Today, most liberal states are torn between attempts to accommodate different religions within floating limits of tolerance, and at the same time trying to uphold a sense of national identity. The traditionally liberal way to negotiate this dilemma has, put bluntly, been to address religion as a generic category, relegate it to the private sphere, and to make religion an object of tolerance. This idea of a strict separation between religion and the secular rests on an Enlightenment notion of a (...) secular reason disembodied from tradition. Against such an understanding post-secular philosophers have sought to make tacit assumptions about the nature of reality explicit, and consequently, to make metaphysics relevant. This book explores the metaphysical assumptions that underlie different interpretations of the relationship between religion and the secular, faith and reason, and transcendence and immanence. Questioning the notion of secular reason as a neutral and ultimate adjudicator of religious difference, different answers to how people of diverse religious and cultural identities can live together peacefully are explored. (shrink)

This review essay reflects on two works that pertain to the postsecular: Josef Bengtson, Explorations in Post-Secular Metaphysics ; and Florian Zemmin, Colin Jager, Guido Vanheeswijck, eds., Working with a Secular Age: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Charles Taylor’s Master Narrative. The profound influence of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age is well illustrated in these two works under review. The review essay situates postsecularity in the context of debates on secularization and the sociological expectations this process generates. By treating postsecularism (...) in terms of contextualisation, metaphysics arises as a default position pertaining to transcendence in Bengtson’s work. The efforts in the Zemmin, Jager, and Vanheeswijck work to steer the Taylor work in the direction of Islam are given a critical appraisal. A particular outcome of postsecularity is to render as untenable sociology’s customary detachment of religion from theology. Lastly, for Catholicism, postsecularism draws attention to a long-standing and long-denied crisis in the reproduction of belief in modernity and in a secularized Europe in particular. A singular exception to this crisis occurs in Scandinavian countries, notable for their absence of religion, which are experiencing a small, but significant renaissance of Catholicism. This opens out a positive side to debates on postsecularity which indicates that it is not solely about mirages which give comfort to secularized forms of sociology. (shrink)

From the perspective of Catholic moral theology, one of the most important topics in view of the tense relationship between law, ethics and religion is natural law. The first part of the present text tries to defend this type of theory, which goes back to antiquity, against the most important objections and to determine the contours of a contemporary form of natural law thinking. In the second part of the text, their practical importance is indicated using the example of the (...) current debate about the moral evaluation of suicide and suicide assistance as well as dealing with the phenomenon of so-called transgenderness. (shrink)

The funding of higher education is under stress. On the one hand, the benefits of universities for economic prosperity and growth are increasing as universities graduate more students; undertake a greater share of scientific research; and, through cooperation with business, stimulate the technological advance of the private sector. At the same time, government funding of higher education is stagnating or even falling in many countries. The book brings together the views of an international group of experts on the financing of (...) higher education. They examine funding trends in Asia, Europe and the United States and present practical proposals for the reform of university funding and operations and examples of successful ways of building links between industry and universities that can be mutually beneficial and supplement government funding of higher education. (shrink)

What Does "Academic" Mean? focuses, in two essays, on the prospects of contemporary universities. The term "academic" is traced back to Plato's Academy in a grove in Athens. The Academy is isolated, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Western universities founded in the Middle Ages show continuity, via Byzantium, with Plato's Academy. Not surprisingly, the Oxford Dictionary quoted by Pieper defines "academic" as "Not leading to a decision; unpractical." The preoccupation of the academic as academic is (...) seen by Pieper to be fundamentally theoretical, not practical. Pure theory is that which cannot at all be pressed into service. Clearly, many university disciplines that are richly funded by industry and business concerns tend to be favored by university administrations, which, intent on financial survival, frown on "unproductive" disciplines such as pure philosophy: metaphysics being a case in point, since it is the discipline least capable of practical application. (shrink)

: The discussion of whether people understand themselves and others by using theories of behaviour or by simulating mental states lacks conclusive empirical evidence. Nichols et al. have proposed the Langer effect as a critical test. From people's inability accurately to predict the difference in the subjective value of lottery tickets in choice and no‐choice conditions, they argued that people do not simulate behaviour in such situations.In a series of four experiments, we consistently failed to replicate the original difference between (...) choice and no‐choice under the conditions used by Nichols et al. We conclude that the replicability of the effect depends on an unknown combination of factors. As long as the target effect is not better understood and under better experimental control, it is difficult to use it as a yardstick against which the accuracy of simulation can be assessed. (shrink)

Das spezifische Können der Philosohpie als [eu legein] (1937).--Das System von Leibniz (1946).--Über einen neuen ontologischen Beweis des Satzes von der Notwendigkeit alles Geschehens (1948).--Bemerkungen über den Begriff der Ursache (1949).--Die Natur der ästhetischen Wirkung (1957).--Einige Bemerkungen über den formalen Charakter des Unterschieds von Ding und Eigenschaft (1967).

Articles, speeches, etc. on communism and Christianity.