This book by Andrew Shanks is, in my own reading journey at least, a continued meditation on the themes and content of Fichte's The Vocation of the Scholar, but goes into much more depth. Shanks is here concerned with the twin pursuits of philosophy and theology as efforts in Honesty (yes, with a capital H - by which he means the wholehearted pursuit of truth as meaningful to life); in part one, on philosophy, he draws on many thinkers ancient (as in Socrates & Epicurus) to modern (as in Rousseau & Hegel) to ones new to me (as in Strauss & Kojéve) to sketch a platform from which this kind of thinking bases itself. In part two, on theology, he draws on further thinkers (including Coleridge, Jaspers, Hegel again, and Girard) to develop the notion of this Honesty into the pursuit of communicating Truth to a non-intellectual public. The overall argument of this book is that all intellectuals, of any religion or none, should essentially consider themselves within the vocation of the primordial priest, and seek oneness; that intellectualism in itself should be a unifying and perfecting process for humankind. I found this book pretty hard going, hence it being the only thing I have to show for on this blog for the latter half of this month (with the first half having been so prolific); with few practical insights - however, if you are a Christian intellectual with a bent for philosophy and an amenability for theology, I think you would find this a fruitful read.
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