A parable of the predicament of human epistemology | City Bible Forum
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A parable of the predicament of human epistemology

A simple email offering directions from Prof. Edwin Judge which ended up being a bit longer than intended.
Tue 16 Jun 2015
Alt

I recently had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Professor Edwin Judge at Macquarie University in Sydney. I was interviewing him for a forthcoming episode (or two) of Logos Live. I was arranging to meet him in the Ancient History department at the university and Edwin sent me an email which was offering simple instructions on how to get to his building. The instructions I received were a bit more than I expected...

As you walk from the train into the university you head northwest gradually uphill past various buildings. Either study the diagrams displayed to locate W6A, or ask people.

But because it is almost at the far end, and very obscure when approached from what is now the main entrance, most people will have no idea where it is, and if they do will not be able to explain it orally.

It's such a shame that the beautiful original concept of the unified curriculum that could be accessed between lectures by 'Wally's Walk', a single straight path thronged with students changing rooms as the hour changed, has been lost to view (though it still thrives) by the gross reorientation of everything to the railway station that has belatedly sprung up at the wrong point!

On 5 June none other than the governor of NSW himself will open a grandiose new avenue for motor traffic that solves this little mystery in one jump (ridiculously, since cars do not arrive by the underground). If you were tempted to follow this rigid, concrete swathed, desolate, almost inhuman and lonely parade it would actually lead you direct to W6A.

You would know you were there at the third roundabout, which is at the top of the rise, with the land now falling away before you to your right. W6A, an eight-storey building in brick prison style (which I have inhabited and even loved for 45 years) is of course still hard to spot, and it is even harder to get to its front entrance. That lies down the hill through the sweeping sea of parked cars, with all paths leading away from the central door.

Never fear. It is after all only 10 minutes from the station. Just that one can't give a rational, plain account of how to get there. Is this not a parable of the predicament of human epistemology itself? Our logical minds cannot explain reality. Only the lived experience of actual truth makes us at home in the universe.

All the best, Edwin.

This is a challenge to our 'rationality'. Does the "lived experience of actual truth" make us at home in the universe? It is certainly a challenge that we are simply 'rational' beings. What do you think?

I did find the building, but I just followed the maps on the university campus.

N.B. This email has been published with permission.

Comments

  • Alt
    Wed, 17/06/2015 - 4:07pm reply

    I just love Edwin Judge's insights, and how he can turn an everyday request for directions into a surprisingly deep reflection on epistemology. Plus a commentary on town planning.

    Speaking of "love" it is indeed hard to rationalise everyday concepts like "love". Concepts like this can only be lived.

    I've heard rational explanations of "sexual love", "altruism" etc in terms of evolutionary processes, but I find them particularly "unlovely". The spark that fires love is missing from these cold, sociological pronouncements.

    A bit like supplying the petrol but not having the matches.

    For me, as a Christian, I see that Jesus "explains" love by living it, and ultimately dying it. He does offer rational descriptions of love, such as "love your neighbour as yourself" but it's the example of his love that best explains "love" to me.

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