Completion of the Project of the West and its Romantic Sequel
Essays in the History of Western Culture
9781589660199
Distributed for University of Scranton Press
Completion of the Project of the West and its Romantic Sequel
Essays in the History of Western Culture
In this broad overview of culture, ancient and modern, Patrick Madigan examines an historical series of philosophical failures, each more serious than the last: the incompleteness of Aristotelian analysis; the weakness of the Plotinian synthesis; the limited Cartesian response to the arch skeptic; the "distinction without a difference" in the Leibnizian/Kantian strategy; and the ensuing current romantic settlement as a victory which is indistinguishable from defeat since it leaves everything as it found it. All this leads to our current insecurity and instability as focused on by Nietzsche. And so we come ultimately full swing to the origins of Christianity and Jesus’ role as the experience of the "fidelity of God."
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I
1. The "Degenerate Origins" of Christianity: The Enlightenment Critique of Hellenistic Society
2. The God of the Temple Who Failed, Versus the Failure Who Became the Temple of God
3. Plotinus’ Pyrrhic Victory
4. Scotus, Luther, and the Yawning Gap of Perdition
5. Duns Scotus and the Rehabilitation of Self-Love
6. Lawrence of Brindisi and the Completion of the Project of the West
Part II
7. Space in Leibniz and Whitehead
8. Time in Locke and Kant
9. Madness, Satan, and Bloom’s Antithetical Quester
10. Pornography and the Culmination of Romanticism
11. The Terrible Fidelity of God to the Jews in Jesus; Fulfillment or Extinction?
12. "Jesus Was Nothing But a Man": The Continuing Relevance of Nietzsche for Our Times
13. Lonergan and the Completion of American Philosophy
14. Jesus, the High Fidelity of God
Epilogue
Index
Part I
1. The "Degenerate Origins" of Christianity: The Enlightenment Critique of Hellenistic Society
2. The God of the Temple Who Failed, Versus the Failure Who Became the Temple of God
3. Plotinus’ Pyrrhic Victory
4. Scotus, Luther, and the Yawning Gap of Perdition
5. Duns Scotus and the Rehabilitation of Self-Love
6. Lawrence of Brindisi and the Completion of the Project of the West
Part II
7. Space in Leibniz and Whitehead
8. Time in Locke and Kant
9. Madness, Satan, and Bloom’s Antithetical Quester
10. Pornography and the Culmination of Romanticism
11. The Terrible Fidelity of God to the Jews in Jesus; Fulfillment or Extinction?
12. "Jesus Was Nothing But a Man": The Continuing Relevance of Nietzsche for Our Times
13. Lonergan and the Completion of American Philosophy
14. Jesus, the High Fidelity of God
Epilogue
Index