Applemcg reviewed The shipwrecked mind by Mark Lilla (New York review books)
Review of 'The shipwrecked mind' on 'LibraryThing'
4 stars
While I rate books to the half point (do you?) Lilla's book, for me is a solid 4. I also believe in, and rank my weightings in a binomial distribution, with no rated book getting lower than a 2.5.returnreturnIn any case, I read The Shipwrecked Mind as an antidote to my creeping anxiety over Tuesday's election.returnreturnOn that score, I'm now prepared to read, say Leo Strauss, whose U of Chicago credentials, and his acknowledged worship by the reactionary right in this country would have scared me off prior to this read. returnreturnOf my six grandchildren, half are in Jewish lineage. Lilla's treatment of Franz Rosenzweig lifts my spirits to understand that part of their inheritance. His treatment of the Jewish and Christian places in history, and especially how each regards that place was illuminating and hopeful. He leads us through Rosenzweig's 'The Star of Redemption'.. " and by far the …
While I rate books to the half point (do you?) Lilla's book, for me is a solid 4. I also believe in, and rank my weightings in a binomial distribution, with no rated book getting lower than a 2.5.returnreturnIn any case, I read The Shipwrecked Mind as an antidote to my creeping anxiety over Tuesday's election.returnreturnOn that score, I'm now prepared to read, say Leo Strauss, whose U of Chicago credentials, and his acknowledged worship by the reactionary right in this country would have scared me off prior to this read. returnreturnOf my six grandchildren, half are in Jewish lineage. Lilla's treatment of Franz Rosenzweig lifts my spirits to understand that part of their inheritance. His treatment of the Jewish and Christian places in history, and especially how each regards that place was illuminating and hopeful. He leads us through Rosenzweig's 'The Star of Redemption'.. " and by far the richest, is a startling sociological comparison of Jewish and Christian ways of life". This is immediately followed by (unsurprisingly, when we encounter it) "Rosenzweig dismisses Islam as a mere parody of revealed religion".returnreturnMy only disappointment was his concluding chapter when he serializes columns he wrote for the NY Review of Books while he was in Paris in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, 2015. He introduces French writers, Eric Zemmour and Michel Houellebecq, the latter who was fortunate (as France was not) to have a book come out on the eve of the attacks. His review helps to understand the French struggle with their own history. At the moment, I can't give this sufficient energy to be interested. returnreturnAs a reader's guide, I've prepared a little page here: mcgowans.org/marty3/commonplace/idea/shipwreckedmind.html, which I'll use to tour some of the influential philosophers and authors he cites.