Philosopher and comedy writer (Futurama, Big Bang Theory) Kaplan tackles a metaphysical paradox: there are some things we dearly believe in that are not universally acknowledged as real. Here, Kaplan shows how philosophy giants Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein strove to smooth over this uncomfortable meeting of the real and unreal--and failed. From there he turns to mysticism's attempts to resolve such paradoxes, surveying Buddhism, Taoism, early Christianity, Theosophy, and even the philosophers at UC Berkeley under whom he studied. Finally, (...) he alights on--surprise--comedy as the ultimate resolution of the fundamental paradoxes of life. Ultimately, Kaplan delves deeper into the implications of this deceptively simple revelation, from how our physical brains work to his own personal confrontations with life's biggest questions: If we're all going to die, what's the point of anything? What is a perfect moment? What can you say about God? Or Santa? The answers in this book will cheer the rest of your life.--Adapted from publisher description. (shrink)

[I] Divine Simplicity: God and His Existence Types of Divine Simplicity Of the properties ascribed to God in Aquinas' natural theology, we may call one sort ...

Aquinas’s teaching that God is entirely simple is central to his philosophy of God. Much of his thought cannot be properly understood without an adequate grasp of what simplicity involves and why he argues for it. The depth and rigor of Aquinas’s account of divine simplicity mark a significant contribution to the development of this crucial position in traditional philosophical theology. Commentators usually focus on limited aspects of Aquinas’s position, and contemporary philosophical assessments often reflect an incomplete (...) understanding of the distinctive ontology supporting his theological conclusions. This book offers an in-depth examination of what divine simplicity means for Aquinas and how he argues for its claims. Simplicity and other divine predicates are analyzed within the larger metaphysical and semantic framework surrounding Aquinas’s philosophy of God. The work thus goes beyond the issue of simplicity to some of the fundamental tenets of Aquinas’s philosophical theology and his views on divine predication. The author also engages with a variety of Aquinas’s recent commentators, bringing the insights of this great figure to bear on contemporary discussions. (shrink)

Contemporary continental philosophy approaches metaphysics with great reservation. A point of criticism concerns traditional philosophical speaking about God. Whereas Nietzsche, with his question "God is dead; who killed Him?" was, in his time, highly 'unzeitgemäß' and shocking, the twentieth century by contrast, saw Heidegger's concept of 'onto-theology' and its implied problematization of the God of the metaphysicians quickly become a famous term. In Heidegger's words, to a philosophical concept or 'being' we can neither pray, nor kneel. Heidegger did (...) not, however, return to the God of Christian faith. He tried to initiate a new way of speaking about God--a way that reveals the limits of philosophical discourse. Derrida, Marion, Bataille, Adorno, Taubes and Bakhtin, each in their own way, continue this exploration begun by Nietzsche and Heidegger. This book takes a fresh look at these developments. The 'death of God' as the editors say in an introductory study, announces not so much the death of the 'old God'--the God of philosophers, theologians and believers--but rather the death of the god who put himself on His throne: autonomous human reason. In listening to the reactions to this dethronement of autonomous reason, the editors believe they hear the echoes of an experience of an embarrassment rooted partly in an old medieval tradition: negative theology. With the death of this 'new god', might a sensitivity reappear for transcendence? Here the editors want to offer a platform where contemporary philosophers of culture can again pose the question of speaking about God. (shrink)

This book collects nine papers on Kant’s philosophical theology written between 1975 and 1992 by Aloysius Winter, who teaches fundamental theology and philosophy of religion at Fulda’s Catholic Theological Faculty. Its object is clear and important. It aims at presenting a different reading of several Kantian texts in order to refute the common interpretation of Kant as an agnostic and highlight instead an overall theological orientation of his philosophy. As remarked by Norbert Hinske in his foreword to (...) this volume, Winter has been looking for “another Kant,” which eventually turns out to be the more authentic one. Indeed, Kant had been considered by most Catholic thinkers to be despicable, momentous, and dangerous. A wholesale evaluation took place that began with the two volumes of Benedikt Sattler’s Antikant, which appeared in 1788, and was sealed by the insertion of the Critique of Pure Reason in the Index librorum prohibitorum in 1827. The reason for this rejection, argues Winter, probably lies in certain formulations of the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason that superficial readers may have regarded as offensive. However, this is not enough, says Winter, to dismiss a philosopher at once. In fact, Kant offers a number of positive suggestions and reflections that can, especially today, be of great help also to Catholic theology. The first essay deals with Kant and the confessions. One should not forget the cautious Renaissance of Kant’s transcendental philosophy initiated in the first half of the twentieth century by Joseph Maréchal, Emmerich Coreth, Bernard Lonergan, Johannes B. Lotz, André Marc, and Karl Rahner. It is true that Kant understood himself first and foremost as a scholar of “rational religion,” by this implying the legitimacy of his taking distance from all confessions, and it is also true that Kant’s positions on free will and God’s grace can be considered pelagian. Yet, this is Winter’s point, the fact of the matter is not so simple. We should rather remember that Kant, when dealing with free will, speaks only for the aspect of quoad nos, and that he does not deny that effects of grace could precede our efforts. The second essay proposes a reconstruction of the theological sources Kant was acquainted with from his student years to his mature age. The third essay deals with Kant’s elaborations on prayer and mass. The forth delves into the soul seen as a problem of transcendental philosophy. The fifth investigates the proof of God’s existence from the standpoint of practical reason. The sixth essay reads the Critique of Judgment from the perspective of Kant’s philosophy of religion. The seventh, entitled “Transcendental Theology of Cognition,” is dedicated to theological receptions of Kant’s Critiques, first and foremost to Rahner’s understanding of transcendental theology as a systematic doctrine that makes use of the tools of transcendental philosophy and thematizes the a priori conditions the believer refers to by the cognition of important truth of faith. Finally, the eighth and ninth essays propose a list of the sources of Kant’s philosophy of religion from the history of theology and from religious literature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Atoms, Gunk, and God:Natural Theology and the Debate over the Fundamental Composition of MatterTravis DumsdayLET US SAY we take a rock and divide it in two. We then divide each of the halves again. We repeat. We keep repeating, over and over and over again, until we have reached down to the level of molecules and then to atoms and then to subatomic particles and beyond. What, eventually, will (...) we end up with? (A) Do we eventually reach “rock bottom,” a layer of fundamental objects that can be divided no further? Or (B) could the dividing process be carried on forever?Let us take (A), the idea that there are fundamental, indivisible objects. We may call these “atoms,” and the theory that affirms their existence atomism. (I use the label for historical reasons; the “atoms” discussed in the history of metaphysics are of course not equivalent to the atoms of contemporary physics, which are divisible into constituent subatomic particles.) What must be the nature of these objects? Here we can identify two distinct versions of atomism.According to the first, these entities cannot be spatially extended, since extension entails divisibility. After all, if something has discernible length, then its conceptually distinguishable left and right halves, for instance, could be separated from each other, at least in theory. The existence of the matter constituting the left half seems not to entail the existence of the matter constituting the right half or vice versa, so one could persist without the other (e.g., the left half could be annihilated while the right half continues in existence), and [End Page 227] could be divided from the other. Whether they could actually be separated by us, using current or future technology, is of course an entirely different question from the philosophically significant issue of divisibility in principle. Atoms are, on this view, extensionless “point particles” with no actual or potential proper parts. This may be called atomism version 1.According to the second version of atomism, these indivisible objects are nevertheless spatially extended. The reality of atoms is affirmed, but the relation obtaining between extension and divisibility, which is supposedly entailed, is rejected. Despite being spatially extended, these particles cannot possibly be divided. Consequently, although they are spatially extended, they do not possess actual proper parts in the sense that “proper part” is typically understood (i.e., as involving smaller constituent objects, which could in theory exist apart from the whole). The claim is not merely that they cannot be divided by us using current or future technology, nor that their division would be inconsistent with contingent physical laws. The impossibility referenced here is not mere physical impossibility. Rather, the claim is that it is metaphysically impossible (and logically impossible, for those who equate metaphysical and logical impossibility) for them to be divided. There is no possible world in which these entities are in any way divided, either by splitting in two or by destroying one section while leaving the rest intact. This may be called atomism version 2.Atomism’s major competitors may be grouped under the affirmation of (B), according to which division could go on forever. Matter is infinitely divisible. But what does infinite divisibility imply? Here there is a further divergence of views. One camp affirms the gunky view of matter. On this view, a material object is infinitely divisible because it is composed of an actual infinity of proper parts: any material object is composed of smaller proper parts that are themselves real objects composed of smaller proper parts that are themselves real objects composed of smaller proper parts, and so on, ad infinitum. Another camp denies the reality of actual infinities (at least in the material realm), and affirms instead the reality of extended simples. On this view matter is infinitely divisible, as [End Page 228] on the gunky view, but not because material objects are composed of an actual infinity of smaller objects. Instead, material nature bottoms out (in a sense) at objects that are spatially extended and potentially subject to division, but that lack actual proper parts. They are not composed of real, smaller objects. Rather, what makes it true that the object... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dei Filius IV:On Theological Method and the Nexus MysteriorumConor McDonough, O.P.From the point of view of Church history, chapter 4 of Dei Filius might seem like dull terrain. Dei Filius as a whole has been regarded as the "forgotten decree" of the First Vatican Council,1 and the principal controversies during its passage through the Council were, for the most part, proxy battles over papal infallibility.2 Of the whole (...) document, the fourth chapter, on the relationship between faith and reason, provoked the fewest interventions from the Council fathers.3 On April 24, 1870, the day the constitution was passed unanimously by the Council fathers, an American bishop, John McQuaid of Rochester, described Dei Filius in a letter: [End Page 891] "There are some obstruse [sic] metaphysical points which few can fathom and certainly will never trouble the brains of any but a German philosopher for whose especial benefit they seem to have been made. The rest is quite simple theology."4Whether McQuaid regarded chapter 4 as "obstruse" or "simple theology" is anybody's guess, but it is clear that it was indeed composed with German thinkers in mind, especially the rationalists Georg Hermes (1775–1831) and Anton Günther (1783–1863),5 and its composition and passage through the conciliar process was also largely the work of Germanophone theologians: Johann Baptist Franzelin, S.J. (1816–1886), Joseph Kleutgen, S.J. (1811–1893), and Bishop Vincent Gasser (1809–1879).6 It may not have provoked much debate on the floor of the Council, but its careful pronouncements on faith and reason were a vital antidote both to rationalism and fideism. More than that, Dei Filius outlines key points of theological method, making explicit what had long been implicit in the work of theologians. As we shall see, these insights are of enduring relevance to the wise practice of theology.Reason's Work and the Mysteries of FaithWhat is the role of reason in relation to the mysteries of the faith? Or, to put it another way, how does theology proceed? Rationalism and fideism both answer these questions badly. Speaking very broadly, we can say that rationalism, in its more extreme variety, claims that reason can actually construct the whole edifice of faith. God has revealed mysteries of the faith, like his triunity, for example, but reason can—so claim the rationalists—arrive independently at the same mysteries of faith (rendering them, one might add, somewhat less mysterious).Fideism, in its extreme forms, gives hardly any role to reason at all: we receive revelation, and we repeat and transmit it, with little room for reflection and growth in understanding. The light of faith, according to [End Page 892] this view, makes redundant the natural light of reason, at least in the realm of the revealed truths.Dei Filius rules out these two extremes: reason does not independently reconstruct the mysteries of faith, nor does it merely repeat these mysteries. But the constitution does not limit itself to ruling out extremes. In chapter 2 it affirms the capacity of human reason to know God's existence independently of revelation, and in chapter 4 it develops a positive account of the role of reason within faith, enunciating basic principles of sound theological method. Having affirmed in this final chapter a "twofold order of knowledge," accessible by natural reason and faith, respectively, and having affirmed the existence of truths "which, unless they are divinely revealed, are incapable of being known," the constitution outlines the kind of work human reason can carry out on these mysteries:Reason, enlightened by faith, when it seeks persistently, piously, and soberly, does achieve by God's gift some understanding—a most profitable understanding—of the mysteries, both by analogy from what it knows naturally, and by the connection of these mysteries with one another and with the final end of humanity; but reason is never rendered capable of penetrating these mysteries in the way in which it penetrates those truths which form its proper object.7Avoiding any hint of rationalism, Dei Filius indicates here two methods or paths8 by which reason can gain "some understanding" of the mysteries revealed by God... (shrink)

