Robert Fagles, a translator of much that we read in Torrey, has died.
Fagles was an awe inspiring scholar of enduring importance. His greatness came as a translator of works from classical languages into English.
Like all such works, his translations were a mixed blessing and Torrey has phased out some of them. Using his work was always a tough call as the only transla...
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One interesting sign of intelligent life in American colleges is the proliferation of academic conferences by, of, and for undergraduates. These undergrad conferences, where college students present arguments and research to each other, are popping up in more and more disciplines these days.
Biola University's student government, Associated Students, is calling for papers...
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When reading old books, it is easy to display a chronological snobbery, as C.S. Lewis called it. The chronological snob is to time what the ethnocentric person is to ethnicity. His chronocentrism assumes that everyone in the past should know everything he knows or agree with all his assumptions. When visiting the past in his imagination, he views it as Cameron viewed the people...
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Winning an argument is easy, winning a soul is hard. Too often Internet dialog seems content to "hit and run," but transforming and really persuading a person is harder. That requires being open to the possibility of being wrong and to staying around for discussion. Plato's Republic teaches this lesson.
The Republic is a dialogue of surprises, often it seems to come to an...
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Last time we looked at the nature of knowledge and we defined it in this way: It is to represent (i.e., experience or think about) reality the way it really is on the basis of adequate grounds, on a solid basis of evidence, experience, intuition, testimony and so forth. We also saw that there there are three different kinds of knowledge:
1) Knowledge by acquaintance: This...
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Featured Essay
Do we the disciples of Jesus possess through Scripture and other means a reliable source of knowledge of reality or do we not? We have seen that this is an important question. The possession of knowledge—especially religious and moral knowledge—is essential for a life of flourishing. To answer this question we must, first, answer another question: What exactly is knowled...
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Socrates wrote no books. Like Jesus, the only record he left was in the lives of those impressed by his life. Aristophanes, the great comic poet, made fun of him in The Clouds. The prize winning playwright made his Athenian audience laugh at learning, but The Clouds derives its chief modern interest from his assault on Socrates. Xenophan was a conservative student who left ...
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A few weeks ago ABC’s 20/20 featured a story on happiness. If you saw it, I am curious about what you thought as you watched.
The show made several helpful points; for example, that money or popularity does not make that much difference. But to be honest, my overall impression of the program was one of deep disappointment. I say that for two reasons.
First, not one t...
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We live in an age awash in a failed "pursuit of happiness." Most of us ignore the intellectual component of living a full life and even more ignore the spiritual dimensions.
Past wisdom may help us find a way to real joy. Most of us have views on human happiness that would improve with a good reading of Aristotle's Ethics. However, he is not infallible and a critical, thoug...
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Featured Essay
We have all heard the famous quote by President Teddy Roosevelt, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Roosevelt was talking about his foreign policy when he made that famous quote. If you have ever heard Dallas Willard speak you have experienced the academic version of that saying. He speaks in modest tones, but his ideas have the intellectual force of a Louisville Slu...
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Featured Essay
When friends or family have a heated argument, it is usually wise to get some space, let time pass and the smoke clear, so cooler heads prevail and lessons can be learned from the incident. The same is often true of public events that draw immediate outrage. Several months ago Ann Coulter said that if Jews became Christians they would be perfected or completed and it would be...
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J.P. Moreland, who blogs here at Scriptorium Daily, is under attack. There is nothing new in that since Moreland has long served as one of this generations leading defenders of Christianity, especially in the American and Protestant context. What is different is that Moreland is drawing "friendly fire" this time.
In late 2007, at a meeting of the Evangelical Theological Soc...
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