50 years after I first read their work - Harry Williams, particularly 'The True Wilderness'. Michel Quoist, for 'The Christian Response' and 'Prayers of Life'. And since then almost anything by Terry Pratchett - his deeply nuanced ideas on justice, faith, morality and mortality creep up on you when you're busy laughing!
I think this turns into a bunch of soliloquy's if one cannot comment upon the choices of others. Seems rather antithetical to a discussion board.
Not necessarily. I think it depends on the comment. Comments or questions that are aimed at listening to and understand other shipmates better? Great, I think. Comments that boil down to “I don’t find that writer influential”? No need to say that; just don’t identify them as a writer who has influenced you. Comments that boil down to “Why anyone would find that writer influential is beyond me; I don’t like them”? Unnecessary.
Full disclosure: Given that what I was hoping for from this thread was primarily sharing that helped give us a slightly picture of one another rather than actual debate, I did wonder if Purgatory was the right forum. Perhaps the thread belongs elsewhere.
... Full disclosure: Given that what I was hoping for from this thread was primarily sharing that helped give us a slightly picture of one another rather than actual debate, I did wonder if Purgatory was the right forum. Perhaps the thread belongs elsewhere.
My vote is for Purgatory being the right board. Some of the other threads have mystifying rules which inhibit both contributions and honesty. And Hell would doubtless evince responses at the level of "What, xxx or yyy! If you like him/her you must be a moron"
Thanks - I've read LOTR three times so far, and while engrossing, I'd be hard-pressed to identify any way in which I'd found it influencing.
Twice me but I have not been influenced. However I like that he may have been inflenced by areas of the West Midlands, even though I would be a citizen of Mordor
My problem is that I'm just not very well read! I keep seeing authors' names and thinking, "Yep -- meant to get to that one." How much counts? I mean, I took three semesters of Shakespeare in college, but we didn't cover all of his stuff. I've read some Dostoevsky, but not a lot. I've read some Henry James, some Dickens, some Hawking, some Marcus Aurelius... a fair bit of Barbara Tuchman (historian), a fair bit, more recently, of Bart Ehrman, some Matthew Arnold (via Ralph Vaughan Williams), a fair bit of Stephen Sondheim, etc. My own reading is haphazard, eclectic, and I'd guess shallow. *shrugs*
I saw that as honest reflection in an answer to the creator of the OP re. where the thread should lie. "Mystifying rules" can be seen as an honest reflection rather than a critique.
I think my three authors mentioned above would agree. Marx, Frankl and Spong.
Elizabeth Goudge, especially Henrietta's House, responsible for a late career choice.
Oh? Do say more. I love Elizabeth Goudge; such gentleness and wisdom.
Also a C S Lewis fan. I remember being so proud of working out for myself (at the age of around 8) how Aslan was like Jesus (my mum pricked my bubble - "Yes. Of course."). I read the books to both my children at bedtime - they were probably desperate for sleep and I'd go on for "One more chapter." I found The Screwtape Letters fascinating due to the point of view they were written from.
... Full disclosure: Given that what I was hoping for from this thread was primarily sharing that helped give us a slightly picture of one another rather than actual debate, I did wonder if Purgatory was the right forum. Perhaps the thread belongs elsewhere.
My vote is for Purgatory being the right board. Some of the other threads have mystifying rules which inhibit both contributions and honesty. And Hell would doubtless evince responses at the level of "What, xxx or yyy! If you like him/her you must be a moron"
Well, I was debating between Purgatory and Heaven.
Nyiszli introduced me to reality. Auschwitz: meaningless cosmic horror.
Armstrong contextualized that in Biblical prophecy: made (pragmatic) God real.
McLaren made God fully inclusively competently omnipotently liberal.
You’ve raised a good point here, @Martin54. You don’t explicitly say so here, but based on your history of posts I think I’d be correct in saying that you don’t see Armstrong’s influence as a positive influence, at least not anymore. And that’s a good reminder that “most influenced me” doesn’t necessarily mean “influenced me for the better.”