The preservation of historical archives is inherently linked to human memory, raising profound philosophical and theological questions about authenticity, truth, and the transmission of sacred and historical knowledge. While vivid oral narratives and reference data contribute to a more comprehensive collective memory, the reliability of historical records remains shaped by subjective cognition and sociocultural influences. This study examines the philosophical and religious dimensions of historical authenticity by analyzing the interplay between human memory, archival preservation, and epistemological trust. (...) A human memory coding scale is developed, incorporating subjective intentionality and objective influences, alongside a multi-level framework for assessing historical authenticity from macro, meso, and micro perspectives. Using historical collections from museums in Province D as a case study, Pearson’s correlation coefficient is applied to explore the relationship between human memory and historical truth, while regression models assess the impact of memory distortion on archival integrity. Findings indicate that the correlation between human memory and the authenticity of historical records is significantly negative at the 1%–10% level, with deliberate forgetting (O2) exerting the greatest influence. The study argues that the transmission of historical and religious knowledge is not merely a technical challenge but also a metaphysical and ethical concern, as collective memory shape’s cultural identity, spiritual heritage, and theological interpretation. To mitigate distortions, the research advocates for the integration of digital preservation technologies, enhanced historical evaluation mechanisms, and a theological-philosophical discourse on truth, memory, and divine testimony. Future studies should further investigate how religious traditions, faith-based historiography, and sacred narratives influence perceptions of historical authenticity and the construction of collective memory. (shrink)

Somewhat surprisingly, a number of scholars have recently claimed to find an implied theology in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. This surprising because the author does not state anywhere in the body of his work that he seeks to align his philosophy with a theology, in fact he states just the opposite, as we shall see. While it is true that Merleau-Ponty does dialogue with certain views of Christianity, and while it is true that he does argue for a religion that treats the (...) divine as “horizontal” rather than “vertical,” that is, as part of human life rather than beyond it, the sympathetic goal of his reflection here is to suggest a Christianity that is more humane and less dogmatically hierarchical, that is more centered in human experience rather than an absolute other. His goal here is certainly not to claim this theology as an essential part of his philosophy. As he says, the role of the philosopher should not be to prove or disprove the existence of God but to consider what God means to human beings in the movement of history. A number of Merleau-Ponty’s own texts will be consider here in some detail along with a variety of texts that claim that his works harbor a hidden theology. (shrink)

This book is the first treatment at length of negative, or apophatic, theology within the analytic tradition. Apophatic theology holds that there is a significant sense in which we cannot say what God is. Important negative theological elements are present in a host of Christian thinkers, from Gregory of Nyssa to Aquinas, and yet apophaticism is neglected in philosophical theology as practiced within the analytic tradition. By contrast, Hewitt shows how apophatic theology is integral to how Christians have (...) thought about God, and how it can be defended against standard attacks in the philosophical literature. Hewitt diagnoses the unease with apophaticism amongst contempory philosophical theologicans as rooted in a certain picture of how language functions, here called referentialism. Arguing that this picture is not compulsory, an account of language which sits more comfortably with negative theology (originating from work of later Wittgenstein) is invoked, and applied to key themes in philosophical theology including divine personhood, the Trinity, the Incarnation and the afterlife. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION: Philosophy is the unique science which considers all other sciences in systematically unity (Kant). The classical anthropology (Platon, Aristoteles, Descartes, Hume, Kant, etc.) considers the human and his "spheres" (biological, psychological, logical, philosophical, theological) and his interdependence with nature and society. A philosophical theology investigates spiritual phenomena, described by religions and parapsychology in context of ethics, epistemology (incl. metaphysics), aesthetics. A theological anthropology should consider these phenomena multidimensional in context of a holisticscience, i.e. physico- (Kant), (...) bio- (Lüke), psycho-, logico-, philosophical theology, etc. [Lit.: Neu, Michailov: Integralanthropology. In: Proc. 21st World Congr. Philos. Istanbul. Press FISP 280‐281, 2003; Theol. Anthrop. In: Book: New Pathways for Eur. Bioethics. Ed.: Eur. Ass. Med. Ethics, Leuven, p. 53/60, 2006; Med. Ethics, 21st Ann. Conf. EACME (Ed.) Zürich, p. 53, 2007]. CONCEPTION: Regrettably philosophical theology is reduced to nearly philosophical and theological ethics: Both ethics in the future should realize a common scientific integrated ethics based on philosophy, theology, and psychology incl. of great cultures - Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianism-Mosaism, Confucianism, and Mohammedanism. The present moral philosophy is very pluralistic: Many views concerningnormative and metaethics (deontology, axiology), also relativism, absolutism (incl. utilitarism), noncognitivism are present. A similar situation exists in moral theology: Not only in context of philosophy (consequentialism, justice, protectionism), but more - of theology are existent contradictionary differences concerning ethics in the great religions (related to God, Spirit/Soul, reincarnation, etc.). A future philosophical theology needs a renewal of its scientific theoretical andexperimental fundamentals (controlled observations: criterion for intersubjectivity) concerning theological anthropology incl. not only occidental epistemology (metaphysics, scientific theory, etc.), but also oriental - esp. Brahmanistic and Buddhist (self realization by Yoga, Tibetan, Zen Buddhism) and scientific evaluation of spiritual phenomena by biophysics, physiology, psychology and formal (Aristoteles, Gautama), real, transcendental (Kant), metaphysical (Hegel) normal logic. Areconsideration of application of philosophy of arts, esp. aesthetics in philosophical theology is also necessary (incl. inspirations in music/Bach, Beethoven, Händel, painting/Leonardo da Vinci, sculpture/Michelangelo). CONCLUSION: Scientific and political support for a renovation of theological anthropology and philosophical theology could help essentially for a realization of UNO-Agenda 21 for better total (incl. spiritual) health and peaceful world. (shrink)

According to the prevailing opinion of the Kantian scholars, Kants critique of the traditional philosophical theology in the chapter of his Critique of Pure Reason dedicated to the ideal of reason motivated his rejection of transcendental theology in favor of a construction foundeв on postulates of reason. An examination of Kants sistematics of philosophical-theological disciplines reveals nonetheless some changeability of the borderlines of transcendental theology. This means that Kants critical arguments do not necessarily affect all kinds of (...) trancendental theology, and allows us to investigate Kants reflection of the transcendental ideal if reason as a foundation for an alternative version of philosophical ethico-theology which does not need practical postulates. In the first Critique there is no ground for such a construction, because Kant's concept of virtue remains partly naturalistic at that time. The idea of a pure aprioristic ethics of duty as expounded by Kant later furnished the needed conceptual foundation for a concept already prepared in the theory of the ideal, asserting the reality of a transcendental-practical ideal as a prototype of moral will, as humanity in its comprehensively determined moral perfection, as the realm of ethical ends, and lastly, in an anticipation of the prototypical Christology of Kant's late treatise on religion, as the divine human person within us. Compared with this version of transcendental philosophical theology Kants ethico-theology of postulates should be legitimately determined as a form of natural theology. (shrink)

