I examine three major antireligious arguments that are often proposed in various forms by cognitive and evolutionary scientists, and indicate possible responses to them. A fundamental problem with the entire debate arises because the term "religion" is too vague. So I reformulate the debate in terms of a less vague central concept: faith. Referring mainly to Aquinas on faith, I proceed by evaluating how the previously mentioned cognitive and evolutionary arguments fare when dealing with faith. The results show that some (...) aspects of the concept of faith are in principle beyond the range of evolutionary explanation and some other aspects are not. Nevertheless, an evolutionary account merges smoothly with faith’s theological dimensions. (shrink)

Our aims are to articulate some core philosophical positions characteristic of Traditional African Religion and to argue that they merit consideration as monotheist rivals to standard interpretations of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. In particular, we address the topics of how God’s nature is conceived, how God’s will is meant to bear on human decision making, where one continues to exist upon the death of one’s body, and how long one is able to exist without a body. For each of these topics, (...) we note how Traditional African Religion posits claims that clash with mainstream Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and that, being prima facie plausible, indicate the need for systematic cross-cultural philosophical debate. (shrink)

This research employs the Bayesian network modeling approach, and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, to learn about the role of lies and violence in teachings of major religions, using a unique dataset extracted from long-standing Vietnamese folktales. The results indicate that, although lying and violent acts augur negative consequences for those who commit them, their associations with core religious values diverge in the final outcome for the folktale characters. Lying that serves a religious mission of either Confucianism or (...) Taoism (but not Buddhism) brings a positive outcome to a character (βT_and_Lie_O= 2.23; βC_and_Lie_O= 1.47; βT_and_Lie_O= 2.23). A violent act committed to serving Buddhist missions results in a happy ending for the committer (βB_and_Viol_O= 2.55). What is highlighted here is a glaring double standard in the interpretation and practice of the three teachings: the very virtuous outcomes being preached, whether that be compassion and meditation in Buddhism, societal order in Confucianism, or natural harmony in Taoism, appear to accommodate two universal vices—violence in Buddhism and lying in the latter two. These findings contribute to a host of studies aimed at making sense of contradictory human behaviors, adding the role of religious teachings in addition to cognition in belief maintenance and motivated reasoning in discounting counterargument. (shrink)

According to Amos Funkenstein, Stephen Gaukroger and Andrew Cunningham, seventeenth-century natural philosophy was fused with theology, driven by theology, and pursued primarily to shed light on God. Experimental natural philosophy might seem to provide a case in point. According to its English advocates, like Robert Boyle and Thomas Sprat, experimental philosophy embodies the Christian virtues of humility, innocence, and piety, it helps establish God’s existence, attributes, and providence, and it provides a basis for evangelism. This chapter shows that, unlike their (...) English counterparts, experimental philosophers in seventeenth-century Italy kept natural philosophy sharply distinct from theological and religious matters. This indicates that seventeenth-century experimental philosophy was not, as such, theologically driven or oriented. It also suggests that there was no intrinsic relation between experimental philosophy and religion. Whether experimental philosophy was presented as an ally of religion or as distinct from it was, to a significant extent, a matter of cultural politics. It depended on which rhetorical and argumentative strategies were believed to be most likely to ensure freedom of research and institutional support for the work of experimental philosophers in a specific sociopolitical context. (shrink)

This paper critically examines three positions in the area of the evolutionary psychology of religion: the one according to which religion is completely beyond the reach of any evolutionary explanation, the one according to which religion is adaptive in the evolutionary sense, and the one according to which religion is mal-adaptive, in the sense that it confers no survival advantages but rather disadvantages. The result of the critical evaluation of these positions indicates that the embodied rationality of Homo sapiens renders (...) evolutionary explanations applicable and important but only to some extent. Genuine religious belief involves a dimension that is material, and therefore evolutionarily explainable, and a dimension that is not, namely the believer’s act of deliberately accepting or not accepting what he or she is naturally inclined to believe. (shrink)

Folklore has a critical role as a cultural transmitter, all the while being a socially accepted medium for the expressions of culturally contradicting wishes and conducts. In this study of Vietnamese folktales, through the use of Bayesian multilevel modeling and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, we offer empirical evidence for how the interplay between religious teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and deviant behaviors (lying and violence) could affect a folktale’s outcome. The findings indicate that characters who lie and/or commit (...) violent acts tend to have bad endings, as intuition would dictate, but when they are associated with any of the above Three Teachings, the final endings may vary. Positive outcomes are seen in cases where characters associated with Confucianism lie and characters associated with Buddhism act violently. The results supplement the worldwide literature on discrepancies between folklore and real-life conduct, as well as on the contradictory human behaviors vis-à-vis religious teachings. Overall, the study highlights the complexity of human decision-making, especially beyond the folklore realm. (shrink)

Why would someone concerned with heresy, who defined it as private opinion that flew in the face of doctrine sanctioned by the public person, harbor such a detailed interest in heterodoxy? Hobbes's religious beliefs ultimately remain a mystery, as perhaps they were meant to: the private views of someone concerned to conform outwardly to what his church required of him, and thereby avoid to heresy, while maintaining intellectual autonomy. The hazard of Hobbes's particular catechism is that he and his supporters (...) could never avoid the suspicion of insincerity. His preparedness to believe whatever the prince demanded of him smacked of heresy in the more usual sense, despite elaborate biblical exegesis designed to prove his orthdoxy. Undoubtedly he realized it even as he wrote the last lines of Leviathan, expressing the hope that "I cannot think it will be condemned at this time, either by the Publique Judge of Doctrine, or by any that desires the continuance of Publique Peace/7 Indicating an intention to return to science, he continued, "I hope the Novelty will as much please, as in the Doctrine of this Artificiall Body it useth to offend" (Lev, Rev. and Conclusion, 491). (shrink)

L'oeuvre philosophique de Hans-Georg Gadamer offre des concepts éclairants pour penser les rapports de la modernité occidentale avec son héritage religieux. Elle jette notamment une lumière précieuse sur la relative rupture avec la religion qui marque la réalité sociopolitique contemporaine de plusieurs cultures de l'Ouest. Dans la présente contribution, il sera question de la place que peut occuper, dans la perspective de Gadamer, la religion (au sens générique du terme) dans l'ethos occidental. Mon propos consistera dans un premier temps à (...) souligner brièvement la pertinence de l'herméneutique gadamérienne pour la mise en relief de la place que conserve la religion dans la situation herméneutique de l'Occident actuel, en prenant pour concept phare celui de travail de l'histoire (Wirkungsgeschichte). Je chercherai, dans un deuxième temps, à dégager, à partir des écrits plus tardifs de Gadamer, quelques indications sur le rôle que peut jouer la religion dans le devenir solidaire de l'humanité. (shrink)

