What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
1. Christian Philosophy, Anyone?
I spent a week in May with about fifteen other people, reading and discussing key sections of a four-volume tome with the forbidding title A New Critique of Theoretical Thought. Most of those present confessed that they had great difficulty understanding the assigned passages, yet everyone agreed at the end that the week was a great success, and perhaps worth doing again. … What kind of philosophy could attract the interest of such a varied collection of intellectuals [? The answer is that it was the philosophy of the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), whose disciplinary specialty was actually not philosophy at all, but jurisprudence. He taught for many years at the Free University of Amsterdam, the Christian university founded by Abraham Kuyper, the leader of the great revival of culturally engaged Calvinism known as neocalvinism. … — Christian Philosophy, Anyone? (Al Wolters. Comment. 6/11/2010)
2. Free speech in a public, academic forum. What can we learn from the on-going discussion at UC-Irvine with regard to how voices are to be heard and how they are to interact? Any suggestions with regard to how such situations are to be addressed, in advance, during, afterward? Comment from Tom: The international world is on many U.S. campuses and most campuses lack the framework to engage in real, gritty cross-cultural conversation, let alone reshape perspective on the issues, the idealism is fading. Will shouting replace it on campus (including the administration/faculty) and the responses to incidents such as UC-Irvine?
The University of California at Irvine has suspended the campus’s Muslim Student Union for one year and placed the group on disciplinary probation after members of the group repeatedly interrupted a campus speech in February by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, according to a letter released on Monday.
The hecklers shouted down the ambassador, Michael Oren, at times calling him a “killer” and scuttling parts of the speech. Video of the event drew international attention and sparked a debate about the tactics of the protesters, who said they were angry about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. — UC-Irvine Suspends Muslim Student Group for Disrupting Speech (Josh Keller. Chronicle of Higher Education. 14/2010)
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