The matter of the soul has been one of the most important and central matters in the history of Islamic science and thought. For the soul constitutes one of the two elements that make up the human being, and the issue of the human being has undoubtedly been one of the most prominent matters in Islamic civilization and has been a major preoccupation for Islamic intellectuals. In this context, the Islamic basin of knowledge and thought has constructed two main definitions (...) of the soul, one based on the Qur’anic teachings and the other inspired by Ancient Greek philosophy. Theologians conceived of the soul as a “subtle body”. Philosophers, on the other hand, conceived it as an “abstract substance”. This dispute between kalām and philosophy over the soul has not only been confined to the physical realm, but has also extended to the eschatological dimension, leading to a polemic that has lasted for centuries. As with many issues in post-classical Islamic thought, the influence of philosophy on this issue has been seen to be greater than that of other traditions. In fact, in the aforementioned period and later on, works on the soul from a theological perspective could not bypass the philosophical perspective. Within this framework, the theological perspective criticized the philosophers because they disagreed with it and especially because one end of the issue extended to the eschatological axis, and found it important to refute their conceptions in this regard. One of the most prominent figures of the aforementioned period, i.e., post-classical Islamic science and thought, was Abū Muhammad Rukn al-Dīn Ubaydallāh b. Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Samarqandī (d. 701/1301), a member of the Māturīdī and Hanafī sects. Samarqandī wrote many works and treatises on kalām, Qur’anic sciences, tafsīr, fiqh, hadīth, and mysticism. Among the author’s works/risālas/treaties that have reached the present day, there is a work titled “Risālat al-rūḥ” on the humanitarian-nātik (speaking) rational human soul (al-rūh al-nātiq al-insānī). Comprising an introduction and ten chapters, al-Samarqandī used a theological and mystical style, drawing on the teachings of the Qur’ān on the one hand, and partly on rational arguments on the other. The work includes the subject of the soul and the essence of the human being in this context, the definition and essence of the soul, the comparison between the views of the Ahl al-Sunnah and the philosophers in this regard, and the criticisms against the philosophers, the issue of ma‘ād (the end) in eschatology, the thoughts of the Sufis on the soul, the perception of Allah through the saying “Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord”, which the author considered as a hadith, and similar issues. As a mutakallim and following the line of Ahl al-Sunnah, the main problem of al-Samarqandī’s treatise revolves around what should be understood when it comes to “human being”, the nature of the soul, the manner in which ma‘ād will be realized, and his criticisms of philosophers over these issues. Based on our research and studies, it has been observed that the aforementioned treatise has not yet been analyzed and published. Furthermore, two manuscript copies of the treatise in question were found as a result of our investigations. This study covers the critical edition and review of al-Samarqandī’s Risālat al-rūḥ. (shrink)

In this thesis I investigate the theoretical possibility of a universal method of prediction. A prediction method is universal if it is always able to learn from data: if it is always able to extrapolate given data about past observations to maximally successful predictions about future observations. The context of this investigation is the broader philosophical question into the possibility of a formal specification of inductive or scientific reasoning, a question that also relates to modern-day speculation about a fully (...) automatized data-driven science. I investigate, in particular, a proposed definition of a universal prediction method that goes back to Solomonoff and Levin. This definition marks the birth of the theory of Kolmogorov complexity, and has a direct line to the information-theoretic approach in modern machine learning. Solomonoff's work was inspired by Carnap's program of inductive logic, and the more precise definition due to Levin can be seen as an explicit attempt to escape the diagonal argument that Putnam famously launched against the feasibility of Carnap's program. The Solomonoff-Levin definition essentially aims at a mixture of all possible prediction algorithms. An alternative interpretation is that the definition formalizes the idea that learning from data is equivalent to compressing data. In this guise, the definition is often presented as an implementation and even as a justification of Occam's razor, the principle that we should look for simple explanations. The conclusions of my investigation are negative. I show that the Solomonoff-Levin definition fails to unite two necessary conditions to count as a universal prediction method, as turns out be entailed by Putnam's original argument after all; and I argue that this indeed shows that no definition can. Moreover, I show that the suggested justification of Occam's razor does not work, and I argue that the relevant notion of simplicity as compressibility is already problematic itself. (shrink)

Religious faith may manifest itself, among other things, as a mode of seeing the ordinary world, which invests that world imaginatively with an unseen depth of divine intention and spiritual significance. While such seeing may well be truthful, it is also unavoidably constructive, involving the imagination in its philosophical sense of the capacity to organize underdetermined or ambiguous sense date into a whole or gestalt. One of the characteristic ways in which biblical narratives inspire and teach is by renewing (...) their characters’ and readers’ imagination. The texts do so not inexorably but in a similar way as works of art. This paper therefore investigates the ways in which works of art engage and develop the imagination, and thereby enable renewed perceptual and cognitive engagement with the world. The paper introduces predictive processing as a helpful psychological theory for analyzing this dynamic, and outlines questions for further research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality by Helen LonginoRebecca KuklaReview: Helen Longino, Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality, University of Chicago Press, 2013In Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality, Helen Longino meticulously examines a wide variety of research programs devoted to studying human behavior, specifically aggression and sexual orientation. She teases apart the methodologies of the various approaches, examining (...) their epistemic structure, the assumptions they must hold fixed, the research questions they enable and those they necessarily occlude, their underlying ontologies, the interests that motivate them, the ideological investments they help buttress, and the practical and political uses they serve. By the end of the book she has made clear that the so-called ‘nature-nurture’ debates invoke a hopelessly simplistic and distorting dualism when it comes to any interesting question about the etiology of a behavior. This is a readable, informative, rigorous, and elegantly organized new work from a leading scholar who has had a major hand in turning the interplay among science, ethics, and social interests into a topic of rigorous philosophical study.In the first part of the book, Longino devotes a chapter or substantial section to each major methodological approach to studying aggression and sexual orientation, including (using her labels): quantitative behavioral genetics, social-environmental approaches, molecular behavioral genetics, neurobiological approaches, and several ‘integrative’ approaches (such as developmental systems theory) that focus on the interactions and dynamics between causal factors over time rather than trying to isolate one causal contribution. She also briefly discusses human ecology, which takes the unit of study to be the behavior of a population, studied in its material environment, rather than the behavior of an individual.Longino shows elegantly how each of these research programs is equipped to reveal certain specific kinds of truths about behavior, while making other important dimensions of the phenomena invisible. Many of her examples are technical and detailed, but I can recap a few relatively simple and powerful examples: (1) Behavioral researchers have no shared understanding of what an ‘environment’ is or which features of it we need [End Page E-97] to measure. Whatever operationalization of ‘environment’ is used within a study or set of studies, this operationalization is not itself scientifically validated, but merely presupposed (33). Thus how much of a behavior shows up in a study as due to the ‘environment’ depends on just what we measure. On the behavioral genetic approach this will include everything other than genes, but on, say, the neurobiological approach this will be everything other than neural structure. But these are quite different senses of ‘environment’ with different scopes, and there’s no good reason to think they are easily commensurable. (2) ‘GxExN’ researchers use techniques to study the etiology of behavior that were developed expressly for studying disorders (112). This work thus presupposes that we can understand whatever behavior is under study on the disorder model, and will yield no well-formed results to the extent that this model does not fit. But it is at best non-obvious that a disorder model is unproblematic when it comes to aggression or—especially!—sexual orientation. (3) Most of the research programs Longino covers treat the behaving individual as the unit of analysis and study, as opposed to, for example, human ecologists’ focus on whole populations. But as she demonstrates, this affects what kinds of causes we can study, because patterns at the population level may not be detectable using the kinds of measures that can be manipulated at the individual level. Furthermore, some kinds of behaviors may require more than one participant to exist at all; for instance, the very same thing that counts as an aggressive act within one interaction may be a peaceful act in another (175).Longino does a lovely job of showing what sorts of social interests are served and buttressed by which kinds of research. For example, social-environmental approaches will, in virtue of their methodology, focus on social factors that are manipulable, and this makes them particularly amenable to generating suggestions for social interventions. Such research thus better serves the ends of those who are looking to implement... (shrink)

In Chapter IV of his Schreiben und Denken , the Austrian linguist Hanspeter Ortner distinguishes and describes ten writing strategies (“Schreibstrategien”). One of them is “syncretistic writing”. 1 A simple application of Ortner’s defi nition and description of syncretistic writing to the genesis of the Philosophical Investigations (PI) makes clear that the PI can be said to be of syncretistic origin. 2 Wittgenstein’s writing of the PI 3 can be characterized by Ortner’s eight features of syncretistic: his (...) writing (1) hops all over the place (“Sprunghaftigkeit”); (2) combines disparate elements from his writings (“Verbindung von weit Auseinanderliegendem”); (3) is semantically open, under-determined and under-determining (“Unterdeterminiertheit und semantische Offenheit”); (4) postpones gestalt-formation/ elaboration (“Aufschub der Gestaltbildung”); (5) invites and offers many opportunities for creative ideas (“viele Chancen für und Einladungen an den kreativen Einfall”); (6) gives freedom to choose the points of departure and reference (“Freiheit bei der Wahl des/der Startpunktes/e und des/der Gesichtspunktes/e”); (7) is hierarchically under-determined (“hierarchische Unterbestimmtheit”); (8) works side-by-side with the already “fi nished” and the newly begun, which implies long text building processes and parallel operations (“lange ‘Bauzeit’ und Nebeneinander von Fertiggestelltem und Neubegonnenem”). 4 -/- In the following, I will try to show in more detail how the genesis of the PI is characterized by these eight features. First, the writings that constitute the PI’s genesis are characterized by a strong discrepancy between the sequence of remarks in their textual order and the sequence of remarks in their physical order. Texts are put together from chronologically and argumentatively dispersed units. One example is Wittgenstein’s rearrangement of remarks from an earlier dictation (TS 208) into a new text in 1930 (TS 209, published by Rush Rhees as Philosophical Remarks ). In this new text, he abandoned both the original argumentative order and the chronological order and did not necessarily obey the criteria of consistency and coherence, not even on linguistic levels such as demonstrative reference. The work that -/- emerges is seen by many as an unordered agglomerate of remarks, although I have argued that this view can be challenged. 5 The second example is the revision and rearrangement of the so-called Big Typescript (TS 213) in 1933-34, which is paradigmatic in its triple use of (1) the text in the typescript, (2) the handwritten revisions of it in the typescript, and (3) text in other manuscripts. In his edition of the Philosophical Grammar (1969), Rush Rhees has tried to take this complicated network of revisions into account and to follow it painstakingly and faithfully; by looking at the manuscript sources for this edition 6 one realizes how much “hopping all over the place” was going on in the originals. Thirdly, MS 142, the “Urfassung” of the PI, was produced in 1936-37 from remarks stemming from different places in manuscripts and typescripts and various loci of discourse. MS 157b, 13v, contains a list of references to pages in TS 213 from which parts of the text were to be taken to write the “philosophy chapter” of this fi rst PI version; other sources include MS 140 (last page), MS 152, MS 156a, MS 156b and MS 157a, all yielding materials, lists and drafts for the text of MS 142. The fi nal example is TS 228: in the later stages of the PI genesis, Wittgenstein selected about 400 remarks from this typescript to include in TS 227, the typescript used as the printer’s copy for the PI. (shrink)

