Translating Religion advances thinking about translation as a critical category in religious studies, combining theoretical reflection about processes of translation in religion with focused case studies that are international, interdisciplinary, and interreligious. By operating with broad conceptions of both religion and translation, this volume makes clear that processes of translation, broadly construed, are everywhere in both religious life and the study of religion; at the same time, the theory and practice of translation and the advancement of translation studies as a (...) field has developed in the context of concerns about the possibility and propriety of translating religious texts. The nature of religions as living historical traditions depends on the translation of religion from the past into the present. Interreligious dialogue and the comparative study of religion require the translation of religion from one tradition to another. Understanding the historical diffusion of the world's religions requires coming to terms with the success and failure of translating a religion from one cultural context into another. Contributors ask what it means to translate religion, both textually and conceptually, and how the translation of religious content might differ from the translation of other aspects of human culture. This volume proposes that questions on the nature of translation find particularly acute expression in the domains of religion, and argues that theoretical approaches from translation studies can be fruitfully brought to bear on contemporary religious studies. (shrink)

The book is divided into two parts: Pragmatism and Realism, with brief introductions to each. In the Pragmatism section, the authors include Hilary Putnam himself, who gave the conference keynote address, Ruth Ann Putnam, Richard Warner, Robert Brandom, and Nicholas Rescher. The Realism section includes John Haldane, Tadeusz Szubka, John Heil, Wolfgang Künne, Gary Ebbs, and Charles Travis. Putnam replies, sometimes at length, to each one, and this is one of the more valuable features of the collection. The paper by (...) Putnam summarizes his current views and his latest version of realism. Missing in action, but discussed briefly by Putnam and some contributors, Richard Rorty has written quite a bit about Putnam, Putnam not as much on Rorty, and as these two eminent philosophers approach the end of their extensive careers, this would have been an excellent occasion for them to comment on their similarities and differences. Is Rorty really “the Evil Putnam”? Further, because Putnam has always been interested in the history and philosophy of science, it is ironic and regrettable that Kuhn gets only one brief mention, by Putnam in his reply to Rescher. He believes that Kuhn misinterprets “the significance of paradigm-change in a relativistic way,” and of course such a comment deserves defense. Both Kuhn and Rorty are directly relevant to Putnam’s arguments about the disconnect between metaphysics and physical law and it would good to have a more detailed account of his views on their historicism and “relativism.”. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the metaphorical use of medical terms in philosophy. Three examples selected from distinct philosophical contexts demonstrate that such terms have been employed as metaphors both to describe the practice of philosophising and historically to diagnose philosophical positions. The selected examples are (i) the title of Avicenna’s main philosophical work, The Book of Healing, (ii) the criticism of medical metaphors in Enlightenment philosophy, and (iii) recent historical diagnoses in philosophy. The underlying epistemological assumptions of all three contexts (...) are reconstructed to critically analyse the medical metaphors. Through this tripartite synopsis, I arrive at a normative conclusions medical metaphors, such as the “healing of the soul” or “pathology of reason”, do not stand up to the critique of Enlightenment and are obsolete against the theoretical background of my reference texts. (shrink)

In An Introduction to Metaphysics Heidegger asserted that “it wasnot German idealism that collapsed; rather, the age was no longer strong enough to sustain the greatness, breadth, and originality of that spiritual world, i.e., truly to realize it”. He was at this point launchinginto one of the major themes of his later work: the “darkening of the world” in the form of the materialism and “demonism” typified by the antitheses of the USSR and the USA, a polarity of seeming opposites (...) obscuring an underlying fundamental similarity. This was the modernist faith of both cultures in the power of science to solve all of the problems that have plagued humanity for untold centuries, a faith in the power of science to tell us the absolute truth about the nature of reality. In 1955 Heidegger also characterized science and technology in “The Question Concerning Technology” as an “enframing”, a particular dominant interpretation of reality dependent on the interest of control and which conceals far more than it reveals. For one thing, “the essence of technology isin a lofty sense ambiguous. Such ambiguity points to the mystery of all revealing, i.e., of truth”. Although enframing “lets man endure,” only art as the successor of philosophy transcends techne by allowing us to see that “the essence of technologyis nothing technological”. Much earlier, in Being and Time, he gave his first sustained account of science as the interpretationof reality driven by technological interests, and spoke of Being as the “transcendens” lying beyond “every possible character which an entity can possess” [p. 38]. It remains debatable whether this characterization of Being survived into Heidegger's later period, but despite his nostalgia for the spirituality of the early nineteenth century, the role of Beingin these earlier works might best be explained as some kind of realism. (shrink)

