intersection of a reference to the past and some kind of anticipation of the future. Of course Derrida has in view a deconstruction of the completely transparent, stable, secure Cartesian self. Nonetheless, Derrida’s emphasis on the role of past and future in constructing the self seems applicable here; yet, it is in need of Fanon’s stress on the fundamental difference of the black man’s experience of the world as mediated by a black body.[2] If a (black) person’s past is erased and re-written in the image of a violent, totalizing (white) other (the project of colonialization), and his future is largely pre-determined by that same other, “damned” is a pretty good description of his present experience.
Notes
[1] Ronald A.T. Judy, “Fanon’s Body of Black Experience,” in Fanon: A Critical Reader, (eds) Lewis R. Gordon, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting and Renee T. White. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996): 63.
[2] Fanon replaces Merleau Ponty’s corporeal schema (schéma corporel) with his own schéma historico-racial and schéma épidermique racial.
As Rowan Williams explains, Scripture is narrative, but it is a particularly interesting kind of narrative, since it “weaves together history and liturgy” (On Christian Theology, 7). The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not only talked about, but he is spoken to. He is praised; He is worshipped in song and poetry; He is addressed in prayer. Not only in Scripture and the liturgy, but also in works like Augustine’s Confessions we find this interplay of speaking about God and speaking to God; yet, in each of these instances the discourse involved is open to the other and willing to be attentive to and challenged by what the other has to say.
The language of worship ascribes supreme value, supreme resource or power, to something other than the worshipper, so that liturgy attempts to be a “giving over” of our words to God (as opposed to speaking in a way that seeks to retain distance or control over what’s being spoken of: it is in this sense that good liturgy does what good poetry does). This is not to say that the language of worship itself cannot be starkly and effectively ideological; but where we find a developing and imaginative liturgical idiom operating in a community that is itself constantly re-imagining itself and its past, we may recognize that worship is at some level doing its job. That is what the overall canonical structure of Jewish Scripture puts before the reader; and insofar as the New Testament portrays the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as something which opens up an unprecedentedly direct and undistorted language for prayer, praise, “sacrifice”, and so on it is to be read as reinforcing the same point. The integrity of a community’s language about God, the degree to which it escapes its own pressures to power and closure, is tied to the integrity it directs to God (7).
Our words about God are not final, not comprehensive, but ought to remain open-ended and receptive of new meanings (not just any meanings of course), just as we remain open to what the Word has to say to us. The words we hear in Scripture and in the liturgy may require us to amend, alter, or give up not only certain ways of being but also certain ways of speaking (about God, others and our world). Thus, the theologian must resist, to borrow a Nietzschean metaphor, a tendency to allow his/her theological discourse to become a columbarium, and hence, a language of death, rather than words of life. Or as Williams puts it from a slightly different but related angle: “Language about God is kept honest in the degree to which it turns on itself in the name of God, and so surrenders itself to God” (8).
As Robert Sokolowski explains in his book, Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure, in the Eucharist past and future are made present. That is, past events of salvation history such as the Jewish Passover, but especially the Christ-event and future eschatological realities are brought together. Sokolowski then offers a beautiful reflection on our union with Christ in death.
[W]e in the Eucharist anticipate our own death as to be joined to the death of Jesus. Our death becomes part of the divine mystery, part of the great saving actions of God, because it can be identified with the sacrificial death of Christ. [...] The celebrations of the Eucharist at which we assist are like so many rehearsals of the one transition, the one exodus that is reserved for each of us, the one offering in which we no longer sacramentally but bodily participate in the death of the Lord. As Jesus acted toward the Father in his death, so we are enabled to make our death an act before God, an act in which life is changed, not taken away. [...] Our death, which is the horizon marking off the edge of our life, becomes a particular image of the final restoration of all things in Christ, an image of the death of things that is now to be understood as a transition into the kingdom of God. The Eucharist thus presents a double future to each of us as we participate in it: it presents our own entrance into the death and Resurrection of Jesus, and it presents the more remote setting in which everything will be restored in the kingdom of God.
These enactments of past are future are all woven into the Eucharist we celebrate in the present. The celebration of the Eucharist is surrounded by temporal ripples through which past and future things are refracted. The Eucharist does not give us merely images or signs of what is past and future; it presents these things as past and as future to us now. The Eucharist involves memory and anticipation, but it does not involve them as mere psychological states; rather, it reenacts and preenacts things God has done and will do (104-5).
Sokolowski, a few pages later, says that the Eucharist is from one perspective something that takes place in time. That is, it takes time to celebrate it; yet, “it also overcomes time as it reenacts an event that took place at another time. In doing this, the Eucharist calls time into question. It claims to go beyond time and thereby indicates that time and its succession are not ultimate. It makes time to be an image; it makes succession to be a representation. Thus the Eucharist, in its reenactment of the past and anticipation of the future, also enacts for us the context that encloses past, future, and present: it enacts the eternal life of the God who could be all that he is, in undiminished goodness and greatness, even if the world and its time were not [!]. The Eucharist engages, and perpetually reminds us of, the Christian distinction between the world and God” (107).
As Alfred North Whitehead famously said, the history of Western philosophy “consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” The more I study the Western philosophical tradition, the more convinced I am that this is the case. At the center of Plato’s philosophy is his doctrine of the Forms or Ideas. In Greek there are two words, which we translate into English as “idea”: εἶδος (eidos) and ἰδέα (idea). Interestingly, in Greek these works mean something that is seen; however, Plato uses the terms to mean that which is not seen physically, but mentally. Nonetheless, seeing is still the root metaphor pervading his philosophy. Consider some of his most famous images-the cave, the sun, and so on. In the cave, there is no light, no knowledge. When one emerges from the cave into the light, one comes to know (or potentially comes to know) reality by first seeing the things of the sense world and then ascending to the Forms or Ideas in which the sense objects participate and imitate. As is well-known these days, postmoderns have challenged this privileging of the visual metaphor and have attempted to imagine what it might mean for some of the other senses to serve as a central metaphors. For example, postmodern philosophers and theologians such as Jean-Luc Marion and Catherine Pickstock have written with great effect on the more “neglected” senses such as taste and hearing.
Personally, I think that touch offers particularly fertile ground that ought be explored and put to use in philosophy. To be touched is, I submit, something that all humans need. Unfortunately, it is something that has been lost in our interactions with one another-perhaps in part due to our technological mode of being-in-the-world and perhaps also because of a fear of communicating the wrong idea or of a negative response from the other to whom we wish to encourage. Yet, an embrace and a simple clasping of hands can often communicate more than anything we might say. Two examples come to mind: one personal and the other Scriptural.
My husband and I lived in Moscow, Russia for about three years. During our time in Russia, we had the opportunity to visit various cities, small towns and villages. One winter we traveled by train to Kirov, staying approximately two weeks. While there we were invited to spend a day at one of the orphanages just outside the city. The memories of that visit are quite vivid, and the time with the children, though brief, was a life- changing experience. When we first arrived, the children, who ranged in age from 4-16 years old, were extremely shy and stand-off-ish. I noticed immediately a small, very cute little boy, Sasha, who was about 5 years old and very withdrawn. I walked up to Sasha and said, “Привет Саша,” (”hello, Sasha”). But Sasha said nothing - no smile, no handshake, no eye contact - nothing. As the day progressed, we played games, performed skits, ate lunch and attempted to get to know the children better. While playing one of the more active games (something like dodge-ball), Sasha and I began slowly to “bond.” When it was time to eat, I noticed that he wanted to sit with me (which made me of course extremely happy), so I tried to take his hand; however, he did not want me to touch him and quickly pulled his hand away. Nonetheless, he still wanted to sit with me. So we sat and ate borsch together and then went off to play more games. As the day was drawing to a close, I was sitting on a bench resting and Sasha walked up to me, sat next to me, and to my surprise (and joy) he let me hold his hand. After that connection, he would not leave my side and even let me hold him. He actually wanted very much to be held and touched, but he of course was simply “one among many” in the orphanage and had been for most of his short life deprived of physical touch. When it was time to leave, he did not want to let go of my hand (nor did I want to let go of his). Then the dreaded time came and we were told that the bus was leaving and we’d better pack up and board the bus. As we drove off, the kids ran behind the bus as long as they could keep up, and we of course cried our eyes out. I often think about Sasha, and hope that he remembers me-more than that, I hope that he finds a home and a family that will give him the love and affection for which he longs, needs, and deserves.