This contribution discusses Leibniz’s views on key Christian doctrines which were surrounded, in the early modern period, by particularly lively debates. The first section delves into his defence of the Trinity and the Incarnation against the charge of contradiction, and his exploration of metaphysical models capacious enough to accommodate these mysteries. The second section focuses on the resurrection and the Eucharist with special regard to their connections with Leibniz’s metaphysics of bodies. The third section investigates Leibniz’s position on predestination, grace, (...) salvation, and damnation. It comes to the conclusion that salvation, for Leibniz, does not ultimately depend on believing a set of true doctrines, but on a practical attitude: the love of God above all things. Leibniz’s theology is thus fundamentally a theology of love which is ultimately practical, and tries to be both universalist and Christian. (shrink)

_Deprivation and Freedom_ investigates the key issue of social deprivation. It looks at how serious that issue is, what we should do about it and how we might motivate people to respond to it. It covers core areas in moral and political philosophy in new and interesting ways, presents the topical example of disability as a form of social deprivation, shows that we are not doing nearly enough for certain sections of our communities and encourages that we think differently about (...) how we should best organise our societies in the future. The book develops a comprehensive yet refreshingly simple account of human freedom, which shows how the ability to realise our freedom is partly definitive of freedom itself. That account conclusively illustrates how many deprivations represent remediable inequalities of important and very basic human freedoms, posing the question as to why societies continue to do so little about them. In answering that question, Hull shows how the idea of social exclusion is misleading and, instead, tackles the far more pertinent and challenging issue of societies' failure to include. The moral seriousness of non-inclusion, the failure to provide for freedom, is evaluated via critical discussion of a variety of central themes and distinctions in ethical and political theory. The author shows how such themes and distinctions comprise a framework for evaluating a raft of social issues, in turn providing a unique resource for students of moral, political and applied philosophy. The book concludes with an innovative, challenging and effective combination of analytic and continental styles, so to address the critical question of how we might actually motivate constructive social change. In doing so, it shows how a variety of approaches can work successfully together to provide an emphatic case for greater social inclusion. _Deprivation and Freedom_ shows how even fairly modest claims about social provision illustrate that we should be doing a lot more about social deprivation than we are now. It should be of interest to anyone who is concerned with questions about the type of society in which they live, what it says about us to continue as we are - and how we might motivate realistically achievable social change. (shrink)

Epistemic theories of truth, such as those presumed to be typical for anti-realism, can be characterised as saying that what is true can be known in principle: p → ◊Kp. However, with statements of the form “p & ¬Kp”, a contradiction arises if they are both true and known. Analysis of the nature of the paradox shows that such statements refute epistemic theories of truth only if the the anti-realist motivation for epistemic theories of truth is not taken into account. (...) The motivation in a link of understandability ans meaningful- ness suggests to change the above principle and to restrict the theory to logically simple sentences, in which case the paradox does not arise. This suggestion also allows to see the deep philosophical problems for anti-realism those counterexamples are pointing at. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to investigate the philosophical and theological validity and coherence of the classical concept of a miracle within the contemporary scientific world view. The main tool in this process will be the cognitive standard model of the formation of religious beliefs operative in the cognitive science of religion. The application of this model shows why an intentional agent is assigned as responsible for the occurrence of events with no visible cause such as a (...) miracle: miracles are events that violate the intuitively expected behaviors observable in the physical reality. It will become evident that much of the conceptual content of the classical understanding of miracles can be retained despite of the ontological and epistemological challenges of the contemporary science. In particular, this concerns the semantic view of miracles in which a miracle does not occur as an objective Divine intervention but qualifies as religious interpretation of the natural course of events always in reference to a cultural and personal context that is unique to those who directly experience these events either as direct recipients or as observers. (shrink)

The doctrine of the Trinity developed in response to a range of theological interests, among them the project of reconciling claims about the divinity of Christ with monotheism and massaging Christian doctrine into the ambient (largely Platonic) philosophical framework of the period. More recently the Trinity doctrine has been deployed to promote normative claims concerning human nature, human relationships and social justice. During the past two decades analytic philosophers of religion have increasingly engaged with the doctrine. There are, (...) however, a number of foundational questions that have not been addressed in the philosophical literature. The Trinity: A Philosophical Investigation considers the competing accounts of the Trinity doctrine, whether orthodox or heterodox, and aims to respond to objections and explicate their motivations and entailments. (shrink)

For Husserl excess is a part of any phenomenon. For Heidegger the horizon of the phenomenon is also excessive. Levinas and Marion ask us to think about what exceeds the horizon. I focus on Marion’s fifth kind of saturated (transcendent) phenomenon, revelation. How are we to understand it? Marion says he argues only for the possibility of revelation, but only Jesus could be the revelation for which he argues. The excess of the divine cannot remain merely a metaphysical beyond. It (...) must reveal itself in the world as a possible phenomenon, as Flesh, for there is no excess without flesh, and no flesh without being. Excess is either enfleshed or thingly excess. For the Christian this being-together of flesh and word in God means the same being-together in us: Christian life is fully incarnate life, life as enspirited flesh rather than as dead body. Thus the being-together of flesh and word is “in the accusative”. Christian life is, prior to action, a life of submission. That, however, explicitly puts Christian belief and practice at odds with any unrecuperated, merely metaphysical metaphysics which undercuts not only the Christian dogma of Christ’s incarnation and incarnate resurrection, but also the Christian message that the divine life is found only in the life that bends its knee and seeks to bring about justice: dikaiosunae. (shrink)

-/- The term “natural religion” is sometimes taken to refer to a pantheistic doctrine according to which nature itself is divine. “Natural theology”, by contrast, originally referred to (and still sometimes refers to)[1] the project of arguing for the existence of God on the basis of observed natural facts. -/- In contemporary philosophy, however, both “natural religion” and “natural theology” typically refer to the project of using all of the cognitive faculties that are “natural” to human beings—reason, sense-perception, introspection—to investigate (...) religious or theological matters. Natural religion or theology, on the present understanding, is not limited to empirical inquiry into nature, and it is not wedded to a pantheistic result. It does, however, avoid appeals to special non-natural faculties (ESP, telepathy, mystical experience) or supernatural sources of information (sacred texts, revealed theology, creedal authorities, direct supernatural communication). In general, natural religion or theology (hereafter “natural theology”) aims to adhere to the same standards of rational investigation as other philosophical and scientific enterprises, and is subject to the same methods of evaluation and critique. Natural theology is typically contrasted with “revealed theology”, where the latter explicitly appeals to special revelations such as miracles, scriptures, and divinely-superintended commentaries and creedal formulations. (See DeCruz and DeSmedt 2015) -/- Philosophers and religious thinkers across almost every epoch and tradition (Near Eastern, African, Asian, and European) have engaged the project of natural theology, either as proponents or critics. The question of whether natural theology is a viable project is at the root of some of the deepest religious divisions: Shi’ite thinkers are optimistic about reason’s ability to prove various theological and ethical truths, for instance, while Sunnis are not; Roman Catholic theologians typically think that reason provides demonstrations of the existence of God, while many Protestant theologians do not. Unlike most of the topics discussed in an encyclopedia of philosophy, this is one over which wars have been fought and throats have been cut. -/- The most active discussions of natural theology in the West occurred during the high medieval period (roughly 1100–1400 C.E.) and the early modern period (1600–1800 C.E.). The past few decades have witnessed a revival of natural theological debate in the public sphere: there are now institutes promoting “Intelligent Design Theory”, popular apologetics courses, campus debates between believers and agnostics, a “New Atheist” movement, Youtube debates between apologists and atheists regarding new books in natural theology (such as the one between Nathan Lewis and Bernie Dehler on the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology),[2] and TED talks by famous atheists on how to resist natural religion (such as the one by Richard Dawkins in February 2002).[3] -/- Among professional philosophers (who aren’t typically part of these more popular debates), arguments over our ability to justify positive or negative answers to religious questions have become fairly technical, often employing sophisticated logical techniques in an effort to advance the discussion instead of retreading the same old ground. The prestigious Gifford Lectures series hosted by a consortium of Scottish universities, however, has tried to feature new but still accessible work in natural theology for over 100 years (it too has a Youtube channel!)[4] -/- In this article, we aim to avoid most the more recent complexities but also explain their origins by focusing on some central developments in the early modern period that helped to frame contemporary natural theological debates. We are focused here only on theoretical arguments (both a priori and a posteriori or empirical ones). It is controversial whether moral arguments are also part of natural theology, but we set them aside here (see also the entry on God, arguments for the existence of: moral arguments). (shrink)

