When J. L. Austin introduced two “shining new tools to crack the crib of reality”—the theory of performative utterances and the doctrine of infelicities—he could not have imagined that he was also about to inaugurate a shining new industry in the philosophy of the social sciences. But with its evident concern for the features to which “all acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial,” Austin’s theory soon became indispensable in the analysis of ritual, linguistic and (...) every kind of social action. While Indianists such as Frits Staal, Bimal Matilal and David Seyfort Ruegg have made good use of the work of Austin and his “ordinary language” school, it is Quentin Skinner who has attempted to turn Austin’s insights into a general “theory and method” for the study of intellectual cultures. The question I want to address in this paper has to do with the applicability of Skinnerian techniques to the study of literary and intellectual Sanskrit culture in premodern India. If not all of Skinner’s methods transfer to the new context, identification of the points at which they breakdown helps to clarify the distinctive contours of Indian intellectual history, and suggests appropriate methodological innovation. (shrink)

One strand of the church's conversation about homosexuality compares present‐day acceptance of homosexuals to the church's acceptance of Gentiles in Acts 15. In a previous article, “Gentiles and Homosexuals,” I presented the history of that strand. In a reply to my article, Olson proposes to reimagine the analogy via the “radical new perspective on Paul” and argues that doing so exposes problems with my original analysis. I defend myself against these criticisms, while also entering into the spirit of Olson's reimagined (...) analogy. Expanding the scope beyond Acts to Paul opens up important facets that might otherwise be obscured. In particular, it includes voices that are sometimes silenced, and presses both sides for an account of sexuality grounded in vocation and God's purposes in creation. (shrink)

Abstract. In this essay I take Michael Polanyi's analysis of scientific discovery and extend it to encompass fresh encounters with the living God. Given the embodied character of all human knowing, Polanyi challenged objectivism and positivism as untenable. In its place, Polanyi noted that the tacit skills established when a physicist learns to detect radio waves has its counterpart in a Christian's being trained to find God. Once trained, stubborn organismic habits constrain both physicist and believer within a socially approved (...) heuristic circle that can be broken only by the act of discovery. The puzzlement that erupts at the onset of an inquiry ultimately finds relief only in an expanded encounter with the realities that one has been trained to serve. Thus, the act of discovery not only serves to disrupt the tradition as it has been received but also reveals that the realities being served make themselves known in novel ways. The lifelong pursuit of God and the lifelong pursuit of novel manifestations of radio waves thus share a common epistemological and phenomenological underpinning. (shrink)

Leibniz frequently argued that reasons are to be weighed against each other as in a pair of scales, as Professor Marcelo Dascal has shown in his article "The Balance of Reason." In this kind of weighing it is not necessary to reach demonstrative certainty – one need only judge whether the reasons weigh more on behalf of one or the other option However, a different kind of account about rational decision-making can be found in some of Leibniz's writings. In his (...) article "Was Leibniz's Deity an Akrates?" Professor Jaakko Hintikka has argued that Leibniz developed a new vectorial model for rational decisions which is better suited to complicated decisions, where values are complementary to each other. This model, related closely to his work in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, is a heuristic device which helps in finding rational combinations - and in an ideal case an optimum - between plural inclinations to the good. I shall argue that Leibniz applies more or less implicitly both of these models in his practical rationality. In simple situations he applied the pair of scales model and in more complicated situations he applied the vectorial model. (shrink)

In their book, Roman but Not Catholic, Kenneth Collins and Jerry Walls make the case that certain beliefs central to the Roman Catholic faith are unreasonable. This article evaluates, from the point of view of Eastern Orthodoxy, some of the arguments Collins and Walls make. In particular, it argues first that Collins and Walls are correct to criticize John Henry Newman’s theory of the development of doctrine as a reason to accept otherwise insufficiently supported Catholic doctrines. Secondly, it offers some (...) points of clarification concerning the matter of sacred tradition and attempts to show the areas of agreement and disagreement between Eastern Orthodoxy and the position that Collins and Walls articulate. Thirdly, it argues that Collins and Walls rely on what is, from an Eastern Orthodox point of view, a questionable view about the interpretation of scripture by assuming without good reason that the clear meaning of scripture is equivalent to the literal interpretation. (shrink)

