I have decided to keep a dissertation journal for my MA thesis. I did one for my undergraduate dissertation on my old blog, but it seems fitting to do one for this blog, given its philosophical themes. This post, in particular, will introduce my ideas and reveal some of the questions I am interested in. This post is general and about big ideas, that inspire me, I will get down to the detail in later posts.

I picked up an Oxford World Classics’s edition of Aristotle’s psychological works, including ‘On The Soul’, the other day, from Waterstones. I mention this not because my dissertation will focus on Aristotle, though I may use some commentaries on him for later projects after my MA, but because it illuminates some of the questions I am interested in. After browsing through the book, I noticed some themes, such as perception and subject-object relations. In summary, the anthology has a number of chapters that focus on how the self relates to anything outside the self. My MA dissertation will focus on this relationship between the ego and what is outside.

However, my dissertation’s starting point has theological as well as philosophical undertones. You may remember in 2019 I reviewed Robert Markus’ Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity. This book examines hermeneutics, most notably Augustine’s and Gregory the Great’s, but its most interesting point is that the author’s scriptural views influenced how they interpreted the world. This forms one of the bases of my thesis, I want to examine how Late Antique hermeneutics affected one’s experience of the world. My dissertation therefore has a phenomenological dimension as well. I have chosen Gregory the Great’s Homilies on Ezekiel as my main primary source for this task of exploring how the self relates to what is outside. I decided on this because it covers a range of interesting themes, like prophecy and visions, which are sure to add an extra layer to the discussion surrounding interpretation. There was also a practical reason, I can do the Homilies on Ezekiel justice in 20,000 words and I could not have done this for the more famous and more studied Commentary on Job.

However, the Homilies on Ezekiel shall not form the only text I will study in my dissertation. One section of it will compare the writings of Gregory the Great to the continental philosopher Paul Ricoeur. I have chosen the latter writer because he takes a phenomenological approach to hermeneutics, which is kind of what Markus does without necessarily stating clearly stating it. There are other writers who hermeneutic phenomenologists, like Gadamer and Heidegger, but I chose Ricouer because he has written a lot on religion and scriptural interpretation. This would allow a more direct comparison with Gregory the Great. I was also advised to narrow down my focus.

There is a purpose to comparing Gregory and Ricoeur and it goes beyond identifying similarities or differences. I want to see if it is possible to build a meta-theory of interpreting Late Antique experience. Can modern insights, like those of Ricoeur, be applied to the past with a base in the evidence? I often think modern theories may not be the best tools for understanding the past. It is, in my opinion, better to seek out theories from the time period themselves then test modern theories against them. I believe doing this could lend great support to modern theories, especially if they are supported by evidence. This all makes me sound like an empiricist and I think I am. However, not in the narrow sense of looking for facts. I am empirical in the sense of wanting to understand how people came into contact the world- how they sensed it. There is no reason not to believe people in the past experienced the world differently to us in terms of how they perceived and indeed interpreted the world. My use of interpretation here may seem to go against my empiricism, but it does not. Interpretation and hermeneutics directly affect how we pick up the world.

Some, who have read my posts, may find it odd that I have declared myself as an empiricist. I have written on postmodernism quite a lot, such as Cillier’s synthesis of postmodernism and complexity theory or on postmodern theology. I believe postmodernism is not necessarily at odds with my empirical vision, if its theories can be grounded in comparative evidence. One of the main purposes of my dissertation is to establish this comparative approach between modern and historic theories. I believe this is pivotal if we are to understand the past. Critics would likely raise here that we do not necessarily always have the evidence for such comparisons. This is a question my dissertation will explore, given the fact we only have several hermeneutical texts by Gregory the Great. It is hoped my dissertation will contribute to an effort to see if such a vision of history, as I have declared, is practical.

You could be wondering at this point what have my ideas got to do with practical research. Well, that is why I am dedicating a chapter to applying the potentially developed meta-theory to Gregory the Great’s Dialogues. I want to consider how big questions affect practice. What happens if we apply this envisaged theory to a text? Gregory, may have experienced the world differently to us, so what happens when we apply the combined Late Antique and Modern theory to a source? Does it stand the test? How can we understand texts differently?

I have a lot of questions and ideas at this stage, as you can see, and these will likely be narrowed down. However, it is hoped this post has given some insights into my thinking at an early stage of my dissertation and also the philosophical questions I am interested in. With regards to future posts about my dissertation, they will likely have a more specific focus. I will discuss the different stages I am at and how research has reformulated my questions and answers. I may also do smaller posts containing interesting points that I have discovered or found out. Regardless, it is thrilling to be doing this project and I hope in the end it can provide some clarity on my big questions.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources

Aristotle, On the Soul translated by Fred D. Miller Jr in Aristolle: On the Soul and Other Psychological Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Gregory the Great, Dialogues translated by Edmund G. Gardener in The Dialogues of St Gregory the Great. Merchantville: Evolution Publishing and Manufacturing, 2010.

Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel translated by Theodosia Tomkinson in Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Perrysville: Centre for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2010.

Secondary Sources

Caputo, John. What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernity For The Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

Cilliers, Paul. Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems. London: Routledge, 1998.

Markus, Robert A. Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996.