These volumes are reprinted without change, revision, or comment from the 1928 edition. Tennant set out with a largely empirical method to investigate the presuppositions of Christian theology. In the back of his mind was an arbitration between theology and science. His ethical theism makes room for a purposive creator and sustainer of the world. It makes room for an enduring soul but not for original sin. In a scheme that brings to mind some modern efforts at "natural theology," he (...) sees God, man, and the world as mutually requisite.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Philosophy in the English-speaking world is dominated by analytic approaches to its problems and projects; but theology has been dominated by alternative approaches. Many would say that the current state in theology is not mere historical accident, but is, rather, how things ought to be. On the other hand, many others would say precisely the opposite: that theology as a discipline has been beguiled and taken captive by 'continental' approaches, and that the effects on the discipline have been largely deleterious. (...) The methodological divide between systematic theologians and analytic philosophers of religion is ripe for exploration. The present volume represents an attempt to begin a much-needed interdisciplinary conversation about the value of analytic philosophical approaches to theological topics. Most of the essays herein are sympathetic toward the enterprise the editors are calling analytic theology; but, with an eye toward balance, the volume also includes essays and an introduction that try to offer more critical perspectives on analytic theology. (shrink)

In some popular and political discourse, ‘compassion’ is commonly conceived as a simple or ‘given’ aspect of the world. And yet public discussion also focusses on whether ‘compassion' has gone wrong in some way, suggesting that there might be various more or less satisfactory versions of compassion. At the same time, some thinkers doubt whether compassion should any longer be expected of those working in healthcare. This article draws on philosophical and theological resources to argue that the (...) conceptual context which forms compassion is crucial for determining the ethos of healthcare. The discussion explores three themes – politics, suffering and responsibility – which must be addressed in order to understand what is wrong with compassion, to identify lines of future investigation and to develop possible remedies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:To Paul Lachance, ioculator Domini1. IntroductionWith the expression “inner experience” we refer to a complex linguistic and philosophical problem which is present even in the most recent theology. If, in general, this concept expresses the experience of something which is perceived by an individual in the absence of external stimulus or observable sensations, in Christian and mystical tradition it indicates more precisely the action and the transformation which (...) God arouses in the inner conscience. I propose investigating the specific way the Provençal Franciscan Pierre de Jean Olieu used this concept and presented it, both philosophically and theologically, in a small collection of writings which critical tradition has defined in various ways, but which I continue defining, with a term which maintains a Franciscan suggestion, as opuscula.1 These short devotional texts were written by Olieu and his followers in both Provençal and in Latin, and explicitly addressed the Beguins of the so-called “poverty houses,” as well as the laity which congregated around the Franciscan Order.2 Unlike the prayers and treatises concerning prayer by Olieu, these texts are not completely set but are conceived and written as models of continuous meditation on the part of the reader.3 In view of the critique I am editing, I here furnish a list of these texts, with the aim of updating the incomplete lists complied by Efrem Bettoni4 and Antonio Ciceri:5Cavalier armat Exercens se sacris orationibus et meditationibus Informatio Petri Ioannis De 14 gradibus amoris gratiosi 12De [12/10] gradibus humilitatis 13Grases de vera penitentia 14Modus quomodo quilibet potest referre gratias Deo de Beneficiis ab eo receptis Brevis monitio ad amorem Dei obtinendum 17Remedia contra temptationes spirituales De 7 sentimentis Christi Jhesu 20 Tractatus de 7 tentationibus 21Tractatulus de fugiendis, desiderandis, meditandis 22This approach is particularly interesting, because it is my conviction that, in these texts the author focuses on the paths and transformations of conscience, on the inter-communication of them and on the potential of repeating and recreating, autonomously, an uninterrupted process of spiritual transformation and strengthening. In this sense, as we will see, the concept of “inner experience” is central to the opuscula and, anticipating the results of my analysis, I can say that being in a significant position of the spiritual and meditative path delineated by the text, it constitutes its structural core. Such a placement finds meaning and justification within the philosophical, theological and apocalyptical reflections of the author.23 For Olieu, inwardness and outer activity, although remaining distinct, are balanceable and organizable in a reassemblage founded on devotio. We can say that the devotion of the reader, confirmed and strengthened by the inner experience of his personal reflection on mercy, is the element which allows this reassembling. We will see in what sense we can speak about an element of fracture and an entirely new forma mentis, which opens the way to modern secular spirituality.2. Inner Experience and the Structure of the opusculaI begin with the text entitled Informatio ad virtutum opera. This could be considered the manifesto text of the opuscula, because in this work Pierre de Jean Olieu clarifies the principle subject of the meditations offered to the reader, and proposes a stylistic, structural model which is respected, more or less precisely, in all the other texts of the corpus. This structure is very simple: the author lists twenty-eight subjects which the reader is invited to reflect upon during his personal endeavor towards virtuous perfection. The text is divided in two parts: the first presents fourteen orderly reflections centered on pedagogical-moral subjects like the meditation on God and the Passion of Christ, on the example of the Saints, the awareness of one’s sins, and on the coming of the Day of Judgement; in the second, the author.. (shrink)

Probability is sometimes regarded as a universal panacea for epistemology. It has been supposed that the rationality of belief is almost entirely a matter of probabilities. Unfortunately, those philosophers who have thought about this most extensively have tended to be probability theorists first, and epistemologists only secondarily. In my estimation, this has tended to make them insensitive to the complexities exhibited by epistemic justification. In this paper I propose to turn the tables. I begin by laying out some rather (...) class='Hi'>simple and uncontroversial features of the structure of epistemic justification, and then go on to ask what we can conclude about the connection between epistemology and probability in the light of those features. My conclusion is that probability plays no central role in epistemology. This is not to say that probability plays no role at all. In the course of the investigation, I defend a pair of probabilistic acceptance rules which enable us, under some circumstances, to arrive at justified belief on the basis of high probability. But these rules are of quite limited scope. The effect of there being such rules is merely that probability provides one source for justified belief, on a par with perception, memory, etc. There is no way probability can provide a universal cure for all our epistemological ills. (shrink)

These two remarkable books, both published in 2010, share many themes but differ in significant ways, and each is very much worth reading and pondering. Oord’s The Nature of Love concentrates primarily on conceptual and theological themes relating to the very nature of love itself and what influential theologians have had to say about love. His Defining Love focuses on how the social and physical sciences impact our understanding of human and divine love. Both books presuppose and express many (...) themes that are prominent in process theology such as: freedom is universally present (by degrees) in all creatures, especially us; predestination is abhorrent and untenable; God exists necessarily and everlastingly but not .. (shrink)

§§1–7 of the Investigations should be taken at face value and not read against the grain. Wittgenstein is best understood as saying what he means and meaning what he says, and it is a mistake to suppose the examples of the shopkeeper and builders in §§1–2 cannot be read straightforwardly. The seven sections function as a prologue alerting the reader to the type of problem he intends to tackle and the type of approach he intends to pursue.

Probability is sometimes regarded as a universal panacea for epistemology. It has been supposed that the rationality of belief is almost entirely a matter of probabilities. Unfortunately, those philosophers who have thought about this most extensively have tended to be probability theorists first, and epistemologists only secondarily. In my estimation, this has tended to make them insensitive to the complexities exhibited by epistemic justification. In this paper I propose to turn the tables. I begin by laying out some rather (...) class='Hi'>simple and uncontroversial features of the structure of epistemic justification, and then go on to ask what we can conclude about the connection between epistemology and probability in the light of those features. My conclusion is that probability plays no central role in epistemology. This is not to say that probability plays no role at all. In the course of the investigation, I defend a pair of probabilistic acceptance rules which enable us, under some circumstances, to arrive at justified belief on the basis of high probability. But these rules are of quite limited scope. The effect of there being such rules is merely that probability provides one source for justified belief, on a par with perception, memory, etc. There is no way probability can provide a universal cure for all our epistemological ills. (shrink)

