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The Furrow
DOMINICAN RETREAT CENTRE
Tallaght, Dublin 24
Tel. (01) 515002
Volume 38
Number 7
July 1987
ISSN 0016-3120
Logos Retreat
Articles
This retreat is built on the idea of the participants celebrating
the community aspect of being on retreat with the celebration
of liturgy (Morning and Evening Prayer and Eucharist) as a
community.
The retreat team take it in turns to preach and reflect on the
liturgical reading of the day thus bringing out many facets of
the Word - Logos. The retreat team are available for
guidap.ce on prayer and scripture reading.
Norman W. Taggart
Methodism's Mission
419
Desmond Egan
Peter Connolly (1927-1987)
428
Kevin Condon, CM
God's Silent Servant
436
John Greer
Bridge Building in Northern
Ireland
443
Has the Priesthood Been
Devalued?
449
Donal Dorr
To Care for the Earth
455
Aidan Ryan
Homilies for August
461
Michael O'Carroll
July 11-18 (15th week of the year)
Faith in God's Word and in the Eucharist
Sr. Angela Campion OP
Fr. Brendan Clifford OP
Fr. Martin Hunter OP
News and Views
August 1-8 (18th week of the year)
The Church and the Kingdom of God
+ Dermot Clifford
E. de Bhaldraithe, O.Cist. Further Reform of the
Sacrament of Penance
Patrick McGoldrick
Inclusive Language in the
Liturgy
Diana Gilpin-Brown
'Ireland! I'm Sorry!'
Fr Tom Cleary OP
Sr Geraldine O'Driscoll OP
Fr Peter Kirke OP
OTHER SIX DAY RETREATS AVAILABLE
Preached Retreat: July2-9
with Fr Jordan O'Brien OP and Fr Romanus Cessario OP
Brendan Carmody
with Fr Aloysius Carroll OP
Nicholas Lash
with Fr Vivian Boland OP
Applications and enquiries should be made to:
REV. DIRECTOR, OP
Retreat Centre, S1. Mary's Priory, Tallaght, Dublin 24.
Phone 515002 (office hours if possible)
467
468
471
471
New Books
Preached Retreat: August 8-15
Preached Retreat: August 22-29
Persuasive Preaching
*.
Padraig 6 Gormghaile
Dermot Moran
Peter Briscoe
Gerard Rice
Behold the Beauty of the Lord:
Praying with Icons
475
God's Action in the World.
The Bampton Lectures for 1986 476
The Power of Symbols
477
Modern Movements in
478
European Philosophy
Science and the Bible
479
Armagh Cathedral
480
© The Furrow Trust
479
THE FURROW
NEW BOOKS
Modern Movements in European Philosophy. Richard Kearney. Manchester University Press. Hardcover £25 sterling.
Kearney has taken on an extremely arduous task - that of providing
short, coherent and yet representative accounts of the writings and thought
of a vast range of very diverse philosophers. He has pitched his discussion
towards the intelligent lay reader and especially towards undergraduate
students who need some guidance in the difficult terrain of modern European thought. As a result he has dispensed with footnotes and has
relegated more important technical discussions to appendices. This is
extremely helpful to the lay reader but not altogether satisfactory from the
point of view of the more professional thinkers. Kearney does have a certain vision of the modern world that seeps through in his writing. This
becomes problematic when it seems to force all thinkers into dialogue with
this 'system'.
However, these are minor defects and the book is an extremely useful
guide to the philosophical thinking produced on the European continent
in the twentieth century. The shorter Dialogues with Contemporary European Thinkers, now out in paperback, gives us the opportunity to hear the
thinkers themselves responding to Kearney's keen and acute questioning.
This is an excellent short book which complements very well the longer
more historical studies of Modern Movements. Both books are important
additions to the study of philosophy in Ireland. Recommended.
478
This work is a companion volume to the series of interviews with continental thinkers which Richard Kearney published in 1985, Dialogues with
Contemporary Continental Thinkers (Manchester U.P.). It is a much m~re
ambitious work, trying to give a comprehensive account of the ma~or
movements of European philosophy in this century, under three major
headings - Phenomenology, Critical Theory and Structuralism.