Not long after our short trip to Kirov, I began studying the book of Leviticus, which among other things describes the law of the leper’s cleansing (chapter 13).[1] For example in Lev. 13:45-46, we read,
The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.
Why must the leper wear torn clothes? In the Old Testament, the rending of a person’s clothes was a symbolic expression of mourning over death. Here the leper is to wear torn garments to represent his/her absolutely hopeless condition-after all, the disease was incurable. Prior to aids, leprosy was perhaps the most dreadful disease a person might contract. For example, the body becomes covered with ulcers, the person loses his/her hair, s/he experiences extremely slow bodily decay even to the point of losing limbs, and the mental and psychological anguish endured is excruciating. The person with leprosy is alienated from his/her own family and from societal life; s/he experiences death daily, moment by moment over period of many years and, worse of all, isolated, alienated. Although we are not exactly certain of the kind of leprosy that existed in the time of the OT, we can, however, grasp how this disease illustrates well the nature of sin in the spiritual sphere.
In addition to wearing torn clothes, the leper must cry, “Unclean, unclean.” Here “unclean” is not so much a reference to the physical disease itself, but speaks of the ceremonial status of the person according to Levitical law. That is, the individual remains unclean ceremonially until s/he is pronounced “clean” by the priest - that is, when and if healing comes. As mentioned above, “He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” The leper experiences a separation, s/he has no koinonia with the people of God, and is considered ceremonially under judgment.
Though we do read in the OT of some lepers who were healed, there are very few illustrations of healing the disease until Jesus came on the scene. In other words, as to the “tonal center” of the OT, it was extremely unusual for anyone to be healed of leprosy. Yet, in Mark’s Gospel account, we read:
A leper came to him [Jesus] begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.
Jesus, who was well-acquainted with the Torah and the intricacies of Levitical law, did not rebuke the leper, explaining that lepers are social outcasts who belong outside the camp. Nor did He worry about being socially stigmatized or becoming ceremonially unclean through contact with the leper. Rather, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the leper. Then the Incarnate Word said, “be made clean,” and it was so. Jesus, who would soon know exile, alienation, condemnation and ultimately death, stretched out his hand of flesh and touched this diseased, dying leprous man. Jesus, whose body was rent and broken for us - we, who in Adam are spiritual lepers - acted with compassion towards the leper, touching him and thereby affirming his humanity, and I assure you the leper knew love as he had never known it before.
If philosophy can’t find a use for these kinds of images, then theology certain should, indeed, it must.
Notes
[1] Many of the observations given here were first brought to my attention about a decade ago through a lecture series on Leviticus by Dr. S. Lewis Johnson.
The second eccentric “outsider” Williams discusses is Etty Hillesum, who, like Simone Weil, was also of Jewish origins. Hillesum grew up in Holland and during the German invasions was arrested and eventually died at Auschwitz. Like Simone Weil, her family was secular; yet unlike Weil, she had a wild youth, which she describes in detail in her wonderful diaries. Williams, having read some of her diary entries, describes her as “full-blooded.” Increasingly, however, she felt unsettled by a certain lack in her intellectual and emotional life. As has sometimes happened with other famous figures who have endured grave suffering, during the most severe period of Gestapo activity in Amsterdam, Hillesum begins to discover God. She already had an interest in religion, and reads, for example, Augustine and Dostoevsky. However, she comes to realize that simply reading about them and nothing more is not sufficient.
In Hillesum’s case something more, something that she didn’t quite understand was happening to her, and she describes in her diary a new desire to kneel. This is significant for her own story, because she describes herself as having been one who would never kneel. But now she felt that the most appropriate response to whatever it was that happening to her was to kneel. She wasn’t sure to whom she was kneeling, yet it was something she was compelled to do. As Williams explains, “she sensed that there was something that had such a claim on her that she had to express with her whole body what that claim is. Actually, the fact that she had been a very sexually active young woman and had thought a great deal about the body, she felt that she had to use her body to express her faith.”
Hillesum reads from her own Jewish tradition and from the Christian tradition, and she senses increasingly that something or someone has a claim on her life. After her arrest and while waiting to be deported, she writes that she has come to realize that in this world someone has to take responsibility for God. “That is, someone in the middle of the horrors of the Gestapo destruction in Holland-somebody has to live as thought the Gestapo was not controlling the universe. Somebody has to live as though things are just different, and she says that someone unfortunately seems to be me” (rough quote of Williams’ commentary). So Hillesum becomes burdened with the idea of taking responsibility for God-that is, living in such a way that God becomes credible. And that is precisely how she lived in the deportation camp and at Auschwitz. In some of her last diary pages which were crumpled up and thrown out of the train, she writes, “and we left the camp singing.” Williams’ then highlights the notion of “making oneself a sign of God in a godless world.” Then he adds, “you can see that that is about your body, not just about what you say but putting your whole self on the line, as when you kneel down you are expressing a wholeness in response to God.” Thus, even in the midst of something as horrible as Auschwitz, one can by becoming a sign of God “make God real.” This recalls what Williams said in his first lecture about Nyssa and prayer and reconciliation. It also sits well with the 17th century idea of “landing where you are” (discussed in his second lecture). Williams sees Etty Hillesum as “a powerful and unconventional 20th century version” of just such a landing. Sadly, she died at the very young age of 27 at Auschwitz. Like Weil, Hillesum was never baptized and no one is quite sure where she stood at the end of her life with regard to the Christian faith. Nonetheless, in the last years of her life, she lived the Gospel in a way that would perhaps put most modern, Western Christians to shame. Interestingly, among the people whom she met at Westerbork, which was the holding camp which people were sent before being shipped to Auschwitz, were two Jewish, Carmelite nuns both members of St. Theresa’s reformed Carmelite order. One of these nuns was the great Edith Stein, who was of course one of the greatest Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century. Stein also died in Auschwitz because she refused to separate herself as a Catholic from her Jewish brothers and sisters.
These are Williams’ “outsiders,” all of which, as he says, are “challenging, quirky, strange figures.” Before transitioning to discuss the monks, Williams ends with a great line and an image that has made me smile for several days: “I sometimes fantasize about that particular corner in heaven where 20th century, Jewish, women philosophers get together. Simone Weil, Etty Hillesum, Edith Stein, Gillian Rose, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt. And my goodness that would be a hard place to eavesdrop.”
Archbishop Rowan Williams’ recent Holy Week lectures focused on the subject of prayer. He began by discussing insights of three early Church figures: Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Cassian. In his second lecture, he discussed several Protestant and Catholic Reformers, highlighting their common emphases on God’s free action, God’s majesty and God’s mystery. (Williams, by the way, gave a very positive presentation of John Calvin’s views on prayer, referring to one of Calvin’s sermons on Abraham and Isaac. Hermeneutically speaking, it is interesting to note that Calvin’s exposition of the text is anything but a strict grammatico-historical reading. I applaud Williams for avoiding the herd mentality about Calvin and engaging in a bit of 21st century ad fontes activity). In this post, I draw our attention to the Archbishop’s third lecture, viz., those who have written on prayer in the 20th century. More specifically, I focus on the two eccentric female “outsiders” (that is, outsiders to Christian orthodoxy), Simone Weil and Etty Hillesum.
The question of prayer and how to pray, as Williams’ points out, was still quite pressing in the 20th century. That is, the events of the war, the Nazi invasions and the resultant crimes against humanity, all played a role in pushing people to seek God. First, Williams’ discusses Simone Weil, a Jewish philosopher, who died in 1943 at the young age of 34. Because of Jewish identity, her historical situation, and her own desire to connect with the plight of the poor, Weil was intimately acquainted with suffering. For example, when the Nazis took over France, Simone was uprooted and forced to flee. In the final months of her life, she decided to eat no more food than was available to the poorest in France in her day. This decision had deleterious consequences on her health and contributed to her death. Weil’s family was a secular Jewish family and also a very intellectual family. At an early age, Simone evinced intellectual gifts and a proclivity for philosophy and languages. In addition to teaching at a high school, Weil also worked in a factory, as she wanted to relate with the working class and their struggles. Weil’s life was one of intensity, and that intensity comes through in her writings.
