Abstract
Hegel once remarked: ‘The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.’ Mary Midgley deploys the image in her memoir: ‘The thought for which I want to use it is that wisdom, and therefore philosophy, comes into its own when things become dark and difficult rather than when they are clear and straightforward. That — it seems to me — is why it is so important.’
The darkest place is always underneath the lamp.
Chinese proverb
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Further Reading and References
The Owl of Minerva: A Memoir, by Mary Midgley, is published by Routledge (2005). The quote is on page x.
The Longinus quote is from, ‘On Sublimity’, in Classical Literary Criticism, published by Oxford University Press (1989), page 143.
A summary of Karl Popper on Darwinism is in Unended Quest, Chapter 37 (see above). Melvyn Bragg’s quote is in Devout Sceptics (see above).
The Devout Sceptics interviews by Bel Mooney are collected in a Hodder and Stoughton book with the same title (2003): see page 57 for Paul Davies’ quote.
Oscar Wilde’s essay on facts can be found in his collected works.
An earlier version of the prayer to God was published on the Guardian’s Cif Belief website (www.guardian.co.uk/belief).
Roger Hull makes his comments on the American Sublime in the catalogue to the exhibition.
Leslie Stephen’s ‘An Agnostic’s Apology’ is in Atheism: A Reader, edited by S.T. Joshi, published by Prometheus Books (2000).
Victor Stenger explores something and nothing in God the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, published by Prometheus Books (2008).
Freud, by Jonathan Leer, is published by Routledge (2005).
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins is published by Bantam Press (2006).
Newman’s discussion comes from his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent and I’m indebted to the discussions of it by Anthony Kenny in a TLS article of July 28, 2010, and in Newman’s Unquiet Grave by John Cornwell, published by Continuum (2010).
Jeanette Winterson’s website is www.jeanettewinterson.com.
Will in the World, by Stephen Greenblatt, is published by Pimlico (2004).
A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland is published by Granta (2009).
Thomas Carlyle’s quote on silence is in his essay ‘Sir Walter Scott’, in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.
The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value, by John Cottingham, is published by Cambridge University Press (2005).
The Hume comment on avoiding high enquires is from his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Section XII, Part III.
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© 2011 Mark Vernon
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Vernon, M. (2011). How To Be An Agnostic: An A–Z. In: How To Be An Agnostic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-30144-3_9
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