“We already knew that Heidegger’s institutional involvement with the Nazi party — in particular, his agreement to become rector of Freiburg University in 1933 — was motivated less by political enthusiasm than by a long-held ambition for university reform. The inadequacy of modern universities (which, Heidegger complained, were becoming mere polytechnics), and the squeezing of philosophy departments by efficiency reviews on the one hand and church control on the other, had worried him since the beginning of his university career. At the time of Heidegger’s rectorship, the Nazi party had not yet developed a unified education policy, and it is clear from his inaugural address and the letters surrounding his acceptance of the post that Heidegger was hoping to seize the moment to put into action the intellectual renewal he had been writing and lecturing about for a decade. That he was soon disillusioned becomes clear both in a series of disappointed letters to friends (complaining that a very differently-minded candidate had been appointed minister of education and that he, Heidegger, had not been invited to any education policy meetings at the higher level), and in his premature resignation from the rectorship in early 1934. Heidegger never dabbled in party business again.”

Judith Wolfe - "Caught in the Trap of His Own Metaphysics," Standpoint Magazine - http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/5583/full 

This is an nteresting and excellent public note on the recent publication of Heidegger's black notebooks. Wolfe was recently appointed at St. Andrews University Divinity School, and a brief interview on her recent Heidegger and Theology with Bloomsbury can also be found here: http://bit.ly/1jZuOOO. This latter book looks to be an exceptional edition based on two years of archival research at Humboldt and Freiburg Universities.

“This special issue of Modern theology stages a critical conversation around the multifocal texts composing Polydoxy: Theology of Multiplicity and Relation, edited by Catherine Keller and Laurel Schneider. That volume is in part the product of a Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquium at Drew University entitled, ‘Polydoxy: Theologies of the Manifold.’ In order to introduce, expand, and refine this vibrant set of theological possibilities, it is our hope in this issue to bring a diversity of perspective to bear on some of the positions enacted in and as ‘polydoxy.’”

— Mary-Jane Rubenstein, "Introducing Polydoxy" Modern Theology, vol 30 no 3, July 2014

Interesting volume of Modern Theology on Polydoxy - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/moth.12117/abstract

“I am not sure I expected the story of the long-forgotten Aleppo Codex, the perfect copy of the Hebrew Bible, to occupy me for very long after the publication of my book on the subject in 2012. I thought I would soon be on to other things, which is the way journalism tends to work. But, as sometimes happens, the story has taken on a life of its own: a cover-up energized by the fallout from my book; the rejuvenated activities of a small group of codex loyalists ranging in age from 36 (me) to 82 (former Mossad case officer Rafi Sutton); and a recent edict issued against me by a prominent rabbi in New York. In short, the story of the Aleppo Codex is alive today as it has not been in many decades, and I believe an update on developments over the past two years is warranted for those who find themselves fascinated by the strange and ongoing saga of one of the most important manuscripts on earth.”

Matti Friedman "The Continuing Mysteries of the Aleppo Codex," Tablet - http://www.tabletmag.com/?p=176903

An interesting read for anyone interested in the history of codex books.

“My answer is that, for Kant, to respect personhood requires us to respect or promote various more empirical features of human beings: their happiness, their choices and the natural purposes that (so Kant believes) they find within themselves. We must also act in ways that are expressive of our respect for that value of personhood, so we must not allow ourselves to behave in a supine or submissive manner and we must not demean or disparage others. Between them, I think, these different ways of respecting humanity in our persons cover Kant’s views about the different duties that we have...”

Michael Rosen, "Kant Confusion," Times Literary Supplement - http://bit.ly/1zqXQeA

Rosen's suggestion, it seems to me, echoes Levinas' appropriation of Kant in that he also collapses the transcendent into the ethical imperative to treat others as ends in themselves.

“Traditionally, God’s necessity is not logical necessity but some kind of metaphysical necessity, or aseity. Unlike Hume, I don’t think this is a silly or incoherent idea, any more than I think mathematical Platonism is silly or incoherent. As it happens, I am not a mathematical Platonist, and I do have conceptual difficulties with the idea of metaphysical necessity. So in the end, I am not sure that the Christian God idea flies, but I want to extend to Christians the courtesy of arguing against what they actually believe, rather than begin and end with the polemical parody of what Dawkins calls ‘the God delusion.’”

"Does Evolution Explain Religious Beliefs?" The NY Times, Philosopher's Stone Blog

“Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the philosophy of solitude. The state of being alone can arise for many different reasons: imprisonment, exile or personal choice. It can be prompted by religious belief, personal necessity or a philosophical need for solitary contemplation. Many thinkers have dealt with the subject, from Plato and Aristotle to Hannah Arendt. It’s a philosophical tradition that takes in medieval religious mystics, the work of Montaigne and Adam Smith, and the great American poets of solitude Thoreau and Emerson.”