I'm another for whom CS Lewis has been by far the biggest figure - both in terms of my imagination and "spiritual instincts" (if you like) - and of course it was the Narnia books that did that in the first instance - and later in prodding me to think about what I really believed - particularly important here was "The Abolition of Man" and somewhat later "The Pilgrim's Regress" both of which I read in my teenage years (as well as many other of his books but these I think were the most important).
I have loved many other authors and books - notably those of his old friend Tolkien - and some have even had an influence, but more in the sense of an occasional nudge or helping hand at a particular time. Worth mentioning, in roughly chronological order:
Johnny Ball - his maths books (but mainly his TV shows) perhaps made me a maths/science specialist
Richard Dawkins - I read "Blind Watchmaker" aged 9 or so and the thoughts and conversations arising from that made quite a difference to the way I thought about science and faith.
"Watership Down" - a book that has stayed with me throughout my life, particularly the episode of Cowslip's warren.
Ray Bradbury - the first author who showed me that descriptive writing could be worth reading for its own sake
Martin Gardner - not so much his mathematical books, but his "Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener"
Adrian Plass - when stressing out about God at university it was extremely helpful
to find an evangelical who was human and didn't seem to imbue everything with world-shattering intensity
Susan Howatch - Not a widely-loved series on the Ship but I found her Starbridge novels extremely readable and thought-provoking on the nature of vocation, image and self-deception.
If you had to name one (or at most, three) writers who have been most influential in your understanding of faith or philosophy or approach to life and its meaning (or lack thereof), who would you name?
One of the tricky things about this is that the most truly influential writers are the ones that whose influence is embedded so deeply in a culture that it's absorbed unconsciously. For example, I would argue that the ideas in the U.S. Constitution are so deeply embedded in American culture that they're osmotically absorbed by Americans who have never read the document itself. The authors of the Constitution (and its amendments) are influential in the unnoticed way that a fish is influenced by the water it swims in.
I've mentioned this before here on the Ship but one author whose writing had the profoundest of influences on me when I was preparing to go and work in Kenya was Vincent J. Donovan's and his book "Christianity Rediscovered". Forever grateful to have read it!
When you buy a book three times to have on your book shelf it says something is important to you, only for me it is the "The Church in the Midst of Creation". Something in that book caught for me what I think the Church is about but I be blowed if I can put it on the page succinctly.
C.S. Lewis has to be there because he made me a reader. Anyone who has influenced me through books since has owed to him their ability to do so. However, I appreciate his thought often in unusual ways.
Thirdly Michel Foucault who is the major theoretical interlocuter in my thesis. The sustained depth of engagement over almost a decade with his work changed the way I think. I sometimes think Bordieu would have been easier, tidier but it was not to be. In all his contradiction, multifacetedness and difficulty it was Foucault who often said something that got me pushing the theory. Spiritually his idea of heterotopias still forms a significant part of my understanding of what happens and until Power becomes the servant of Love the Kingdom of God has not come.
This thread triggered a related thought in that over the years I've seen various book threads on twitter; either on the order of 'post X books that did Y for you' or 'have you seen the state of this bookshelf'. The latter in particular revealed that different people have different 'shelving philosophies' for want of a better term, and I just wonder how that plays into our classifications.
Because there are strongest influences currently, the ones that were most important along the way (which may well eclipse current influences in terms of importance), the invisible influences that Crœsos refers to and so on , and I see these different weightings in the wordings in each post.
The most influential authors aren't necessarily the ones I read most often - because the latter, even if worthy, tend to be more comfort reads
Maybe on the religious side Gehard Forde and Capon.
Julien Graq's "Opposing Shore" - which I've read multiple times but always feel a little bit of trepidation when starting.
Oh, and Rawls, not because I'm a Rawlsian, and I feel some of his reasoning is circular, but his conclusions seem to me to fence the boundaries of any civilised morality.
Spiritually his idea of heterotopias still forms a significant part of my understanding of what happens and until Power becomes the servant of Love the Kingdom of God has not come.
I'd really be interested to know which work by Bordieu you would have started with had you followed that path instead.
If you had to name one (or at most, three) writers who have been most influential in your understanding of faith or philosophy or approach to life and its meaning (or lack thereof), who would you name?