I intend to dismantle a piece of historiographic mythology created by self-styled ‘Revisionists’ (Hill, Alvey, Oslington, etc.). According to the myth, Adam Smith endorsed several of the traditional proofs of God’s existence; he believed that the order existing in the world is a morally good order implemented by Divine Providence; he believed that evil in the world is part of an all-encompassing Divine Plan; and that the ‘invisible hand’ is the hand of the Christian God who leads the rich to (...) employ their wealth for the greater benefit of the greatest number. I argue instead that there is a remarkable analogy between Smith’s and Kant’s theory of religion. Smith’s philosophy is a third way between Rationalism and Phyrronism, arguing that doctrines confirmed by reason in every field, from natural science to theology, are nothing more than combinations of ideas agreeable to the imagination; if we try, on the basis of both Smithian texts and their context and co-text, to reconstruct his lectures on natural theology, all kind of evidence converge in indicating that he reduced proofs of God´s existence to ‘inventions of the imagination’ and argued that philosophical theism is not different in status from primitive belief in invisible beings, or that it is as unwarranted as any system is, and besides that it generates a moral conundrum; he argued also that teleological explanations are no more and no less imaginary than those based on efficient causes, that the teleological order we may imagine in the world is not too bad from a ‘consequentialist’ point of view, and yet it is far below any moral standard; I argued that this is by no means a proof of Smith’s ‘irreligion’ and also that no convincing proof of any turn from religion to irreligion on his part has been provided so far, and finally that the two viable options he left open were either dismal unbelief or Theism on a moral basis. I defend this third way by proving that what Smith’s lost lectures on natural religion said can be reconstruct with some plausibility and what they did not say with absolute certainty; I argue that he developed a sharp criticism of natural theology, that he argued that at the root of religion there are a number of principles of the mind that make religious belief a ‘natural belief’; I do so by reconstructing, first, the context of the missing lectures (sect. 2); then the contents of their first part, considering the proofs of God’s existence and his attributes (sects 3-4); the ‘principles of the mind’ lying at the root of polytheism (sect. 5), of philosophical monotheism (par. 6), and of pure and rational religion (par.7); I contend, then, that his vindication of toleration is consistent with ‘pure and rational religion’ (par. 8) and that attempts to prove a phantom conversion to ‘natural religion’ or ‘irreligion’ result from misreading (par.9). My conclusions are the following: i) Adam Smith claimed that any natural theology is impossible; ii) There is in fact some kind of order in the world, and it proves useful to a point in allowing for humankind’s survival, but it doesn’t meet any minimal moral criterion; iii) the world is not teleologically ordered; we may indeed imagine such order for mental economy, but the world abounds in misery and depravity; iv) consequences of human wickedness and insanity do, happily enough, deviate from intended outcomes; we may feign invisible mechanisms at work behind, but to mistake them for a hidden mechanism is as childish as the primitive’s belief in ‘invisible beings’. v) there are indeed themes from theological doctrines in Smithian economic theory, but they not the kind of rational theology ‘discovered’ by the ‘New View’; they are instead Augustinian and Jansenist themes. vi) Smith’s theological doctrines did – as suggested by Waterman – have a bearing on his economic theory not by ‘doctrinal dependence’ but – as suggested by Harrison – in the more modest role of source of blueprints for economic explanation. (shrink)

Comment from Author (12-17-13): Please note that the correct term for the theological attempt to resolve the problem of how evil can exist in a world ruled by a loving and all-powerful God is "theodicy," not "theodicity" as indicated in the second paragraph on the first page of the article. I apologize for the error.

If science disputes the validity or authenticity of religious knowledge it is because both the scientist and the rational man assume that every object of knowledge there is or can be exists as a material percept in time and space. If we assume that knowledge of material objects is definite knowledge – an assumption itself suspect considering that the latest WMAP data indicates that 95.4% of the total matter in our universe is dark matter and dark energy – all scientific (...) knowledge (confined as it is to knowledge of 4.6% of the visible universe) is definite knowledge; but because it’s knowledge is confined to a miniscule fraction of all knowledge there is or can be had in our material universe, it can scarcely be said – as Sir Bertrand Russell claims – that all definite knowledge is scientific knowledge. There are other reasons why all definite knowledge is not in the domain of science. Parts of the universe are; the universe as a whole isn’t. The sentient body is; the Self that is clothed by that body isn’t. Analysis of both these wholes reveals the possibility of the existence of a third entity that is beyond scientific knowledge. This humanity calls God. A detailed investigation not conducted but outlined here reveals that (a) Russell’s claim that science holds a monopoly of definite knowledge is false: he probably meant that science has a monopoly of objectively verifiable knowledge; (b) as objective verifiability is contingent upon objectively real existence, science’s monopoly is over entities that are objectively real; (c) all objects of knowledge are not material objects in time and space: there are objects that, because they are not percepts, are not objectively verifiable. There is nothing indefinite about knowledge of such entities. There is nothing subjective about the knowledge of such entities either: so it is not open to science to dismiss knowledge of such entities as subjective, arising from the state of mind of the observer. Space and time are aspects of objective reality and not of subjective reality. The second part of this paper briefly examines the nature of dimensions. Space, time and Self consciousness are three types of dimensions considered. The third part of this paper speaks of a concept called immutable wholes. This is a logical culmination of the paper because dimensions are the state-giving norms of the wholes that these dimensions define and characterize. Spiritual seekers make these entities (sub specie aeternitatis) objects of their realization. Such entities as the Universe as a Whole, the Self, and God belong to this class of existents. If Universe as a Whole {not parts of it (study of which is in the domain of science), no matter how large those parts are, but the whole. Only a true seeker can tell science why the whole ≠ sum of all its parts – but that would be the subject of another paper}. (shrink)

The word theology and Hinduism as a lived religion often do not go together. Moreover anything to do with theology or with Hinduism in India today might be construed as right wing rhetoric. Through this article, the author revisits Patristics, Catholic theologians like Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan. This essay is supposed to be read with the preceding essay which appeared in this issue of Prabuddha Bharata. That was written by Gayatri Spivak. The Editor put Spivak ahead of this essay (...) to emphasize the cosmopolitan nature of Hindu praxes. This essay also touches upon Liberation Theology. (shrink)

1. Law and morals as two systems of norms, and the inner morality of law 2. Law as a value bearer and as a mere external indicator 3. The inner and external moral credit of legislator 4. The inner morality of law. As to the last paragraph, the most striking feature of the inner morality of law is that it is such a possible characteristic, surplus quality which is not a sine qua non, which law is conceivable without. However, it (...) is a question whether law can long do without it? In principle, the legislator is free in deciding on what legal consequence he attaches to what course of conduct14 and it is also desirable that legal concepts be freed from moral overtones. Nevertheless, the legal complex cannot be torn out of its social context, nor can it steadily conflict with other complexes (religions, moral, or political values, norms and ideologies) law is to develop in living interrelationship with. Otherwise, it is subject to danger that (I) law-observance in average cases is weakened; (2) the reified functioning of and approach to law are strengthened and make law alienated; and (3) it blurs the social objectives the law intends to serve and, especially in hard cases, makes its application rootless and floating. A pathological situation only becomes more pathological, if the pathology of contents is accompanied by the pathology of means. Or, it brings the promise of real solution closer, if the adequateness of means also provides, by the strength of publicity, for the direct mobilization of society. That explains why it is a topical question what I have proposed to term the inner morality of law. [For the text, see my L&Ph, 77–89] . (shrink)