After commending Moleski for his excellent study, I focus attention on three areas that merit further clarification: (1) that Michael Polanyi’s quest for public recognition was legitimate and not the effect of a runaway vanity, (2) that Kuhn’s straining to define his dependence upon Polanyi was blocked by the unspecifiability clouding the discovery process and by his notion that Polanyi appealed to ESP to explain the dynamics of· discovery, and (3) that Kuhn’s success in gaining public recognition for his paradigm (...) shift was understandable. In the end, I list five areas wherein Kuhn’s account of scientific revolutions could be substantially improved by joining forces with Polanyi. (shrink)

Supporters of Justificatory Liberalism (JL)—such as John Rawls and Gerard Gaus—typically maintain that the state may not coerce its citizens on matters of constitutional essentials unless it can provide public justification that the coerced citizens would be irrational in rejecting. The state, in other words, may not coerce citizens whose rejection of the coercion is based on their reasonable comprehensive doctrines (i.e., worldviews). Proponents of the legal recognition of same-sex marriage (SSM) usually offer some version of JL as the most (...) fundmental reason why laws that recognize marriage only if it is a union between one man and one woman are unjust. In this article I argue that the application of JL in support of legal recognition of SSM does not succeed because the issue under scrutiny—the nature of marriage—is deeply embedded in, and in most cases integral to, many (if not most) citizens’ reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Thus, I argue that because of the effects and consequences of the legal recognition of SSM, it results (or will result) in a violation of JL against dissenting citizens. (shrink)

Many people today believe that scientific and religious approaches to morality are mutually incompatible. Militant secularists claim scientific backing for their claim that the evolution of morality discredits religious conceptions of ethics. Some of their opponents respond with unhelpful apologetics based on fundamentalist views of revelation. This article attempts to provide an alternative option. It argues that public discussion has been excessively influenced by polemics generated by the new atheists. Religious writers have too often resorted to overly simplistic arguments rooted (...) in literalist approaches to the Bible and the religious traditions. More historically conscious methods can avoid implausible claims about both religion and science. (shrink)

Pope Francis argues for a shift to a new economic model that is in the service of the human life and is "more attentive to ethical principles" (LS 189). He does not endorse a specific model except that he provides conditions, principles, and frameworks by which its ethos must be grounded against. As part of his pastoral approach and his vision of a synodal Church, he invites everyone to participate and contribute to this discussion because "not all discussions of doctrinal, (...) moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium" (AL 3). It is within this papal invitation of discoursing this new economic model where this paper aims to contribute particularly on the centrality of the anthropological criterion. The first section explores the meaning of his articulation on economics; situating it within the economic discourse of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The second section focuses on the anthropological criterion as problematized by the identification of the homo economicus as self-interested. The third section draws a theoretical framework from substantivist economics in forwarding the desired economic ethos while the fourth section provides praxeological inputs and argues that homo economicus can be prosocial when the culture that is embedded in a particular economic model is put together to nurture such ethos. (shrink)

