Episode 3
The Postmodern Self: Art, Technology, Finance, and Religion | Mark C. Taylor
Episode 3
Mark C. Taylor
The Postmodern Self: Art, Technology, Finance, and Religion | Mark C. Taylor
summary
In this week’s episode of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with philosopher and theologian Mark C. Taylor. Mark is Chair of the Department of Religion and Co-Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life. A leading figure in debates about postmodernism, Taylor has written on topics ranging from philosophy, religion, literature, art and architecture to education, media, science, technology and economics. He has authored 30 books, among which include Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard, About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture, Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World without Redemption, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture, and Speed Limits: Where Time Went and Why We Have So Little Left.
In this episode, we cover topics in religion, finance, art, and technology. Most importantly, we take this journey as individuals, exploring the paths blazed for us by Martin Luther and his Protestant Reformation. We build on the works of Ockham and Thomas Aquinas. We learn about economic philosophers like Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek, who addressed the problems of non-linearity, information networks, and how complex systems create order from chaos. We look at how technology, for all its benefits, still leaves something to be desired. Perhaps this stems from a fundamental contradiction in its application to the human experience. Lastly, we ask, “what is it all for? What does it all mean? Where are we going, and why the great hurry?”
Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor: Connor Lynch
Join the conversation at @hiddenforcespod
bio
Taylor’s first book, Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship: A Study of Time and the Self was published by Princeton University Press in 1975. This was followed in 1980 by the work for which Taylor received his Doctorgrad, Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard (University of California Press; reissued by Fordham University Press in 2000). Taylor’s early study of Kierkegaard and Hegel forms the foundation for all his subsequent work.
In the early 1980s, Taylor began exploring the texts of Jacques Derrida and his most important followers. Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology (University of Chicago Press, 1984) was one of the earliest attempts to study religion from the standpoint of poststructuralist philosophy and was followed by two closely related works, the sourcebook Deconstruction in Context: Literature and Philosophy (Chicago,1986) and Altarity (Chicago, 1987). In 1989, Taylor founded the Religion and Postmodernism series at the University of Chicago Press as a forum for translations and new scholarship.
During the late 1980s, Taylor was drawn into debates about architecture and the visual arts, and in 1992 published a theological study of religious twentieth-century visual arts, Disfiguring: Art, Architecture and Religion. In later essays and books, Taylor considers a broad range of artists: Mark Tansey, Michael Heizer, Richard Serra, Fred Sandback, Ann Hamilton, Joseph Beuys and others. His extensive work on architecture includes essays on Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Liebeskind, Robert Venturi, Frank Gehry, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
While writing on the visual arts, Taylor became interested in media and new information technologies. In 1992 he and Esa Saarinen, a Finnish philosopher, taught the first global seminar using teleconferencing technology. Their book, Imagologies: Media Philosophy (Routledge, 1994) grew out of this seminar. The book’s unusual design in turn inspired the Finnish design company, Marimekko, to develop a product line derived from pages of the book. Taylor’s subsequent book, Hiding (Chicago, 1997), extended the use of graphic design to create hypertextual effects within the limits of a conventional bound book. As a companion to Hiding, Taylor and José Marquez issued a CD-ROM video game entitled The Réal – Las Vegas, Nevada.
While Taylor was exploring art and new media, he extended his experiments with technology in the classroom. In 1993, he was awarded the Rector’s Medal by the University of Helsinki and in 1995 the Carnegie Foundation named him the national Professor of the Year for his innovative teaching. In 1998, Taylor and New York investment banker Herbert Allen, Jr., founded Global Education Network, whose mission was to provide high-quality, low-cost online education in the liberal arts, humanities, and sciences.
Taylor’s work with technology led to a growing interest in the expanding fields of network theory and scientific studies of complex adaptive systems. In a series of books–The Picture in Question: Mark Tansey and the Ends of Representation (Chicago, 1999), The Moment of Complexity (Chicago, 2001), and Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World Without Redemption (Chicago, 2004)–Taylor deploys complexity theory to explore a range of social, cultural and economic developments.
Taylor’s interest in the visual arts and graphic design has led to his own artistic experiments. In Grave Matters (Reaktion, 2002), Taylor and Dietrich Christian Lammerts collaborated on a book featuring Lammerts’s photographs of the graves of one hundred and fifty modern writers, theologians, philosophers, artists and architects. In 2003, Taylor expanded this project beyond the format of the book to create an exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which included not only the photographs but also sculpture and video art. In 2006, Taylor published Mystic Bones, featuring forty of Taylor’s own photographs of deer, cattle and elk bones, accompanied by aphorisms and an essay, “Rubbings of Reality,” on the place of deserts in the imagination. More recently, Taylor has been creating a complex work of art entitled “NeXus,” which includes land art, and stone, bone, and steel sculptures. In the summer of 2016 he co-curated an exhibition at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA entitled “Sensing Place: Reflections on Stone Hill.” NeXus was part of this exhibition. His book Recovering Place: Reflections on Stone Hill (Columbia University Press, 2014) was the catalog for this show.