If Jewish Bolsheviks could put an end to the imperial rule of the Romanovs, could they pose a threat to the vision of a Third Reigh? A question the German National Socialists are likely to have asked themselves before and on the eve of plotting the rise of the Nazi regime. After all, Europe had had a long-standing relationship with blaming the Jews for the world’s miseries. A relationship Germany was ready to refuel, as indicated by German Field Marshal Walter (...) von Reichenau, when he stated that ‘the most essential aim of war against the Jewish-bolshevistic system is a complete destruction of their means of power and the elimination of Asiatic influence from the European culture.’ But the German fears of Jewish interference with their great scheme for Europe’s future, must surely have been inspired by more than just the age-old conspiratorial allegation that Jews were the main forces behind world politics. As such, this essay will seek to inspect the apparent rise of antisemitic fears at the time, and put a case forward to show how religion played into all this. (shrink)

This paper provides analysis of Kant's Categorical Imperative and its relevance to religion. I discuss what the concept of a categorical imperative implies about self-transcendence, and what this understanding of self-transcendence indicates about the self's relation to God and others.

Since the beginning of the awareness of the environmental crisis, studies have tried to trace back the historical and ideological roots of industrial evolution. Many of these studies indicated elements of the Judeo-Christian tradition as at least co-responsible. Some 40 years later, this chapter overviews some strands of the discussions these studies have provoked, especially concerning the alleged anthro-pocentrism of Judaism and Christianity, and their disenchanting attitude towards nature. These traditional ideas are confronted with insights from Marcel Gauchet’s philosophy of (...) religion, with inputs from other religions, and with empirical data from recent surveys. (shrink)

The book explores the impact of manuscript remarks during the year 1929 on the development of Wittgenstein’s thought. Although its intention is to put the focus specifically on the manuscripts, the book is not purely exegetical. The contributors generate important new insights for understanding Wittgenstein’s philosophy and his place in the history of analytic philosophy. -/- Wittgenstein’s writings from the years 1929-1930 are valuable, not simply because they marked Wittgenstein’s return to academic philosophy after a seven-year absence, but because these (...) works indicate several changes in his philosophical thinking. The chapters in this volume clarify the significance of Wittgenstein’s return to philosophy in 1929. In Part 1, the contributors address different issues in the philosophy of mathematics, e.g. Wittgenstein's understanding of certain aspects of intuitionism and his commitment to verificationism, as well as his idea of "a new system". Part 2 examines Wittgenstein's philosophical development and his understanding of philosophical method. Here the contributors examine particular problems Wittgenstein dealt with in 1929, e.g. the colour-exclusion problem, and the use of thought experiments as well as his relationship to Frank Ramsey and philosophical pragmatism. Part 3 features essays on phenomenological language. These chapters address the role of spatial analogies and the structure of visual space. Finally, Part 4 includes one chapter on Wittgenstein’s few manuscript remarks about ethics and religion and relates it to his Lecture on Ethics. -/- Wittgenstein’s Philosophy in 1929 will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students working on Wittgenstein and the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

ÍNDICE Prefacio. Pensamientos sobre la violencia. Un libro como un bricolage. Ana Belén Blanco – María Soledad Sánchez | 9 Prólogo. La violencia como “objeto”. Una Aproximación Teórica. Sergio Tonkonoff | 19 I. Violencia, mito y religión. Rubén Dri | 35 II. Violencia, religión y mesianismo: reflexiones desde la filosofía judía. Emmanuel Taub | 53 III. Religión y violencia. Una mirada desde lo implícito y lo relacional. Gustavo A. Ludueña | 65 IV. Escrito en el cuerpo: la pregunta por la (...) violencia en algunas ficciones contemporáneas. VII. Política y Violencia: Una Introducción. Miguel Ángel Rossi | 129 VIII. Reflexiones sobre la violencia (y la política). Ezequiel Ipar | 147 IX. Variables de la violencia generalizada: real de la época. Carlos Gustavo Motta | 159 X. La función de la cópula Y en el título “violencia y espectáculo”. Daniel Mundo | 169 XI. Muerte, violencia y prohibición: ¿vínculo histórico o constitutivo? Martina Lassalle | 179 XII. Criminalización, Juventud y Delito. Algunas consideraciones teórico-metodológicas. Sergio Tonkonoff | 205 XIII. Activismo de los derechos humanos, tribunales y policías. Sofía Tiscornia | 233 El Docke. Ensayo fotográfico. Henrik Malmström | 247. (shrink)

Zeno’s Arrow and Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way Chapter 2 contain paradoxical, dialectic arguments thought to indicate that there is no valid explanation of motion, hence there is no physical or generic motion. There are, however, diverse interpretations of the latter text, and I argue they apply to Zeno’s Arrow as well. I also find that many of the interpretations are dependent on a mathematical analysis of material motion through space and time. However, with modern philosophy and physics (...) we find that the link from no explanation to no phenomena is invalid and that there is a valid explanation and understanding of physical motion. Hence, those arguments are both invalid and false, which banishes the MMK/2 and The Arrow under this and derivative interpretations to merely the history of philosophy. However, a view that maintains their relevance is that each is used as a koan or sequence of koans designed to assist students in spiritual meditation practice. This view is partly justified by the realization that both Nāgārjuna and Zeno were likely meditation masters in addition to being logicians. The works are, therefore, not works that should be assessed as having valid arguments and true conclusions by the standards of modern analytic philosophy—contrary to some of the literature—but rather are therapeutic and perhaps more appropriately considered as part of an experientially focused philosophy such as existentialism, phenomenology or religion. (shrink)

The central postulation made in this essay is that the current plight of the Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province of China is two-pronged in its cause. The first involves a deeply-rooted historical rejection, or at least suspicion, of any religion that is not Chinese in origin and secondly involves a concerted effort on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party to gain greater control over a people group whom it sees as representing a threat to its authority and dominance in (...) the province of Xinjiang. To justify the validity of this statement, this essay will be divided into three distinct parts; the first two parts will explore the historical background and present day context of Islam in China with the aim of clarifying the Chinese worldview on foreign religions and people groups. These will act as important contributions to culminate into the third part which will focus on the current occurrence of sinofication/sinicisation in the Xinjiang province (Ruwitch, 2018) to the detriment of the human rights, religious and cultural liberties, and the very existence of the Uighur Muslim ethnic group (Rahman, 2005). The essay will provide a historical context by explaining the timeline of the presence of Islam across different parts of China where it experienced the most activity and adherence. This particularly includes the southwestern ports where it was brought into the country by Arab traders as well as in the westernmost reaches as a result of being part of the outer edges of different Islamic empires that held territory across Central Asia. The idea that China is suspicious of foreign people, foreign religions, and that the Communist Party considers any group with outside connections to a wider community (such as Christians or the Muslims) to be a threat to the stability of their rule is central to our discussion (NowThis World, 2016). However, we shouldn’t mistake China as being alone in this kind of xenophobia for the evidence of this worldview is pertinent on the continent of Europe currently with significant undertones of its presence in the vote for Brexit in the United Kingdom (Rzepnikowska, 2018) as well as in the rise of the far right in continental Europe (Immerzeel & Muis, 2017; Lazaridis, 2016). Aversion to foreignness is therefore widespread, but it is the way in which an organisation deals with foreignness that is indicative of its approach to diversity and its respect for human rights. The third and final part will act as the climax for the essay as a thorough analysis is conducted on the current affairs of the Communist Party in the Xinjiang province resulting in the plight of the Uighur Muslims. The processes involved in the sinofication of the province will be highlighted with the aim of understanding the range of reasons as to why the Communist Party may be acting in this way by drawing on the current Chinese economic and political landscape. The essay will close by considering the future of the Uighur Muslims and the intentions of the Communist Party for the entire Xinjiang province by analysing the most recent news escaping from the region and as a means to understand the distinction between Islam and Muslims. (shrink)