Wagner's epic Ring of the Niebelungs stands as a focal point of nineteenth-century German art. Redemption or Annihilation? discusses the unusual structure of The Ring and major critical viewpoints, such as those of Friedrich Nietzsche and Theodor Adorno. An interpretation is presented in which Nietzsche's criticisms form the basis of a positive reading of The Ring, whose significance, structure, and meaning are still enthusiastically debated today.

This article investigates the meaning and the historical implications of the term praetor maximus quoted by Livy from an early republican law. In modern scholarship it has mostly been interpreted as a technical term for the supreme magistrate. Instead of taking praetor maximus as an official title, though, I suggest to follow Mommsen who understands the term as a generic expression. Going further from this general idea and given the meticulous observance of rituals in Roman religion, the law seems to (...) have used a generic term denoting any person who happened to be in charge of the community, which extended to matters touching on relations to the gods. Other than in Mommsen's interpretation, the term is here argued to belong to the immediate aftermath of the monarchic stage of the Roman community. In a period of great insecurity, when the republic had probably just barely been established, praetor maximus referred to the possibility of a rex as much as to any republican office. Thus, this term does not allow for any conclusions about the emergence of the supreme magistracy in Rome, but rather gives testimony to royal support still active in Rome after the expulsion oft he Tarquins. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Kant's treatment of happiness in ethics.

Until recently philosophy of religion has been almost exclusively focused upon the analysis of western religious ideas. The central concern of the discipline has been the concept God , as that concept has been understood within Judaeo-Christianity. However, this narrow remit threatens to render philosophy of religion irrelevant today. To avoid this philosophy of religion should become a genuinely multicultural discipline. But how, if at all, can philosophy of religion rise to this challenge? The paper considers fictionalism about religious discourse (...) as a possible methodological standpoint from which to practice a tradition-neutral form of philosophy of religion. However, after examining some of the problems incurred by fictionalism, the paper concludes that fictionalism and religious diversity are uneasy bedfellows; which implies that fictionalism is unlikely to be the best theory to shape the practice of philosophy of religion in a multicultural context. (shrink)

Few seem to have difficulty in distinguishing between religious and secular institutions, yet there is widespread disagreement regarding what "religion" actually means. Indeed, some go so far as to question whether there is anything at all distinctive about religions. Hence, formulating a definition of "religion" that can command wide assent has proven to be an extremely difficult task. In this article I consider the most prominent of the many rival definitions that have been proposed, the majority falling within three basic (...) types: intellectual, affective and functional definitions. I conclude that there are pragmatic reasons for favouring the formerly popular view that essentialist definitions of "religions" are inadequate, and that religions should be construed, instead, as possessing a number of "family resemblances". In so arguing, I provide a response to the view that there is nothing distinctive about religions, as well as to the recent claim that religions do not exist. (shrink)

Discussion of recent analyses of Being and Time, concentrating on that of Hubert Dreyfus, in which Heidegger’s philosophy of science is claimed to be a form of realism. Surveying other views, those of William Blattner, Barry Allen, Charles Guignon, and Richard Rorty, I argue that Heidegger should not be anachronistically classified because, similar to Subject/Object, he considers the Realism/Idealism debate to belong to another era.