One of the tricky things about this is that the most truly influential writers are the ones that whose influence is embedded so deeply in a culture that it's absorbed unconsciously. For example, I would argue that the ideas in the U.S. Constitution are so deeply embedded in American culture that they're osmotically absorbed by Americans who have never read the document itself. The authors of the Constitution (and its amendments) are influential in the unnoticed way that a fish is influenced by the water it swims in.
Oh, I could add the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and such, too.
It's a bit arbitrary really, but 3 authors hove into view. First, as a kid, Robinson Crusoe blew my socks off, a great story, but it also helped with my introversion. Second, I studied linguistics, and taught it and yer man here is Noam Chomsky, so Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Also interesting politically. Third, I was a Catholic for ages, but started some hard core meditation, and things went pop, in a good way, and here Thomas Merton helped.
If you had to name one (or at most, three) writers who have been most influential in your understanding of faith or philosophy or approach to life and its meaning (or lack thereof), who would you name?
One of the tricky things about this is that the most truly influential writers are the ones that whose influence is embedded so deeply in a culture that it's absorbed unconsciously. For example, I would argue that the ideas in the U.S. Constitution are so deeply embedded in American culture that they're osmotically absorbed by Americans who have never read the document itself. The authors of the Constitution (and its amendments) are influential in the unnoticed way that a fish is influenced by the water it swims in.
Oh, I could add the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and such, too.
Except that we don’t have identified “writers” for most of the Bible.
If you had to name one (or at most, three) writers who have been most influential in your understanding of faith or philosophy or approach to life and its meaning (or lack thereof), who would you name?
One of the tricky things about this is that the most truly influential writers are the ones that whose influence is embedded so deeply in a culture that it's absorbed unconsciously. For example, I would argue that the ideas in the U.S. Constitution are so deeply embedded in American culture that they're osmotically absorbed by Americans who have never read the document itself. The authors of the Constitution (and its amendments) are influential in the unnoticed way that a fish is influenced by the water it swims in.
Oh, I could add the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and such, too.
Except that we don’t have identified “writers” for most of the Bible.
Ditto the American 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
I get the “invisible influences” thing, but anything like this can be overanalyzed. One can acknowledge the realities of invisible influences, but still say “these are the writers that I identify as having influenced my thinking/perspective/whatever most.”
If you had to name one (or at most, three) writers who have been most influential in your understanding of faith or philosophy or approach to life and its meaning (or lack thereof), who would you name?
One of the tricky things about this is that the most truly influential writers are the ones that whose influence is embedded so deeply in a culture that it's absorbed unconsciously. For example, I would argue that the ideas in the U.S. Constitution are so deeply embedded in American culture that they're osmotically absorbed by Americans who have never read the document itself. The authors of the Constitution (and its amendments) are influential in the unnoticed way that a fish is influenced by the water it swims in.
Oh, I could add the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and such, too.
Except that we don’t have identified “writers” for most of the Bible.
And at very least we have an awful lot of them. And like the Constitution (which is why I mentioned it there), it permeates things (as does the BCP liturgy for me—there’s so much basic (and for me, solid and good) theology in the liturgy alone that helped not only reinforce but teach me basic Christian truths).
Getting back to my list, for Aristotle, because I spent the better part of a previous career getting my head around Aristotle and for better or worse he deeply influenced my way of thinking for at least a decade of my life. In retrospect, many of the explanatory systems he built have not stood the test of time, but I still find his way of thinking through the issues and his insights along the way extremely valuable. And his desire to achieve a rationally-based big-picture understanding of the world and our place in it is deeply compelling even if ultimately his reach by far exceeded humanity’s grasp.
Hume and Bacon were a badly needed corrective for me in terms of calibrating expectations of what our rationality could accomplish. Much of Hume is about the limits of justification, in both epistemology and ethics, there are some things about our thinking that just are and cannot be justified on a more fundamental basis (though perhaps can be given an interpretation through faith). I remember Bacon for his emphasis on the “middle axioms” - i.e., the importance of explanations that don’t purport to be ultimate explanations - and also for the insight that we learn more about nature when it acts in unexpected ways than when it does what it does for the most part.