The problem of divine hiddenness discussed among both theist and non- theist circles. From an atheistic perspective the existence of people who are sincerely looking for God but cannot reach Him is a supportive point for atheism. On the other side, same problem supports agnosticism since there are equal evidence from both side for the existence of God from an agnostic perspective. The theists who are belonging to different religion have tried to find some solutions to this problem. For instance; (...) there is a theistic understanding which claims hiddenness of God provides us freedom to believe and another one says it is the only way to have personal relationship with God. A different position brings solution from the Jewish idea that chosen people of God. In this article, I have evaluated those different approaches. In the first section, I have indicated that there is no agreement on the implication of divine hiddenness problem even amongst non-theistic positions by shortly introducing atheistic and agnostic approaches. In the second section, I dealt with theistic approaches and the problems that they produced while trying to provide a solution to the problem. After an inquiry on how we are supposed to understand hiddenness, I have tried to show the problem has nothing new since premises of the divine hiddenness problem are not verifiable by everyone. As a conclusion I have offered postponing the divine hiddenness problem and discussing existence of God on a rational ground by presenting a counterargument. (shrink)

The competence is the second must important need for a person, after autonomy. The competence is an indicator for a social integration, for quality of participation in groups. The current definition of competence used in education is proposed from a III- stage of culture, but our definition is from V cultural stage (David Logan). In our work we compare the human condition with the light. We are in the same time individual person and also parts in a supra-individual systems. Between (...) this two position we must found the middle way to be and act. From modern physical theory to religion, from Heidegger to Patsy Rodemburg Presence, from Berne transactional analyse Buber I-Tou and nonviolent communication, from classical education limits to modern coaching perspective (Tim Gallwy), the most important cultural point of view is integrated in a equilibrated perspective that respect individual condition and understand the importance of cultures. I recognized three level of participation - to itself, in relation and to social systems cultures. After introduction that present this new perspective, the part two is dedicated to personal perspective, the next part to relation, including unconditional love, and the four part to culture importance. In the last part I try to take a look to the competence development. (shrink)

Across two studies, one of which was pre-registered, we find that a simple questionnaire that measures intellectual virtue and vice predicts how many fake news articles and conspiracy theories participants accept. This effect holds even when controlling for multiple demographic predictors, including age, household income, sex, education, ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, and news consumption. These results indicate that self-report is an adequate way to measure intellectual virtue and vice, which suggests that they are not fully immune to introspective awareness or (...) “stealthy” in the sense that Cassam (2015) argues. This is an important methodological result and may pave the way for future research on intellectual virtue and vice. (shrink)

Numerous studies indicate that racial minorities are both more likely to be executed for murder and that those who murder them are less likely to be executed than if they murder whites. Death penalty opponents have long attempted to use these studies to argue for a moratorium on capital punishment. Whatever the merits of such arguments, they overlook the fact that such discrimination alters the costs of murder; racial discrimination imposes higher costs on minorities for murdering through tougher sentences, and (...) it imposes lower costs on whites for murdering minorities by dispensing weaker sentences. These cost differentials constitute an injustice not simply to actual minority defendants in capital cases, nor simply to the actual minority victims of murder, but to all members of minority communities. I here offer two arguments for a moratorium on capital punishment: The first draws upon evidence of racial discrimination against minority defendants in capital cases, and claims that such discrimination modifies the costs of murder in such a way that minority individuals do not enjoy equal status under the law. The second draws upon the evidence regarding racial discrimination in relation to the race of victims, and claims that such discrimination modifies the costs of murder in such a way that minority individuals do not enjoy the equal protection of the law. Thus, by not assigning equal costs to murder, the American criminal justice system fails to provide racial minorities the equality under the law and discounts the value of their lives and liberties. A moratorium is the least unjust response to such a social injustice. I also reply to the criticism that a moratorium prevents us from executing deserving murderers. (shrink)

Religious disagreement is an emerging topic of interest in social epistemology. Little is known about how philosophers react to religious disagreements in a professional context, or how they think one should respond to disagreement. This paper presents results of an empirical study on religious disagreement among philosophers. Results indicate that personal religious beliefs, philosophical training, and recent changes in religious outlook have a significant impact on philosophers' assessments of religious disagreement. They regard peer disagreement about religion as common, and most (...) surveyed participants assume one should accord weight to the other's opinion. Theists and agnostics are less likely to assume they are in a better epistemic position than their interlocutors about religious questions compared with atheists, but this pattern only holds for participants who are not philosophers of religion. Continental philosophers think religious beliefs are more like preferences than analytic philosophers, who regard religious beliefs as fact-like. (shrink)

In this article, the author explores one of the avenues through which the experiences of the European biblical studies were implemented in the Kyiv Theological Academy (КТА) in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the first time, the critical bibliographic reviews of biblical research works written by foreign scholars are being examined as a genre. In the comments and reviews made by the KTA professors, we observe a critical analysis of the experiences related to rationalistic (...) and orthodox apologetic trends as represented in foreign biblical studies, as well as a quest for conceptual and methodological allies in support of the Orthodox biblical apologetic perspective. These critical reviews represent a valuable asset indicating that the Kyiv theological academic studies had been incorporated in the global dimension of academic biblical studies. The broad range of subjects addressed in the reviews as well as their regularity and frequency testify to intensive professional communication within the theological academic community. In addition, the texts demonstrate the degree the Kyiv academics perceived the global issues and trends, the responses of scholars to methodological and conceptual challenges, and their perception of various hermeneutical models. The article specifies the stages in which the genre of review evolved from 1860s to early 1900s. From the key structural elements of the entire body of reviews and critical articles, the author distinguishes reviews of the Old Testament and New Testament studies in such thematic areas as isagogics, theology, exegesis, historical criticism, textual criticism, study of biblical languages, geography, archeology, history, chronology, and comparative studies of religion and culture. The subject areas of the reviews and critical articles specifically indicate significant development in the European biblical studies. (shrink)

