In this article the phenomenon of religious imagination is taken as a test case for discussing the relevance of cognitive science to philosophy of religion and theology. With Lakoff and Johnson’s Philosophy in the Flesh, it is argued that all human cognitive faculties are both propelled and constrained by metaphors originating from the movements of self-aware bodies in space; accordingly, religious concepts and images are to be treated on par with all other concepts and images. Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained is (...) then critically discussed. It is argued that Boyer’s claim of having ‘explained’ religious imagination as counterintuitive blendings of evolutionarily inherited templates is highly problematic. Evolutionary psychology has not yet given any evidence of an evolutionary hard-wiring of religious concepts, and Boyer’s reference to the mind-set of hunterers and gatherers does not catch the complexity of later developments in religious thought. For all, the internal systematization of religious imageries, and the possibility of a religious self-criticism in terms of philosophy is not reflected in Boyer’s theory. Religious imagination may indeed be natural; but its naturalness neither counts for nor against the truth-claims involved in religious images. (shrink)

Contributed articles on Buddhist doctrines and philosophy; festschrift in honor of Narayan Hemandas Samtani, Buddhist scholar.

Anthropologists have long explained social behaviour as if people always do what they think is best. But what if most of these explanations only work because they are premised upon ignoring what philosophers call 'akrasia' - that is, the possibility that people might act against their better judgment? The contributors to this volume turn an ethnographic lens upon situations in which people seem to act out of line with what they judge, desire and intend. The result is a robust examination (...) of how people around the world experience weaknesses of will, which speaks to debates in both the anthropology of ethics and moral philosophy. (shrink)

Educational theory; knowledge; sufism, an analytical treatise.

In recent years ethical discussion has centred round the problem of the relation between the idea of right and the idea of good. Previously it had been more or less generally assumed that moral philosophy was principally concerned with the idea of good, and followed its course by asking such questions as: What is the meaning of good? or, What are the characteristics which anything must have in order to be good? or even, What things are good? The idea of (...) right was generally regarded as subordinate, and it was perhaps more often implied than stated that an action was right if by it something good was realized. (shrink)

Modern ethics has been chiefly concerned with the analysis of the conditions and principles of morality; and, in particular, one of its most important achievements has been the further elucidation of the Kantian dictum that “I ought” implies that I can. On the face of it Kant's contention seems perfectly straightforward, but, on examination, it becomes apparent that the simple word “can” covers a somewhat complicated ambiguity. When it is said that I ought to do act A, it may rightly (...) be taken that I can do act A; but the question arises whether or not this in turn involves that I am aware that I can do act A. There is clearly some significance in the assertion that I can do many acts which, however, never occur to me, either because I am ignorant of certain facts or because I have a mistaken opinion about the facts. On the other hand, it may quite properly be said that I cannot perform any act of the possibility of which I am unaware. The problem then is to determine and examine the sense of the word “can” which is a pre-condition of moral obligation. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.