I’m not sure exactly where Augustine comes in here - he was an odd writer to mention because I haven’t actually read a lot of Augustine - but I’m sure I was thinking in part of the dictum “love and do what you will” in connection with the limitations of rational justification in ethics.
Aristotle is funny that way - in a way he wants to reduce ethics and the virtues to rationality and “practical wisdom” (phronesis) finding the mean between two extremes, but whenever he talks about the individual virtues he always talks about how practical wisdom looks to “the noble” (to kalon) in determining what the mean and the virtuous course of action is - “the noble” itself being a wholly unanalyzed concept that is not part of his theoretical account of virtue but creeps in almost unnoticed when he talks about the virtues in practice. Translate that into a Christian/Augustinian context and virtue and practical wisdom become a rational working out of what the required by love of God and neighbour in particular contexts.
For all my snarky jibes, for which I apologise, I'm finding this thread an interesting read and it's adding to my ever growing list of 'why haven't I read X or Y yet?'
Well, as for mine, yes H A Williams. The True Wilderness, and in particular the piece called "Life Abundant or Life Resisting?" is something which shapes my attitude to God and to living. Or I try to let it do so, anyway. An honourable mention also for his autobiography, "Some day I'll find you", and in particular his brief and pithy account of post-breakdown, psychologically healthy faith. One or other has a description of telling all pre-formulated piety to fuck off, which I have always found encouraging and useful. I will be me, however, messy, when dealing with God. That is not negotiable.
Beckett, in particular "Waiting for Godot" is an account of what it feels like to be human which I find utterly convincing, but also curiously limiting, in that I find it to accept anything that contradicts it by being authentically hopeful.
The Revelations of Divine Love has to be the third text. Over the last 12 years it's taken me on a long, quiet, tentative journey into something like hope, and started to convince me that there is a coherent person there, who is really loved by a really loving deity whose love shapes the universe.
Tom Shakespeare, a disability theorist whose writings on models of disability, especially his book Disability Rights and Wrongs, explained my own reservations about the social model of disability. This led me towards critical realism as my research philosophy for exploring student mental health and the embracing of an affirmative model of disability in my teaching and activism. It also strengthened my confidence in my own voice as a disabled academic rejecting the dominant social constructivist theory about disability.
Spiritually his idea of heterotopias still forms a significant part of my understanding of what happens and until Power becomes the servant of Love the Kingdom of God has not come.
I'd really be interested to know which work by Bordieu you would have started with had you followed that path instead.[/quote]
Sorry Foucault and his work on "Other Spaces" which deals with heterotopias helps my understanding of religious space. Basically space as a psalimpest with different meanings and understandings. This would reach onto the work of Lefebrvre but I would not necessarily want to divide the meanings in the Marxist way he does. Rather not all meanings have equal volume within the space.
The second draws more generally on Foucault or rather on his use of Weber which is the question "what does an individual have to deny to be considered a person?" which if seen as the driving force of a technology in the foucauldian sense pushes it towards being an "othering" in its boundary making (see late works by Fredrik Barth). That means we focus on identity through exclusion. We can only reach beyond this if we change the way our technologies work, the way our power structures work and for that to happen we need to create a technologie of Love-Welfare for those we would other. To change the question at the heart of humanity to "How do I enable others to be full persons?" It is an impossible dream, that makes power the true servant of love. Lord Thy Kingdom come.
My thesis was in sociology of religion (Ethnography of Congregations to be more precise) and Bourdieu was primarily a sociologist while Foucault was primarily a philosopher. Bourdieu had ideas that related to the small and local such as ecologies and as I was dealing with congregations these would have been a far more natural fit than Foucault with his grand meta theories. Finally I am statistician in background, Bourdieu at least dealt with statistics and is influenced by statistics, some of his ideas about ecologies seem to be very similar to those involved in Bayesian statistics. On the grounds that unusually you are able to work better and go further with people who works are closer to yours I would have put my money on Bourdieu rather than Foucault.
I feel greedy, so I'm adding a fourth author, and it has to be Freud. His writings uprooted my ideas about personality, and I had a Freudian therapist, so all systems go. That beautiful phrase, the unthought known, captures the paradoxical nature of psychoanalysis.