The Jinn, which is regarded as the third kind of entity apart from the angel and the human being, has been the subject matter of several separate works written by both Muslims and non-Muslims in the past and present. In short, such works deal with the nature of jinns and their characteristics, and they cover matters such as the beliefs about jinns in several religions and cultures and their relationship with human beings. Apart from the fact that the primary (...) source of Islam, namely, the Quran, has a separate chapter called al-Jinn (The Jinn) /72, it provides information about jinns in many verses in several other chapters. Traditions also provide plenty of information about jinns. One example of such information is on the question whether the Holy Prophet have met with jinns. A study of the traditions on this matter reveals the fact that there are ṣaḥīḥ (authentic) traditions that appear to be in conflict with each other and/or with some of the verses in the Quran. In this paper, we have analyzed and evaluated the relevant traditions in order to reconcile these contradictions, thus we aimed to clarify the matter. The question on whether the Holy Prophet met with jinns is often discussed within the context of narrations coming from Ibn al-Masʿūd and Ibn ʿAbbās. While the traditions coming from Ibn al-Masʿūd indicate that the Prophet met with jinns, a tradition narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās says the opposite. In the present work, we have analyzed the outwardly conflicting traditions narrated by both companions along with traditions narrated by other companions on this matter in the light of the chronology of the revelation of the Quran. As a result, we have concluded that the Holy Prophet have met with jinns as narrated by Ibn al-Masʿūd and that the report narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās was about the first years of Islam. (shrink)

This paper sketches a framework for the separation of church and state and, with the framework in view, indicates why a government’s maintaining such separation poses challenges for balancing two major democratic ideals: preserving equality before the law and protecting liberty, including religious liberty. The challenge is particularly complex where healthcare is either provided or regulated by government. The contemporary problem in question here is the contraception coverage requirement in the Obama Administration’s healthcare mandate. Many institutions have mounted legal challenges (...) to the mandate on grounds of religious freedom. The paper proposes a number of interconnected principles toward a resolution of the problem: for the institutional realm, specific principles for church-state separation and a principle concerning the protection of citizens’sense of identity; and for the ethics of citizenship in the conduct individuals, principles that provide an adequate place for natural (thus secular) reason in lawmaking and political decisions. (shrink)

This paper explains a way of understanding Kant's proof of God's existence in the Critique of Practical Reason that has hitherto gone unnoticed and argues that this interpretation possesses several advantages over its rivals. By first looking at examples where Kant indicates the role that faith plays in moral life and then reconstructing the proof of the second Critique with this in view, I argue that, for Kant, we must adopt a certain conception of the highest good, and so also (...) must choose to believe in the kind of God that can make it possible, because this is essentially a way of actively striving for virtue. One advantage of this interpretation, I argue, is that it is able to make sense of the strong link Kant draws between morality and religion. (shrink)

The chapter examines Kant’s thesis about the ‘radical evil in human nature’ developed in his Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. According to this thesis, the human moral condition is corrupt by default and yet by own deed; and this corruption is the origin (root, radix) of human badness in all its variety, banality, and ubiquity. While Kant clearly takes radical evil to be endemic in human nature, controversy reigns about how to understand this. Some assume this can only (...) be a synthetic a priori claim about the necessity of radical evil (and thus one requiring a transcendental deduction). However, Kant indicates that while radical evil is inevitable it is not, for that, strictly necessary. The best way to understand this is through a teleological approach that explains how we inevitably bring this corruption upon ourselves in the course of our development. The chapter thereby joins other teleological accounts, but distinctively argues that Kant draws on Stoic natural teleology (specifically the doctrine of oikeiōsis), which he knows through Seneca and Cicero. This background allows us to make sense of the structure of Kant’s argument in ways that shed fresh light on the philosophical content of the thesis about radical evil. It also allows us to see that another hotly debated issue — namely, whether radical evil should be understood in ‘psychological’ or ‘social’ terms — is spurious: we see that these are flip sides of one coin, and are better placed to register the broader ethical significance of this result. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Why would someone concerned with heresy, who defined it as private opinion that flew in the face of doctrine sanctioned by the public person, harbor such a detailed interest in heterodoxy? Hobbes's religious beliefs ultimately remain a mystery, as perhaps they were meant to: the private views of someone concerned to conform outwardly to what his church required of him, and thereby avoid to heresy, while maintaining intellectual autonomy. The hazard of Hobbes's particular catechism is that he and his (...) supporters could never avoid the suspicion of insincerity. His preparedness to believe whatever the prince demanded of him smacked of heresy in the more usual sense, despite elaborate biblical exegesis designed to prove his orthdoxy. Undoubtedly he realized it even as he wrote the last lines of Leviathan, expressing the hope that "I cannot think it will be condemned at this time, either by the Publique Judge of Doctrine, or by any that desires the continuance of Publique Peace/7 Indicating an intention to return to science, he continued, "I hope the Novelty will as much please, as in the Doctrine of this Artificiall Body it useth to Offend" (Lev, Rev. and conclusion, 491). (shrink)

Homi Bhabha, a postcolonial scholar influenced by the work of Franz Fanon and Edward Said, indicates that identities stimulate a need to negotiate in spaces that result in the remaking of boundaries. There is a call to expose the limitations of the East and the West in an effort to acknowledge the space in-between that interconnects the past traditions and history, with the present and the future. This study applies Homi Bhabha’s theory of hybridity to determine whether the term liturgical (...) is appropriate to describe Kuchipudi Indian classical Hindu dance. Presented are the elements of Kuchipudi dance and liturgical dance, and then contemplative dance is discussed as an appropriate medium in the space of hybridity between Kuchipudi dance and liturgical dance. (shrink)

This study in moral, political, and legal philosophy contends that it is morally impermissible to circumcise male minors without a medical indication (nontherapeutic circumcision). Male minors have a moral anticipatory autonomy right-in-trust not to be circumcised. This right depends on norms of autonomy and bodily integrity. These norms generate three direct non-consequentialist arguments against nontherapeutic circumcision: (1) the loss of nonrenewable functional tissue, (2) genital salience, and (3) limits on a parental right to permanently modify their sons' bodies. An indirect (...) argument holds (4) that if it is morally impermissible to remove the female prepuce (clitoral hood), then it is also morally impermissible to remove the male prepuce (foreskin). Although there is debate across medical cultures, a reasonable understanding supports the claim that nontherapeutic circumcision causes some harms and imposes unwarranted risks on male minors. The overall moral case applies to secular circumcisions and, with some qualifications, to religious circumcisions in Judaism and Islam. Arguments of political philosophy that invoke the freedom of religion, toleration, multiculturalism, and social meaning qualify somewhat, but do not eliminate, the case against circumcising male minors without a medical indication. Nevertheless, the arguments deployed in this study do not warrant legal interference at this time with secular and religious practices of nontherapeutic circumcision. (shrink)