As Williams explains, although she was an intellectual, Simone had a life-changing mystical experience in her twenties while on a retreat at a Benedictine Abbey. As she read George Herbert’s poem, “Love Bade Me Welcome,” she had what she describes as an encounter with Christ-as she puts it, “Christ came down and took possession of me.” She, however, was eccentric and struggled with Catholic theology. For example, she refused to be baptized. Why? She believed that most of the human race was not baptized and out in the cold and felt that her call was to stay out in the cold with most of the human race. Had she lived longer, perhaps her views on baptism would have changed; nonetheless, one can respect her desire to existentially connect with the alienated and downtrodden. Weil did, in spite of her differences with traditional theology, spend much time reflecting on the Eucharist and the Trinity. In addition, she spoke out against the impersonal and technological totalitarianism of her day-that is, against the kind of life she had seen and experienced in the factory.
Weil’s best known book is entitled, Waiting for God. As Williams’ explains, for Simone, the essence of prayer begins in attention, in waiting attention. This kind of posture involves self-denial, a kind of selflessness. That is, (quoting Williams) “you put your thoughts and anxieties on the backburner, [you] let your self be there and let your mind be shaped by what is in front of you. In learning a language, you submit your mind and your feelings to the structure of something that is there, and as you do that you enter into a kind of freedom.” In other words, by de-centering the self and one’s own concerns and preoccupations, you allow what is there to shape you. You allow the Other a voice, a potentially transforming voice. In fact, Weil sees the de-centering necessary for prayer as that which is required in many “ordinary” activities. As Williams’ puts it, “the selflessness of learning a language or a craft-all of that is a preparation for the deep attention of waiting in which you turn toward God. That is her most central idea. It connects experiences that we all share in some way with the experience of connecting with God.” Thus, whether learning to ride a bicycle (or in my daughter’s case, a tricycle), learning a craft, or learning a foreign language, we are de-centering ourselves and being shaped by an “other.”
Weil’s philosophical ideas are quite complex. (Interestingly, they remind me of some of Balthasar’s teachings). For example, “Simone sees this selfless giving as the ground of God, because God himself is always giving himself so selflessly that you can almost say that he cancels himself out, so that the world can exist, can come to light. That gift, in which you cancel yourself as the giver, she translates into the idea that somehow in our own relationship to God, we, in response to God’s stepping out of sight, cancel ourselves and our absorbed into God.” Weil speaks of this as “de-creating” ourselves. Of course, that moves a bit outside of Christian orthodoxy; yet, her point about self-less giving is very much at the heart of Christianity. Williams ends by saying, “the power and density of her writing is addictive. She covers such a range of thinking and feeling, and though she herself found it very hard to accept love, she never lost sight of that experience where Christ came down and ‘took possession of me’ when she was contemplating George Herbert’s poem,
‘LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.’”
In part II, I shall summarize Williams’ lecture on Etty Hillesum.
According to Nietzsche in his essay, “On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense,”[1] what we take to be knowledge involves two metaphors. Here metaphor is understood in a broad sense, namely, as transference. First, we have a transfer that occurs from a nerve stimulus caused by the external world, which is then translated into an image. Secondly, that image is then transferred into a sound, that is, it becomes language. Nietzsche’s point is that we construct our knowledge at a distance from (here at least two steps) the flow of life. For example, when I look out the window and see a tree, a series of brain and nerve activities occurs, but these neural stimulations bear no intrinsic similarities to the tree “out there.” Thus, we have the first metaphoric-ization or transference. Then, having received this stimuli, I translate this information into a word, into language, which provides the second transference. From this picture, Nietzsche concludes that there is no natural connection between what is perceived in the external world and knowledge. Rather, the relation between what is out there and my claims to know it is purely conventional. As Nietzsche puts it, “language is not derived from the essence of things” (111). Our knowledge does not reflect the deep structures of reality; rather, it is a mere human construct.
Failure to recognize this state of affairs is, for Nietzsche, one of the central problems with the scientist or rational human being in contrast with the artist or intuitive person. That is, the scientist, who, of course, also constructs metaphors, takes his metaphors to be the truth, the way things really are. According to Nietzsche, the scientist takes his metaphors too seriously; he ossifies them, whereas the artist recognizes their fluidity and transiency. To be sure, these metaphors do serve practical and pragmatic purposes. They help us to affirm ourselves and aid in our self-preservation to some degree. However, when we forget about their provisional nature, we come to believe that our conceptual edifices are immovable. When this occurs, the metaphors harden, they ossify-rather, we ossify them, and turn them into columbaria. (A columbarium is a Roman vault for funeral urns!) So the rational human being has lost touch with the metaphorical origins of human knowledge and lives his life constructing “conceptual systems that display the regularity of a Roman columbarium” (112). According to Nietzsche, our (rationalistic) tendency to forget the earthy, metaphorical rootedness of human knowledge, moves us to increasing levels of abstraction-abstractions which we then take to be reality. These systems of abstractions are likened to a columbarium; they are life-denying and lead to death. (By the way, I think his critique of the scientist also applies to the philosopher and the theologian).
Clearly, Nietzsche values the flow of life and wants us to remain close to our, so to speak, humble origins. His warnings against taking our conceptual edifices to be the reality and the one and only way to truthfully describe and explain the world are compelling and worthy of our reflection. Part of his critique also involves cautioning against pride and calling us to acknowledge our finitude-two points that Christians ought to take seriously. Yet, as a Christian, there are certain matters, which are central to the Christian narrative and understanding of reality, which Nietzsche fails to consider. For example, according to the Christian tradition, the created order is now not as it originally was. In fact, St. Paul, employing a number of earthy metaphors, tells us that creation has been subjected to futility and eagerly awaits its eschatological renewal.
The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (NRSV, Rom 8:19-25).
So there is a sense in which, for the Christian, life and the world as now experienced involves a struggle against the natural world-a natural world, which groans and awaits a final release from its dislocation and disintegration. In other words, something more than a return to the flow of life or even a recognition of the metaphorical origins of knowledge is needed to overcome the prideful tendencies of which Nietzsche speaks. According to the Christian narrative, a kind of cosmic redemption is needed-a redemption that not only saves us from our pride but also transforms and renews the present state of creation itself. This is of course precisely what St. Paul claims Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection accomplished and is accomplishing. St. Paul doesn’t deny that our life in-between Christ’s advents is a life of eschatological tension both within ourselves and with creation as a whole.
In addition to St. Paul’s use of metaphors, we should also consider the use of metaphor and mythical language in the Genesis creation account. For example, the author of Genesis speaks of a solid dome upon which fixed stars hang (the raqia). This mythical description, of course, doesn’t square with contemporary science and our current understanding of the sky, stars etc. Nonetheless, God chose to condescend to the then-current conceptual categories and to use this mythical language to speak of his creation, as his point was not to give us a scientific account of the universe but to proclaim himself as the Creator. So perhaps we could say that God himself is more like the artist, who plays with metaphor and recognizes its inherent limitations. Yet, he is unlike the artist (at least the artist in Nietzsche’s description) in that he is in fact trying to teach us something about reality itself, the reality that he himself brought into being and the reality which he is.
Lastly, perhaps participating in liturgical life provides a way to properly acknowledge our finitude and to combat modernity’s “columbaric” tendencies which Nietzsche so aptly describes. For example, in the Ash Wednesday liturgy of the Anglican/Episcopal Church, as the priest marks our foreheads with ashes, s/he says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Of course, for those in Christ, there’s more to story. We, who are in Christ, shall be resurrected in glorified bodies). In addition, participation in the Eucharist reminds us through humble material means (bread and wine) of our need for spiritual nourishment, that is, our need to be nourished by Christ’s resurrection life. Confession of sin reminds us of our weakness, our proclivity to idolatry and our continual, moment-by-moment need for God’s grace and forgiveness. The preaching of the word keeps us rooted in the Christian story and challenges us to submit to God’s, as it were, “interpretation” of reality.