Taylor’s work attempts to give sustained attention to the theological, philosophical, and artistic issues that were framed in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Taylor’s After God, published in the fall of 2007 (University of Chicago Press), weaves together the many strands of his oeuvre.
Taylor’s additional books include: Refiguring the Real: In Conversation with William Gaddis, Richard Powers, Mark Danielewski, and Don Dillo (Columbia University Press, 2013), Refiguring the Spiritual: Beuys, Barney, Turrell, Goldsworthy (Columbia University Press, 2012), Speed Limits: Where Time Went And Why We Have So Little Left (Yale, 2014), Last Works: Lessons in Leaving (Yale, 2018), and Abiding Grace: Time, Modernity, Death (University of Chicago Press, 2018) On August 31, 2010, Taylor published Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities (Knopf, ISBN 0-307-59329-0), in which he identified and analyzed major problems facing higher education.
In addition to his own writing, Taylor has been involved in a number of editorial projects. In the late 1970s, he chaired the Research and Publications Committee of the American Academy of Religion, which initiated a series of major publishing programs. The Religion and Postmodernism book series he founded continues at the University of Chicago Press under the editorship of Thomas A. Carlson. Taylor has also edited a textbook, Critical Terms for the Study of Religion (Chicago, 1998), designed for college courses on method in religious studies.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed in rebus apertissimis nimium longi sumus. Quaero igitur, quo modo hae tantae commendationes a natura profectae subito a sapientia relictae sint. Illud non continuo, ut aeque incontentae. Sed quanta sit alias, nunc tantum possitne esse tanta. Quae duo sunt, unum facit. Sed emolumenta communia esse dicuntur, recte autem facta et peccata non habentur communia. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Quod cum ille dixisset et satis disputatum videretur, in oppidum ad Pomponium perreximus omnes. Ita graviter et severe voluptatem secrevit a bono.
Frater et T. Id quaeris, inquam, in quo, utrum respondero, verses te huc atque illuc necesse est. An est aliquid, quod te sua sponte delectet? Sed tamen omne, quod de re bona dilucide dicitur, mihi praeclare dici videtur. Quod totum contra est. At iste non dolendi status non vocatur voluptas. Bonum negas esse divitias, praeposìtum esse dicis?
Consequentia exquirere, quoad sit id, quod volumus, effectum. Quid enim? Quae cum essent dicta, discessimus. Dicam, inquam, et quidem discendi causa magis, quam quo te aut Epicurum reprehensum velim. Quasi vero, inquit, perpetua oratio rhetorum solum, non etiam philosophorum sit. Ergo hoc quidem apparet, nos ad agendum esse natos. Primum in nostrane potestate est, quid meminerimus?
Ne tum quidem te respicies et cogitabis sibi quemque natum esse et suis voluptatibus? Non igitur de improbo, sed de callido improbo quaerimus, qualis Q. Quod autem satis est, eo quicquid accessit, nimium est; Bona autem corporis huic sunt, quod posterius posui, similiora. Nos quidem Virtutes sic natae sumus, ut tibi serviremus, aliud negotii nihil habemus. At negat Epicurus-hoc enim vestrum lumen estquemquam, qui honeste non vivat, iucunde posse vivere.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quid dubitas igitur mutare principia naturae? Quod etsi ingeniis magnis praediti quidam dicendi copiam sine ratione consequuntur, ars tamen est dux certior quam natura. Quamvis enim depravatae non sint, pravae tamen esse possunt. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Ad eas enim res ab Epicuro praecepta dantur. Hoc non est positum in nostra actione. Aliter enim explicari, quod quaeritur, non potest. Qui autem diffidet perpetuitati bonorum suorum, timeat necesse est, ne aliquando amissis illis sit miser. Nos paucis ad haec additis finem faciamus aliquando; Ergo in utroque exercebantur, eaque disciplina effecit tantam illorum utroque in genere dicendi copiam. Verum tamen cum de rebus grandioribus dicas, ipsae res verba rapiunt; Hic nihil fuit, quod quaereremus.
Sed emolumenta communia esse dicuntur, recte autem facta et peccata non habentur communia. Ut proverbia non nulla veriora sint quam vestra dogmata. Immo istud quidem, inquam, quo loco quidque, nisi iniquum postulo, arbitratu meo. Claudii libidini, qui tum erat summo ne imperio, dederetur. Ac tamen hic mallet non dolere. Atqui haec patefactio quasi rerum opertarum, cum quid quidque sit aperitur, definitio est.