Abū Ishāq al-Ṣaffār was one of scholars of the Western Qarakhānids’ period who followed the Kalām thought of al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944). His theological works Talkhīs al-adilla and Risāla fī al-kalām, his method in kalām, and frequent reference to his works by Ottoman and Arab scholars indicate that al-Ṣaffār is a respected and authorative Māturīdī theologian. The article focuses on his defense of the kalām. By adding a long introduction to Talkhīs about the naming, importance, and religious legitimacy of the science (...) of kalām, Saffār asserted that the kalām should be learned. When systematical vindication of the science of kalām is examined, it is understood that al-Ṣaffār is the first theologian who reserved a private and voluminous part for defensing the kalām among Ḥanafī-Māturīdīs. Even though he does not state its systematic, it can be understood that vindication of kalām in al-Ṣaffār divides into three parts as of explanation, demonstration and refutation. Al-Ṣaffār’s defending the science of kalām shows that there were opposite thoughts against kalām in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries throughout in Transoxania. In this period Aṣḥāb al-Ḥadīth and Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ were the opposite fronts of kalām. In addition, he was trying to go beyond the oppositions of Ḥanafī jurists. His vindication is consistent and has scholarly depth because it is able to be against a strong opposition. -/- SUMMARY: Abū Ishāq Ibrahīm b. Ismāil Zāhid al-Ṣaffār al-Bukhārī is a scholar belonging to the Ḥanafī theological tradition which was improved by the contribution of Ḥanafī theologians who used thinking system of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767) as base and adopted Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) and his thoughts in historical process. The contents of his theological works Talkhīs al-adilla li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīd and Risāla fī al-Kalām, the method that he used, and references to his works made by Ottoman and Arab scholars indicate that he is an important Māturīdī theologian. The article focuses on his defense of the science of Kalām. -/- In Talkhīs al-adilla, there are two sections including the subject of naming, and importance and necessity of Kalām discipline. Here, the necessity of learning Kalām and its value are defended in detail. -/- Besides, rumors “Abū Ḥanīfa turned away from the science of Kalām in his doomsdays” and that “He prohibited to make occupation with Kalām completely” are evaluated. -/- When systematical vindication of the science of Kalām is examined, it is understood that al-Ṣaffār is the first theologian who reserved a private and voluminous part for defensing the Kalām among Ḥanafī Māturīdīs. Even if Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, Abū al-Yusr al-Bazdawī (d. 493/1100) and Abū Muʿīn al-Nasafī (d. 508/1115) defend that the science of Kalām is not wrong for religion; yet, the vindication of Kalām does not take a place under a separate title and in a detailed manner in any of Māturīdī theologians works. -/- The method that al-Ṣaffār used when he is defending the science of Kalām, differs from strategy of Abū Ḥanīfa. While Abū Ḥanīfa has mentioned that there is a need for the science of Kalām under these new circumstances, al-Ṣaffār has defended theologians who were charged with being Ahl al-Bidaʿ, by trying to prove that the prophets especially the Prophet Ibrāhīm, even the Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad (Ṣaḥāba) and the Successors of the Companions (Tābiʿūn) scholars use their minds and make arguments in religious matters. In this respect, he emphasizes that the Qurʾān orders to think and discuss gently, not to be stay in silence: “And dispute with them, using what is best” (16.125-126). Therefore, he states that this discipline which took a mission to explain and defend the creed of Islam (ʿaqīda), cannot be characterized as an innovation (bidʿah) or illicit. -/- His vindication method can be defined as a more developed type of method that Abu’l-Ḥasan al-Ash’arī’s (d. 324/935) used in Risāla fī istiḥsān al-khawḍ fī ʿilm al-kalām. Even though he does not state its systematic, it can be understood that vindication of Kalām in al-Ṣaffār divides into three parts as of explanation, demonstration and refutation: -/- a) Explanation: Explaining the necessity and importance of the science of Kalām by giving information about its definition, names, value and place among other principles. -/- b) Demonstration: Revealing the religious basics of the science of Kalām from the Qurʾān, the Sunna of the Prophet Muḥammad, the Companions of the Prophet, and the Successors of the Companions thus specifying that it is legitimate for religion. -/- c) Refutation: Replying the claims having aim to weaken the value of Kalām principle and its religious legality. -/- Al-Ṣaffār describes ‘the science of Kalām’ as ‘Knowing the Real with the evidences which help to reach the absolute information’. By allocating the concept of 'Ḥaqq', he repeats the definition of Kalām as “it is to know God with certain evidences” in a part of his work, and “it is to know the principles of religion (uṣūl al-dīn) with certain evidences” in another part. He describes Kalām as “Knowing ḥaqq / God / uṣūl al-dīn by depending on evidence”, and tries to prove that it is wrong to consider a science which performs the stated duty, as illicit and abominable and thus turn away from it. -/- Al-Ṣaffār thinks that it is right to call this principle as ‘Kalām’ because of the certain evidences leading to the truth that this science has used. This thought was defended by other theologians as well. -/- For example, according to Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd al-Taftazānī (d. 792/1310) it seems like to say “This is the word (kalām), not the other knowings” by the way of the power of evidences used in Kalām.Thus, it is appropriate to give name Kalām for this science which based on certain evidences. -/- Al-Ṣaffār’s explanations revealed in scope of vindication of the Kalām are adopted by some of following scholars. Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Sighnāqī (d. 714/1314) in his book called al-Tasdīd sharḥ al-Tamhīd fī qawāʿid al-tawḥīd quotes Saffâr’s explanations as the same. -/- Al-Ṣaffār indicates that the method told in the Qurʾān is to reply questions about religion, beliefs and rejection instead of remaining in silence. The duty taken on by Kalām is this vindication activity performed by the prophets whose examples are described in the Qurʾān and which is legal and demanded. His way of thinking and vindication of the Kalām resembles that of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī. Al-Māturīdī says, “Prophets and we were ordered to invite infidels to Islam. When this invitation happens, the respondents will ask for evidence and explanation, and discussion will be inevitable. Therefore, discussing and talking about subjects of Kalām is not objectionable”. -/- Thoughts of al-Māturīdī and al-Ṣaffār regarding the vindication of the Kalām were repeated by Nūr al-Dīn al-Ṣābūnī (d. 580/1184), and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) later. According to al-Ṣābūnī, the evidences put against deniers and especially the discussion made by the Prophet Ibrāhīm to defend his own belief, prove the legality of Kalām discipline. Likewise, according to al-Rāzī, the duty of Kalām is just an activity performed already in the Qurʾān and ordered to the prophets. At this point of view, since the prophets were leading to Kalām, banning this activity is nonsense. -/- According to al-Ṣaffār, the reason for why Abu Hanifa avoids his son Hammād from these discussions is that Abu Hanifa does not like discussions based on obstinate. Otherwise, it cannot be that Abū Ḥanīfa prohibits to learn Kalām and make discussion about Kalām. According to him, this behavior of Abū Ḥanīfa results from that people discussing with him are ignorant about the subject of Kalām, discussion turns to an obstinate, and coming to an end of discussion seems impossible. This comment of al-Ṣaffār is quoted in Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-siyāda by ʿIṣām al-Dīn Aḥmed b. Muṣṭafā Tashköprüzāde (d. 968/1561) and in Minaḥ al-rawḍ al-azhar fī sharḥ al-Fiqh al-akbar by ʿAlī b. Sulṭān Muḥammad al-Qārī (d. 1014/1606) as same as his words. -/- Al-Ṣaffār’s defending the science of Kalām shows that there were opposite thoughts against Kalām in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries throughout in Transoxania.In this period Aṣḥāb al-Ḥadīth and Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ were the opposite fronts of Kalām. In addition, he was trying to go beyond the oppositions of Ḥanafī jurists (fuqahāʾ). Because some of the Ḥanafī jurists thought that Abū Ḥanīfa forsook occupation with the science of Kalām and even he prohibited his son to have interest in this discipline. But some of Ḥanafī theologians such as al-Māturīdī, al-Nasafī and al-Ṣaffār protested this thought which describes Abū Ḥanīfa as a banner for Kalām. -/- His vindication is consistent and has scholarly depth because it is able to be against a strong opposition. -/- His book Talkhīs al-adilla li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīd is a unique source in terms of containing vindication of the Kalām in detail and also influencing the approaches of the next period scholars. (shrink)

