閱讀建議

[kit]

I have the following recommendations in terms of contemporary continental thought, mainly on Phenomenology, French post-modernism, and 20the Century continental theology. These are all basic and original texts or articles. It all depends on the participants' interests.

Phenomenology

Husserl, "Phenomenology," Article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica
(http://www.hfu.edu.tw/~huangkm/phenom/husserl-britanica.htm)

Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology. (60 pages 5 lectures).

Heidegger, Basic Writings,
selected articles: (about 20 pages per article).
- Introduction to Being and Time
- What is Metaphysics?
- On the Essence of Truth
- The Origin of the Work of Art
- The Question Concerning Technology
- etc.

Merleau-Ponty, Preface, Phenomenology of Perception. (15 pages).

French Post-modernism:

Since it is so popular to talk about Derrida these days. it's important to read some of his original works.

Derrida: "Différance" (http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/diff.html)
in Speech and Phenomenon or Margins of Philosophy (different translators). Those who can read French should read the original in French. I have also a Chinese translation.

Derrida et al, The Villanova Roundtable: A conversation with Jacques Derrida (in Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, pp. 3-28 ).


Foucualt, "What is Enlightenment?"
(http://foucault.info/documents/whatIsEnlightenment/foucault.whatIsEnlightenment.en.html)

2 main philosophial works by Foucault: Archaeology of Knowledge and Les mots et les choses (Order of Things). Perhaps too much and too difficult, though very important!

Modern Theology

Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (about 150 pages).

Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (100 pages)

Tillich has 3 major collections of sermons: New Being, Shaking of the Foundations, Eternal Now. You can easily find a good sermon of less than 10 pages for an one time discussion.

Others:

Wittgenstein is important: both Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/t2172en.html) and Philosophical Investigations can be read sections by sections selectively.

I also like Bernard Lonergan, Karl Rahner, David Tracy (contemporary Catholic theologians). Difficult to find short representative works from them.

[Daniel_Cheung]

dan_tsui的reading list很長，觸及的東西很basic and classic，我想我們可以分開三次看，即前後可以有三個閱讀小組。

至於David Tracy，我十分支持要讀一讀，但我想建議順帶要讀他與John Caputo和Derrida的一些對話。這可會很有啟發性的。或許這會是第四個由這reading list引伸出來的閱讀小組。我不太熟悉那些對話的發展，不知有沒有人可以提供一個具體建議－－看哪幾篇文章？

[clement]

Phenomenology

Husserl, "Phenomenology," Article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica
(http://www.hfu.edu.tw/~huangkm/phenom/husserl-britanica.htm)

Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology. (60 pages 5 lectures).

Heidegger, Basic Writings,
selected articles: (about 20 pages per article).
- Introduction to Being and Time
- What is Metaphysics?
- On the Essence of Truth
- The Origin of the Work of Art
- The Question Concerning Technology
- etc.

Merleau-Ponty, Preface, Phenomenology of Perception. (15 pages).


胡塞爾方面，我建議也可考慮讀讀一些基本宣言：

Husserl: “Philosophy as Rigorous Science”, in E. Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, Eng. trans. Q. Lauer, New York : Harper & Row, 1965, pp. 71-147.

Husserl: “The Basic Approach to Phenomenology”, in The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology, Don Welton (ed.), Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Pr., 1999, pp. 60-85.

如果有埋討論 Lifeworld 的，可以與後來的當代討論接到軌吧。。。

海德格，梅洛龐蒂那些不錯呀。薩特不讀讀，有點可惜。

"Existentialism Is a Humanism" (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm)

For Merleau-Ponty, how about his phenomenology of language?
“On the phenomenology of language” in Signs, Eng. trans. Richard C. McCleary, (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1964).

[clement]

[QUOTE=dan_tsui]

French Post-modernism:

Since it is so popular to talk about Derrida these days. it's important to read some of his original works.

Derrida: "Différance" (http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/diff.html)
in Speech and Phenomenon [Errata: Speech and Phenomena] or Margins of Philosophy (different translators). Those who can read French should read the original in French. I have also a Chinese translation.

Derrida et al, The Villanova Roundtable: A conversation with Jacques Derrida (in Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, pp. 3-28 ).


Foucualt [Foucault], "What is Enlightenment?"
(http://foucault.info/documents/whatIsEnlightenment/foucault.whatIsEnlightenment.en.html)

2 main philosophial works by Foucault: Archaeology of Knowledge and Les mots et les choses (Order of Things). Perhaps too much and too difficult, though very important!
/QUOTE]


Frankly speaking, I am rather unfamiliar with the Later Derrida. My study of him narrowly focuses on his earlier period. So it is a chance for me to explore his later thoughts. :)

Foucault's "What is Enlightenment?" is good, and must read together with Kant's An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?"
( http://foucault.info/documents/whatIsEnlightenment/kant.whatIsEnlightenment.en.html ). But is it really a representative essay of Foucault?. Ya, perhaps we can go through the introductions of his earlier works (on archaeology), and, equally importantly, his later works (on genealogy). The Introduction to his History of Sexuality is rather important.

