By the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Presenting a sustained critique of moral theory from Kant onwards, Williams reorients ethical theory towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy (...) and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a new commentary on the text by A.W.Moore and a foreword by Jonathan Lear. (shrink)

Myths disclose alternative worlds. From the perspective of modern philosophy, the belief in mythic worlds was seen as an aspect of culture that was soon to be superseded. But what is the place of myths, after modernity? Mythical Thinking brings together essays that use the philosophical tools- including phenomenology, metaphysics, semiotics and moral philosophy- to study these worlds and to think through myths.

With a new foreword by Jonathan Lear 'Remarkably lively and enjoyable…It is a very rich book, containing excellent descriptions of a variety of moral theories, and innumerable and often witty observations on topics encountered on the way.' -_ Times Literary Supplement_ Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Drawing on the (...) ideas of the Greek philosophers, Williams reorients ethics away from a preoccupation with universal moral theories towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a commentary on the text by A.W.Moore. At the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was hailed by the Times as 'the outstanding moral philosopher of his age.' He taught at the Universities of Cambridge, Berkeley and Oxford and is the author of many influential books, including _Morality; Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry_ and _Truth and Truthfulness_. (shrink)

Existentialism claims that there is no human reality except in action: pragmatism argues that meaning and truth are given only in practice. Wittgenstein calls for attention to forms of life, Marxism calls for attention to doing, and feminism calls for attention to the body. What do these tell us about ritual acts and their connection to spirit and to truth in Christianity and other world religions? Religious rituals have a special status as virtually pure forms of belief in action. Thinking (...) Through Rituals asks how philosophical tools like existentialism and Marxism can help us to understand the thought behind actions such as tasting the Christian host, joining in ceremony and speaking sacred words. Thinking Through Rituals proposes a new philosophical understanding of rituals as mental strategies giving access to knowledge of the world, in opposition to traditional approaches which see rituals as forms of social organization and control. Covering areas including the body, pilgrimage,initiation, sacrifice and art, this is an exciting look at the relationship between doing and meaning which is implied by ritual practice, but most fully explained by philosophical theory. (shrink)

This investigation takes full account of the findings of the social and historical sciences while offering a religious interpretation of the religions as different culturally conditioned responses to a transcendent Divine Reality.

Many contemporary philosophers assume that, before one can discuss prayer, the question of whether there is a God or not must be settled. In this title, first published in 1965, D. Z. Phillips argues that to understand prayer is to understand what is meant by the reality of God. Beginning by placing the problem of prayer within a philosophical context, Phillips goes on to discuss such topics as prayer and the concept of talking, prayer and dependence, superstition and the concept (...) of community. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of particular value to students with an interest in the philosophy of religion, prayer and religious studies more generally. (shrink)

Knepper criticizes existing efforts in the philosophy of religion for being out of step with, and therefore useless to, the academic study of religion, then forwards a new program for philosophy of religion that is in step with, and therefore useful to, the academic study of religion.

In addition to thin concepts like the good, the bad and the ugly, our evaluative thought and talk appeals to thick concepts like the lewd and the rude, the selfish and the cruel, the courageous and the kind -- concepts that somehow combine evaluation and non-evaluative description. Thick concepts are almost universally assumed to be inherently evaluative in content, and many philosophers claimed them to have deep and distinctive significance in ethics and metaethics. In this first book-length treatment of thick (...) concepts, Pekka Väyrynen argues that all this is mistaken. Through detailed attention to the language of thick concepts, he defends a novel theory on which the relationship between thick words and evaluation is best explained by general conversational and pragmatic norms. Drawing on general principles in philosophy of language, he argues that many prominent features of thick words and concepts can be explained by general factors that have nothing in particular to do with being evaluative. If evaluation is not essential to the sort of thinking we do with thick concepts, claims for the deep and distinctive significance of the thick are undermined. The Lewd, the Rude and the Nasty is a fresh and innovative treatment of an important topic in moral philosophy and sets a new agenda for future work. It will be essential reading to anyone interested in the analysis and the broader philosophical significance of evaluative and normative language. (shrink)

Substantially re-written and updated, this edition of 'The Existence of God' presents arguments such as the existence of the laws of nature, 'fine-tuning' of the universe, moral awareness and evidence of miracles, to prove the case that there is a God.