Among the more notable Christian understandings of depression is the idea that depression is a sin or the result of sin. While this idea is dismissed by many Christians and non-Christians, it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly is wrong with it. This paper seeks to address this problem, focusing on a common premise of the ‘depression is a sin’ claim: that it is within a person’s power to recover, such that remaining depressed is a choice. This claim is held (...) not only by Christians who believe depression to be a sin, but also by other religious and non-religious voluntarists, who believe depression to be under the control of the will. I will object to this idea by pointing to accounts that indicate that one widespread feature of depression is an experience of diminished free will, and will argue that this means that asserting the possibility of making choices that are relevant to recovery in the context of all depression is misplaced. I will then turn from the question of whether ‘depression is a choice’ claims are true, to whether they are helpful, and will argue that they can be helpful, but only in non-extreme forms of depression. Finally, I will reflect on the pastoral and clinical implications of the discussion. (shrink)

The role of certitude in our mental lives is, to put it mildly, controversial. Many current epistemologists (including epistemologists of religion) eschew certitude altogether. Given his emphasis on certitude, some have maintained that John Henry Newman was an infallibilist about knowledge. In this paper, we argue that a careful examination of his thought (especially as seen in the Grammar of Assent) reveals that he was an epistemic fallibilist. We first clarify what we mean by fallibilism and infallibilism. Second, we explain (...) why some have read Newman as an infallibilist. Third, we offer two arguments that Newman is at least a fallibilist in a weak sense. In particular, the paradox he seeks to resolve in the Grammar and his dispute with John Locke both indicate that he is at least a weak fallibilist. We close with a consideration of whether Newman is a fallibilist in a much stronger sense as well. (shrink)

The extended mind thesis claims that mental states need not be confined to the brain or even the biological borders of the subject. Philosophers and cognitive scientists have in recent years debated the plausibility of this thesis, growing an immense body of literature. Yet despite its many supporters, there have been relatively few attempts to apply the thesis to religious studies, particularly studies of religious cognition. In this essay, I indicate how various dimensions of religious cognition might be thought of (...) as extended. In particular, I focus on the mutually-supporting relationship between religious cognition and material culture: the many things we use to organize and enact our religious practices and beliefs, from relics and rituals to songs and holy spaces. As we’ll see, taking the extended mind thesis seriously suggests that an investigation of religious material culture is, simultaneously, an investigation of religious cognition. (shrink)

In the last two decades, major cities in Malaysia have witnessed a spate of urban redevelopment including commercial and retail complexes, and residential estates. The current urban transformations taking place in Malaysian cities are mainly market-driven and characterized by fast-track development with a strong priority on the road infrastructure. This is a typical example of an intensive property-led development that is becoming a central driver of the national economy. This article provides a deeper understanding of the complexity of urban development (...) in Malaysia. Here, the major aim is to understand the Malaysian cities' transitions in the trajectory of their colonial past, national identity, multi-cultural community, culture, and religion. Focusing on South East Asian urbanism, this article determines how internal and external forces and global trends such as neoliberalism and property-led development affect the transformation of urban landscapes and expansions in Malaysia. The outcomes of this paper will indicate how much property-led development and globalisation have affected the traditional and tropical climate-responsive urban environment in Malaysia. It will also identify sustainable design and planning measures that should be implemented in the cities of Malaysia to combat the ill-effects of globalisation. (shrink)

This paper is about the relevance of the ineffable and the singular to hermeneutics. I respond to standard criticisms of Friedrich Schleiermacher by Karl Barth and Hans-Georg Gadamer in order to clarify his understanding of language, interpretation, and religion. Schleiermacher’s “indicative hermeneutics” is developed in the context of the ethical significance of communication and the ineffable. The notion of trace is employed in order to interpret the paradox of speaking about that which cannot be spoken. The trace is not a (...) brute singularity but bears a fundamental relationship to the word—and ultimately the word of God—for Schleiermacher. (shrink)

All research is immersed in the competition for knowledge, but this is not always governed by fairness. In this opinion article, I elaborate on indicators of unfairness to be found in both evaluation guides and evaluation panels, and I spontaneously offer a number of rules of thumb meant to keep it at bay. Although they are explicitly offered to the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and in particular to the evaluation panel for Philosophy, Ethics and Religion of FCT's (...) fifth edition of their Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus, here used as concrete illustrations of unfairness, my rules of thumb are guaranteed to promote fairness in the competition for knowledge in general. (shrink)

Based on a question posed by global philosophy of religion project regarding the absence of literal attribution of omnibenevolence to God in the Qur’ān, this paper aims to examine how to understand perfect goodness in Islam. I will first discuss the concept of perfect goodness and suggest that perfect goodness is not an independent attribute on its own and it is predicated on other moral attributes of God without which the concept of perfect goodness could hardly be understood. I will (...) examine perfect goodness by a specific emphasis on the attribute of justice as one of the conditions to be satisfied by a perfectly morally good being. In so doing, I will appeal to the distinctions made among great-making properties by Daniel Hill, and Al-Ghazālī’s definition of justice by applying them to God’s moral attributes. I will argue that justice has a crucial role in maximality-optimality balance between great-making properties and it seems quite difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of goodness without justice. Having said that, I will claim that the conceptual frame I suggest sheds light on why omnibenevolence is not literally attributed to God in the Qur’ān. Then, I will briefly show how the divine attributes mentioned in the Qur’ān and the discussions about divine names and attributes in the Islamic tradition supports the understanding of perfect goodness I defend. Consequently, I will try to show that far from indicating that the Islamic concept of God doesn’t involve perfect goodness, the Qur’ān establishes the proper meaning of perfect goodness by focusing on its constitutive attributes, and thus provides us with a sound conception of it. (shrink)