And... How about Gadamer and perhaps even Ricoeur ? For Gadamer, from his Truth and Method, the part on "Wirkungsgeschichte" (效果歷史 ) and "Wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein" (效果歷史意識 ) are very important--important as the preunderstanding of David Tracy as well, I suppose.

[clement]

Modern Theology

Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (about 150 pages).

Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (100 pages)

Tillich has 3 major collections of sermons: New Being, Shaking of the Foundations, Eternal Now. You can easily find a good sermon of less than 10 pages for an one time discussion.

Others:

I also like Bernard Lonergan, Karl Rahner, David Tracy (contemporary Catholic theologians). Difficult to find short representative works from them.

Other Catholic theologians are De Lubac, Congar, Balthasar, or even Schillebeeckx and Hans Kung, who are more radical in the Catholic theological camps. I am interested, but my knowledge of them is scarce.

For Bultmann, how about his New Testament and Mythology? Inside the book there are 7 essays, some of which could be selected. And his first chapters of New Testament Theology "were" interesting as well. Actually, in Kerygma and Myth, Bultmann was in debate with many great theologians at that time. If we are interested in the problems related, we may read the articles collected in the two volumes of Kerygma and Myth. Actually Hans Frei and Paul Ricoeur were still discussing Bultmann's notion of "demythologising".

Concerning postmodern theologies, how about Lindbeck's The Nature of Doctrines?

[Daniel_Cheung]

九月至十月看畢All Truth is God's Truth之後，我們便會看別的。這裡有這麼多建議，請問各位可否具體化一點，例如：

花多少星期看哪幾篇文章？
那些文章可在哪裡找到？（若要影印，scan成檔案，我們便要儘早安排，免得有會員無機會看那些文章。）

如果是很深的文章，不妨多花一兩個星期去看，注明每次看哪一節，否則會令其他朋友敬而遠之。在本會成立初期，請儘量選一些較入門性的文章。

謝謝！

[clement]

九月至十月看畢All Truth is God's Truth之後，我們便會看別的。這裡有這麼多建議，請問各位可否具體化一點，例如：

花多少星期看哪幾篇文章？
那些文章可在哪裡找到？（若要影印，scan成檔案，我們便要儘早安排，免得有會員無機會看那些文章。）

如果是很深的文章，不妨多花一兩個星期去看，注明每次看哪一節，否則會令其他朋友敬而遠之。在本會成立初期，請儘量選一些較入門性的文章。

謝謝！


具體一點，我建議這本（有中譯），可分五六次逐章讀完，相信當中涉及的議題（釋經，歷史，宗教，多元，對話，後現代，神學），能引起不少會員的興趣：

David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity. Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope. (155 PAGES)
特雷西，《詮釋學．宗教．希望－－多元性與含混性》。（200頁）

緒言
第一章　解釋．對話．討論
　　　　Interpretation, Conversation, Argumentation
第二章　論辯：方法．釋解與理論
　　　　Argument: Method, Explanation, Theory
第三章　極端的多元性：語言問題
　　　　Radical Plurality: The Question of Language
第四章　極端的含混性：歷史問題
　　　　Radical Ambiguity: The Question of History
第五章　抵抗與希望：宗教問題
　　　　Resistance and Hope: The Question of Religion

原書書底部分介紹文：
Plurality and Ambiguity is a very brief, clear expanation of a "postmodern hermeneutics" which focuses on a single vital quetsion: How can we begin to interpret our religious texts anew, given contemporary awareness of the plurality and moral ambiguity (eruptive evil, systematic violence) both within our traditions and ourselves?"

In Plurality and Ambiguity, David Tracy lays the philosophical groundwork for a practical application of hermeneutics, while constructing an innovative model of theological interpretation developed out of the notions of conversation and argument. He concludes with an appraisal of the religious significance of hope in an age of radically different voices and constantly shifting meanings.

[銀狐]

真係有眼光，特雷西在詮釋學方式很出名。

不過，我反而想建議看看本土的著作，崇基的傳經講座第二冊是用散文的形式寫，篇幅不長，集本港各宗派的學者於一。內容包羅萬有，詮釋學、女性主義及聖經神學。

如果有朋友有興趣，我可以撰寫個小小的大綱，不過此書的問題題和在外國好難有得買.....

