Andrew Taggart just wrote this post about the (non)purpose of religion, which is closely connected to a discussion about the (non)purpose of art, education, philosophy, and ultimately the (non)purpose of being human. When we question the purpose of something, we often don’t realize how much prejudice is conveyed in our question. Questioning the purpose of X, the utility of X, is a question about whether and how X fits within our existing purposes. “What is…
What makes a place familiar? What makes a visit feel like a return? Part of the familiarity is knowing what I can or cannot do in a place—the rights and duties the place affords me. In the place I am now writing about, one of my rights is the right to pray. I have the right to pray despite my uncertainties and despite my faults. Perhaps I have the right and duty to preserve this…
I have been writing and re-writing this post for months. Something that makes writing it difficult is the multiplicity of conflicting starting points. There is no one way to start it. And the decision about how to start will affect what it becomes. I have decided to begin with writing about that multiplicity, the conflicting voices, and the competing destinations for this one piece of writing. Do I begin from a position of faith or…
I am writing this after going through Books VI and VII of the Confessions of St. Augustine. I think various parts of the Confessions could be understood and connected in light of understanding what it means for a truth to be embodied or personified. The parts I have in mind include (a) several episodes where other people make an impression on Augustine and (b) Augustine’s appeal to Christ (toward the end of Book VII) as…
I have been lucky to have had many great teachers during my academic life and mentors who continue to enrich my intellectual pursuits. In this post, I want to write about only three of them. The first is Graham Fulton. When I first met him, he was a psychology professor at University College Sedaya International (UCSI), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I was a student there from January 2006 till July 2007, though I never had a…