On Fri, 21 Sep 2001 22:47:45 +0100, Fran wrote:

>I do not share his alarm at the idea 'that we are all accidents 
>of one intellect and universal will', as to me it seems to be a basic 
>tenet of all the religions I have ever heard of, and certainly applies 
>to both the Christian and Muslim faiths, with all their offshoots.  I 
>suppose it is most simply expressed as 'In the beginning God 
>created...'.  The concept that we are all integral parts of an 
>unfathomably greater whole, is the essence of faith.  
>Faith is uncertainty, beliefs are an entirely different matter.  To fathom the 
>'symbol', we would have to understand the beliefs of those who made it.

St T goes to great lengths to dispute the above because it would
completely undermine the Christian religion and this surely is also
TSE's line on damnation in the Baudulaire essay.  

Both Aquinas and Bradley agree that what we know is different from
that by which we know, which Aquinas calls the phantasm and Bradley
the idea, and that the notions of intuitive ideas (vide Descartes) or
synthetic a priori judgements (vide Kant) are profoundly wrong.  Both
also agree that this distinction hinges on the distinction between
essence and existence and the distinction between the passive and the
active intellect, both abandoned by the moderns. (see the Modern
Masters edition on Aquinas where an otherwise sympathetic approach
ends wih Kenny rubbishing the distinction between esse and essentia)

Cornish's book is an attempt to demonstrate that bad philosophy ends
in historical atrocity and that philosphy is not some kind of
intellectual sideshow (most of the world I guess) or meaningless (the
positivists) or a polishing of the family conceptual silver

Tragedy has a plot and in that word art and politics seem to coincide.
The current question is who is writing the plot.  As Blake said, to
create, a line must be drawn and the US is drawing a line between
terrorists and civilisation.  It is pertinent to the alternative plot
that there has been no further incident.  I would guess that anything
else now would be (1) an anti-climax and (2) reveal too much of the
alternative plot.  Once the US and the UK (as seems likely from
today's FT) act that would give whoever is writing the alternative
plot a pretext for the next attack and I fear that that will draw a
line between Muslims and non-Muslims (Hindus, Jews, Bhuddists,
Christians and atheists), which I suspect and fear is the line that
defines the alternative plot.

It was reported that PM Blair has been reading the Koran whilst on
holiday.  He presumably would have noticed that not only are there
more references to Mary in the Koran than in the NT but that she has a
whole sutra devoted to her and that the Koran confirms the virgin
birth.  Does the average Christian know what the Koran has to say
about Jesus?  If the current crisis brings about a detailed
examination of others' religions (and their philosphical bases) and
begins an inter-faith dialogue then it may not end in tragedy.  

The tragic per Blake is to go round and round what he calls the Orc
cycle (the plot of "The Mental Traveller").  Locke and Descartes began
a new cycle (as ackowledged by Yeats: "Locke fell into a swoon etc."
i.e. symbolically Locke = Adam and the spining jenny = Eve).   There
is always a possibility in history that the cycle can be broken or
broken out of but only at one point and then : " see below the
boarhound and the boar pursue their pattern as before but reconciled
amongst the stars".  One must recall that last time round El Cid ended
on the battlefield what Aquinas started in the mind (echoing
Alexander's phalanxes and Aristotle's categories at the same point of
another cycle).  

I guess that it's time to dust off "America: a Prophecy".