This article applies Hilary Putnam’s theory of internal realism to the issue of religious plurality. The result of this application – ‘internalist pluralism’ – constitutes a paradigm shift within the Philosophy of Religion. Moreover, internalist pluralism succeeds in avoiding the major difficulties faced by John Hick’s famous theory of religious pluralism, which views God, or ‘the Real,’ as the noumenon lying behind diverse religious phenomena. In side-stepping the difficulties besetting Hick’s revolutionary Kantian approach, without succumbing to William Alston’s critique of (...) conceptual-scheme dependence, internalist pluralism provides a solution to significant theoretical problems, while doing so in a manner that is respectful of cultural diversity and religious sensitivities. (shrink)

In our increasingly multicultural society there is an urgent need for a theory that is capable of making sense of the various philosophical difficulties presented by ethical and religious diversity—difficulties that, at first sight, seem to be remarkably similar. Given this similarity, a theory that successfully accounted for the difficulties raised by one form of plurality might also be of help in addressing those raised by the other, especially as ethical belief systems are often inextricably linked with religious belief systems. (...) This article adumbrates a theory that is suitably sensitive to the challenge posed by cultural diversity, and that is respectful of ethical and religious differences. The theory, called “internalist pluralism,” provides a philosophical account of the widely differing claims made by religious believers resulting from the tremendous diversity of belief systems, while simultaneously yielding a novel perspective on ethical plurality. Internalist pluralism is based on Hilary Putnam’s theory of internal realism. This article is not concerned to defend internal realism against its critics, although such defense is clearly required if the theory is to be adopted. Its more modest aim is to show that internal realism has a distinctive voice to add to the current debate about how best to understand religious and ethical diversity. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus's commentary on Being and Time has been a long time in preparation but it has also been worth the wait. Dreyfus limits his account to the first division of Part I of Being and Time with some passages from Division II brought into the discussion. For Dreyfus, the first 230 pages of Being and Time comprise Heidegger's most important metaphysical innovations, while Division II, the “existentialist” side of Heidegger, contains discussions of death, guilt, resoluteness and Angst rarely, if (...) ever, mentioned in any other works. (shrink)

This book selectively examines a range of ideas and arguments drawn from the philosophical traditions of South and East Asia, focusing on those that are especially relevant to the philosophy of religion. The book introduces key debates about the self and the nature of reality that unite the otherwise highly diverse philosophies of Indian and Chinese Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. The emphasis of the book is analytical rather than historical. Key issues are explained in a clear, precise, accessible manner, and (...) with a view to their relevance to contemporary philosophical debates. (shrink)

Is it possible to talk about God without either misrepresentation or failing to assert anything of significance? The article begins by reviewing how, in attempting to answer this question, traditional theories of religious language have failed to sidestep both potential pitfalls adequately. After arguing that recently developed theories of metaphor seem better able to shed light on the nature of religious language, it considers the claim that huge areas of our language and, consequently, of our experience are shaped by metaphors. (...) Finally, it considers some of the more significant implications of this claim for our understanding of both religious language and religious experience. (shrink)

Internalist pluralism is an attractive and elegant theory. However, there are two apparently powerful objections to this approach that prevent its widespread adoption. According to the first objection, the resulting analysis of religious belief systems is intrinsically atheistic; while according to the second objection, the analysis is unsatisfactory because it allows religious objects simply to be defined into existence. In this article, I demonstrate that an adherent of internalist pluralism can deflect both of these objections, and in the course of (...) so arguing, I deploy a distinction between “conceptual-scheme targetability” and “successful conceptual-scheme targeting”. (shrink)