How fitting on this Easter Sunday to allow Nietzsche to teach us about the power and relevance of the Christ-event. Whether ancient, stone columbariua or modern, conceptual columbaria, neither are able to contain Christus Victor. He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Below are links to Archbishop Rowan Williams’ Holy Week lectures (HT, Jason at Per Crucem ad Lucem). I recently listened to lecture one, in which Williams discusses three early church figures and their insights on prayer: Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and John Cassian. For all three saints, the Lord’s Prayer plays a huge role in teaching us how to pray. From Origen, Williams highlights praying “in Jesus” to the Father. From Gregory of Nyssa, we see how prayer is closely connected to our various relationship with others. A solid prayer life, in other words, makes us people who want to be reconciled with others. Turning to Cassian, the Archbishop leaves us with some practical advice to help us when we become distracted in prayer (as is so often the case). To help us re-focus when distracting thoughts enter, pray, as did Cassian this short, easy-to-recall phrase, “Oh God, make speed to save me.” Also, Cassian advises, it’s better to begin with a commitment to frequent, short, yet focused times of prayer than to attempt three-hour sessions of prayer. As one who struggles to maintain a consistent prayer life and who wants to grow in this area, I found these reflections exceedingly helpful and inspiring.
The following is a transcription of an interview between Jonathan Derbyshire and Tommie Shelby provided by The Prospect . On their website, they have also posted an interesting interview with Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist. Dr. Appiah is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.
5th November 2008
Conversation between Jonathan Derbyshire and Tommie Shelby
Tommie Shelby is a professor of philosophy at Harvard University, author of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity and co-author of Hip-Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason
JD: In your book, We Who Are Dark, you try to articulate a non-essentialist conception of black racial identity as the basis for political solidarity. Is it plausible to try to understand Barack Obama’s campaign in these terms?
TS: In my book, I claim that we should think of black political solidarity as resting not on a common black identity, but on the common experience of racism and the joint commitment to work together to combat it. Despite the diversity within the black population in the US, Obama received overwhelming black support, not just in the general election, where as a Democrat he could expect to get at least 88 per cent of the black vote, but also in the primary against Clinton, where
a number of blacks thought he was unfairly criticised because of his race. I think this black support, especially in the south, reflects in part the historical commitment of blacks, despite their many internal differences, to stand together in the fight for racial justice. Obama is seen by many blacks as a symbol of the successes of our collective historical struggle, and he gives us hope that further progress lies ahead. Moreover, Obama received overwhelming black support despite the fact that his mother is white and his father is not a descendent of black American slaves. Because he is generally
regarded as black (given the one-drop rule) and strongly identifies as black, he is accepted as an equal member in the black community and can lay claim to the legacy of the historic African-American fight for justice. The fact that he attended a black church, is married to an African-American woman, and has mastered elements of traditional black oratory also helped to solidify his black support.
JD: Does an Obama victory also herald the end of a particular way of doing politics? Specifically, identity politics or the “politics of recognition”?
TS: Many whites are weary, and have long been weary, of black claims of grievance. Most whites are impatient with black claims about the continuing significance of racism. They don’t think there is a serious race problem anymore, and they will point to Obama’s election as proof that racism does not affect black life chances, at least not in any serious way. They think that black political solidarity is no longer necessary and that blacks should stop suggesting that America is a racist society and reconcile with their fellow white citizens, dropping all talk of “black America.” For some whites, this is the
significance of Obama’s victory-it undermines black claims of grievance and puts the last nail in the coffin of black identity politics. The fact that Obama ran on a platform of racial reconciliation, did not specify any concrete proposals for how to combat racial discrimination in employment and housing or segregation in public schools, and did not make any overt racial appeals to black voters only seems to buttress the legitimacy of this “post-racial” stance. As this stance becomes more entrenched, and I expect it will, blacks will find it even more difficult to put problems of racial injustice on the public agenda.
JD: Do you, as some African-American intellectuals have argued, think that substantial political costs are incurred when black politicians try to reinvent the political language of race as Obama has? Glen Loury, for instance, argued that Obama’s presuming to “renegotiate the implicit American racial contract” threatens to throw away something valuable; it threatens to obliterate the moral legacy of the black struggle for freedom.
TS: Insofar as Obama has communicated to whites, whether intentionally or not, that what we most need now is interracial unity and racial reconciliation, rather than a concerted effort on the part of government to ensure that no one’s basic rights and opportunities are attenuated because of racism (past and present), then he has made a bad bargain. I don’t think that this was his intention, but some may interpret him this way.
Of course, what I am hoping is that his racial rhetoric was simply pragmatic. He needed to gain significant white support- I think he got about 45 percent nationally-to win, and knowing that most whites are tired of hearing about racism and the black plight, maybe he avoided talking about such things and instead emphasised interracial unity. But he may govern in a way that takes problems of race seriously-for instance, with respect to appointments to the judiciary, to the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and to Housing and Urban Development.
JD: Finally, what do you think will happen when, as is almost unavoidable, disappointment with a President Obama sets in Is there anywhere for the black political enthusiasm that this campaign has awakened to go?
TS: I don’t think that blacks are expecting Obama to do all that much to help their cause for racial justice. Many of us just liked the idea of having a black Democratic president, recognising that we’re electing a pragmatic left-of-centre politician who will likely govern in much the same way that Bill Clinton did, as a moderate. So while blacks may be disappointed by this or that decision, I don’t think they will be deeply disillusioned by the way he governs.
“Changing unconscious habits of white privilege requires altering the political, social, physical, economic, psychological, aesthetic, and other environments that ‘feed’ them. Correspondingly, a white person who wishes to try to change her raced and racist habits would do better to change the environments she inhabits than (to attempt) to use ‘will to power’ to change the way she thinks about and reacts to non-white people. Whatever will power human beings have with regard to white privilege or any other habit is found in those habits themselves. A person cannot merely intellectualize a change of habit by telling herself that she will no longer think or behave in particular ways. The key to transformation is to find a way of disrupting a habit through environmental change and then hope that the changed environment will help produce an improved habit in its place” (Shannon Sullivan, Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege, p. 9).
One of the main points that Sullivan stresses about racism is its systemic character. In other words, racism is not simply some wrongheaded idea (though it is definitely a wrongheaded idea) in my head or your head. Rather, racial privilege and disadvantage permeates our society in concrete ways-in the ways certain laws are crafted, in the ways that applications are designed and racial categories delineated, in the ways that different groups are portrayed in the media, racial profiling etc. Institutions of course play an important role in shaping the way we think about race (as well as gender) and various ethnic groups. As a graduate student and an adjunct at a local college, I have the opportunity both to observe how other professors discuss race and gender, and I have the opportunity to discuss these issues directly and indirectly with my students. For example, as a female student, I find it extremely helpful and affirming when a professor uses secondary literature by female authors-particularly in my field, which has traditionally been dominated by (white) males. (Don’t worry, I’m not a white-male-hater; I happen to be married to a wonderful white male). As a teacher, I purpose to use inclusive language, reference the works of people of color, and in so far as the constraints of what I have to teach (in terms of texts) allow, I try to assign readings or projects that encourage dialogue with different ethnic groups and help expose students to new hermeneutical approaches. What I have found on the whole is that my students appreciate the inclusive language and having to wrestle with different ways of thinking. In private conversations with female, African American, Latino/a, Asian American and others, students have time and again commented on how much they appreciate the ways I have tried to bring traditional subjects and authors in dialogue with contemporary hermeneutical approaches and “non-standard” topics (feminist literature, African American studies, liberation theology, jazz discussions etc.) There are of course always a few students who spend the whole semester sending me emails about why it is simply ridiculous to use inclusive language when anyone who is educated knows that “man” is a generic term. Thus, by way of principle, the student boldly declares that he is not budging and refuses to use inclusive language in his papers. Interestingly, I never demand that inclusive language be used. I simply use it myself in the classroom.
As I am always trying to improve my teaching and ways of relating to my students, I would love to hear ideas from both students and those in the field of teaching regarding your experiences (either positive or negative) in the classroom along these lines. In particular, what classroom ethos or actions encouraged or discouraged conversation about race in ways that might at least begin help to raise awareness of our racial habits? Feel free to comment about gender as well.
