MY
I'm changing tack here, slightly. Most of the time, when I try and write something here, I do what I can to make it personal, relatable, entertaining, and drawing from the ways I've been edified in seminary. This is another short, two-page paper that I wrote... and it's not particularly relatable, or entertaining. It's an example of another way seminary is stretching me; I was very focused on using technical and precise language concerning some deep subjects. When a professor allows it, however, I push to make my writing well-grounded in the assigned source material, but less about regurgitating facts about philosophies and more reflective. St. Augustine, who is a hero of mine and who happens to feature in this short paper, is a writer who exemplifies this approach. The paper is about Husserl, a phenomenologist philosopher who influenced Pope St. John Paul II's philosophy. I hope you press the "read more" button and take a gander at this bite-sized piece of my homework. I hope you'll overlook the big words to recognize why seminarians have to study philosophy. Even when it is necessarily (or unnecessarily) complex and verbose, authentic philosophy in the Catholic tradition (as opposed to modernistic interpretations, is about things that really matter and about beliefs that create and animate issues today. It's about what it means to be human, to be happy, to know, to believe, and to be. Even when it's impersonal, it's an appeal to the person. My current appreciation of Husserl’s work is his anti-Cartesian, anti-Kantian understanding of doubt and certainty. Whether or not it's possible to synthesize his realism with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition is debatable and far beyond me, but at the minimum, his defense (of the senses and of a human being that is both rooted in the material world and perceiving of the transcendent) is admirable.
"One procedure, possible at any time, is the attempt to doubt universally which Descartes carried out for an entirely different purpose with a view toward bringing out a sphere of absolutely indubitable being. We start from here, but at the same time emphasize that the attempt to doubt universally shall serve us only as a methodic expedient for picking out certain points which, as included in its essence, can be brought to light and made evident by means of it.[1]" Husserl describes his approach to doubt as a methodic expedient, that is, a means to an end in his study, but one to be carefully used – like a knife. Knives are wonderful tools that can be used to remove what is undesirable, or to perfect the portion and proportion of an object, but they’re easily misused and quickly turn destructive. So too can doubt be understood – it has its proper place, and it is a tool that can purify truths from the incomplete and the lie, but it was also the primordial weapon the serpent used against our first parents in Eden. I think this allusion to Eden gives color and depth to Husserl’s next lines. “The attempt to doubt universally belongs to the realm of our perfect freedom: we can attempt to doubt anything whatever, no matter how firmly convinced of it, even assured of it in an adequate evidence, we may be.”[2] The quality of doubt, therefore, is the measure of intentionality. The serpent convinced us that Truth Himself – the most certain, most eminently good, most beautiful Being one could ever be enamored of – and yet we doubted Him, freely, of our own yet unweakened wills. I think the perpetuation of the Great Lie is a similar doubt with an admixture of ignorance, that revolted against Christendom, darkens the hearts of many today, and continues to corrupt the innocent and lure them away from the Faith. I am deeply troubled by the passing of Issue 1, and I see within it the reverberation of selfish doubt, where my will, my interests, my ‘rights’ are somehow different from and contrary to God’s will, His calling, and His abundant love. Husserl continues, “Since we are completely free to modify every positing and every judging and to parenthesize every objectivity which can be judged about if it were as comprehensive as possible, then no province would be left for unmodified judgments, to say nothing of a province for science.”[3] Truth, in its supereminent manifestations, is threatened by unchecked doubt. Even science, deified as it has been in the zeitgeist, falls apart, as has been demonstrated many times in this course. The gaps between Descartes apparent dualism come to mind. More presently, I think of how selfishness spits in the face of what even authentic science recognizes as true – human life begins at conception. Husserl uses this ‘doubtfulness about doubtfulness’ as an invitation to move past scientism and explore another direction; we must return to what is most imminent to the human experience. It’s layered and fascinating in its own way. My contemplations, however, remind me of Augustine’s often quoted line from the Confessions. “Interior intimo meo et superior summo meo - You were more inward to me than my most inward part and higher than my highest.”[4] God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, even more present to us than we are conscious. I’ll take Husserl’s advice, by returning to the most certain and most natural actuality to me – God. [1] Husserl, Collected Works Vol. II, First book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, Page 58. [2] Husserl, 58. [3] Husserl, 60. [4] Augustine, Confessions, 3.6.11
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1/23/2024 08:37:04 pm
John Paul, this is you from the future! Listen Closely.
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