The Australian Labor Party has, until recent years, exercised almost unchallenged hegemony over Australian Left and working-class politics. Tom Bramble and Rick Kuhn have ambitiously crafted the first Marxist history of the party in over 50 years, deploying an analysis of its material constitution as a ‘capitalist workers’ party’ to underpin arguments for a revolutionary socialist alternative. From its emergence in class struggles of the late nineteenth century, to its early electoral successes, to multiple internal crises and splits, and its (...) more recent role in driving neoliberal restructuring, the party’s contradictory character is analysed with clarity. However, despite containing much suggestive material, key issues – including the party’s unparalleled success despite its betrayals, failures and crises; radical challenges from within and without the party; the nature of its appeal to reformist consciousness; the shape of Marxist and Left debates about thealp; and the party’s centrality to a wider sphere of politics in capitalist society – remain thinly theorised, thereby inadvertently weakening the authors’ case for a revolutionary alternative. (shrink)

Analyzes the origin, structure and resolution of Kant's antinomies of reason from a systematic rather than a historical perspective, exploring the relationship between the theoretical antinomies and the practical antinomy in order to indicate their similarities and differences and to suggest the dependence of the latter on the former.

Eastern Philosophy: The Basics is an essential introduction to major Indian and Chinese philosophies, both past and present. Exploring familiar metaphysical and ethical questions from the perspectives of different Eastern philosophies, including Confucianism, Daoism, and strands of Buddhism and Hinduism, this book covers key figures, issues, methods and concepts. Questions discussed include: What is the ‘self’? Is human nature inherently good or bad? How is the mind related to the world? How can you live an authentic life? What is the (...) fundamental nature of reality? Throughout the book the relationships between Eastern Philosophy, Western Philosophy and the questions reflective people ask within the contemporary world are brought to the fore. With timelines highlighting key figures and their contributions, a list of useful websites and further reading suggestions for each topic, this engaging overview of fundamental ideas in Eastern Philosophy is valuable reading for all students of philosophy and religion, especially those seeking to understand Eastern perspectives. (shrink)

Securing a future for philosophy and wisdom in the professionalized and specialized context of twenty-first century academia is the challenge taken up by this article. If the conception of philosophy as the love of wisdom expects too much of philosophers, the construal of philosophy as the study of wisdom expects too little. To attempt to rehabilitate the relationship between philosophy and wisdom by claiming that philosophy is the study of wisdom unreasonably limits the scope of the current vibrant and expansive (...) discipline, leaving it unclear how the more theoretical dimensions of philosophy might fit into it. Moreover, to exclude from consideration the possibility that a person might be improved by philosophy, and his or her life enhanced, is to denature the discipline. The model of philosophy as encouraging friendship with wisdom, on the other hand, does not underestimate philosophy’s potential for helping someone to become the kind of person who could make the choices likely to contribute to the living of a good life. By providing a way of thinking about the relationship between philosophy and wisdom that is appropriate to our age, the idea that philosophers are friends of wisdom can contribute to our evolving practice and understanding of the discipline, while at the same time allowing philosophy and philosophers to remain vitally connected to their heritage. (shrink)

This paper argues for the value of the ‘strange’ as a hermeneutical tool to open fresh perspectives on an issue of widespread human concern, specifically how to deal with and relate to the dead. Traditional Chinese folk religion and the animistic ghost culture found within it is introduced and the role of gods, ancestors, and ghosts explained. The view that death is not the end of life but the transition to a new relationship with the living raises questions about our (...) potential obligations to the dead. It also has implications for our thinking about intergenerational justice and the role of our memory of the past in shaping our present and future experience. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the process of self-transformation through which a person comes to embody the ideal of her religion’s vision of the divine, as far as that ideal is expressible in a human life. The paper is concerned with the self as the subject of religious commitments, traits, religious aspirations and religiously inspired ideals. The self-transformative journey that people are invited to undertake poses a number of philosophical and practical difficulties; the paper explores some of these difficulties, concentrating on (...) those that arise in connection with the notion of potential future selves. This paper suggests that imaginative reflection upon exemplary individuals provides one way through these difficulties, for these individuals can show us what it looks like when someone achieves, or draws close to, the ideal. (shrink)