Quid enim me prohiberet Epicureum esse, si probarem, quae ille diceret? Bona autem corporis huic sunt, quod posterius posui, similiora. Sequitur disserendi ratio cognitioque naturae; Sit hoc ultimum bonorum, quod nunc a me defenditur; Haec para/doca illi, nos admirabilia dicamus. Nunc omni virtuti vitium contrario nomine opponitur. Illa sunt similia: hebes acies est cuipiam oculorum, corpore alius senescit; Sed ad bona praeterita redeamus. Sit hoc ultimum bonorum, quod nunc a me defenditur; Immo alio genere; Nam quibus rebus efficiuntur voluptates, eae non sunt in potestate sapientis. Fortitudinis quaedam praecepta sunt ac paene leges, quae effeminari virum vetant in dolore.
Quae diligentissime contra Aristonem dicuntur a Chryippo. Nummus in Croesi divitiis obscuratur, pars est tamen divitiarum. Quid nunc honeste dicit? Eam tum adesse, cum dolor omnis absit; Maximus dolor, inquit, brevis est. Haeret in salebra.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. At vero illa, quae Peripatetici, quae Stoici dicunt, semper tibi in ore sunt in iudiciis, in senatu. Tum Quintus: Est plane, Piso, ut dicis, inquit. Et non ex maxima parte de tota iudicabis? Verum tamen cum de rebus grandioribus dicas, ipsae res verba rapiunt; Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Haec quo modo conveniant, non sane intellego. An hoc usque quaque, aliter in vita? Praeteritis, inquit, gaudeo.
Gracchum patrem non beatiorem fuisse quam fillum, cum alter stabilire rem publicam studuerit, alter evertere. Idemne potest esse dies saepius, qui semel fuit? Multa sunt dicta ab antiquis de contemnendis ac despiciendis rebus humanis; Cum sciret confestim esse moriendum eamque mortem ardentiore studio peteret, quam Epicurus voluptatem petendam putat. An est aliquid per se ipsum flagitiosum, etiamsi nulla comitetur infamia? Quasi ego id curem, quid ille aiat aut neget. Sed quae tandem ista ratio est? Animi enim quoque dolores percipiet omnibus partibus maiores quam corporis. Item de contrariis, a quibus ad genera formasque generum venerunt.
Similiter sensus, cum accessit ad naturam, tuetur illam quidem, sed etiam se tuetur; Tollitur beneficium, tollitur gratia, quae sunt vincla concordiae. Deinde prima illa, quae in congressu solemus: Quid tu, inquit, huc? Sed haec nihil sane ad rem; Praeclarae mortes sunt imperatoriae; Quamquam id quidem, infinitum est in hac urbe; Sed ne, dum huic obsequor, vobis molestus sim. Huius, Lyco, oratione locuples, rebus ipsis ielunior. Si enim ita est, vide ne facinus facias, cum mori suadeas.
Dolor ergo, id est summum malum, metuetur semper, etiamsi non aderit; At quicum ioca seria, ut dicitur, quicum arcana, quicum occulta omnia? Sed fortuna fortis; Satis est ad hoc responsum. Non quaeritur autem quid naturae tuae consentaneum sit, sed quid disciplinae. Sed vobis voluptatum perceptarum recordatio vitam beatam facit, et quidem corpore perceptarum. Nos vero, inquit ille; Ne amores quidem sanctos a sapiente alienos esse arbitrantur. Sit enim idem caecus, debilis. Sint ista Graecorum;
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quae diligentissime contra Aristonem dicuntur a Chryippo. Nam quibus rebus efficiuntur voluptates, eae non sunt in potestate sapientis. Hoc tu nunc in illo probas. Sed fortuna fortis; Cetera illa adhibebat, quibus demptis negat se Epicurus intellegere quid sit bonum. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Totum autem id externum est, et quod externum, id in casu est. Idem etiam dolorem saepe perpetiuntur, ne, si id non faciant, incidant in maiorem.
Quid nunc honeste dicit? Suam denique cuique naturam esse ad vivendum ducem. Cuius quidem, quoniam Stoicus fuit, sententia condemnata mihi videtur esse inanitas ista verborum. De maximma autem re eodem modo, divina mente atque natura mundum universum et eius maxima partis administrari. Murenam te accusante defenderem. Varietates autem iniurasque fortunae facile veteres philosophorum praeceptis instituta vita superabat.
Vide ne ista sint Manliana vestra aut maiora etiam, si imperes quod facere non possim. Sin dicit obscurari quaedam nec apparere, quia valde parva sint, nos quoque concedimus; Atque haec coniunctio confusioque virtutum tamen a philosophis ratione quadam distinguitur. Et quidem iure fortasse, sed tamen non gravissimum est testimonium multitudinis. Qua igitur re ab deo vincitur, si aeternitate non vincitur? Quamquam id quidem licebit iis existimare, qui legerint. Nunc haec primum fortasse audientis servire debemus.
Quod si ita se habeat, non possit beatam praestare vitam sapientia. Inde sermone vario sex illa a Dipylo stadia confecimus. Duae sunt enim res quoque, ne tu verba solum putes. Ex quo intellegitur officium medium quiddam esse, quod neque in bonis ponatur neque in contrariis.