In his article, “Introduction to the Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of Justification,” David G. Truemper lists the following as principles for ecumenical conversation. I found them both encouraging and challenging. If only we could see these principles embodied in actual theological and religious dialogue, perhaps a real movement toward unity or at least understanding (rather than caricature) might occur.
One may disagree with and/or condemn another’s position only after one has demonstrated the ability to state the other’s position in such a way that the other agrees with that formulation.
Since even very simply formulae have great power to create meaning, one must handle theological and doctrinal formulae with great care. One must ask whether this or that formula is an essential expression of truth as we have come to understand it, or is it (merely) a way people at one time and place chose to articulate essential truth?
The truth that is sought in ecumenical conversation resides beneath the surface of venerable and traditional formulae and not necessarily in the formulae per se.
Language and terminology are cultural artifacts and therefore are susceptible to change; thus merely asserting an ancient or traditional formula does not necessarily assert the same thing as the formula originally intended and conveyed.
Given the increasingly evident pluralism of the global village we now inhabit, spokespersons for the faith will do well to observe Luther’s advice, made in another connection, “Es gehört Bescheidenheit dazu” (modesty is required here).[1]
Since God’s communication with human beings in various cultural settings and cultural circumstances must be held to be in a fundamental sense “effective,” we must conclude that there will be diverse appropriations of even central truths of the Christian faith. Accordingly, the goal of ecumenical conversation is mutual understanding and what the Joint Declaration calls “differentiated consensus,” not uniformity of formula or of emphasis.
Ecumenical conversation is a profoundly churchly action, undertaken not with the goal of defending the fortress of doctrine, but with the awareness that the gospel defends and protects the church, against whose mission not even the gates of Hades will ultimately prevail.[2]
Leave it to the Smithy to find a nugget like this. Being the non-Betty Crocker that I am, I’m proud to say that I’m familiar with this recipe. (Of course whether you find it tasty is an altogether different issue).
“Here is a recipe for producing medieval philosophy: Combine classical pagan philosophy, mainly Greek but also in its Roman versions, with the new Christian religion. Season with a variety of flavorings from the Jewish and Islamic intellectual heritages. Stir and simmer for 1300 years or more, until done.” Paul Vincent Spade, in the Stanford Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Next, we turn to Phoinix’s appeal, in which he employs two myths: the myth of the daughters of Zeus, and the myth of Meleagros, applying both by analogy to Achilles’ situation. In the first myth (IX.502-12), the “spirits of prayer,” that is, the “daughters of Zeus” have the ability to heal those afflicted by Ruin. If these daughters are treated with due respect in their peace-making and other salutary activities, a person may receive blessing and protection from Zeus. But if a person dishonors them, they supplicate Zeus to send Ruin upon such a person. Phoinix concedes that Agamemnon had acted out of pride,[1] but he adds that now he has (in at least some minimal sense) recognized his error and seeks (again in some sense) to make peace with Achilles. Thus, Phoinix urges Achilles to put his anger aside and accept Agamemnon’s offer. Should he stand firm in his rejection of Agamemnon’s gifts, Phoinix implies that Achilles will offend the daughters of Zeus. If this is the case, does Achilles’ refusal to accept reparations from Agamemnon result in his own madness-a madness that comes in the form of a blinding delusion sent by Zeus? Does this madness manifest in Achilles’ inability to reason properly, as his anger overrides his deliberating processes?[2]
In the second myth, Meleagros, like Achilles, has withdrawn from his previous war activity and is currently keeping company with his bride, Kleopatra. Meleagros’ comrades offer him gifts in the hope that he will put away his wrath and return to the battle. He refuses the offer; however, his wife at last convinces him to rejoin the war efforts, which results the enemies’ retreat. Although Meleagros fought valiantly and successfully, the elders reneged on their previous offer. Phoinix clearly exhorts Achilles not to do as Meleagros did, but instead to accept Agamemenon’s gifts and return to battle in order to maximize his honor. “With gifts promised, go forth. [...] But if without gifts you go into the fighting where men perish, your honor will no longer be as great, though you drive back the battle.”[3] At this point, Phoinix’s speech ends, and Achilles responds, stating that he doesn’t need honor of this sort, because he is honored by Zeus.[4] In light of Achilles’ former reflections on the deficiency of honor based on human opinion and unworthy sources (Agamemnon), he seems to suggest that he will now seek honor from Zeus alone. If this is the case, then does it follow that only humans can obtain honor, as the gods are (supposedly) better sources (at least metaphysically speaking) than humans?[5]
Although the aforementioned suggestion fits with what Achilles says, it doesn’t make sense of his actions. After all, upon hearing Aias’ rather simple, emotion-driven speech, Achilles decides to remain in Troy and return to battle when the fire reaches the Myrmidons’ ships. Whatever we make of Aias’ pleadings, we should not conclude that Phoinix’s speech has no affect on Achilles, as he ends up doing just what Meleagros did: he returns to the fight and rejects the gifts. So how do we account for Achilles’ drastic change of plans, as well as his decision to follow the negative example of Meleagros? Since Achilles wants to show his independence from Agamemnon, his rejection of the gifts functions as a way to demonstrate his self-sufficiency. In other words, Achilles fights on his own terms and decides when, for what purpose, and on what grounds he will re-engage the battle. But has Achilles made the right decision-has he acted for the sake of justice? Perhaps Achilles should have rejected all the gifts and demanded only the return of Briseis. Would that decision have been the best way to serve justice for all parties involved, even if, as mentioned before, Briseis was taken by force as a war “prize”?
Given the difficulty of determining what Achilles should have done, could Homer’s purpose be to highlight an irresolvable tension connected with justice and the spirited soul? Does the spirited soul, because of its desire for honor, end up obfuscating honor in order to avenge being dishonored? That is, perhaps the warrior’s desire for honor is so strong that it ends up overpowering his desire for justice. This certainly seems to be the case with regard to Achilles’ quarrel with Agamemnon, which results eventually in the loss of many lives-including the life of Patroklos, Achilles dearest friend. We also see this tension manifest in Achilles’ appeals to Zeus for divine aid. If Zeus helps Achilles, then Achilles cannot claim to be the indispensable element in the Achaian victory. Here we are also moved to call Zeus’ justice into question. Does he help Achilles win the decisive battle with Hektor because he is angered over the wrong done to Achilles, or does he act because of a personal favor that he owes to Thetis? When all is said and done, perhaps the desire for honor is a problem for both gods and humans. For humans the desire for honor results in an obfuscation of justice and the need to seek a (non-arbitrary) source higher than themselves to firmly establish and convey that honor. For gods-or better, for Zeus, the most powerful of the gods-presumably there is no external source or being to which he can turn for the bestowal of such honor. Yet, throughout the Iliad, we have the sense that the gods need humans in order to demonstrate their power and worth. Moreover, the gods (Zeus included) often seem just as fickle, untrustworthy and subject to wayward passions as humans. Is there then in the Iliad a stable, worthy source for the bestowal of honor?
Perhaps the most we can conclude about the relationship between the will of Zeus and the life of Achilles is that at times Achilles’ choices and desires seem to coincide with Zeus’ plan, yet at other times they clearly conflict (e.g., the death of Patroklos).[6] Zeus’ will does have a comprehensiveness to it and even seems to include a desire to educate Achilles and make him a willing partner in accomplishing Zeus’ goals. What then does Zeus want Achilles to learn? In the final book of the Iliad, after submitting to Zeus’ desire that he return the body of Hektor to Priam, Achilles engages in a discourse with Priam about the design of providence and the fate of mortals. As both men are grieving their losses, Achilles turns to Priam and says,
Such is the way the gods spun life for unfortunate mortals, that we live in unhappiness, but the gods themselves have no sorrows. There are two urns that stand on the door-sill of Zeus. They are unlike for the gifts they bestow: an urn of evils, an urn of blessings. If Zeus who delights in thunder mingles these and bestows them on man, he shifts, and moves now in evil, again in good fortune. But when Zeus bestows from the urn of sorrows, he makes a failure of man, and the evil hunger drives him over the shining earth, and he wanders respected neither of gods nor mortals.[7]
Achilles stresses the difference between gods and humans, specifically highlighting the sorrows experienced by humans in contrast with the absence of sorrow experienced by the gods. Here Achilles cannot mean that gods have no sorrows whatsoever, as he himself has admitted that Thetis, in marrying a mortal, endured much grief and distress. Perhaps Achilles means to emphasize that the sorrows of humans are of a different sort or have a significantly greater “sting” because of human mortality. Humans can, as Achilles indicates, receive blessings from Zeus, but these are at best temporary and are sure to be followed by grief and misfortune-as the lives of both Achilles and Priam make clear. No human being is free from the experiences of sorrow, and death itself stands as the victor of all mortals.
