Tomorrow in Budapest: Gilgamesh on death; Thales on gods; Richard Avenarius on "the human world-concept"; Martin Heidegger on "the deep phenomenon"; Miklós Szentkuthy on the sexlessness of mathematical physics; all to introduce Jan Patočka's dissident philosophy of history ---
Author: David Lloyd Dusenbury
Postdoctoral fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Author of The Space of Time (2014), Platonic Legislations (2017), The Innocence of Pontius Pilate (2021), and Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature (2021). Regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, Los Angeles Review of Books, etc.
Bataille: “Towards the unknown”
"Poetry describes nothing that does not slip towards the unknown."- Georges Bataille, Theory of Religion
from Jan Patočka’s “Political Testament”
"What is needed is for people to behave at all times with dignity, not to allow themselves to be frightened & intimidated, & to speak the truth." - Jan Patočka, "Political Testament," 1977
Ecce Homo: Jesus & Pilate in the History of Secularity (Emory University)
Julia Kristeva says that "the 'genius of Christianity' has introduced radical innovations … we have not done taking the measure of." I try to take the measure of 'secularity' in a new essay for Emory University's Center for the Study of Law and Religion on my Hurst & Oxford book, The Innocence of Pontius Pilate.… Continue reading Ecce Homo: Jesus & Pilate in the History of Secularity (Emory University)
The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: Digital edition
I am pleased to see that Oxford University Press has released a digital edition of The Innocence of Pontius Pilate. See here.
The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: Lund University
Samuel Pufendorf fumed that there is "not one iota of legitimate process" in the Roman trial of Jesus, which was "a public act of terror", & it's an honour to be talking about the trial at Pufendorf's old faculty at Lund University today. Register here.
Radnóti: “My words will yet ring out”
"I don’t concern myself with vengeance, my heart is free of rage, the world will be rebuilt – & though this ugly age has banned my words, they will yet ring out beneath new walls." - Miklós Radnóti, killed in the autumn of 1944
“Veins are like roots”: Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature
1,350 years before La Mettrie wrote his materialist L'Homme plante (Man a Plant), Nemesius reminded us that we're part plant: "The veins are like roots of the liver that draw the food from the stomach, as the roots of plants draw it from the earth..." For more on this: Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature… Continue reading “Veins are like roots”: Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature
Patočka: “An unselfconscious favour and grace”
"Truth means that being is open to understanding & explanation; beauty means that the emergence of being in the human world manifests the mystery of being as something perennially enchanting; goodness that the world includes an unselfconscious favour & grace." - Jan Patočka
Patočka on the wonder of being
"The wonder of being is no fable." - Jan Patočka, Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History
