In search of passionate argument …

… but apparently only on her terms: Marilynne Robinson's Sacred Cosmology | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The soul, for her, is not merely a useful abstraction or historical curiosity, but a reality: one that leads her to reject scientific reductionism and deny what she considers an untenable distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. The soul’s “nonphysicality,” she argues, “is no proof of its nonexistence,” and by way of illustration: “If Shakespeare had undergone an MRI there is no reason to believe there would be any more evidence of extraordinary brilliance in him that there would be of a self or a soul.”

Well put. If only Robinson would actually consider the arguments of those she disagrees with politically, and maybe learn some economics as well. Would love to see her reaction to Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy, the State.