In book nine, Achilles had already begun to question the value of eternal glory since it is had at the cost of life itself (as well as the good things in life and with no guarantee of honor in the here and now). This led Achilles to attempt to break with the customary honor system and demonstrate his self-sufficiency. Yet, Achilles is not able to make a full break, as the tension in his spirited-soul compels him to pursue honor at great cost-the loss of Patroklos’ life, as well as his own.[8] Even after defeating Hektor and achieving his long, sought-after glory, Achilles remains dissatisfied and unfulfilled. Perhaps this is what he means by Zeus’ sorrows, making “a failure of man, and the evil hunger drives him over the shining earth, and he wanders respected neither of gods nor mortals.” Achilles’ quest for honor and glory leaves him unsettled with regard to the value of his achievements and acutely aware of the loss he has experienced along the way. In the end, Achilles does, by way of Zeus’ will and divine interventions, achieve eternal glory; however, his accomplishment does not produce his own personal happiness. Rather, Achilles’ glory lives on as a hard-learned lesson in human finitude. Achilles, by way of Zeus’ hand, has come to realize that every aspect of his life and death involves dependence on others. In his defeat of Hektor-the most glorious victory of his military career-Achilles acknowledges the indispensability of Athene’s aid. Concerning his own death, Achilles concedes his dependence upon his fellow Greeks for a proper burial. With the realization of his need for others to secure an honorable burial, Achilles gains an understanding of his place in the grand schema of things. Neither beasts nor gods require burial-the former because they lack the kind of soul (however tenuous that soul may be in Homer’s account) which humans (and demigods) possess, the latter because they do not die. Homer, then, ends his tale of Achilles’ hard-learned lesson in human finitude with the warrior’s acceptance of his place somewhere between gods and beasts.
Notes
[1] Agamemnon himself describes his actions toward Achilles as “madness” and as issuing from the “persuasion” of his “heart’s evil” (IX.115ff., 201).
[2] Perhaps this would explain to some extent Achilles’ treatment of Hektor’s body, dragging it around in an almost ritualistic way.
[5] Since Zeus is considered the greatest, most powerful god, presumably, he would be the greatest source of honor.
[6] Though one could devote an entire essay to the significance of Patroklos’ death in the Iliad, let it suffice for my present purposes to simply assert that the death of Patroklos compels Achilles to return to battle and is arguably a crucial element in the overall plan of Zeus for Achilles.
In book one of the Iliad, we learn that as part of the so-called “spoils of war,” Agamemnon and Achilles have claimed two concubines for themselves, Chryseis and Briseis. Agamemnon declared Chryseis as his own, but her father, Chryses, intervened and offered a ransom for her return. When Agamemnon refused the offer, Chryses prayed to Apollo for help, and he responded by sending a plague on the Achaians. After several days of intense suffering resulting in many Achaian deaths, Achilles summons an assembly and seeks the help of a prophet named, Kalchas, to determine the reason for the plague. Kalchas reveals that the deadly pestilence is the work of Apollo in answer to Chryses’ prayer and was due to Agamemnon’s refusal to return Chryseis and his dishonoring of Kalchas.[1] Agamemnon is enraged and says that he will return Chryseis in exchange for Briseis, Achilles’ “prize.” Achilles is offended by Agamemnon’s proposal and considers it an act of dishonor. Agamemnon eventually takes Briseis, which results in Achilles’ rage toward Agamemnon and his withdrawal from the war.[2]
Later in book nine, after things have gone exceedingly bad for the Achaians, Agamemnon sends an embassy with lavish gifts to try and convince Achilles to rejoin the war efforts.[3] The embassy consists of Odysseus, Phoinix and Aias, each giving a speech designed to move Achilles to return and fight. Though Achilles is still infuriated with Agamemnon, he greets the ambassadors warmly. This seems suggest that the offense nurtured by Achilles is personal; yet, in book one just prior to his oath that he would not rejoin the Achaians, he calls them “nonentities.”[4] Here Achilles is not only angry with Agamemnon but with the other Achaian men who failed to speak against the king’s unjust actions. Has Achilles then in book nine decided that Agamemnon as the representative of the people is to bear the blame personally and not Achilles’ comrades? If so, is Achilles’ withdrawal just? One is hard-pressed to answer in the affirmative, as many of Achilles’ friends lose their lives because of Achilles’ inability to reconcile with Agamemnon.
Returning to the ambassadors, it is instructive to briefly examine the content of the speeches, as well as Achilles’ response to each. Odysseus speaks first and appeals to Achilles’ sense of comradeship, playing upon the welcome Achilles has given his three visitors. “Up, then! if you are minded, late though it be, to rescue the afflicted sons of the Achaians from the Trojan onslaught.”[5] Odysseus then warns Achilles that to fail to do so will result in great emotional torment and regret for Achilles. “It will be an affliction to you hereafter, there will be no remedy found to heal the evil thing when it has been done.”[6] Next Odysseus appeals to an admonition that Achilles’ father had given him, to keep his anger in check and not allow his pride to dictate his actions. Odysseus thus exhorts Achilles to employ his spiritedness properly, lest it become his downfall. Agamemnon’s gifts are then enumerated, which among other things include the return of Briseis. Finally, Odysseus appeals to Achilles’ desire for honor and glory, suggesting that should he return, Hektor will provide him the opportunity to “win very great glory” among men.[7]
Achilles responds to Odysseus by charging him with a kind of double-speak-”I detest that man, who hides one thing in the depths of his heart, and speaks forth another.”[8] Since Agamemnon did not come himself to make reparations with Achilles but sent extravagant gifts via ambassadors, he perceives that Agamemnon still views himself as superior to Achilles. (Odysseus does in fact leave out Agamemnon’s statement that Achilles must yield to him). Achilles then speaks about fate in a leveling, relativizing way that seems to indicate that he is now calling into question the whole honor system of his day. “Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard. We are all held in a single honour, the brave with the weaklings. A man dies still if he has done nothing, as one who had done much.”[9] Perhaps Achilles has overstated things because of his anger toward Agamemnon;[10] nonetheless, his experience has resulted in a time of reflection upon the arbitrary nature of the code of honor of his day.[11] That is, Achilles has come to realize that the value of honor is intricately tied to the source conferring it, and the source itself can be self-interested, and hence, less honorable than the conferee. In light of his realizations, perhaps Achilles’ withdrawal and time of reflection has led him to seek to demonstrate a self-sufficiency and honor that does not depend on Agamemnon and the opinion of (human) others. (I shall elaborate more on this possibility as the essay unfolds).
Clearly, Achilles sees Agamemnon’s taking of Briseis as an unjust, deceptive act and even equates it to a man stealing another man’s wife.[12] In fact, Achilles connects Agamemnon’s deed with Paris’ theft regarding Helen.[13] Over the course of Achilles’ response to Odysseus, we sense that his argument and outrage presupposes a moral principle which involves (1) a call to respect and honor a man’s love for his wife/concubine and (2) a censure against taking a man’s wife/concubine arbitrarily and by force. Presumably, Achilles wants to apply this principle in a transcultural, “timeless-truth” manner.
Are the sons of Atreus alone among mortal the ones who love their wives? Since any who is a good man, and careful, loves her who is his own and cares for her, even now as I loved this one from my heart, though it was my spear that won her.[14]
From Achilles’ point of view, Briseis is his wife, his part of the “booty” that he rightfully deserved and earned through his valiant fighting; [15] hence, Agamemnon is in the wrong for taking her from him and dishonoring him. However, as we shall see, since Achilles ultimately rejects Agamemnon’s reconciliatory gifts, can we conclude that his decisions here are just? Should Achilles allow a personal affront to be the basis of his choices and actions? After all, his withdrawal affects not only himself but the lives of many others as well.