There have been a number of developments within religious epistemology in recent years. Currently, the dominant view within mainstream philosophy of religion is, arguably, reformed epistemology. What is less well known is that feminist epistemologists have also been active recently within the philosophy of religion, advancing new perspectives from which to view the link between knowledge and religious experience. In this article I examine the claim by certain feminist religious epistemologists that women are both epistemically oppressed and epistemically privileged, and (...) I consider whether or not this justifies the specific re-conceptualisations of religious terms that such epistemologists have proposed. (shrink)

The article proposes that the hypothetical framework of Kierkegaard's "Philosophical Fragments" is determined by the question 'How is it possible for one to become a disciple?' An account of this framework is provided by employing an original interpretation of the concept 'the Moment'. This enables an understanding of 'the condition' by means of a contrast between 'Universalist' and 'Particularist' perspectives. Moreover, it is only when the insights offered by both perspectives are combined that the answer to the determining question of (...) the Fragments becomes apparent. (shrink)

Museums and their practices—especially those involving collection, curation and exhibition—generate a host of philosophical questions. Such questions are not limited to the domains of ethics and aesthetics, but go further into the domains of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of religion. Despite the prominence of museums as public institutions, they have until recently received surprisingly little scrutiny from philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. By bringing together contributions from philosophers with backgrounds in a range of traditional areas of philosophy, this volume demonstrates (...) how their work can enhance our understanding of museums and shed light on the philosophical questions raised by museum practices. Many of the essays in this volume make the case that the philosophy of museums is of vital concern, not only to those philosophers at work in the emerging field but also to practitioners within the museum world and to anyone who enjoys visiting museums. (shrink)

This article reviews three basic ways in which the relationship between Abrahamic religion and science has been construed: as fundamentally antagonistic; as non-antagonistically incommensurable; and as complementary. Unfortunately, while each construal seems to offer benefits to the religious believer, none, as the article demonstrates, is without considerable cost.

Questions about how to negotiate belief and non-belief in social and public spheres are attracting an increasing amount of attention from academics in a range of disciplines, and from concerned members of the public. This volume addresses the emergence of ‘new atheism’ and the developing ‘spiritual but not religious’ phenomenon. Avoiding simplistic accounts of atheism, and of religious belief, it provides readers with insight into a wide range of nuances within theism and a-theism, as well as spiritual practice and faith. (...) The chapters by an international panel of contributors focus on topics such as: a typology or cartography of atheisms and agnosticism; contrasting types of atheism within Christianity and Buddhism; questions about cognitive and doxastic stances in atheisms; theist rejections of and atheist embracing of ‘God’; atheist aesthetics. Reaching beyond the Christian tradition, the book will be of particular interest to scholars of the philosophy of religion, as well as religious studies and theology more generally. (shrink)

Conceptual metaphor theory provides a useful tool with which to think about different philosophical traditions, as it can reveal the deep structure of networks of ideas. Conceptual metaphors are not just linguistic devices, rather they organise whole networks of thought, experience and activity. Paying special attention to the role of the metaphor of sight in certain Indian traditions and that of Dao in Chinese traditions, I explore the idea that different philosophical traditions have developed and matured around particular conceptual metaphors, (...) each giving rise to a distinctive conception of both the practice and the goal of philosophy. I suggest that what it means to practice philosophy in these traditions is governed by the dominant conceptual metaphor in use. I consider the implications of this for the traditional Western conception of philosophy as the love of wisdom. I conclude with some reflections on analytic philosophy, considering to what extent it too can be regarded as a philosophical tradition structured by a dominant conceptual metaphor. (shrink)

