1 Comment

Thanks for this intro; Arendt as always of course and an aspect of Murdoch's thought which I did not know, and the other philosophers.

Just a couple of experiences that might complement the thesis.

One, Microsoft photographs .... I am something of a technophobe and don't know how to get rid of them. Sometimes I am curious about where they are taken, but otherwise they leave me flat. However,microsoft have occasionally been interspersing the photos with 'real paintings'. These instantly jump out and start talking as it were. Spot the difference? smile.

Two, CS Lewis, 'in The Discarded Image' suggests a walk under the stars in order to try to grasp the sensibility of the mediaeval mind informed by their cosmological 'model'. He suggests seeing the 'fixed stars' as a very high ceiling, as in the terrific height of an immense cathedral. I saw them once like that under sky clarified by an earlier storm on a very dark Cretan coast. There were so many of them and they seemed very alert. But... as a child I had had a different experience after dark, lying down rather than standing up in the fields near our house. Suddenly my back was braced against a cliff and I was looking down into an immense depth. I suppose we know this intellectually as the void. Double quick I was on my feet and running for the warmth of the house. Does the latter speak of my early modernity, even though there was no TV back then?

Expand full comment