I'm another for whom CS Lewis has been by far the biggest figure
I read a collection of CSL's essays as a teenager, and they've rather stuck with me. The other writer I'll claim had a significant impact on me is Boethius - reading "On the Consolation of Philosophy" got me through a fairly significant spiritual wasteland.
I'm another for whom CS Lewis has been by far the biggest figure
I read a collection of CSL's essays as a teenager, and they've rather stuck with me. The other writer I'll claim had a significant impact on me is Boethius - reading "On the Consolation of Philosophy" got me through a fairly significant spiritual wasteland.
Boethius is AWESOME. ❤️❤️❤️
Back in the 1990s, I found Robert Bly’s “Iron John” helpful.
It’s been a while but I recall finding Geoff Mains’ “Urban Aboriginals” helpful also.
If you had to name one (or at most, three) writers who have been most influential in your understanding of faith or philosophy or approach to life and its meaning (or lack thereof), who would you name?
One of the tricky things about this is that the most truly influential writers are the ones that whose influence is embedded so deeply in a culture that it's absorbed unconsciously. For example, I would argue that the ideas in the U.S. Constitution are so deeply embedded in American culture that they're osmotically absorbed by Americans who have never read the document itself. The authors of the Constitution (and its amendments) are influential in the unnoticed way that a fish is influenced by the water it swims in.
Oh, I could add the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and such, too.
Except that we don’t have identified “writers” for most of the Bible.
And at very least we have an awful lot of them. And like the Constitution (which is why I mentioned it there), it permeates things (as does the BCP liturgy for me—there’s so much basic (and for me, solid and good) theology in the liturgy alone that helped not only reinforce but teach me basic Christian truths).
My guess is that you're taking the names of the books of the Bible at face value for most of their authors as well -- the "traditional" authors. That's nice, but doesn't really tell us who actually did the thinking, let alone the writing.
Sorry for the double post. After a bit of reflection, I'm going to remove my Tolkien placeholder nomination for composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, whose work has informed my understanding of humanity (especially its frailties) and relationships more than any other. Plus, he has the whole music thing going for him.
. . . , I'm finding this thread an interesting read and it's adding to my ever growing list of 'why haven't I read X or Y yet?'
Same here, or even “why have I never heard of Z?”
Mostly that last. Then people talk about then and I realise I probably wouldn't understand them anyway.
Not heard of Bourdieu. Pretty sure I wouldn't 'get' it.
The approach with authors like that isn't to find their magnum opus and read it at pace - few people learn that way anyway. They can be a source of insight and different ways of viewing the world and for that reason valuable to read even if you dip into a paper or extract or two.
If you had to name one (or at most, three) writers who have been most influential in your understanding of faith or philosophy or approach to life and its meaning (or lack thereof), who would you name?
One of the tricky things about this is that the most truly influential writers are the ones that whose influence is embedded so deeply in a culture that it's absorbed unconsciously. For example, I would argue that the ideas in the U.S. Constitution are so deeply embedded in American culture that they're osmotically absorbed by Americans who have never read the document itself. The authors of the Constitution (and its amendments) are influential in the unnoticed way that a fish is influenced by the water it swims in.
Oh, I could add the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and such, too.
Except that we don’t have identified “writers” for most of the Bible.
And at very least we have an awful lot of them. And like the Constitution (which is why I mentioned it there), it permeates things (as does the BCP liturgy for me—there’s so much basic (and for me, solid and good) theology in the liturgy alone that helped not only reinforce but teach me basic Christian truths).
My guess is that you're taking the names of the books of the Bible at face value for most of their authors as well -- the "traditional" authors. That's nice, but doesn't really tell us who actually did the thinking, let alone the writing.
Not necessarily. It depends on the book/Gospel/letter/etc. But there would still be a lot of them, regardless.
And of course if one is viewing the numerous books of the Bible as a vehicle for sacred truth, who the specific earthly writers (whatever degree the Holy Spirit is involved is a factor, too) turn out to be (which I trust we’ll learn when the time comes) is less important than what is said and how to interpret it, on what levels, etc.