這可能不單單是本書的問題，日後要處理。 :p

[clement]

特雷西的《類比的想象》（Analogical Imagination）其實都好出名。

係呀，我怕居美的各位學者買不到本地著作。或者，現在的物流業發達，港台內地的學術書籍都可以簡易買到？

如果銀狐兄出馬撰寫大綱，讀書組就變成研讀你的大綱了。 :)


真係有眼光，特雷西在詮釋學方式很出名。

不過，我反而想建議看看本土的著作，崇基的傳經講座第二冊是用散文的形式寫，篇幅不長，集本港各宗派的學者於一。內容包羅萬有，詮釋學、女性主義及聖經神學。

如果有朋友有興趣，我可以撰寫個小小的大綱，不過此書的問題題和在外國好難有得買.....

這可能不單單是本書的問題，日後要處理。 :p

[kit]

Those who live oversea, like me, are very interested in knowing more about 崇基的傳經講座. 銀狐兄, Please go ahead with your summary whenever you have time.

Kit (previously user_name: dan_tsui)

[Daniel_Cheung]

在美國是很難找中文書籍的，尤其我住的這些Midwest的州，沒有這樣的書店啊！有時，反而在學校圖書館會找到一些！（不愧為大校。 :rolleyes: ）

[XOX]

A suggestion.

Yosl Rakover Talks to God by Zvi Kolitz.

Anyone read it?

[Daniel_Cheung]

可否介紹一下此書的內容？

[XOX]

Synopses & Reviews:

Publisher Comments:
There are two stories here. One is the now legendary tale of a defiant Jew's refusal to abandon God, even in the face of the greatest suffering the world has known, a testament of faith that has taken on an unpredictable and fascinating life of its own and has often been thought to be a direct testament from the Holocaust.

The parallel story is that of Zvi Kolitz, the true author, whose connection to Yosl Rakover has been obscured over the fifty years since its original appearance. German journalist Paul Badde tells how a young man came to write this classic response to evil, and then was nearly written out of its history. With brief commentaries by French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and Leon Wieseltier, author of Kaddish, this edition presents a religious classic and the very human story behind it.

************************************

Personally, it is not that great a piece of literature. But it gives a much better presentation of a person of faith (Jewish) to have his anger at God during extreme hardship, and comes to conclusion that he still choose to want God.

It is thin and it is quite touching. See excerpt below.

[XOX]

EXCERPT

Yosl Rakover Talks to God
By ZVI KOLITZ

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kolitz-god.html


--------------------------------------------------------------------------


In one of the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, preserved in a little bottle and concealed amongst heaps of charred stone and human bones, the following testament was found, written in the last hours of the ghetto by a Jew named Yosl Rakover.

Warsaw, 28 April 1943

I, Yosl, son of David Rakover of Tarnopol, a follower of the Rabbi of Ger and descendant of the righteous, learned, and holy ones of the families Rakover and Maysels, am writing these lines as the houses of the Warsaw Ghetto are in flames, and the house I am in is one of the last that has not yet caught fire. For several hours now we have been under raging artillery fire and all around me walls are exploding and shattering in the hail of shells. It will not be long before this house I'm in, like almost all the houses in the ghetto, will become the grave of its inhabitants and defenders.

Fiery red bolts of sunlight piercing through the little half-walled-up window in my room, out of which we've been shooting at the enemy day and night, tell me that it must be almost evening, just before sundown. The sun probably has no idea how little I regret that I shall never see it again.

A strange thing has happened to us: all our ideas and feelings have changed. Death, quick death that comes in an instant, is to us a deliverer, a liberator who breaks our chains. The animals of the forest seem so dear and precious to me that it pains my heart to hear the criminals who are now masters of Europe likened to them. It is not true that there is something of the animal in Hitler. He is — I am utterly convinced of it — a typical child of modern man. Mankind has borne him and raised him and he is the direct, unfeigned expression of mankind's innermost, deepest-hidden urges.

In a forest where I was hiding, I met a dog one night, a sick, starving, crazed dog, his tail between his legs. Immediately we felt our common situation, for no dog's situation is a whit better than our own. He rubbed up against me, buried his head in my lap, and licked my hands. I don't know if I have ever wept the way I wept that night; I wrapped myself around his neck and cried like a child. If I stress the fact that I envied the animals then, no one should be surprised. But what I felt back then was more than envy; it was shame. I was ashamed be-fore the dog, for being not a dog but a man. That is how it is, and such is the spiritual condition we have reached: life is a calamity — death, a liberator — man, a plague — beast, an ideal — day, an abomination — night, a comfort.

