Augustine says that human 'justice' is “a thing to be mourned &, if it were possible, washed away with tears”. He has in mind all the convicts who never had, or have, any hope of secular justice. Tomorrow I'll talk at Károli Gáspár University, in Budapest, about how that connects to Augustine's reading of the… Continue reading Human ‘justice’ is “a thing to be mourned”: Budapest lecture on Pilate & Jesus
Author: David Lloyd Dusenbury
David Lloyd Dusenbury is a philosopher, historian of ideas, Times Literary Supplement contributor and senior fellow at Budapest's Danube Institute. The author of I Judge No One and The Innocence of Pontius Pilate (published by Hurst and Oxford University Press), he is also Chair for Jewish-Christian Relations at the University of Antwerp.
“Is technological civilization decadent?” New Budapest lecture on Jan Patočka
We live tethered to machines that seem to realize ancient human fantasies, like Lucian of Samosata's moon-flight. Does this make it harder to live a human life? In other words, is technological civilization decadent? Tomorrow in Budapest, a new Danube Institute lecture on Jan Patočka's Heretical Essays.
“European China”: A Nietzsche fragment
Is this too much to hope for the EU? "European China, with a soft Buddhist-Christian belief, &, in practice, an Epicurean savoir-vivre." - Friedrich Nietzsche, Fragments posthumes 1887-88 (trans. Chantal Delsol)
“Innocence of Pontius Pilate” at the Károli Gáspár University in Budapest
Very pleased to be giving a lecture next week on Augustine, "the old prelate of Hippo", & my new book The Innocence of Pontius Pilate, at the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary.
Nemesius of Emesa at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
It's rarely noted that Platonists & Manichaeans shared a theory of the afterlife - reincarnation - that once seemed unnervingly close to Christianity. Why did early Christianity reject the idea of (human-to-inhuman) reincarnation? I'll be talking about one aspect of this today at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 17.30 hours, Faculty of Humanities, Múzeum körút 4/B, room 217.
Latvian translation of “Postnatural Intelligence”
Very pleased to see a Latvian translation of my essay on machine intelligence & Mary Shelley's "modern Prometheus". (Thanks entirely to Zane Ozola.) Points touched on: Descartes' girl-machine (he's said to have built an android), La Mettrie's man-machine, Vico's cogito-joke, & vengeance (divine, & machine). Read here, in Telos magazine.
New Budapest lecture on Jan Patočka’s Heretical Essays
What is Europe? & what is the "old European principle of care for the soul"? - Very pleased to be giving a lecture this evening at the Danube Institute in Budapest, with a reply by Ferenc Hörcher, about Jan Patočka's Heretical Essays IV, "Europe & the European Heritage until the End of the 19th Century"
Return to Scheler? Johannes Hoff’s new book —
A pleasure to pass a couple of days with philosophical theologian Johannes Hoff in Haydn country (a wine village by the Neusiedler See) discussing his new opus, Verteidigung des Heiligen. Anthropologie der digitalen Transformation. Max Scheler is the man of the hour, says Hoff.
Third Patočka lecture: “Politics & the Core of Mystery”
"Humans cannot live in the certitude of meaninglessness”, yet history "seems to exude meaninglessness". I'm giving my third Patočka lecture tonight in Budapest: on metaphysics & nihilism (& Marxism as crypto-nihilism), on human survival & the mystery of the world.
“Elegant, lucid prose”: A new review of The Innocence of Pontius Pilate
"Mr Dusenbury’s wide erudition that stretches from ancient history to the political philosophies of Hobbes and Rousseau masters the complexities of the story, while his elegant, lucid prose guides the general reader through them." — The Irish Catholic
D. L. Dusenbury 