And of course if one is viewing the numerous books of the Bible as a vehicle for sacred truth, who the specific earthly writers (whatever degree the Holy Spirit is involved is a factor, too) turn out to be (which I trust we’ll learn when the time comes) is less important than what is said and how to interpret it, on what levels, etc.
In terms of the Bible as sacred writings, sure. But in terms of a thread that asks which writers, not which books, most influenced you, the identity of the writer is at the heart of the question.
(Granted, one could do a work-around, like “the writer of Hebrews.”)
And of course if one is viewing the numerous books of the Bible as a vehicle for sacred truth, who the specific earthly writers (whatever degree the Holy Spirit is involved is a factor, too) turn out to be (which I trust we’ll learn when the time comes) is less important than what is said and how to interpret it, on what levels, etc.
In terms of the Bible as sacred writings, sure. But in terms of a thread that asks which writers, not which books, most influenced you, the identity of the writer is at the heart of the question.
(Granted, one could do a work-around, like “the writer of Hebrews.”)
Well, yes, that was why I put it in response to the way the US Constitution permeates everything, the Bible as a whole, the BCP as a whole, rather than writers. I think it's somewhat similar as being the water one swims in, etc., in that kind of church context.
Comments
I have. He's another one.
But yes, @Nick Tamen is right. This is a thread about writers we've been influenced by, not those we haven't.
Full disclosure: Given that what I was hoping for from this thread was primarily sharing that helped give us a slightly picture of one another rather than actual debate, I did wonder if Purgatory was the right forum. Perhaps the thread belongs elsewhere.
@Enoch if you want to critique ship policies or hosting, do so in Styx.
Doublethink, Admin
I think my three authors mentioned above would agree. Marx, Frankl and Spong.
Also a C S Lewis fan. I remember being so proud of working out for myself (at the age of around 8) how Aslan was like Jesus (my mum pricked my bubble - "Yes. Of course."). I read the books to both my children at bedtime - they were probably desperate for sleep and I'd go on for "One more chapter." I found The Screwtape Letters fascinating due to the point of view they were written from.
Sorry for the unintended drip feed.
Nyiszli introduced me to reality. Auschwitz: meaningless cosmic horror.
Armstrong contextualized that in Biblical prophecy: made (pragmatic) God real.
McLaren made God fully inclusively competently omnipotently liberal.
I have loved many other authors and books - notably those of his old friend Tolkien - and some have even had an influence, but more in the sense of an occasional nudge or helping hand at a particular time. Worth mentioning, in roughly chronological order:
Johnny Ball - his maths books (but mainly his TV shows) perhaps made me a maths/science specialist
Richard Dawkins - I read "Blind Watchmaker" aged 9 or so and the thoughts and conversations arising from that made quite a difference to the way I thought about science and faith.
"Watership Down" - a book that has stayed with me throughout my life, particularly the episode of Cowslip's warren.
Ray Bradbury - the first author who showed me that descriptive writing could be worth reading for its own sake
Martin Gardner - not so much his mathematical books, but his "Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener"
Adrian Plass - when stressing out about God at university it was extremely helpful
to find an evangelical who was human and didn't seem to imbue everything with world-shattering intensity
Susan Howatch - Not a widely-loved series on the Ship but I found her Starbridge novels extremely readable and thought-provoking on the nature of vocation, image and self-deception.
That'll do for now!
One of the tricky things about this is that the most truly influential writers are the ones that whose influence is embedded so deeply in a culture that it's absorbed unconsciously. For example, I would argue that the ideas in the U.S. Constitution are so deeply embedded in American culture that they're osmotically absorbed by Americans who have never read the document itself. The authors of the Constitution (and its amendments) are influential in the unnoticed way that a fish is influenced by the water it swims in.
When you buy a book three times to have on your book shelf it says something is important to you, only for me it is the "The Church in the Midst of Creation". Something in that book caught for me what I think the Church is about but I be blowed if I can put it on the page succinctly.
C.S. Lewis has to be there because he made me a reader. Anyone who has influenced me through books since has owed to him their ability to do so. However, I appreciate his thought often in unusual ways.