This article surveys some of the ways in which certain representative feminists from each of the Abrahamic religions have argued that patriarchal religious traditions have systematically excluded women from contributing to traditionally accepted interpretations of their sacred texts. It shows how, in response to this exclusion, feminist theologians from each of these religions have observed a need to interpret the scriptures of their traditions from the standpoint provided by their own experience as women–thus offering new interpretations which they perceive to (...) constitute a powerful tool with which to mount a critique of the theological traditions that had excluded them. The article concludes that, as women achieve greater opportunities for assessing their sacred texts themselves, this will have a growing effect on how the texts are read, on the religious institutions that claim to be justified by them and on the core religious concepts, such as ‘God’, that lie at the heart of those texts, whether their tradition be Jewish, Christian or Islamic. (shrink)

This article examines some of the problems androcentric religious anthropologies raise for Jewish, Christian and Muslim women-particularly, with respect to their demand to occupy leadership roles within their respective faith-communities-while also considering the failure of conservative thinkers adequately to respond to these problems. Focusing on the connection between religious anthropologies and the conception of God within the Abrahamic faiths reveals, what many religious feminists have described as, a symbiotic relationship between the conception of God employed in their tradition and an (...) androcentric religious anthropology. Given that religious anthropologies have been, and will continue to be, subject to change as the religious traditions evolve, the article concludes that, by seeking greater control over such changes, religious feminists have an opportunity to re-shape the Abrahamic faiths in ways that could make them genuinely capable of responding to the religious requirements of both women and men. (shrink)

This paper highlights certain features of the metamorphosis that the concept “the end of the world” has undergone from its origin in early Christian thought to the present day. This concept has, in recent decades, become increasingly prominent within Western European Lutheran and Roman Catholic theology. This paperdemonstrates that the notion of the end of the world popularized by Jürgen Moltmann and Karl Rahner, despite the traditional, biblical language in which it is couched, has more affinity with the philosophical concept (...) “the end of history” developed by Hegel than it has with the ideas common in early Christianity. (shrink)

This paper examines a variety of intellectual responses to the religious and philosophical issues raised by religious plurality. While the specific questions raised by religious plurality differ across traditions, the more general problem that faces all religious intellectuals is how to provide a compelling theoretical account of the relationship between the various religions of the world. The paper briefly reviews religious exclusivism and inclusivism, before focusing upon theories of religious pluralism. After clarifying the distinction between religious pluralism and relativism about (...) religion, and comparing and assessing various forms of pluralism, the paper concludes that how compelling any particular theory of religious diversity proves to be will be dependent upon how convincing one finds the underlying understanding of religion. This implies that the real priority for scholars concerned with rival theories of religious plurality is to strive towards a common understanding of the nature of religion. (shrink)

This paper considers some of the ways in which ‘postmodernism’ is construed, before turning to several important representative examples of religious postmodern thought. It highlights some common features possessed by prominent examples of religious postmodern thought within Judaism and Christianity. Much postmodern religious thought is characterised by the separation of religious belief from religious experience, and is marked by the tendency to emphasise the latter at the expense of the former. This paper argues that, despite this tendency, the work of (...) certain key postmodern religious thinkersparticularly those associated with open-traditionalism and radical orthodoxy—does not conform to this characterisation and needs to be understood in a broader cultural and theological context. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the question of where illegal immigrants should go once their lives have been saved in hospitals and they are ready to be transferred to long-term care situations. I highlight three recent cases in which such a decision was made. In one case, the patient was kept at the hospital, in another the patient was repatriated to his home country, and in the third, the patient was discharged to his family. I consider the relevant moral values (...) and argue that for reasons of fairness we must develop a policy that treats similar cases in similar ways. In order to best uphold patient well-being and minimize costs, the plan proposed here calls for illegal immigrants to be covered by insurance for long-term care. (shrink)

This paper explores Kant’s definition of happiness as it appears in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. Three accounts of happiness are considered: contentment, the satisfaction of all one’s inclinations, and, the satisfaction of a system of inclinations. The paper discusses the extent to which there is textual evidence for each of these accounts and considers the arguments of Watson, Paton, Gregor, and Beck in support of these various accounts. It concludes by arguing that the first account of (...) happiness is the weakest and that the third account is the strongest. (shrink)