Making Good of Better Intentions

So much for good intentions. I haven’t exactly made good of my hope to post more frequently. I don’t like purely personal updates, but most of my personal life is academic now anyway.

What I’ve Been Reading (and Writing)

I’ve been reading mostly metaphysics and epistemology for the past three months, and I love it. Currently writing (more accurately, shirking at the moment) a precis (a short summary of an article, chapter or book) on “The Incoherence of Empiricism”–which is an insightful series of arguments by George Bealer (Yale) that seriously undermine empiricism. Empiricism is just the view that our only evidence for beliefs (and therefore, theories) are experience and observation. This leaves out intuition, and notably, those particular beliefs that “we just know” on the basis of intuition.

There are apparently various forms of arguments against empiricism that it begs the question (assumes what its trying to prove), but Bealer hopes to show that it’s also self-defeating–it undermines itself by its own principles. So even if it didn’t beg the question, it’d be incoherent. Here’s a bit from my essay that I rather like (it’s summarizing one of Bealer’s points):

Empiricists have prima facie evidence for doubting that theories deviating from the epistemic norm are justified.
Empiricism deviates from the epistemic norm.
Therefore, empiricists have reason to doubt that empiricism is justified.

Fun, huh?

On other fronts, I’m reading Substance and Modern Science, by Richard Connell for my metaphysics term paper (due to our illustrious professor, J.P. Moreland). This an interesting little book on, well, substances, and the contention of modern science that they do not exist.

Also reading for a term paper on Hebrew wisdom and poetry for my Old Testament class. I’m synthesizing Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiasties and Song of Songs over 20 pages. It’s a topic better suited for a series of books, but I’m hoping to narrow my discussion with an examination of theodicy (a response to the problem of evil) in these books. I’ve had a long-time personal interest in Old Testament wisdom literature, so this is fun.

Finally, another epistemology paper – one that I’m sorely behind on reading for: religious epistemology. I haven’t narrowed my topic from there, so maybe another post sometime soon will help with that.

(Lani’s doing the metaphysics and OT paper [her's is on the Pentateuch], too; and she’s working on a really awesome paper on “An Aristotelian Formulation of the Role of Community in Moral Formation”–which sounds scrumtrilescient. I can’t wait to read it. I’ll have to post some of it to share with you, dear reader.)

Our Child

I couldn’t possibly represent what’s been going on inside of Lani’s body here. A child is there; moving around (kicking her in the bladder), feeding off something like 24 vitamins a day (not an exaggeration), forming neural connections at an exponential rate.

Name frontrunners:

If XX: Nan
If XY: Benjamin

Middle names are up in the air, but we’d like to use family names.

I’ve had more thoughts and feelings about all this, which I’ll have to collect and prepare, then slowly publish here. I don’t know how else to properly put them to, er… paper? html? Aye.

But for now, dats da haps.

Picking up the velocity here…

I’ve been on hiatus, huh?

Lots going on, really. We moved 400 miles southward on August 1 (note: I arrived with a 16′ truck-full of belongings, and, ah… no where to put it). We ended up down the street from Biola, where we’re attending grad school at Talbot School of Theology. Lani and I are both enrolled in the MA in Philosophy.

We miss people and places in the Bay Area, but overall, we are very happy with this life change. We’re both flourishing in the academic environment.

Lani’s put on about 10 pounds recently… but it’s mostly because there’s a living human being inside of her now. See my recent “Ultra” post. Got another one coming too.

I’ve got a lot on my mind, what with all of these changes, and hope to be posting a good deal more frequently…

Specifically, I’m hoping for a couple new series:

1. What I’m Reading: I’ve always wanted to process the stuff that I read up here, just to put thoughts to… ahh… not paper, but… something like it… megabytes? So philosophy, theology, literature or otherwise, I’m looking forward to doing that.

2. Thoughts on the Child: I’ve had quite a lot of thoughts on fatherhood and early human life over the past two years. Some things that nag me way to much to leave unsaid.

Here’s to picking up the velocity once again…

Ultra

6 weeks

11 weeks

20 weeks

KenYEAH!

Into Another Intensity

Grammie 1924-2009

My grandma, Alice Dubour, died on February 21, 2009. A week later, I was in Massachusetts celebrating her life with the rest of my family. I knelt beside her still body, wondering where she was; seeing her there, but still wondering. I touched the skin of her arm. It was important to me to make contact, whatever help that might be for understanding what death even is. I thought of Nonno too. But that’s an older, different story.

These were the words I spoke, at the service, to Grammie, to my family, to myself, to God.

I’ll remember Grammie well – with very fond memories of bunk beds, of $5 and an old photo every month or so, the many Grammie-isms, and lots and lots of ben-gay… I can still smell that ben-gay.

Now, we grew up geographically apart. And yet, we were together. Not just on visits. Speicifically, she always used to tell me, at the end of every phone call, “I’ve got you on my shoulder: one of you [me and my brother] on each side.” Back in December, she reminded me for the last time. And since then, and especially in the past few weeks, I’ve come to understand this in a new way. All of us stand on shoulders – of those that go before us.

This family, with the faith we share in the triune God, it was passed on. Given. We received it from our parents. And in so receiving, we stood on their shoulders. And so in this way, she’s got us all on her shoulders. Just as she also is on another’s shoulder; as all of us are on the shoulder of Christ.

And this is our great and only hope that she passed on to us:

We are dust, enlivened and sustained by God.
But His coming to us proves our worth.
And one day we shall all be changed. We shall be raised in Christ as we were buried in Christ. Death is swallowed up in His victory, no more to sting.
He makes all things new; He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

T.S. Elliot encourages us:

We must be still and still moving into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters of the petrel and the porpoise
In my end is my beginning

As a point of interest, the same priest that married my parents, baptized me almost exactly 26 years ago, and my brother 23 years ago, officiated my grandmother’s funeral. He left pretty much right away. I’d have liked to say hi, or thank you.

On a Personal Note…

I’m applying to graduate school. Two places, both of which are tantalizing Lani and me: Regent College and Talbot School of Theology. The applications are in, and I’ll find out sometime soon. April probably.

We have no which one we’ll end up at, so it’s something that we’re asking God and each other about quite a bit. The pros are heavy for both schools, and there are few cons, which makes the decision pretty tough.

This is new. God help us!

Here’s the Personal Statement I wrote for Regent. Just a little taste of my tastes.