As Achilles continues his discourse with Odysseus, he announces that he will return to his homeland of Phthia and that no gift which Agamemnon might offer would change his mind. Then he recounts the prophecy of his two fates, which Thetis had revealed to him: a short, glorious life or a long, inglorious life. In light of his calling into question the value of the present honor code, Achilles has now (in contrast with his original choice in book one) chosen a long life without glory and even recommends his comrades to follow suit.[16] Life itself, as well as the goods of this life-marriage, a peaceful, non-military existence-now appear more valuable to Achilles than the arbitrary bestowal of honor in the present system. “A man’s life cannot come back again, it cannot be lifted nor captured again by force, once it has crossed the teeth’s barrier.”[17] In other words, how estimable is this so-called eternal glory if it comes at the cost of the goods of this life and the loss of life itself-not to mention the possibility of dishonor inthe present?
[10] As already mentioned, the Achaians are also to a certain extent guilty in Achilles’ mind, as they failed to speak against Agamemnon’s act. Even so, Achilles’ anger and resentment is (understandably) more specifically focused upon Agamemnon, who now possesses the “bride of his heart” (IX.336, 207).
[11] Sarpedon articulates (in a positive, uncritical light) various aspects of the honor code in book XII.315-326, 266-67.
[12] “All the other prizes of honour he gave the great men and the princes are held fast by them, but from me alone of all the Achaians he has taken and keeps the bride of my heart” (Iliad IX.333-36, 207).
[13] “And why was it the son of Atreus assembled and led here these people? Was it not for the sake of lovely-haired Helen?” (Iliad IX.337-39, 207).
[15] One wonders how taking other humans as “booty” (even if the captives are willing) can be considered just. If justice is giving to the other what is his/her due, then the category, “other,” in the Iliad excludes women. If we say that treating women as property and part of the spoils of war was simply accepted and unquestioned in Homer’s day, and hence, these kinds of practices were considered just, then are we not admitting that justice itself (or at least justice as practiced) is a conventional notion that changes over time and is dependent upon what the people of a particular cultural have deemed it to be? Also, is the definition of justice as “giving to the other what is his/her due,” a definition derived from Homer, or is it a later definition common in Socrates’ day? If the latter, why should we assume it is operative in Homer’s day or that it applies in a transcultural way?
In the opening lines of the Iliad, we confront immediately the interplay between the gods and humans. More specifically, we are encouraged to pay particular attention to the relationship between the “will of Zeus” and the wrath of Achilles-a wrath, which is described as contributing to or in some sense even causing the deaths of thousands of Achilles’ own men.[1] Throughout the Iliad, we see divinities intervening in human affairs, humans supplicating and sacrificing to gods, and plans and goals contrived by both. We have the impression that Zeus is the most powerful of the gods; yet, as I shall highlight, his power is not without limits. Moreover, certain events, actions, and deliberations on the part of Zeus lead us to ask the following questions: In what sense (if any) may Zeus be deemed just? Is the will of Zeus ultimate? That is, does it overrule and make irrelevant the plans and desires of humans (as well as the other divinities), or does Zeus’ will somehow work (non-violently) with human agency? Lastly, is Achilles’ moral improvement part of Zeus’ will, and if so, what role do Achilles’ own choices play toward such an end? Achilles is by far the most complex human, that is, semi-human character. Does this complexity arise from his nature as a demigod, or does it come about because of an irresolvable tension in his spirited-soul? If so, to what extent do these inherent conflictions affect his decisions and motivate his desires (e.g., for honor, justice and self-sufficiency)? In this essay, I examine selected passages from the Iliad in order to attempt to address at least some of these questions. I offer no promise of being able to adequately answer them such that the relationship between the gods and humans form a coherent, tension-less whole; I do, however, pledge to raise additional questions and perplexities along the way.
Before turning directly to the Iliad, we must first address a hermeneutical issue centering on a myth that seems to be presupposed by Homer as common knowledge of his readers. The myth concerns Zeus’s involvement in the marriage of Thetis to the mortal, Peleus, and is presented poetically by Pindar at least two centuries after Homer.[2] In Isthmian 8, an ode written by Pindar at least two centuries after Homer, we are told that a dispute between Zeus and Poseidon occurred regarding the goddess, Thetis, Achilles’ mother. Apparently, both Zeus and Poseidon wanted Thetis as a bride; however, they had been warned by an oracle of Themis that marriage to Thetis by either Zeus or Poseidon would result in “a son mightier than his father” (Isthmian 8, line 34), who would then threaten the reign of the gods-perhaps Zeus’ reign more than Poseidon’s, given Zeus’ preeminent divine status. Zeus was, no doubt, aware of the previous revolts of disgruntled divine sons, such as the Titan, Cronos, who deposed his father, Ouranos. In fact, Zeus himself was situated in this line of ousting sons, as he deposed his own father, Cronos. If (as I do) we accept the hypothesis that the “Thetis myth” was well-known to Homer’s audience, then it is reasonable to conclude that Zeus has decided to put an end to this tradition of overthrowing one’s father by convincing Thetis to marry a mortal, Peleus.[3] From the Iliad, we know that Thetis and Peleus do marry and that their marriage results in the birth of Achilles, whose fate, according to Pindar’s myth, is to die in battle. As Homer’s poem unfolds, Achilles is made aware of his fate; yet, he seems to have a choice in the matter. That is, Homer presents Achilles as having a genuine choice between a brief, but glorious life as a warrior, and a long, ordinary and rather inglorious life in Phthia. If Zeus in fact has an overarching plan or will for Achilles’ life, it seems that Achilles is in some sense an active participant who makes choices.
As I mentioned in the introductory paragraph, Zeus’ power is limited. In book 1, we are told that Thetis aided Zeus during a revolt among the gods spearheaded by Hera, Poseidon and Athena.[4] Thus, Zeus is in some sense indebted to Thetis, which in addition to the Thetis myth mentioned above, helps to explain why Thetis has so much sway with Zeus in the Iliad. With the revolt incident, we see that Zeus’ sovereignty can be challenged by the other gods, which means that he must be deal wisely with his fellow gods, lest they turn on him. Hera, Zeus’ wife, presents perhaps the greatest challenge to Zeus’ reign. Zeus has a pre-history of womanizing (both with female goddesses and female humans), and this causes a great deal of tension in his marriage. Hera resents Zeus’ flings and the various offspring produced by his affairs, and her resentment often gives rise to schemes and ploys to avenge herself and her honor.[5] As the seduction scene in book 14 indicates, Hera is well-aware of Zeus’ weaknesses and exploits his desires as a way to further her own partisan alliances in the war. The fact that Zeus can be seduced, duped and distracted demonstrates that his power is limited. If Zeus’ power is limited, then we are pressed to ask whether his justice is limited as well. Can we expect Zeus’ justice to extend to all humans when we know that he can be seduced, bound, and distracted for significant periods of time? Would not such a state of affairs give his adversaries sufficient time and opportunity to thwart Zeus’ intentions regarding the lives of particular humans? Whatever kind of justice may be attributed to Zeus-perhaps a level of impartiality not exhibited by the other unreflectively partisan gods-it must be a limited justice that does not extend equally to all.[6] To be sure, Zeus exhibits an ability to exercise a disinterested view of justice. We are told that Troy is his favorite city because of its religious piety; yet, Zeus has decreed that Troy will fall. Paris, in taking Helen from Menelaus, has violated international hospitality customs-customs that are of great concern to Zeus. Thus, the Trojan War may be understood as a violation against international justice, and as such, would necessitate a response from Zeus.[7] Agamemnon then becomes an instrument in Zeus’ plan for retributive justice against Troy. However, Agamemnon, in taking Briseis from Achilles, acts unjustly and creates what appears to be a setback for Zeus’ plan. Now Zeus must deal with injustice on multiple levels, and this is perhaps why, upon hearing Thetis’ request, Zeus “made no answer but sat in silence a long time.”[8] With at least some awareness of the potentially problematic issues regarding Zeus’ rule, justice and causality in view, let us now turn to Achilles.