Wittgenstein in his early work viz. Tractatus argued that there is a common, essential, underlying structure that links logic, language and the world. He also argued about the need for an analysis of ordinary language in terms of a perspicuous symbolism that would display a one to one relationship between a proposition and a fact – when both of them are broken down to their simplest components – viz. to atomic propositions and atomic states of affairs. All propositions are ultimately (...) truth-functional combinations of atomic propositions – thus all language is resolvable to a unique constant. So for early Wittgenstein, though there is an apparent complexity and diversity of propositions still there lies a uniform, essential structure of truthfunctional propositions and that can be reduced to a single constant. And language to have a determinate sense must be ultimately based on objects – the absolutely simple logical atoms of the world. These objects imbibe their range of combination with other objects, which implies that any genuine propositions – however unusual and unconventional it may seem to be – must ultimately be constrained by the permissible range of combination of the objects. In this way early Wittgenstein sought to secure an essential metaphysics via an essential structure of language. However in Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein attacked essentialism by rejecting the picture theory, and the search for commonality and uniformity. He denied essence, the universal, the common element present in all the objects of a class and accepted only an indeterminate and incomplete flow of the criss-crossing, the overlapping features. For him language is constituted by an ever expanding flow of uses, which he called language-games. The significance of the term ‘language-game’ lies in the fact that like games language too is not based on any ontology that would confer a common essence across all the widely divergent uses. Nor did Wittgenstein accept any hidden essence behind appearance. In PI the later Wittgenstein denied both analysis and essence and propagated description of usage and behaviours as the only method of philosophy. Later Wittgenstein will neither commit himself to ontological necessity, nor to necessity being a matter of scheme-relative propositions in the Quinean sense. For later Wittgenstein all attempts to establish essences, or the contrary exercises to relativise them to a particular set of presumptions, are themselves language-games – they boil down to usage and practices that do not rest on any foundation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AQUINAS AND HEIDEGGER: THE QUESTION OF BIDLOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY VINCENT GUAGLIARDO, O.P. Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology Graduate Theological Union Berkeley, Oalifornia I N IDS BOOK, Hediegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics, John D. Caputo recommends a " deconstruction" of Aquinas' philosophical theology in order to let.the true ·element orf his thought, mysticism, come to the fore. Caputo argues persuasively that Aquinas' thought, expressed ·as.it (...) is in the garh of metaphysics, cannot escape Heidegger':s critique of met:aiphysfos as "onto-theo-logioal ". Aquinas, no more thoo.any other thinker of the West, has succeeded mavoiding this iorgorttenness. Those Thomi:sts who have tried to argue that Aquinas.is an exception rto this critique, Caputo oontends, have not succeeded in presenting their case. The verdict o.f Heidegger stainds. The on:ly reoourrse left is thart of deconstruction, which Capurto presents ais gaining mther than losing the true Aquinas precisely because deconstruction.allows us to move from the said (the metaphysical dimension) fo rbhe uil!said (the mystical dimension) of Aquinas' thought. The uns1aiid is the kernel, the center a;ro:und which whatever Aquinas says moves. It is the true dimension which his thinking il'eally seeks: union with God, in wh~ch both the union and God 1are themselves rineff1a;ble.1 There is, however,.a disturbing problem which I find wti:th Capui;o's conclusion. This problem does not have to do with his oonte!lltion that the true kernel of St. Thomas' thought!is mysticail. Ra.ther, the problem concerns what is being disen1 See John D. Caputo, Heidegger and Aquinas: An }j}ssay on Overcoming Metaphysics (N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 1982), pp. 211 & 247-8. 407 408 VINCENT GUAGLIARDO; O.P. gaged and put out of play tin the deconstrrucrb.ion, namely: philosophical thoology.2 What are the iimplicatfons of such a movie? Are they desirable for theology? Ought we and oan we, 1a;s Caputo suggests, disengage,and leave behind St. Thomas' philosophical theology because metaphysical without there being any true loss? Might we be facing a;n impoverishment of another kind: in a moI"e " radical " seeking of the dii.vine might we not be losing something m'a foI"getfulness of ourselves as,.after 1 all, omy human? ls not this something precisely the,realm of the humanitas of the homo huma,nus, which Heidegger 's thinking seeks Ito point out and draw us closer to, where humanitas refers to our necessary trelation to Heing, from whlch relation we as humans cannot detach ourselves so long as we are " auf die Erde "? 3 The ~oblematic In beginning our inquiry I would like to distinguish three different regions of human engagement in which the over1appii.ng of one onto the other ii.s not.always easy to discern: philosophy, phl1osopihioal theology and mysticism.. I want to say "iphilosophical theology " and not simply " theology " because I think that it ii.s not possible to thoologize without 1 at the same time also philosophiizing. I 1think St. Tihomas thought this as well. 'l\hat is why his theology was always philosophioa ;l, 1in dialogue wiith :the philosophers: Aristotle, the Platonists, Ma~monides and the Ail1abs. In saying this, however, I do not mean to,say that philosophy 1and theology 1 are 1 the same. Now the altemativce which Caputo would ha,ve us embrace, because presumably not onto-theo-logioal, is that of a "reli2 See Caputo, op. cit., 11 & 283. a" Die Wahrheit des Seins denken, heisst zugleich die humaniitas des homo humanus denken " (" Brief iiber den Humanismus," in W egmarken (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978), p. 349). This Latin expression is a.lso used by St. Thomas in De ente et essentia, III, to designate the formal principle (rationality) by which. the whole (an individual human being) becomes a whole. Also see In Met., VII, Leet. 5, nn. 1378-1380. THE QUESTION OF PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY 409 giious 1alerthi0Jogy" of mysticism.4 One is.then led to ask whether and if,so, how, the same person could ibe hoth a philosopher and 1a mystic, i.e. both!a thinker and a person of [aith. Do they remain " existentially " opposed,,as... (shrink)

The present study examines cross-cultural differences in people’s concept of lying with regard to the question of whether lying requires an agent to _say_ something they believe to be false. While prominent philosophical views maintain that lying entails that a person explicitly expresses a believed-false claim, recent research suggests that people’s concept of lying might also include certain kinds of deception that are communicated more indirectly. An important drawback of previous empirical work on this topic is that only few (...) studies have investigated people’s concept of lying in non-Western samples. In the present study, we compare people’s intuitions about lying with indirect deceptions (i.e., presuppositions, conversational implicatures, and non-verbal actions) in a sample of _N_ = 255 participants from Russia and _N_ = 300 participants from the United Kingdom. Our findings show a strong degree of similarity between lie ratings of participants from Russia and the United Kingdom, with both samples holding it possible for agents to lie with deceptive statements and actions that do not involve the agent _saying_ something they believe to be false. (shrink)

Sallie McFague’s theological models construct a tensive relationship between conceptual structures and symbolic, metaphorical language to interpret the defining and elusive aspects of theological phenomena and loci. Computational models of language can extend and formalize the conceptual structures of theological models to develop computer-augmented interpretations of theological texts. Previously unclear is whether computational models can retain the tensive symbolism essential for theological investigation. I demonstrate affirmatively by constructing a computational topic model of the moral theology (...) of Thomas Aquinas from Summa Theologica (Second Part, in English translation) useful for interpreting not only the Thomistic text but also recent papal encyclicals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rhetorical Investigations: Studies in Ordinary Language CriticismJeffrey WalkerRhetorical Investigations: Studies in Ordinary Language Criticism. Walter Jost. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004. Pp. xiii + 346. $55.00, hardcover.As the sixth-century BCE poet Theognis once wrote, "Hearken to me, child, and discipline your wits; I'll tell / a tale not unpersuasive nor uncharming to your heart; / but set your mind to gather what I say; there's (...) no necessity / to do what's not according to your will" (Theognidea 1235–38; my translation). While this poem ostensibly is a pederastic proposition, it is also and more fundamentally (as I have argued elsewhere) a poem about poetry as a rhetorical transaction. Poetry is the poet's act of heart-charming persuasion or seduction; the duty of the audience, the object of the poet's seduction, is to "discipline your wits," that is, to exercise hermeneutic and critical judgment on the way to understanding fully and being persuaded or unpersuaded to think or do as the poet asks (for seduction is not compulsion). Finally, and as Theognis's poetry elsewhere suggests, the audience's act of being-persuaded or unpersuaded ultimately is an enactment of, a rehearsal of, an ethical or intellectual position (stance, schêma) that is on its way (with further, repeated rehearsals) to becoming part of the audience's ethical-intellectual performative repertoire, or in other words its êthos, or what Kenneth Burke would call its identity.This richly researched, densely argued, excellent book by Walter Jost could well be understood as a modern (or postmodern) instantiation of a "Theognidean" rhetorical poetics. At one point early on, for example, Jost invokes Angus Fletcher to sum up the activities of an ordinary-language approach to poetry as "thinking the poem": "taking the poem as an occasion for thought; thinking through the poem; being aware of one's thoughts as one reads the poem; looking for some logic in the poem; allowing the poem to trigger certain lines of thought," and so forth (Fletcher, Colors of the Mind, 111–12; Jost 9–10). This is "disciplining one's wits" to "gather what the poet says" and to follow out its implications on the way to judging what Jost calls "the meaning and quality... of an experienced artifact or event or performance" (10). As Jost develops his theoretical frame, which draws most heavily from Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanely Cavell, and Kenneth Burke—as well as a host of others in a basically pragmatist tradition—this becomes an explicitly rhetorical approach to poetry, and specifically to Robert Frost's poetry, understood as an epideictic "showing forth" of thought that invites its audience, like Theognis's addressee, to "think [End Page 178] the poem" through and to form a relationship (whether identificational or contestatory) with the system of topoi that underwrites its judgments.Rhetorical Investigations is divided into two main parts. "Book I," titled "Rhetoric: An Advanced Primer," consists of four chapters that attempt to lay out the conceptual framework for, and to philosophically justify, Jost's rhetorical-hermeneutic approach to poetry, while also setting up Robert Frost as a distinctive exemplar of a "low modernist" practice that demonstrates the central themes of ordinary-language and pragmatist philosophy, essentially by dramatizing them, and that stands as a significant (if under-appreciated) alternative to the "high modernist" mode of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and their successors. Frost, in other words (though Jost does not say this explicitly) takes the less-traveled modernist path that Kenneth Burke embarked on in Counter-Statement and pursued for the rest of his career. The key topoi for the framework laid out in these four chapters are: dialectic/dialogue as the medium for an ordinary-language philosophical practice (chap. 1); rhetorical invention as what is missing from "high modernism's" sense of epistemological crisis and anomie (chap. 2); "grammar" as the system of topoi, or commonplaces, that underwrite ordinary language-use and are instantiated by it, and that provide the grounds (what speakers "acknowledge") for deliberation and judgment in practical thought and action (chap. 3); and logic as the implicatures of ordinary-language thought that enable epideictic argument in poetry and that make it something... (shrink)

One of the frequently commented-upon texts of Aquinas was and still is the first question of Summa theologiae. It is usually the question of whether theology is scientific knowledge that attracts the attention of readers or commentators. This study, however, deals with the question from the sixth article, regarding whether theology is wisdom. It investigates the commentaries of famous authors of Second Scholasticism, who comment on and explain this text of Aquinas. Although this question does not appear to be very (...) controversial, some interesting developments and commentaries can be found even in this topic. The most interesting theme is the question of how theology can be both wisdom and science, i.e., two intellectual virtues. Moreover, there is a need for the interpretation of the texts of Aristotle and Aquinas holding that wisdom is a compound of scientific knowledge and intellectual intuition. (shrink)