Thirdly Michel Foucault who is the major theoretical interlocuter in my thesis. The sustained depth of engagement over almost a decade with his work changed the way I think. I sometimes think Bordieu would have been easier, tidier but it was not to be. In all his contradiction, multifacetedness and difficulty it was Foucault who often said something that got me pushing the theory. Spiritually his idea of heterotopias still forms a significant part of my understanding of what happens and until Power becomes the servant of Love the Kingdom of God has not come.
Because there are strongest influences currently, the ones that were most important along the way (which may well eclipse current influences in terms of importance), the invisible influences that Crœsos refers to and so on , and I see these different weightings in the wordings in each post.
The most influential authors aren't necessarily the ones I read most often - because the latter, even if worthy, tend to be more comfort reads
Maybe on the religious side Gehard Forde and Capon.
Julien Graq's "Opposing Shore" - which I've read multiple times but always feel a little bit of trepidation when starting.
Oh, and Rawls, not because I'm a Rawlsian, and I feel some of his reasoning is circular, but his conclusions seem to me to fence the boundaries of any civilised morality.
I'd really be interested to know which work by Bordieu you would have started with had you followed that path instead.
Oh, I could add the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and such, too.
Except that we don’t have identified “writers” for most of the Bible.
I get the “invisible influences” thing, but anything like this can be overanalyzed. One can acknowledge the realities of invisible influences, but still say “these are the writers that I identify as having influenced my thinking/perspective/whatever most.”
And at very least we have an awful lot of them. And like the Constitution (which is why I mentioned it there), it permeates things (as does the BCP liturgy for me—there’s so much basic (and for me, solid and good) theology in the liturgy alone that helped not only reinforce but teach me basic Christian truths).
Hume and Bacon were a badly needed corrective for me in terms of calibrating expectations of what our rationality could accomplish. Much of Hume is about the limits of justification, in both epistemology and ethics, there are some things about our thinking that just are and cannot be justified on a more fundamental basis (though perhaps can be given an interpretation through faith). I remember Bacon for his emphasis on the “middle axioms” - i.e., the importance of explanations that don’t purport to be ultimate explanations - and also for the insight that we learn more about nature when it acts in unexpected ways than when it does what it does for the most part.
I’m not sure exactly where Augustine comes in here - he was an odd writer to mention because I haven’t actually read a lot of Augustine - but I’m sure I was thinking in part of the dictum “love and do what you will” in connection with the limitations of rational justification in ethics.
Aristotle is funny that way - in a way he wants to reduce ethics and the virtues to rationality and “practical wisdom” (phronesis) finding the mean between two extremes, but whenever he talks about the individual virtues he always talks about how practical wisdom looks to “the noble” (to kalon) in determining what the mean and the virtuous course of action is - “the noble” itself being a wholly unanalyzed concept that is not part of his theoretical account of virtue but creeps in almost unnoticed when he talks about the virtues in practice. Translate that into a Christian/Augustinian context and virtue and practical wisdom become a rational working out of what the required by love of God and neighbour in particular contexts.
Well, as for mine, yes H A Williams. The True Wilderness, and in particular the piece called "Life Abundant or Life Resisting?" is something which shapes my attitude to God and to living. Or I try to let it do so, anyway. An honourable mention also for his autobiography, "Some day I'll find you", and in particular his brief and pithy account of post-breakdown, psychologically healthy faith. One or other has a description of telling all pre-formulated piety to fuck off, which I have always found encouraging and useful. I will be me, however, messy, when dealing with God. That is not negotiable.
Beckett, in particular "Waiting for Godot" is an account of what it feels like to be human which I find utterly convincing, but also curiously limiting, in that I find it to accept anything that contradicts it by being authentically hopeful.
The Revelations of Divine Love has to be the third text. Over the last 12 years it's taken me on a long, quiet, tentative journey into something like hope, and started to convince me that there is a coherent person there, who is really loved by a really loving deity whose love shapes the universe.