This essay charts the parallel growth of Newman's theory of doctrinal development, and infallibility within that doctrinal development, with its author's movement from a via media in Anglicanism to recognition of the truth in the Roman Church. This essay analyzes the theological need for a theory of doctrinal development, the failure of Newman's via media project, and his role as a creative theologian. Then this essay examines in detailed Newman's 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, looking specifically at (...) the second section of the second chapter, ‘On the Probability of a Developing Authority in Christianity.’ The main body of the paper treats the expansion of the scope and feasibility of infallibility in Newman's 1845 Essay. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 10, Issue 1, pp 1 - 28 We still lack a systematic or complete theory of tradition. By referring to the works of many major figures of the last century – Arendt, Boyer, Eisenstadt, Eliot, Gadamer, Goody, Hobsbawm, Kermode, Leavis, MacIntyre, Oakeshott, Pieper, Pocock, Popper, Prickett, Shils and others – I show that a theory of tradition must include insights taken not only from the study of sociology and anthropology, but also from the study of literature and (...) religion. The proliferation of separate academic subjects does not make it any less necessary for us to attempt to say in general what we are talking about when we talk about tradition. In this article I distinguish three elements which are found in traditions. I call these continuity, canon, and core. The argument is that traditions can be distinguished in terms of whether there is a core in addition to canon and continuity, a canon in addition to continuity, or only mere continuity. Together these form a theory of tradition which enables us to see what is necessary to all traditions and also what it is which distinguishes different types of tradition from each other. (shrink)

This essay charts the parallel growth of Newman's theory of doctrinal development, and infallibility within that doctrinal development, with its author's movement from a via media in Anglicanism to recognition of the truth in the Roman Church. This essay analyzes the theological need for a theory of doctrinal development, the failure of Newman's via media project, and his role as a creative theologian. Then this essay examines in detailed Newman's 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, looking specifically at (...) the second section of the second chapter, ‘On the Probability of a Developing Authority in Christianity.’ The main body of the paper treats the expansion of the scope and feasibility of infallibility in Newman's 1845 Essay. (shrink)

The essay surveys Newman's work in literary drama, from an early essay on Aristotle's Poetics to his adaptation of Roman comedies for production at the Oratory School, in order to approach his affinities with Hans Urs von Balthasar's theological dramatic theory. Newman does not find a Balthasarian theo-drama via literary drama – perhaps because he was not properly exposed to medieval religious drama – but scattered dramatic analogies in his history writing suggest that he undertakes a theo-drama in that genre. (...) Von Balthasar and Newman employ dramatic analogies to reject chiliastic apocalyptic and foster ‘keromatic’ apocalyptic. (shrink)

Science and religion today Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s11153-011-9316-3 Authors Michael Ruse, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.

This article presents a view of moral development based on the interdisciplinary study of moral psychology and virtue ethics. It suggests that a successful account of moral development has to go beyond what the developmental psychology and virtue ethics advocate and find ways of incorporating ideas, such as “moral failure” and “unpredictability of life.” It proposes to recognize the concept of moral development as an essential concept for ethics, moral philosophy and philosophy of education, and as a useful tool for (...) anyone who wants to engage constructively in dialogues of religions, cultures and personal interaction. (shrink)

Abstract. I respond to the criticisms of David Wisdo of my position on the relationship between science and religion. I argue that although he gives a full and fair account of my position, he fails to grasp fully my use of the metaphorical basis of modern science in my argument that, because of its mechanistic commitment, there are some questions that science not only does not answer but that science does not even attempt to answer. Hence, my position stands and (...) plays a crucial role in our understanding of the science–religion relationship. (shrink)

I propose to employ the conceptual contrast between procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge instead of the contrast stressed by Marcelo Dascal between soft and hard rationality in Leibniz's thought. I propose to examine the interplay between declarative and procedural knowledge in Leibniz's religious thought, and in particular Leibniz's approach to heresy.

Gender transition may be figured as part of a broader creaturely process of being partners in our own becoming. Gender transition is explored through the lenses of transformation (including comparisons with theosis and with religious conversion) and neurodiversity. Humans are transformative creatures; trans and gender-variant people, like others, have the power to curate their own identities and are on a journey toward perfection. Our nature as humans, including our sexed and gendered nature, is not over-and-done-with. In this sense, our active (...) building and shaping of our identities and body-stories is not a rejection of a divine blueprint for human existence, nor an exercise of illegitimate human hubris, but rather a licit creaturely form of generativity. (shrink)