In this article the claim of the Dutch ‘Utrechtse School’ of philosophy of religion that its method of practising philosophical theology is a reprise of the Anselmian ‘faith in search of understanding’ is critically examined. Philosophical theology is conceived of by the adherents of this school as an analytical and argumentative clarification of the basic concepts of theistic belief from an insiders point of view. In contrast with the classical project of natural theology their aim is not to (...) provide a rational foundation of the truth of theism. The philosophical analysis of the main concepts of the theistic view of God departs from an methodological affirmation of their truth, that is, their reference to reality, as being an assumption made by faith. It is argued that this approach differs significantly from Anselm’s project of ‘faith in search of understanding’. Anselm aims at a rational understanding of the truth of what he believes. This means that the reference of faith to the reality of God does not remain an assumption of faith. Starting from faith and its inner desire to see the truth of God Anselm strives to reach after the reality of God by means of intellectual insight. In contrast with Anselm the ‘Utrechtse School’ views the truth claim of the statements of belief as a constitutive presupposition of a religious form of life. In my opinion this comes to saying that the believer must believe in the truth of what he believes as an implication of his religious behaviour and attitude. But this leaves no place any more for a seeking to understand the truth of what he believes. (shrink)

What, if anything, is the correlation between the specialized or technical ideas of the philosopher and the rest of his existence? His everyday life outside his philosophical role. In the specialized reality and reality constitution, when employing the discourse and discipline of philosophy, the philosopher subscribe to many things in an explicit manner and he employs a number of implicit things and assumptions that are not stated explicitly. These things concern the different branches, areas and domains of the (...) class='Hi'>philosophical discourse, for example metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, ontology, cognition, consciousness, mind, perception, thinking, etc. Is there a relation between these technical 'beliefs' of the philosopher and other, not philosophical areas of his existence? Does and can all of his non-philosophical existence reflect his philosophical beliefs, statements and expressions? Is it possible that the everyday existence or life world of the philosopher can resemble, confirm and express his philosophical ideas? If this is not the case, what are the factors that are involved in such discrepancies? Do they imply a lack of integrity, of wholeness of integration on behalf of the philosopher? What are the causes of such an illogical or surprising lack of compatibility or similarity between these sets of two or more facts? What are the things that we can look for in such a lack of compatibility – things such as the following? - inconsistency, difference, disparity, variance, variation, deviation, divergence, -/- disagreement, dissimilarity, dissimilitude, mismatch, lack of similarity, contrariety, contradictoriness, disaccord, discordance, incongruity, -/- lack of congruence, incompatibility, irreconcilability, conflict, opposition? -/- I illustrate the above by means of four examples. 1 Let us assume that the embodied human person consists of both voluntary and involuntary processes and activities. Do the philosophy of an individual reflect or express these activities or is it completely or partially unrelated to them? Do the voluntary processes and activities or the voluntary aspects of perception, cognition, brain processes and other activities resemble or express the philosophy of a thinker? 2 Some thinkers are seriously concerned about the importance of discourse and dialogue and the equality of all those involved. We find their concern about the ideal discourse and dialogue described in their written work and talks, but to what an extend do their own discursive and dialogical actions and behaviour reflect the ideal situation they preach? 3 Ethics and morality can be find in and are emphasized in all sorts of disciplines, of course they are major subjects in providing ways to live off for philosophers and we even find institutions devoted to their teaching and investigation. Do the lives, the lived morality and ethics of those individuals who preach the ideals of ethics or ethical ideals reflect the ideals they preach and that provides them with ways to earn a living? Or, is it the case that morality and ethics are merely faked by those individuals living off their preaching of ethics? And, that they merely employ the values, norms, customs and attitudes of a culture, sub-culture, community, group or another social grouping? In other words are the preachers of ethics really more ethical than the rest of the community and society? 4 When the philosopher expresses his ideas by means of all sorts of philosophical tools he is aware of the fact that he employs them, or at least aware of some of them being intentionally employed by him while he is unaware of others that he employs. Do the tools the philosopher employs to theorize (identify problems, the nature of the questions he asks, the nature of his ways of questioning, the assumptions he makes, the forming and testing of hypotheses, the making of generalizations, etc) or philosophize (perceive things, think, think about things, reason, argumentation etc) resemble what he beliefs, asserts and says about thinking, perception, cognition, understanding, subjects, objects, relationships between subjects and objects and other features and processes of epistemology? In short – does the lived philosophy, ontology, epistemology, ethics etc of the philosopher resemble, represent, confirm, substantiate, back, endorse, support, authenticate and corroborate the ideas, assertions and speculations that are expressed by the statements his philosophy or philosophizing consist of? Does he walk the walk of his talk? Are they similar and identical, the same things and merely expressions of the same things in different mediums? (shrink)

A translation of Rahner's Schriften zur Theologie, II, which leaves only Vol. III untranslated; one presumes that it will be forthcoming from Helicon soon. Together with B. J. F. Lonergan, Rahner, of course, bestrides the Catholic theological world like a Colossus, and the more people like Kruger have the courage to tackle his German, the more his stature will increase in this country. There are eleven essays in this volume covering such issues as "Freedom in the Church," "The Dignity (...) and Freedom of Man," "The Lay Apostolate," and "The Resurrection of the Body." The theme of "Personal and Sacramental Piety" is worked out in general and then applied in a striking fashion in the essay "Forgotten Truths Concerning the Sacrament of Penance." While Rahner is undoubtedly a dogmatic theologian, in the technical sense of that adjective, even the philosopher will find plenty to cut his teeth on in these essays. Doubters are invited to digest the chapter, "On the Question of a Formal Existential Ethics."—E. A. R. (shrink)

There has been considerable disagreement about the relationship between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and his Philosophical Investigations with some scholars arguing that there is considerable continuity between them and some arguing that they are completely opposed. The paper argues that this breadth of disagreement is not surprising because the relation between TLP and PI is analogous with that described in Hegel’s dialectical model of philosophical truth in the Phenomenology of Spirit. One might say that TLP is “refuted” by PI (...) but there is also a sense in which PI is “the truth” of TLP. TLP and PI are both essential stages in “the progressive unfolding of truth” bound together like the successive stages in a single living organism where the view of the former is both “annulled” and “preserved at a higher level” in the view of the latter. The paper thereby helps to facilitate Rorty’s attempt to usher “analytical philosophy” from its Kantian to its Hegelian stage. (shrink)

Any reflective account of theological language acknowledges very early that words drawn from our experience with creatures have special meanings when applied to God. Because God transcends the created world, we cannot take predicates which apply to creatures and apply them to God without modification. And the more transcendent God is understood to be, the more modified will our language taken from creatures have to be when it is used in theology. A primitive theism which thinks of God simply (...) as a very powerful person will view the difference between God and creatures as merely a matter of degree and not of kind. In such a view God transcends things in the world only in that he has a greater degree of the properties we find in creatures, so that predicates taken from creatures, ‘wise’ and ‘strong’, for example, can be applied to God in almost a straightforward way. The only change in meaning is that God is more knowing and strong er . In a more sophisticated theism such as Judaism or Christianity, on the other hand, God' transcendence is seen not simply as a difference in degrees of properties, but as a difference in kind. The being God is is radically other than the kinds of beings we find in the created world. Indeed, it is sometimes claimed that God is not even ‘a being’, a thing which exists; rather God is ‘being itself’, ‘pure existence’. Aquinas, for instance, held that God does not have properties. God is absolutely simple, and so if we can talk about properties at all in talking about God, we have to say that God is identical to God' properties. God, too, differs radically from creatures in that he is not in time and space, nor is he dependent on anything else. But our language used with creatures is full of explicit or implicit references to time and space and to dependence, so that we cannot take our ordinary terms derived from our experience with spatio-temporal, dependent creatures and apply them straightforwardly to God. (shrink)

Dietrich von Hildebrand provides a uniquely in-depth and astute analysis of the many ways we substitute false idols (the "graven images") for true Christian morality. This is not a simple book on the differences between good and evil; most people do not replace true morality with pure evil, but with some other "extramoral" good, like "respectability" or "honor." Hildebrand guides us through these false alternatives, helping to show both what is good in them, but also where they fall short (...) of the uniqueness of true Christian morality. ______ "When this book first appeared in 1957, it was a whirlwind of fresh air in the field of moral theology and philosophy. The novelty was first of all methodological: the attempt to go back to things themselves and to start an investigation that makes a direct appeal to the lived experience of the inquirer. The task of the philosopher is not that of reading books, combining them in different ways, and then producing a new book. The primary textbook of philosophy is human experience itself and the reader (or, rather, the listener) is called to make an active comparison between what is presented to him and what he experiences in his own life. Philosophy in this sense is not so much a doctrine as an activity: the textbook is human life itself. " -- Rocco Buttiglione. (shrink)

In book 15 of his Platonic Theology on the Immortality of the Soul , Marsilio Ficino names Averroes and the Averroists as his opponents, though he does not say which particular Averroists he has in mind. The key position that Ficino attributes to Averroes—that the Intellect is not the substantial form of the body—is not one that Averroes holds explicitly, though he does claim explicitly that the Intellect is not a body or a power in a body. Ficino's account of (...) what Averroes said about the soul's immortality comes not from texts written by Averroes but from arguments made against Averroes by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa contra gentiles. (shrink)

