Zeus Unbound: The Irony of Theism
Symposia are a time-honoured way of sharing an academic cup, of meeting over a common discourse to exchange ideas, critiques, theses. Ivan Khan (to whom be praise) played Agathon to our Socratic circle of philosophers; I hesitate to match the rest of us with Plato's characters. At times I feel...
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
1991
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| In: |
Toronto journal of theology
Jahr: 1991, Band: 7, Heft: 2, Seiten: 230-234 |
| Online-Zugang: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Zusammenfassung: | Symposia are a time-honoured way of sharing an academic cup, of meeting over a common discourse to exchange ideas, critiques, theses. Ivan Khan (to whom be praise) played Agathon to our Socratic circle of philosophers; I hesitate to match the rest of us with Plato's characters. At times I feel most like Aristophanes — confronted with the magnitude of learning and the world's problems not always helped by academics, I sense the disproportion of our rationality, the humour of it all. Probably this is why I subtitled my study of Prometheanism an 'irony.' Irony is a form of dissembling, a dialogue of contradiction. The eiron of classical drama was the character between buffoon and imposter — speaking truth in riddles, masking profundity in trivia. The device served Socrates well enough: his kind of irony is a dialectical catharsis making room for the awe-ful Truth. Plato's Symposium ends with A1cibiades 'remarking on the satyr-like nature of 'the two faces of Socrates.' In our case, my four respondents — Jay Newman, George Schner, Bruce Ward and John Webster — were gracious in their analysis of my book, positive in critique, and gentle in demand. It is a humbling experience to test one's published work — there it lies between us, in final and irrevocable form, vulnerable as one's child. One has come to own the theses for debate; can anyone else really understand what these words struggle to say? And as the discussion reveals other interpretations, one finds oneself debating different items on alien ground. So let me respond to just three of the themes underlined by the symposiasts. |
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| ISSN: | 1918-6371 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: Toronto journal of theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3138/tjt.7.2.230 |
