[MD] Boromir's Journey

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Steve,

Steve said:
You object that the faith I described can not be reconciled 
with being engaged in trying to improve the world, that 
one who has this faith becomes complicit in the ills of the 
world by calling the world good as it is.

Matt:
Well, I guess I don't think that that's what I was doing.  
The calm is good--and I don't call that "faith."  I don't think 
the X you're pointing to, and that I recognize as good, too, 
is best described as "faith."  I don't think the descriptions 
you're occasionally using for this X are good in the 
long-run--that's what I meant by saying "okay" is an 
elliptical complicity.  My suspicion is that we can move on 
from some of these favored intonations.

Rorty tells an anecdote about how he was supposed to 
teach a philosophy of religion class long ago, and he'd set 
up his syllabus with the usual pigeon-holes--analytic 
philosophy of religion, pragmatist, fideist, existentialist, 
etc.  He chose Dewey's A Common Faith for pragmatism 
and something of Tillich's for existentialism (maybe 
Dynamics of Faith).  But by the time he'd taught one (I 
forget which was first), and then moved on to the other, 
he noticed how he was making them sound the same--and 
so ended up telling his class, "Yeah, the point of both is 
pretty much the same."

Whether we call the _point_ of both "faith," I think, is an 
open question, just as Rorty follows Dewey following Hegel 
in thinking that philosophy is about updating the past for 
the present.

For instance: would we say Rorty has faith? His notion of 
contingency--and particularly irony--is about letting go of 
our certainty of the course of future events.

And if you allow Rorty as Faith Master, which given your 
terms you should, then it's still a jump-ball as to whether 
we follow Rorty with Hope or Tillich with Faith.  It's still 
probably a matter of temperament.

Matt
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222985/direct/01/