Thanks David. I enjoyed that and its expansive spirit.
I've been impressed by Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex, which argues that sexual complementarity is a modern interpolation, and before the 17th century, sexual difference was seen via a dynamic hierarchy of being, with male and female representing steps on the return to God.
Importantly, I think this was not necessarily ordered in a fixed way, as if male were always a fuller divine image. But rather, male and female represent various evolving facets of the return, in which all humans participate.
Hence in Dante, female figures lead the way in Paradise - having been mostly absent in the Inferno, and pretty marginal in the Purgatorio - with Mary as the most brilliant manifestation of the divine in the Empyrean, representing how all humanity (actually all created beings, I think) might enwomb God, even as they are enwombed.
This was a good one. I've been on a crazy philosophical journey over the past year or so, spanning everything from Biblical interpretation to philosophy of mind. One of the many places I found myself stuck was what it meant to be human. In the evangelical world, the Image of God is an extraordinary theological workhorse, and I've seen it equated with language, knowledge of God, free will, mastery over nature, morality, rationality, and the capacity to love. As you can probably tell, this interpretation is closely tied to the Western tendency to view human beings as rational homunculi piloting flesh mechs. Finding a little humility and common ground with animals is an important corrective, and so, perhaps, is recognizing that what it is to be human isn't as self-evident as we like to believe.
I'm curious about the implications of this topic for transhumanism. I guess we're less likely to think we need an electrode implanted in our skull to improve memory acquisition if we spend a sane amount of time among trees and other living things, but there is also a benefit in being able to point to a essence of being human that is being transgressed. Just firing off ideas here, though.
Thanks David. I enjoyed that and its expansive spirit.
I've been impressed by Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex, which argues that sexual complementarity is a modern interpolation, and before the 17th century, sexual difference was seen via a dynamic hierarchy of being, with male and female representing steps on the return to God.
Importantly, I think this was not necessarily ordered in a fixed way, as if male were always a fuller divine image. But rather, male and female represent various evolving facets of the return, in which all humans participate.
Hence in Dante, female figures lead the way in Paradise - having been mostly absent in the Inferno, and pretty marginal in the Purgatorio - with Mary as the most brilliant manifestation of the divine in the Empyrean, representing how all humanity (actually all created beings, I think) might enwomb God, even as they are enwombed.
This was a good one. I've been on a crazy philosophical journey over the past year or so, spanning everything from Biblical interpretation to philosophy of mind. One of the many places I found myself stuck was what it meant to be human. In the evangelical world, the Image of God is an extraordinary theological workhorse, and I've seen it equated with language, knowledge of God, free will, mastery over nature, morality, rationality, and the capacity to love. As you can probably tell, this interpretation is closely tied to the Western tendency to view human beings as rational homunculi piloting flesh mechs. Finding a little humility and common ground with animals is an important corrective, and so, perhaps, is recognizing that what it is to be human isn't as self-evident as we like to believe.
I'm curious about the implications of this topic for transhumanism. I guess we're less likely to think we need an electrode implanted in our skull to improve memory acquisition if we spend a sane amount of time among trees and other living things, but there is also a benefit in being able to point to a essence of being human that is being transgressed. Just firing off ideas here, though.