Medieval philosophy is my favorite course this semester. We are discussing Augustine's On Free Choice of the Will, which is a great work of anti-manichaeism (read: forces of good and evil) and also goes into depth on the nature of free will and evil. What's great is that I've always understood evil to be nothing, but never knew to attribute this to Augustine's theology. To explain quickly, in Augustine's view: evil is the absence of good, just like darkness is the absence of light, or cold the absence of heat. There are no "darkness" particles - just photons.(Just wikipedia checked that!) Anyway, I remember coming across this view online my freshman year of high school during my online debating days. -- I used to think I was the Holy Spirit and could convert anyone to Christianity by pure reason -- Needless to say, I'm over that, but I never realized how much theology Mr. Rudzinski and I bit into when we rehashed my discussions with atheists and agnostics. He is my Socrates. (Not to say that I'm Plato) Well... I'm attempting to be Plato soon. (read below)
For my first paper, I'm going to write a platonic dialogue between myself, a friend, Augustine, and Kierkeggard. Hopefully I can do all four justice!
Must go do some Logic homework. By the way, I'm trying to have a real liberal arts education: (I have to improvise a bit)
Quadrivium:
Arithmetic (LAS Calculus?)
Music (Chamber Choir - Voice Lessons)
Geometry (History of Math or studying for the GRE?)
Astronomy (I'll hang out with Amy at the train bridge for this one!)
Trivium:
Logic (Logic)
Rhetoric (Replace 170 with a rhetoric class)
Grammar (Historiography, Latin, French)
Isn't it cool that Music is applied Arithmetic and Astronomy applied Geometry?
So yes, another scattered post that wasn't proof read.
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4 comments:
Hmm...I don't know how I feel about the attempt at a relation between absences of physical quantities (light, heat)and socially-constructed/defined terms ("good" and "evil").
A socially-constructed concept (such as "good") has no simple definition (as do light and heat). Therefore, it's a lot more difficult to decide when it is absent.
I love love love when we talk about philosophy. i think its because you and tyler are the only people i talk about it to!
I LOVE the quadrivium and trivium! So cool...astronomy!!!! Love.
I want to read your paper! Kierkegaard=my first philosopher crush!
This was a lovely post.
WHOA, I just looked at it again. I didn't even notice you mentioned me under astronomy because I saw the titles of your sections and jumped to comment. YES CAN WE PLEASE GO TO TRAIN BRIDGE? I WANT TO LOOK AT STARS SO BADLY!!!! You can bring Mat(t?)hew! For some reason I feel like his name is spelled with one t and don't know why. Anyway, YES LET'S GO!
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