Category: Meaning and Hermeneutics

Four Theoretical Problems with Writing

I spent the last two months reading and thinking about the Phaedrus. What a fascinating little book of Plato’s. I’d like to present four theoretical problems with writing itself. I do this for a) for people who (like me) never before...

/ August 5, 2008

Apostolic Hermaneutics

 “By expecting the Apostles to conform to modern assumptions we run the danger of missing the theological and kerygmatic richness of the Apostles’ use of the OT.” Continuing a line Matt started, here is an interesting article (about 25 pages)...

/ January 29, 2008

Deja Vu: Repeating the Midsummer Night’s Dreaming

Here’s the final version of the paper I sent in for my grad school application. I made a few subtle, yet important changes in my wording in order to (hopefully!) make my thesis more clear. While I am not sure...

/ December 15, 2006

Midsummer Night’s Dreaming: An Analysis

So, the following paper has consumed my attention the last week. My grad school application is now due in 72 hours, and I am finally “finished” with my paper. It was harder to write than I thought it would be–literature...

/ December 13, 2006

Meaning and Intention

My brother’s recent puzzle spawned this response and subsequent discussion. The discussion continued that weekend for me–I spent a three hour car ride working through the issues with another member of this blog. To be brief, I’ll point out four...

/ September 14, 2006

We are the Meaning Makers

If I were Jason Kuznicki, I’d be irritated. Here’s Jim’s explanation of his “puzzle”: It’s all about trying to find a pattern that isn’t real–when pathological, the condition is called apophenia–by relying on human design intuitions. All of the strategies...

/ August 31, 2006

My Reviews

My brother’s comments about my recent string of book reviews have prompted me to say a word about my approach. He writes: Oh, and I have a new goal in life: to write a book that meets my brother’s critical...

/ June 11, 2005

Literary Criticism and Epistemology

For some time I have been bothered by the phenomenon of 20th C. literary criticism of all varieties: Marxist, feminist, post-colonial and the other smatterings. It just rubs me the wrong way. After remembering Rodrick Chisholm’s insightful article, “The Problem...

/ February 1, 2005