I'd really be interested to know which work by Bordieu you would have started with had you followed that path instead.[/quote]
Sorry Foucault and his work on "Other Spaces" which deals with heterotopias helps my understanding of religious space. Basically space as a psalimpest with different meanings and understandings. This would reach onto the work of Lefebrvre but I would not necessarily want to divide the meanings in the Marxist way he does. Rather not all meanings have equal volume within the space.
The second draws more generally on Foucault or rather on his use of Weber which is the question "what does an individual have to deny to be considered a person?" which if seen as the driving force of a technology in the foucauldian sense pushes it towards being an "othering" in its boundary making (see late works by Fredrik Barth). That means we focus on identity through exclusion. We can only reach beyond this if we change the way our technologies work, the way our power structures work and for that to happen we need to create a technologie of Love-Welfare for those we would other. To change the question at the heart of humanity to "How do I enable others to be full persons?" It is an impossible dream, that makes power the true servant of love. Lord Thy Kingdom come.
Right, and my I might have been unintentionally confusing by quoting the later part of your post, i was referring to this:
" I sometimes think Bordieu would have been easier, tidier but it was not to be."
Or was that a more general comment rather than one specifically about your thesis?
My thesis was in sociology of religion (Ethnography of Congregations to be more precise) and Bourdieu was primarily a sociologist while Foucault was primarily a philosopher. Bourdieu had ideas that related to the small and local such as ecologies and as I was dealing with congregations these would have been a far more natural fit than Foucault with his grand meta theories. Finally I am statistician in background, Bourdieu at least dealt with statistics and is influenced by statistics, some of his ideas about ecologies seem to be very similar to those involved in Bayesian statistics. On the grounds that unusually you are able to work better and go further with people who works are closer to yours I would have put my money on Bourdieu rather than Foucault.
Does that make sense.
I feel he's very much in the category of read but now invisible influence for me.
Mostly that last. Then people talk about then and I realise I probably wouldn't understand them anyway.
I read a collection of CSL's essays as a teenager, and they've rather stuck with me. The other writer I'll claim had a significant impact on me is Boethius - reading "On the Consolation of Philosophy" got me through a fairly significant spiritual wasteland.
Boethius is AWESOME. ❤️❤️❤️
Back in the 1990s, I found Robert Bly’s “Iron John” helpful.
It’s been a while but I recall finding Geoff Mains’ “Urban Aboriginals” helpful also.
Likewise.
Not heard of Bourdieu.
Pretty sure I wouldn't 'get' it.
I've read some Foucault and Derrida but only enough to fuel the gag I keep trotting out whenever either of them are mentioned.
'Derrida? He's got Foucault to do with it ...'
I'll get me coat.
My guess is that you're taking the names of the books of the Bible at face value for most of their authors as well -- the "traditional" authors. That's nice, but doesn't really tell us who actually did the thinking, let alone the writing.
The approach with authors like that isn't to find their magnum opus and read it at pace - few people learn that way anyway. They can be a source of insight and different ways of viewing the world and for that reason valuable to read even if you dip into a paper or extract or two.
Not necessarily. It depends on the book/Gospel/letter/etc. But there would still be a lot of them, regardless.
And of course if one is viewing the numerous books of the Bible as a vehicle for sacred truth, who the specific earthly writers (whatever degree the Holy Spirit is involved is a factor, too) turn out to be (which I trust we’ll learn when the time comes) is less important than what is said and how to interpret it, on what levels, etc.
(Granted, one could do a work-around, like “the writer of Hebrews.”)
Alan
Ship of Fools Admin
Well, yes, that was why I put it in response to the way the US Constitution permeates everything, the Bible as a whole, the BCP as a whole, rather than writers. I think it's somewhat similar as being the water one swims in, etc., in that kind of church context.
Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God and Barracoon
Frank Herbert's Dune novels, particularly Dune.
Franz Kafka: Die Verwandlung, Der Prozess, Ein Hungerkünstler, and Ein Bericht für eine Akademie.
Rollo May
Victor Frankl
R. D. Laing
Isaac Asimov
John Betjeman on faith and doubt and humanity
Ronald Blythe - he ‘got’ rural England, or a type of it in a way few others have
David Niven (seriously) - between about 18 and 30 The Moon’s A Balloon was my manual for how to approach life