"Dimensions of the Sacred is arguably one of the most comprehensive and readable accounts of religion that we have had in the past thirty years. Not only does it provide a rich analysis of religious experience, but he also includes much that has been overlooked by other interpreters of the world's religions."—Richard D. Hecht, coauthor of The Sacred Texts of the World.

The work which this author planned to call The Prose of the World, or Introduction to the Prose of the World, is unfinished.

Traditional theistic proofs are often understood as evidence intended to compel belief in a divinity. John Clayton explores the surprisingly varied applications of such proofs in the work of philosophers and theologians from several periods and traditions, thinkers as varied as Ramanuja, al-Ghazali, Anselm, and Jefferson. He shows how the gradual disembedding of theistic proofs from their diverse and local religious contexts is concurrent with the development of natural theologies and atheism as social and intellectual options in early modern Europe (...) and America. Clayton offers a fresh reading of the early modern history of philosophy and theology, arguing that awareness of such history, and the local uses of theistic argument, offer important ways of managing religious and cultural difference in the public sphere. He argues for the importance of historically grounded philosophy of religion to the field of religious studies and public debate on religious pluralism and cultural diversity. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious experience. He claims that while none (...) of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Just as there was a vogue at one time for identifying thinking either with mere processions or with more or less organised processions of images, so there is a vogue now for identifying thinking with something oddly called ‘language’, namely with more or less organised processions of bits of French or English, etc.

Just as there was a vogue at one time for identifying thinking either with mere processions or with more or less organised processions of images, so there is a vogue now for identifying thinking with something oddly called ‘language’, namely with more or less organised processions of bits of French or English, etc.

EDITOR'S NOTE The essay published here is edited from the Rush Rhees Nachlass, which is now in the possession of the University College of Swansea, under the direction of Professor D. Z. Phillips. The Nachlass is not at present open to students and scholars, apart from commissioned editing. The sources of the essay are three letters and three typescripts. The letters are from Rhees to M. O'C. Drury, who was a student of Wittgenstein's and a friend of Rhees's. They are (...) dated 21 March 1959, 21 July 1963, and 30 September 1964. (Readers familiar with Rhees's Without Answers will recognize certain expressions which occur in this essay. Chapter 17 of that book was draw from the 1963 letter to Drury.)One of the typescripts is dated 17 October 1965; the other two are undated, but I would guess they were written at about the same time. The title and footnotes are my own. T. T. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers assume that, before one can discuss prayer, the question of whether there is a God or not must be settled. In this title, first published in 1965, D. Z. Phillips argues that to understand prayer is to understand what is meant by the reality of God. Beginning by placing the problem of prayer within a philosophical context, Phillips goes on to discuss such topics as prayer and the concept of talking, prayer and dependence, superstition and the concept (...) of community. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of particular value to students with an interest in the philosophy of religion, prayer and religious studies more generally. (shrink)

The teaching of religions has long relied on the World Religions paradigm to guide curricula throughout education, which has led to a widening gap, on the one hand, between what is taught in schools and in universities and, on the other, between research and teaching. While the World Religions paradigm has allowed the inclusion of non-Christian religions in education, it has also remodelled them according to liberal Western Christian values, influencing the conception of ‘religion’ beyond educational contexts. This article argues (...) that it is time to discard the World Religions paradigm altogether in favour of a more critical approach to the study of religion, as a constructed category, as well as a study of religions in their contexts. (shrink)

