Lisbon, Liebniz, Kant, and the History of Philosophy
Ever since the tsunami I have been thinking a great deal about the problem of evil, the nature of evil, and how we as Christians can reconcile what we experience and observe with the unseen, but revealed through Scripture and the Word, character of God.
In the process of doing some research for that I came across the following article on what the authors term "The Lisbon Fallacy". It made me wonder how much of this goes on in our history of philosophy classes. After all, we read primary sources with maximal attention to content (good...) and minimal references to the historical context etc of each piece (bad...). W.T. Jones had his problems, but at least he tried to fill in historical context (not altogether accurately in places, but at least he tried); Clark does this a little, but seems less concerned with context than Jones.
If you look up the Lisbon earthquake on Wikepedia you will see some really interesting references to Kant's early life in connection with the earthquake. How did this shape his philosophy I wonder...?
To tie this in with the introduction to this post, I wonder what we can learn from the way philosophers reacted to the Lisbon tragedy, not only in how we process what happened last December, but also in our philosophy and, particularly, theodicy moving forward. I must admit, I found N.T. Wright's essays (see Evil and the Justice of God 1: Evil is Still a Four-Letter Word and the others in that series) have spoken to me far more than any philosophical efforts at theodicy I have ever read. And I have read a few. Just stirring the pot...anyone out there?
In the process of doing some research for that I came across the following article on what the authors term "The Lisbon Fallacy". It made me wonder how much of this goes on in our history of philosophy classes. After all, we read primary sources with maximal attention to content (good...) and minimal references to the historical context etc of each piece (bad...). W.T. Jones had his problems, but at least he tried to fill in historical context (not altogether accurately in places, but at least he tried); Clark does this a little, but seems less concerned with context than Jones.
If you look up the Lisbon earthquake on Wikepedia you will see some really interesting references to Kant's early life in connection with the earthquake. How did this shape his philosophy I wonder...?
To tie this in with the introduction to this post, I wonder what we can learn from the way philosophers reacted to the Lisbon tragedy, not only in how we process what happened last December, but also in our philosophy and, particularly, theodicy moving forward. I must admit, I found N.T. Wright's essays (see Evil and the Justice of God 1: Evil is Still a Four-Letter Word and the others in that series) have spoken to me far more than any philosophical efforts at theodicy I have ever read. And I have read a few. Just stirring the pot...anyone out there?
posted by Paul at
8:53:00 AM
2 Comments:
Paul,
Regarding the problem of evil, have you read C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain? I'm an atheist, but compelled to understand religous views of the world. This book is was very educational to me, partly since I've had relatively little exposure to religous folks with an intellectual bent. It clarified the problem of evil for me, and forged a path to resolving the problem in the context of God.
On your second point, concerning the Lisbon Fallacy, the interesting idea to me is that the necessity for experience to be the impetus for new thought, could mean the new thought is not derivable from old thought. Perhaps it's simply a reflection of the inability of humans to do so, or the barriers that emotions place on us in accessing new thoughts, or most simply, that new experiences bring new knowledge and therefore new thought. But if it's more fundamental than that, then it seems a bit supernatural.
By
Michael, at 1:01 PM
Paul,
In many cases evil is simply something that we don't understand. As far as the tsunami, it is not evil at work but the laws of nature. The great Budda said that the one thing that mankind has in common is suffering. We suffer only because we are violating nature's laws. The creator ordained that the world be made of opposites such as night and day, men and women, known and unknown, i.e. good and evil.
You can see more of my understanding of nature on my blog.
By
BiggEdd, at 8:02 PM
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