Millions of people in the great, wide world, in love with the day, the sun, and the light, neither know nor have the slightest intimation of the darkness and calamity the sun brings us. The criminals have made of it an instrument in their hands; they have used the sun as a searchlight to reveal the footprints of the fugitives trying to escape them. When I hid myself in the forests with my wife and my children — there were six of them then — it was the night, only the night, that concealed us in her heart. The day delivered us to our pursuers, who were hunting our souls. How can I ever forget the day of that German firestorm that raged over thousands of refugees on the road from Grodno to Warsaw? Their planes rose in the early dawn with the sun, and all day long they slaughtered us unceasingly. In this massacre that came down from the skies my wife died with our youngest child, seven months old, in her arms, and two of my surviving five children vanished that same day without a trace. David and Jehuda were their names, the one was four years old, the other six.

When the sun went down the handful of survivors moved on again toward Warsaw. But I combed through the woods and fields with my three remaining children, searching for the other two on the slaughterground. "David! — Jehuda!" — all night long our cries slashed like knives through the deadly silence that surrounded us, and all that answered us from the woods was an echo, helpless, heartrending, suffering as we suffered, a distant voice of lamentation. I never saw the two boys again, and I was told in a dream not to worry over them any more: they were in the hands of the Lord of Heaven and Earth. My other three children died in the Warsaw Ghetto within a year.

Rachel, my little daughter, ten years old, had heard that there were scraps of bread to be found in the city garbage cans on the other side of the walls of the ghetto. The ghetto was starving, and the starving lay like rags in the streets. People were prepared to die any death, but not death by starvation. This is probably because in a time when systematic persecution gradually destroys every other human need, the will to eat is the last one that endures, even in the presence of a longing for death. I was told of a Jew, half-starved, who said to someone, "Ah, how happy I would be to die if one last time I could sit down to a meal like a mentsh!"

Rachel had said nothing to me about her plan to steal out of the ghetto — a crime that carried the death penalty. She went off on her dangerous journey with a friend, another girl of the same age.

In the dark of night she left home and at dawn she was discovered with her little friend outside the gates of the ghetto. The Nazi sentries and dozens of their Polish helpers immediately went in pursuit of the Jewish children who had dared to hunt in the garbage for a lump of bread so as not to die of hunger. People who had experienced this human hunt at first hand could not believe what they were seeing. Even for the ghetto this was new. You might have thought that dangerous escaped criminals were being chased as this terrifying pack ran amok after the two half-starved ten-year-old children. They couldn't keep up this race for long before one of them, my daughter, having expended the last of her strength, collapsed on the ground in exhaustion. The Nazis drove holes through her skull. The other girl escaped their clutches, but she died two weeks later. She had lost her mind.

Jacob, our fifth child, a boy of thirteen, died of tuberculosis on the day of his bar mitzvah. His death was a release for him. The last child, my daughter Eva, lost her life at the age of fifteen in a "roundup of children" that began at sunrise on the final Rosh Hashanah and lasted till sundown.

On that first day of the New Year, hundreds of Jewish families lost their children before evening came.

*********************************************

[Daniel_Cheung]

多謝你的介紹！

我又要做管理員了：如果你抄出來的那個excerpt是全文的話，恐怕已觸犯了版權，請你刪減一些，或用你的文字撮寫一部份。

[XOX]

The excerpt is just a small part of what is available online. I don't think it has violate any copyright law.

Just check if there has a word limit, and will get back to you.

[XOX]

The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read by Tim C. Leedom

Editorial Reviews

Consider this book as a kind of consumer protection guide to religion, a big step forward toward religious literacy. Readers will explore myths, origins, fundamentalism, television ministries, the identical stories of Stellar/Pagan/Christian beliefs, unfounded doctrines, child abuse, the Year 200, and women's rights. It's entertaining and readable, with a sense of humor reflecting the absurdities of fundamental religion -- while being inoffensive. The approach is one of not hitting the reader over the head with "you're wrong", but rather "consider this". The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You To Read contains many interesting, unknown facts such as there being no mention of Jesus Christ in the Dead Sea Scrolls; the oldest story in the world (predating Christianity by millennia) being that of a virgin mother bearing a newborn baby; God finding out about the Trinity from the Catholic Church in 325 A. D. ; and Christmas being a pagan holiday with December 25th shared as a birthdate by many other crucified saviors. Contributors include Steve Allen, Dan Barker, Edd Doerr, Robert Eisenman, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Grace Halsell, Gerald Larue, Jordan Maxwell, and Arthur Melville.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0939040158/103-1352506-4109462?v=glance

[Daniel_Cheung]

Thanks XOX for introducing that book!

各位會員，當我們有越來越多閱讀建議但同時只能有一兩個閱讀小組時，請您們多點表示您們比較想看甚麼。謝謝！

[liberale]

All are great suggestions. Thank you.

I personally prefer something more "Christian," ie, Bultmann, Tillich, Tracy, and "The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read."

All other suggestions are very important too, really.