Notes
[1]The Iliad of Homer. Trans., Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961. All subsequent references to the Iliad are to this translation. Iliad I.1-3, 59.
[2] Here the idea is clearly not a claim of drawing an inference from the text of the Iliad, but rather of the possibility that a myth which was considered by ancient hearers as worthy of retention was then later written down in poetic form by Pindar. If so, it is reasonable to claim that the myth was part of the common heritage of Homer’s audience, just as the gods were presupposed as common knowledge rather than explained or argued for. All references to Pindar’s ode are taken from Pindar’s Victory Songs, trans., Frank J. Nisetich [class handout].
[3] In Pindar’s ode, Themis proclaims, “‘Let her [Thetis] marry a mortal instead and see her son killed in battle, a son equal to Ares in might of hand or to the lightning bolt in speed of foot. It is my counsel to give her as a wedding prize to Aiakos’ son Peleus’” (Isthmian 8, lines 35-40).
[5] Hera in many ways stands for the institution of marriage; thus, when it is dishonored, Hera is likewise dishonored.
[6] Likewise, in book 15 Zeus, though it causes him distress, resolves not to intervene and spare the death of his own son, Sarpedon. He also allows (wills?) his favorite human, Hektor, to die at Achilles’ hands. Is it possible that Hektor could have avoided his fate?
[7] Unfortunately, the solution that seems (at least on the surface) most reasonable-a dual between Menelaus and Paris-is interrupted by the gods (first Aphrodite intervenes, then Hera and Athene provoke a battle) such that a decisive outcome is rendered impossible. Interestingly, Zeus gives in to Hera’s complaints and even commands and incites Hera and Athene to “‘make it so that the Trojans are first offenders to do injury against the oaths to the far-famed Achaians’” (Iliad VI.71-72, 115). Does this action speak against Zeus’ justice? Perhaps one can make sense of Zeus’ decisions here as part of his overall plan in which the war simply cannot end at this point, because what he wants to achieve on a larger scale (which involves his promise to Thetis and his overseeing of Achilles’ destiny, as well as perhaps his desire to prevent the birth of future demigods who might detract from his glory) would be thwarted. Yet, here again, we have to ask whether Zeus’ acting out of self-interest to prevent the future intermingling between gods and humans, which produce these glory and honor-seeking demigods (even if Zeus has been reformed from his philandering days) is consistent with justice?
[8]Iliad I.511-12, 72. Zeus’ pause was perhaps also due to his anticipation of an unfavorable response by Hera.
In Romans 2:14-15, St. Paul speaks of, “Gentiles, who do not possess the law,” yet, who do “what the law requires.” Even though they, unlike Israel, do not possess the Torah,[1] they “are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness” (NRSV). So who are these Gentiles? Are they the so-called “righteous” pagans in the line of Vergil or Socrates, or Aristotle? According to Wright (and I find his argument compelling exegetically), the people in view in Rom 2:14-15 are Christian Gentiles. As Wright explains,
Paul’s view, to anticipate the later argument, is that those who are in Christ, who are indwelt by the Spirit, do in fact ‘do the law,’ even though, in the case of Gentiles, they have never heard it. The law, in Paul’s view, pointed to that fullness of life and obedience to God which comes about in the Messiah; those who attain that fullness of life and obedience are therefore ‘doing the Torah’ in the senses that, to Paul, really matter (p. 441).[2]
Though on the surface it has a paradoxical ring, Paul’s view carefully avoids, on the one hand, implying that the Torah was something bad and thus to be discarded-rather he upholds the holiness of the Torah-and, on the other, suggesting that “Gentile Christians are second-class citizens in the kingdom of the Messiah.” In effect, Paul has his cake and eats it too: Gentiles Christians “are not under the Torah, but at the same time they are essentially doing what the Torah really wanted” (p. 441).
Wright’s exegesis takes into account the important cultural-historical (not to mention theological) issue of the early Church: what is the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and are uncircumcised, non Torah-trained Gentiles to be received as full members of the Church? Paul’s emphatic answer is, “yes, because in Christ circumcision is no longer the badge marking out God’s people; rather, faith in the faithful obedience of God’s Messiah is the indicator of God’s people.”
Wright also spends some time dealing with objections to his position. The primary objection centers on the word, φύσει, physei, both in terms of its meaning and grammatical function. Some scholars see physei functioning adverbially and modifying the verb “do.” However, as Wright points out, physei is found in the middle of the clause, ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ νόμον ἔχοντα φύσει τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιῶσιν; consequently, physei, could modify either “do” or “having the law” (pp. 441-42). Wright opts for the latter, as it makes sense of the present passage, harmonizes well with the larger section through 5:21, and is in agreement with Paul’s usage of physei in 2:27. In other words, physei in Rom 2:14 refers to “origin” or “parentage.” “Gentiles do not, by nature-that is, by origin or parentage-possess the Torah.” Likewise, in Rom 2:27, ἡ ἐκ φύσεως ἀκροβυστία τὸν νόμον τελοῦσα, φύσεως (”the by-nature uncircumcision that fulfills the Torah”) “cannot here refer to something that is common, innate, to all humans. Jews, too, are born uncircumcised; that is, in that sense, the ‘natural’ state. It must refer to Gentile humanity as opposed to Jewish (cf. Gal 2:15)” (p. 442).
Additional support for Wright’s interpretation is found in 2:15a, where we read, “[t]hey show that what the law requires is written on their hearts” (NRSV). This language of the law “written on the heart” is New Covenant language, of which Jeremiah (Jer 31:33) and Ezekiel (Ezek 36:26, cf. the “new heart”) speak. “Paul clearly believed, and elaborated this at various points, that the covenant had been renewed, according to this promise, through Jesus, and that this renewal was being implemented by the Spirit in those who were ‘in Christ’” (p. 442).
Notes
[1] “Though not having the law, they are a law to themselves” (Rom 2:14b, NRSV).
[2] N.T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in Vol. X of The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002): 395-770.
According to Gadamer, we all come to the text with different horizons. As we engage the text, our horizons, as well as our foremeanings are confirmed, altered, or perhaps a combination of both occurs. Gadamer understands textual hermeneutics as analogous to a live conversation in which, when fruitful, we have attentive listening, respect for the alterity of the other, and an interplay of give and take. Consider, for example, a conversation you’ve had in which you already anticipated ahead of time what a certain person was going to say. You need an extension on your paper, but your professor has made it clear in the past that she rarely grants such extensions. Here you approach the conversation with a fairly fixed idea of how the conversation will enfold. After class you begin to make your case for an extension, explaining that your daughter has been ill quite a bit this month, and you’ve had to keep her at home. Consequently, you were not able to complete your paper on time. At first, the likelihood of an extension without penalty seems less than hopeful. However, as the dialogue continues, your professor seems more open and in the end grants you an extension. The banality of the example aside, it does provide a window into Gadamer’s understanding of the back and forth movement of our hermeneutical experience. For example, as Gadamer explains,
very likely encounter nothing but the nonexistent. What is certain is that at the very moment when I endeavored to grasp my being, Sartre, who remains ‘the Other,’ by naming me shattered my last illusion. While I was telling him:
As Alfred North Whitehead famously said, the history of Western philosophy “consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” The more I study the Western philosophical tradition, the more convinced I am that this is the case. At the center of Plato’s philosophy is his doctrine of the Forms or Ideas. In Greek there are two words, which we translate into English as “idea”: εἶδος (eidos) and ἰδέα (idea). Interestingly, in Greek these works mean something that is seen; however, Plato uses the terms to mean that which is not seen physically, but mentally. Nonetheless, seeing is still the root metaphor pervading his philosophy. Consider some of his most famous images-the cave, the sun, and so on. In the cave, there is no light, no knowledge. When one emerges from the cave into the light, one comes to know (or potentially comes to know) reality by first seeing the things of the sense world and then ascending to the Forms or Ideas in which the sense objects participate and imitate. As is well-known these days, postmoderns have challenged this privileging of the visual metaphor and have attempted to imagine what it might mean for some of the other senses to serve as a central metaphors. For example, postmodern philosophers and theologians such as Jean-Luc Marion and Catherine Pickstock have written with great effect on the more “neglected” senses such as taste and hearing.