Dr Kearney is at home in all three areas and produces extremely clear
accounts of the main features of each philosopher dealt with under the
major headings. Under 'Phenomenology' he discusses Husserl, Heidegge:,
Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur and Derrida. His account of Huss7r~ IS
straightforward, centring on HusserI's attempt to return to the livmg
sources of meaning for consciousness. Kearney offers us a step by s~ep
breakdown of the stages of phenomenological seeing, and ends by showmg
how HusserI's dream of a transcendental science of pure essences ends in
a self-admitted failure. In an appendix Kearney provides a short account
of Husserl's version of the intentionality of conscious acts.
Kearney's chapter on Heidegger focuses on Heidegger's ~ovel appr~ach
to language and argues that Heidegger divides language mto assertIOn,
interpretative discourse, idle talk, and poeticizing saying. Heid~gger's
devaluation of everyday modes of discourse in favour of prophetIc and
evocative saying is well described.
.
The chapter on Sartre is refreshingly original and provides an insight
into Sartre's phenomenological studies of the imagination that are not as
well known as they should be among English-speaking philosophers. It
goes far beyond the usual profile of Sartre as an existentialist and sho.ws
how he tackled a problem - our imaging of the world and of others - whIch
is at the centre of much philosophical discussion today. The chapters on
Merleau-Ponty and Ricoeur are faithful accounts of these philosophers.
Levinas has been excluded and Derrida included in this section on
Phenomenology. This seems surprising, but I think Kearney is essentially
correct to emphasize Derrida's primary concern as a reading of and reactionto certain phenomenological claims.
The section on Critical Theory discusses the writings of a number of
influential European Marxist philosophers in this century, beginning with
the Hungarian philosopher Lukacs and including the main Frankfurt
school writers as well as the Italian Gramsci. All these thinkers are opposed
to Soviet Marxism in various ways but Lukacs's relation to the USSR is
the most ambiguous as he spent most of his life trying to reconcile himself
with the official Soviet Party who were deeply suspicious of him. The
chapter: on Lukacs is synoptic, but focuses on Lukacs's rea?ing of ~eg~l,
his reaction to 'reification' and his studies on European realIsm. BenJamm
is treated as a rather idiosyncratic thinker who refuses to be firmly fitted
.
into any cultural category.
The section on structuralism includes the French linguist de Saussure,
the anthropologist Levi-Strauss, the neo-Freudian psycho-analyst J~~ques
Lacan, the literary critic and semiologist Roland Barthes, the CrItIc of
knowledge Michel Foucault and the Marxist Althusser.
DERMOT MORAN
Maynooth
Science and the Bible. Sean P. Kealy, C.S.Sp. Dublin: The Columba Press,
1987. Pp. 91. Price £4.95.
The relationship between science and the Bible has not been a happy one.
For many people it would seem to have been one of continuous warfare
in which science has inevitably proved victorious. As Paul Davies puts it,
science 'has so radically reoriented our society that the biblical perspective
of the world now seems largely irrelevant' (God and the New Physics, p.
2).
In his new work Science and the Bible, Fr Sean Kealy concedes no such
irrelevance to the biblical perspective. He writes from the perspective of
what he sees as the broad Christian tradition down to Vatican II (he cites
Gaudium et Spes, par. 57) - an acceptance of the advances of science in
its own proper area of competence, coupled with a recognition of its limitations.
This is not a lengthy work. It is an easy-to-read series of sketches and
reflections on some key moments and personalities in the story of science
and the Bible, from Galileo to Teilhard, as well as introduction to some
scientific advances that challenge our views on creation, evolution and
biblical miracles.
The story be tells is one of biblical and theological retreat from unnecessarily closed positions, the painful discovery of the limitations of biblical
science and cosmology, along with positive efforts to integrate scientific
discovery infO a mmemporary biblical faith - he has a particular affection
for the contril:Jallioa of Teilhard.
Fr Kealy OlltllU6111O systematic analysis of the reasons for the survival
of the Bible_*.~ofsc:icDrificadvance. He writes simply as a believer