Melvin Bragg's In Our Time, BBC4 Podcast, "The Philosophy of Solitude," http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046ntnz

Towards the end of one of the seminars I taught on Jewish thought this past semester a student told a story, which seemed quite apropos to Arendt's conclusion to The Origins of Totalitarianism. They recounted the experience of struggling with heavy bags to find a seat on a train.  As they passed by, each person turned away or pretended not to notice. The student wrestled through and eventually found a place to rest. Then a man from Peru made eye contact - a moment of recognition that led to a conversation. Just four weeks prior the man had been beaten to an inch of his life by thugs, destroying his guitar in the process. Yet, of all those in the crowd, he reached out to connect.

This example perfectly sums up Arendt's notion of loneliness. Unlike solitude loneliness occurs in the experience of displacment and dislocation from others. The paradox being that loneliness requires another person and is accentuated in what Arendt calls "the masses." Part of Arendt's enduring relevance is due to this common experience in cities and factories today. Furthermore, as was the case in Melissa Raphael's work on The Female Face of God in Auschwitz, the moment of recognition is crucial to Levinas' notion of "the face." Even clearing the mud from another person's face can be redemptive if its aim is to recognize them as a human being anew and as an end in themselves. This is especially true when we find ourselves in situations where people are treated as mere things or dispensable beasts. 

Arendt's conclusion to The Origins of Totalitarianism, focused on the link between loneliness, terror and ideology. As we discussed, she asked her readers to think in their experience, not just follow the cold logic of ideas. She encouraged communication between a plurality of human beings, not just those bound together by common appearance or history.

In many respects, I hope our class discussions this semester embodied those aims.

As it happens, the Blake Prize is on tour at Newcastle University's Art Gallery at the moment. Well worth visiting, and there is one piece in particular that echoes the seminar conversations that occurred this semester. In particular, Franz Kempf's "The Outrageous Has Become Commonplace," which was this year's winner for human justice and can be seen on the Blake's website along with all the others.

“When The Atlantic was revising its style guide for the web a few months ago, my cubicle unexpectedly turned into a metaphysical brawling zone. Our house policy is to capitalize ‘God’ when it refers to the entity worshipped by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. (Other times, it’s not capitalized—for example, when writing about how I’m the ‘god of the office candy jar.’) In my opinion, this suggests a belief on the part of the writer: Capitalizing ‘God’ means he or she believes in the formal existence of a thing called god, so that name is capitalized like any other name. My boss disagrees. Neither, he says, does capitalizing the protagonist’s name from The Big Lebowski entail belief in the existence of the Dude. So we capitalize God... Perhaps the trickiest of all is the entry for Jesus, who is described as ‘the central figure of Christianity.’ The philosophical twist is in the pronouns; unlike prayerbooks or the Bible, which refer to him as Him, the AP instructs newspapers that ‘personal pronouns referring to him are lowercase, as is savior.’ If Jesus is in the news, he can be the ‘Son of God’ or the ‘Redeemer’ (both capitalized). But when it comes to pronouns, the AP says, he’s a ‘he,’ just like any mortal man.”

"AP's Style Guide for Religion, Metaphysics, and God's Existence" The Atlantic - http://bit.ly/1hnH36o

It is interesting in particular that the editors at the Atlantic had to negotiate the theological issues at stake in the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon regarding how to communicate the humanity and divinity of Jesus. The issue is humorously echoed in Steve Martin's "Atheists Don't Have No Songs."

“For almost every student, creativity increased substantially when they walked. Most were able to generate about 60 percent more uses for an object, and the ideas were both ‘novel and appropriate,’ Dr. Oppezzo writes in her study, which was published this month in The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/want-to-be-more-creative-take-a-walk/

I'm sometimes asked why my research writing is dense and rather complex at times. I usually respond with an analogy. Some of the most complex math today sits behind that simple white box on Google's website. People like the box but rarely do the math. Like Schroedinger's quantum calculations, most people only know the paradox of the cat in the box.

So what's my box?

It's the classroom teaching in a university, which sometimes spills out into the public through open access seminars, public lectures and media commentary.

My job as an academic is relatively simple, I write and I teach. Said another way, research university staff work to create knowledge and transfer it to others. In the end, the transfer happens in the classroom and the public spaces where philosophy and religion are discussed. Just like Google's box, mine depends on the math in the background, which demonstrates how philosophical questions continue to haunt contemporary life. 

Students like taking classes on philosophy of religion, because they implicitly recognize the impact of the various aggregates that can be grouped under that concept, e.g. beliefs and institutions as well as transcendental claims on street corners and Facebook walls. Scholars use the teaching spaces to explain introductory concepts for further step by step, pedagogical understanding. But when students sometimes catch a glimpse of how high the staircase goes, it can look a little daunting. This is why I typically don't recommend first year students read my research work.