As improbable a pairing as one can find, Nozick’s essay reminded me of Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity (see extract after Nozick). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Robert Nozick "The Holiness of Everyday Life" in The Examined Life (1989, chapter 6, pp. 55-60). EACH AND EVERY portion of reality, the Transcendentalists said, when viewed and experienced properly, stands for and…
This from The New Republic CatholicismexistentialismFlannery O’Connorgraham greenephilosophical literatureReligionWalker PercyWilliam Giraldi
As the date denotes, this has been known for several years and has been widely covered: here is a follow up to this story. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to learn that Robert Coles, author of the solid Walker Percy: An American Search (1979) is also the man behind Bruce Springsteen’s America: The…
The sun is shining, people live well, go about satisfying their needs and achieving goals, work at creative jobs, attend cultural attractions, participate in interesting groups. This is, by every calculation, as it should be. Yet it was on just such a day as this, an ordinary Wednesday or Thursday, that he felt the deepest…
Recently published and freely available. CatholicismEconomicsHayekLiberalismMarket economyphilosophy of social sciencePolitical philosophyrationalismsocial epistemologysocial justice
This in The Atlantic (H/T to Shannon Selin) If you’ve got only 10 minutes, read his essay “A Much Repeated Repetition.” (“Of a mechanical thing we have a full knowledge. Of a living thing we have a divine ignorance.”) Why should it want to make him a saint? Why Chesterton and not—if you’re talking about…
Always refreshing to hear CP’s provocations I have very little contact with American academics, who are pitifully trapped in a sterile career system that has become paralyzed by political correctness. I do not subscribe to the implicitly moralistic assumption that literature or art “teaches” us anything. Medieval theology is far more complex and challenging than anything offered…
As a Catholic, I recognize that life is a story of continuous revision, of failure and unexpected grace, and of dogged hope. I am comfortable with the white space of ambiguity and mystery. I have faith, not certainty . . . Nick Ripatrazone (H/T to The Dish’s Matt Sitman). CatholicismNick Ripatrazonephilosophical literature
Immersed in reading Percy it has become blindingly clear that these two writers have such similar concerns. de Unamuno’s the Tragic Sense of Life rates as having made the most profound of impressions upon me — and that was going on thirty years ago. Whatever else separates Percy and de Unamuno, it is my view that de…
Walker Percy was one of the most influential American writers and philosophers of the 20th century. He is best known for his first novel, “The Moviegoer,” which won the National Book Award in 1962. Catholicismexistentialismnew orleansthe moviegoerWalker PercyWilliam Alexander Percy
manwithoutqualities 