(urth) academic commentary

[Son of Witz]

On Dec 1, 2010, at 1:20 PM, Thomas Bitterman <tom at bitterman.net> wrote:
> That is almost exactly the difference.  The statement "Wright's methodology does not permit a reading in which spiritual beings actually exist" is very different from the statement "Wright adopted a methodology which prohibits a reading in which spiritual beings exist because he is an atheist and that sort of reading makes him uncomfortable".  The first is very informative and leads to interesting questions such as "What other methodologies could be brought to bear, and what can they reveal that Wright's did not?"  The second simply speculates on the author's motives, which is out of place in a discussion of non-fiction.


I sincerely disagree.  The second does not simply question motives.  One's ideological and cosmological views are rarely motives.  Rather they are an invisible frame on that author's perspective.  Wright may not have a motive rooted in atheism, but he most certainly might have an actual inability to percieve that which is beyond his belief structure.  Coupling this potential (and highly probable) limitation in perspective with the conviction that he has solved the riddle makes it really easy to guess why he stopped where he did, which many or most of us would say falls short of the evident message of BotNS.