Episodes
Thursday Sep 08, 2022
171 | Kafkatrapping and metaphysical boredom
Thursday Sep 08, 2022
Thursday Sep 08, 2022
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Friday Jul 15, 2022
170 | When the dragon eats the knight
Friday Jul 15, 2022
Friday Jul 15, 2022
Some reflections on the nature of the demon called liberalism. See also: https://duncanreyburn.substack.com/p/when-the-dragon-eats-the-knight
Wednesday May 18, 2022
169 | The prophet and the prostitute
Wednesday May 18, 2022
Wednesday May 18, 2022
In a strange but philosophically potent story told in the Hebrew Bible, God gives his prophet Hosea some rather odd instructions. God commands Hosea to take for himself a wife of “whoredom” and to raise “children of whoredom” (Hosea 1:2). Hosea will be committed to a focused point of attention. He will be a symbol of the monogamy that loves and cherishes one woman no matter what. But his wife Gomer will remain promiscuous and inattentive. Because she will always look elsewhere for companionship, she will never love very deeply and she will struggle perpetually to receive love. As we'll explore in this episode, this story is mainly about worship. It symbolises the way meaning is made manifest depending on how we attend to reality. In a sense, attention is reality. What we worship determines what sort of meaning we’ll find.
Friday Apr 22, 2022
168 | To render identity consumable
Friday Apr 22, 2022
Friday Apr 22, 2022
Available in text here: https://duncanreyburn.substack.com/p/to-render-identity-consumable
Thursday Mar 24, 2022
167 | The Hidden (Mirthful) Face of Christ
Thursday Mar 24, 2022
Thursday Mar 24, 2022
A recording of a paper delivered during an online conference, Philosophical Theologies in South Africa (hosted by Hugenote Kollege) on 24 March 2022.
Abstract: At the very end of his book Orthodoxy (1908), G. K. Chesterton makes a claim regarding the “pathos” of Christ, which was “natural,” and “almost casual.” However, Chesterton contends that one dimension of Christ’s pathos remained remarkably hidden, namely his “mirth.” The word “mirth” is quite literally the last word of that book. Because we have no record of Jesus laughing in the Gospels, just as we have no idea what he actually looked like, this conclusion is offered as a matter of fancy. It is perhaps not unexpected that Chesterton would say this, though, given his own personality and inclinations. Those familiar with his work will recognise his association with joy and humour. Since Chesterton offers no explicit justification, however, the question remains open as to whether there may be more than a merely subjective reason for it. Perhaps it is possible to account for such a conclusion on a philosophical and theological basis. My aim is to do that in this paper. More particularly, I want to articulate how there is, in Chesterton’s writings—especially exemplified in his novel The Man Who Was Thursday (1907)—a kind of incarnational phenomenology at work that allows him to reconcile other more explicit dimensions of Christ’s pathos with an undisclosed mirthful exuberance.
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
166 | (Critical) Thinking
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
A lecture on a foundation for critical thinking.
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
165 | Man’s Search for Meming
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
A brief exploration of memes, via what we might joking call the will to meming, as expressions of our desire to make sense of the world.
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You can read a transcript of this episode here: https://duncanreyburn.substack.com/p/mans-search-for-meming
Monday May 24, 2021
164 | Understanding Creativity - 04 - Analogy
Monday May 24, 2021
Monday May 24, 2021
In this last episode in this brief series on understanding creativity, we look at how analogy functions as the core of cognition; and conclude with a few thoughts on assessing whether our creative ideas are any good.
Support: patreon.com/unorthodoxy
Twitter: @duncanreyburn
Monday May 10, 2021
163 | Understanding Creativity - 03 - Meaning
Monday May 10, 2021
Monday May 10, 2021
In this episode, we look at how meaning-finding and meaning-making work in relation to creativity with reference to Chekhov's famous so-called gun.
Support: patreon.com/unorthodoxy
Twitter: @duncanreyburn
Monday Apr 26, 2021
162 | Understanding Creativity - 02 - Insight
Monday Apr 26, 2021
Monday Apr 26, 2021
We're briefly exploring some dimensions of creativity in four short episodes. In this episode, we explore how creativity is tied to insight. In this episode we look at what insight is, as well as how to find insights through pattern recognition and pattern naming.
Support: Patreon.com/unorthodoxy
Twitter: @duncanreyburn