Michael D. Hurley explores a deep and unexpected dependency between John Henry Newman’s efforts and achievements in thought and word: a kind of dependency that is also a form of conflict, between thinking and feeling, argumentation and aesthetics. It will be suggested that Newman does not seek to translate ideas into language so much as he uses the act of writing itself to help forge his ideas. Correspondingly, his Grammar of Assent does not so much argue its thesis by syllogistic discipline, as it exploits the literary resources of language to dramatize its thesis, by implicating the reader into the imaginative experience of faith as a ‘semi logical’ mode.
This event took place on Friday 2 June 2017 and is part of the VHI 2016-17 series on Dynamics of Dis/Agreement. For more details visit http://www.vhi.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/events