It is now some years since Professor D. Daiches Raphael published his interesting book, The Paradox of Tragedy , which represented one of the first serious attempts made by a British philosopher to assess the significance of tragic drama for ethical, and indeed metaphysical theory. Since then we have had a variety of books touching on related topics: for instance, Dr George Steiner's Death of Tragedy and Mr Raymond Williams’ most recent, elusive and interesting essay, Modern Tragedy. To entitle an (...) essay Theology and Tragedy might be thought to invite needless trouble for oneself; to indulge to a dangerous degree the human intellectual obsession of supposing that ‘the meaning of a word is an object’. After all, if one confines one's regard to the Greeks, one has to recognise that between the treatments of their common theme of Electra , Sophocles and Euripides are in fact doing very different things. There is no gainsaying the significance for Euripides of the postponement of the murder of Clytemnestra till after that of Aegisthus, still less of his introduction into the play of the morally upright peasant, who has had the banished Electra in his keeping, and whose simple integrity contrasts both with the corruption of the court and the obsessive preoccupation with a dreadful, supposed duty of brother and sister. The element of propaganda is unmistakable; while in Sophocles’ Electra it is altogether absent, although Dr Victor Ehrenberg in his very interesting monograph on Sophocles and Pericles has argued strongly for an element of subtle political commentary in the treatment of Oedipus in the Oedipus Tyrannus , and of Pocreon in the Antigone. These remarks may serve to show that the title does not express a blind indifference to the multiple complexity of those works which we class together as tragedies. They are inherently complex, and various in emphasis; at best we can discern a family resemblance between them, and, in an essay like this, the author runs the risk not only of selecting examples tailor-made to his thesis, but also of imposing an appearance of similarity of conception where it is at least equally important to stress differences. (shrink)

From a historical materialist perspective, the evolution of U.S. trade control policies toward China has been driven by the pursuit of economic and geopolitical interests. However, beyond material considerations, these policies also intersect with deeper ethical, philosophical, and even theological questions regarding justice, sovereignty, and the moral dimensions of economic power. Trade restrictions, embargoes, and economic coercion raise profound issues of fairness, global responsibility, and the ethical implications of economic warfare, particularly in the context of international relations shaped (...) by ideological and religious worldviews. Following World War II, the United States sought to consolidate global hegemony, using economic control as a key instrument in its Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union and socialist nations. Prior to the Korean War, U.S. policymakers attempted to manipulate trade relations to weaken Sino-Soviet ties, allowing limited trade between capitalist nations and China. However, after China’s involvement in the Korean War, the U.S. imposed increasingly stringent trade controls, culminating in a full embargo. This policy, while aimed at restricting China’s economic development, ultimately conflicted with America’s own ideological commitment to free trade and triggered dissent among allies such as Britain and Japan. The subsequent partial relaxation of trade controls under the Eisenhower administration in 1954 highlighted the contradictions between economic self-interest, Cold War ideology, and the ethical rhetoric of global economic liberalism. By framing these developments within a broader philosophical and religious discourse, this study explores the ethical dimensions of trade policy, drawing from Christian, Confucian, and Islamic perspectives on economic justice, fairness, and moral responsibility in global commerce. It argues that trade control policies should not be examined solely as instruments of power but also as moral choices that shape international justice, human welfare, and ethical economic governance. Future research should further investigate how religious and philosophical traditions inform perspectives on economic sanctions, trade ethics, and the moral responsibilities of nations in a rapidly evolving global order. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 517 My second concern is whether Dulles needs to develop more explicitly the liturgical dimension of the tradition as a type of tacit knowing. To be sure, Dulles is open to seeing the divine liturgy as an important source for what he refers to as " traditioning " (cf. 33-34). Furthermore, his personal commitment to the traditional liturgy's unique mode of communication can be quite passionate, as (...) when he states: In countries such as the United States young people cannot even imagine what it must have been like to live in the Catholic Church of fifty years ago. They frequently worship in churches or auditoriums barren of shrines and statues. They are ignorant of the an· swers that their parents or grandparents memorized out of a catechism. They know practically no prayers by heart, and are perhaps unable to say the Angelus or the Rosary. They are so open to the world that they are almost drowning in secularity (101; cf. also 19). Nevertheless, personal conviction seems to give rise to little theoretical reflection about why this sort of symbolism is so central to the Catholic tradition. Liturgy's function in communicating the rule of faith of Christian communities receives no separate chapter and appears as a decidedly secondary source of theological reflection. Here he could perhaps have been illuminated by Jean-Luc Marion's philosophical meditations on the symbolism of the Eucharist as presence and gift. The Craft of Theology will serve as absorbing reading for graduate students who are just beginning to study theology. That is not to say that Dulles's book is only an autobiographical retrospect on the profession which he has ably practiced for more than half a century. Whether understood as a stimulant to ·thinking judiciously about the living tradition of the Catholic church or as a guide for contemporary ecclesial communities of different confessions seeking to recover the catholicity of the Christian tradition, Dulles's system will be a no less than invaluable resource to Christian theologians. The Catholic University of America.Washington, D.C. PETER J. CASARELLA "Un maitre en theologie: Le Pere Marie-Michel Labourdette, O.P." Revue Thomiste 92, No. 1 (January-March, 1992). Toulouse: Ecole de theologie, 1992. Pp. 428. 130F. This collection of twenty essays serves as an intriguing introduction to the life and thought of the Dominican professor and moral theologian P. Marie-Michel Labourdette, who worked for most of his religious life at the Dominican studium of St. Maximin of the Province 518 BOOK REVIEWS of Toulouse. Prefaced by two contributions of biographical interest, and completed by a comprehensive bibliography, the core selections crystalize around two poles of interest. First, they explore the character of Labourdette's thought and methodology, both as a churchman and a Thomist. Especially enlightening here are the essays by M. Larive, " Quaedam impressio divinae scientiae, la theologie selon le P. Labourdette " and 5.-Th. Bonino, "Le thomisme du P. Labourdette." Second, other essays succeed in capturing this Thomistic thinker in flight, as it were, as his incisive powers of analysis and synthesis reveal themselves in his treatment of various theological questions. I would especially recommend here A. D. Mongillo's "La fin derniere de la personne humaine," C. J. Pinto de Oliveira's "La prudence, concept cle de la morale du P. Labourdette," and T.-D. Humbrecht's "Le peche originel selon le P. Labourdette." These essays skillfully coalesce and complement each other, forming, as with the variously tinted panes of a stained-glass window, a multi-colored illumination of their subject. What emerges from this well-composed assemblage is a devoted homage to a theologian creatively faithful to his inherited traditions. This creative fidelity to the depositum fidei, and to a Thomistic legacy invigoratingly alive in his own work, forms the intellectual principle by which P. Labourdette sought to perceive and understand the many new insights and developments that cannot help hut teem before any alert, twentieth-century mind. P. Lahourdette addresses himself to theological issues using an approach both classical and flexible, deep, yet clear. This clarity is of such an order that it reveals to the contemporary reader aspects of traditional theological investigation that have been... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey: Idealist and Pragmatic Christians on Politics, Philosophy, Religion, and WarBradley BurroughsReinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey: Idealist and Pragmatic Christians on Politics, Philosophy, Religion, and War Kevin Carnahan Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010. 302 pp. $75.00.In a time when the “war on terror” and the polarization of American political culture have raised acute questions about politics, war, and the use of power, Kevin Carnahan (...) believes ethicists could benefit from the legacies of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey. During a similarly vexed period, Niebuhr and Ramsey found themselves at odds over the morality of the Vietnam War. Carnahan’s project seeks to elucidate the underlying sources of this disagreement, examining in turn how each thinker construes the task of moral theology, the nature of political society, and the moral status of war. Throughout these treatments, Carnahan illustrates how Niebuhr and Ramsey elaborated “overlapping but divergent” positions profoundly influenced by their respective encounters with pragmatism and idealism.Even as he shows how Niebuhr modified the pragmatist inheritance and Ramsey the idealist, Carnahan highlights how both were shaped especially by the way in which these traditions sought to counter specific moral dangers. For pragmatists, the key danger lay in the kind of moral fanaticism that blithely assumes its own righteousness. Sensitized to this threat, Niebuhr articulated a moral theology centered upon an understanding of love as an ideal that is always relevant yet never fully realizable in history, a construal that subverts all pretensions to righteousness. Idealism, on the other hand, sets itself against the danger of atomistic individualism, which Ramsey opposed by depicting social institutions in their essential forms as “‘garments of skin’... with which God... clothed naked human relations” (129) and by characterizing love as fundamentally a matter of upholding the covenants implied in such institutions. Ultimately, Niebuhr’s opposition to fanaticism predisposed him to focus upon the idolatries at play in political society and war and allowed him rather early on to descry the pretentiousness of the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, Ramsey’s thought included a presumption in favor of supporting the policies developed by social and political leaders that led him to defend American intervention in Vietnam until sometime around 1973. [End Page 218]The book’s expository work is generally surefooted and illuminative, although it at times falls into redundancy, baldly reiterating its thesis. Nonetheless, it complements existing scholarship on Niebuhr and Ramsey with an investigation of the philosophical premises of their ethical thought that each was eager to conceal. Such work will benefit scholars of Niebuhr and Ramsey as well as advanced students seeking to grasp the general architecture of their thought. Moreover, many will find Carnahan’s interpretations of Niebuhr and Ramsey impressive. For example, Carnahan portrays Niebuhr as a more Barthian and ecclessially minded thinker than most accounts. Although Carnahan understandably does not treat such indictments in detail, his rendering undercuts charges leveled by many of Niebuhr’s critics, including Bennett, Yoder, and Hauerwas. Unfortunately, though, Carnahan’s arguments on some of these disputed points are predicated upon a relatively narrow selection of essays. Still, the book unsettles assumptions and suggests further possibilities for inquiry.In addition to his expository work, Carnahan also makes a further contribution as he subjects both Niebuhr and Ramsey to constructive criticism that exposes—and identifies ways of reinforcing—some of the weaknesses of pragmatism and idealism. Eschewing a synthesis, Carnahan instead offers a mutually constructive dialogue capable of helping thinkers of both stripes think through the issues that confront contemporary America. Even if he does not elaborate on a more precise application of his insights to contemporary politics, he offers advice helpful to pragmatists and idealists alike and leaves many of us hoping that he has more to say on such matters. [End Page 219]Bradley BurroughsEmory UniversityCopyright © 2012 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)