With a new foreword by Jonathan Lear 'Remarkably lively and enjoyable…It is a very rich book, containing excellent descriptions of a variety of moral theories, and innumerable and often witty observations on topics encountered on the way.' -_ Times Literary Supplement_ Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Drawing on the (...) ideas of the Greek philosophers, Williams reorients ethics away from a preoccupation with universal moral theories towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a commentary on the text by A.W.Moore. At the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was hailed by the Times as 'the outstanding moral philosopher of his age.' He taught at the Universities of Cambridge, Berkeley and Oxford and is the author of many influential books, including _Morality; Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry_ and _Truth and Truthfulness_. (shrink)

_Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto_ advocates a radical transformation of the discipline from its current, narrow focus on questions of God, to a fully global form of critical reflection on religions in all their variety and dimensions. Opens the discipline of philosophy of religion to the religious diversity that characterizes the world today Builds bridges between philosophy of religion and the other interpretative and explanatory approaches in the field of religious studies Provides a manifesto for a global (...) approach to the subject that is a practice-centred rather than a belief-centred activity Gives attention to reflexive critical studies of 'religion' as socially constructed and historically located. (shrink)

Preface Introduction: What Is Philosophy of Religion? 1 What is Religion? 2 Diverse Views of Ultimate Reality 3 Can We Prove that Some Kind of Ultimate Reality Exists? 4 Religious Experience: What Is It and What Does It Prove? 5 Why Do Suffering and Evil Occur? 6 How Are Religion and Morality Related? 7 Are We Immortal? 8 What Is the Meaning of Religious Language? 9 Do Faith and Reason Conflict? 10 Humanism, Science, And Miracles 11 Are All Religions True?

_Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto_ advocates a radical transformation of the discipline from its current, narrow focus on questions of God, to a fully global form of critical reflection on religions in all their variety and dimensions. Opens the discipline of philosophy of religion to the religious diversity that characterizes the world today Builds bridges between philosophy of religion and the other interpretative and explanatory approaches in the field of religious studies Provides a manifesto for a global (...) approach to the subject that is a practice-centred rather than a belief-centred activity Gives attention to reflexive critical studies of 'religion' as socially constructed and historically located. (shrink)

There seems to be an interesting difference between judging someone to be good and judging them to be kind. Both judgements are typically positive, but the latter seems to offer more description of the person: we get a slightly more specific sense of what they are like. Very general evaluative concepts are referred to as thin concepts, whilst more specific ones are termed thick concepts. Examples of the former include good, bad, right and wrong, whilst there are countless examples of (...) the latter: brave, rude, gracious, wicked, sympathetic, mean. Marking this distinction opens up some interesting questions. How do the descriptive and evaluative elements of thick concepts combine? Are these elements separable in the first place? Is there a sharp division between thin and thick concepts? Can we mark interesting further distinctions between how thick ethical concepts work and how their aesthetic and epistemic counterparts work? How, if at all, are thick and thin concepts related to reasons and action?.These questions, and others, touch on some of the deepest philosophical issues about the evaluative and normative. They force us to think hard about the place of the evaluative in a (seemingly) nonevaluative world, and they also raise fascinating issues about how language works.This volume of twelve papers explores the phenomenon of thin and thick concepts. They are accompanied by a large introduction that offers an overview of the current and historic field.Authors: Simon Blackburn, Jonathan Dancy, Timothy Chappell, Matti Eklund, Edward Harcourt and Alan Thomas, Simon Kirchin, Debbie Roberts, Michael Smith, Valerie Tiberius, Pekka Väyrynen Eric Wiland, and Nick Zangwill. (shrink)

This is a collection of John Hick's essays on the understanding of the world's religions as different human responses to the same ultimate transcendent reality. Hicks is in dialogue with contemporary philosophers (some of whom contribute new responses); with Evangelicals; with the Vatican and other both Catholic and Protestant theologians. The book is alive with current argument for all interested in contemporary philosophy of religion and theology.

In this article I compare Ryle's notion of a thick description with Williams' notion of a thick concept so as to illuminate our understanding of both. In doing so I suggest lines of thought that show us that the notion of 'evaluation' in play in many people's writings should be broadened. Doing so will help to lessen the credibility of separationist notions of thick concepts.