How can what is of value associated with our human world exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? Or, as we may put it, how can the God-of-Cosmic-Value exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the God-of-Cosmic-Power? This, I argue, is our fundamental problem – fundamental in both intellectual and practical terms. Here, I tackle the practical aspect of the problem. I consider briefly five global problems – climate change, war, population growth, world (...) poverty, habitat destruction and extinction of species – and argue that, in order to solve them it is essential to bring about a revolution in universities round the world so that the basic aim becomes wisdom and not just knowledge. I conclude by indicating recent developments which suggest the revolution may already be underway. (shrink)

For decades, much literature on causality has focused on causal processes and causal reasoning in the natural sciences. According to a relatively new trend however, such research on causality remains insufficient because of its refusal to accept a certain degree of pluralism within the concept, a pluralism that is evident in how we use ideas of cause and effect in everyday life. I will build on work in this latter trend, following philosophers like G. E. M. Anscombe and N. Cartwright. (...) I explore the limits of the concept of causality by determining the extent to which our ideas can remain consistent as we stretch this concept along two dimensions, one concerning the maximizing of the effect and the other the maximizing of explanatory depth. Dealing with the cause of the universe, such an investigation touches upon some issues in current empirical cosmology and revisits some classic arguments regarding philosophy of religion and the Platonic notion of participation. The results indicate that the use of current conceptual, logical and analytic tools can deliver new insights that are useful especially for those interested in how causality in the natural sciences links with causality in everyday life. (shrink)

The objective of this study was to employ the theory of planned behavior in examining the inclusion of Islamic religiosity in predicting Islamic ethical work behavior. Islamic religiosity was included as Islam plays a dominant role in Brunei’s society. Participants consisted of 370 Malay Muslim teachers. Structural equation modeling was used to test three proposed models. While Model 1 was based on the theory of planned behavior, it does not take into consideration the distinctive Islamic context of the Bruneian society. (...) Hence, Model 2 was proposed to include Islamic religiosity. To better reflect the population, a model with Islamic religiosity was further augmented leading to Model 3. Results showed support for only two models: Model 1 and Model 3. Model 3 was revised by removing non-significant paths. Model comparison indicated that the revised Model 3 (AIC = 100.82; BIC = 103.55) is a better model than Model 1 (AIC = 141.88; BIC = 143.98). This suggests that the predictive power of the theory of planned behavior can be improved by including dominant cultural factors, such as religiosity, that affect a person’s belief. In conclusion, it can be said that religion is indispensable in exploring and understanding how the people in Brunei think and behave in their workplace and society. (shrink)

This article offers a summary of Whitehead’s life, along with bibliographical indications, and it additionnally gives reference markers to help understand how Whitehead renewed cosmology by unearthing a new understanding of a subject that would not be detached from its corporeal rootedness. Then, a more particular understanding of Whitehead’s criticism of the technoscentific project is sought, as to its absence of self-scrutiny. An additional consideration of ecology, and then religion, are offered.

1 Introduction1 In the 1980s, hermeneutics was often incorporated into deconstructionism and literary theory. Rather than focus on authorial intentions, the nature of writing itself including codes used to construct meaning, socio-economic contexts and inequalities of power,2 Gadamer introduced a different perspective; the interplay between effects of history on a reader’s understanding and the tradition(s) handed down in writing. This interplay in which a reader’s prejudices are called into question and modified by the text in a fusion of understanding and (...) topic revitalized the study of the printed word. Gadamer’s turn to language for understanding the meaning of Being also appealed to the post-modern antipathy toward modernity and metaphysics.3 If the truth and validity of interpretations are limited to communities of language, then our mode of being in history cannot but be historical. This point of view rendered Gadamer’s phenomenological hermeneutics vulnerable to the critique of moral and epistemological relativism. However, Gadamer’s theory of interpretation also stems from re-examination of the beginning of knowledge in the Pre-Socratics and Plato, and on this basis, is receptive to another dimension of inquiry than that which was trending in North America. -/- At the East-West Center, University of Hawai’i at Manoa in 1982, Chung-ying Cheng for the first time introduced onto-hermeneutics to an audience of esteemed philosophers including Li Zehou, Ren Jiyu, Feng Youlan, and Zhang Liwen.4 In contrast to schools of deconstruction and literary theory that had disengaged the interpreter from trans-historical sources of meaning and truth, Cheng explained that interpreters exist within a cosmological order inextricable from responsibility to harmonize Heaven and Earth in creative acts of interpretation. By integrating Chinese cosmology into hermeneutics through ontology, he tacitly challenged philosophers in the West to re-examine assumptions about humanity’s place in nature and by implication, Gadamer’s recovery of the beginnings of knowledge in Western philosophy. -/- Cheng’s Neo-Confucianism is inspired by the method and goals of Thomé H. Fang. The following words by Fang seem to prefigure, although in an indistinct and bundled way, aspects of Cheng’s philosophy including a Mencian theory of human nature, comprehensive observation, and creativity: “In the very process of living in concord with creative Nature, Man is charged with an ideal to be fully realized in the light of the principle of comprehensive harmony.”5 Like Fang, Cheng reinvigorates Chinese culture and language, but not solely in order to vindicate the insights of Neo-Confucianism. He has studied Western thought, from pragmatism and the analytic school to German idealism and phenomenology, to unlock and clarify philosophical concepts within the Yijing tradition and thereby render them intelligible to Anglophones. The result has been an awakening of Western scholars to the moral and cultural consequences of decoupling their thought from metaphysical foundations that are neither dogmatic nor doctrinal. -/- Not unlike the dialectic of Gadamer’s dialogue form, onto-generative hermeneutics integrates contrary positions on the same topic in order to blend both sides into a world philosophy, or as Cheng says, a “totalizing or integrative theory,”6 not to be confused with a theoretical rewording of a theory. On the contrary, the universal scope and relevance of hermeneutics stems from personal experience. Just as Gadamer, in response to faction and strife, immersed himself in Plato during the war years, and developed a method with which to harmonize opposites, so too, according to On-cho Ng, was Cheng moved by faction, strife and political persecution to develop a path toward unity.7 Gadamer taught at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and Cheng at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa among other institutions in North America. They facilitated trans-continental educational and cultural ties. Similar experiences yield similar insights irrespective of differences of time and place. Hence, authors in this issue who reside in Europe, China and North America, delineate the differences between Gadamer and Cheng, yet also, in light of Cheng’s onto-generative method and cosmology, develop integrative theories. Due to the page-budget restriction of the publisher, certain articles of this special theme will be subsequently published in the next issue. -/- 2 Integrative Theory This special issue of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy confirms a dimension of hermeneutics that Cheng has both motivated and inspired. The contributors do not abide by the conviction that since thought is mediated by language, interpretations cannot transcend culture. On the contrary, their research exemplifies the fruits of trans-historical onto-dialogical hermeneutics within limits defined by their field inquiry, organized into Parts I and II, around three themes: language, the philosophy of history and ethics. -/- Andrew Fuyarchuk introduces the theme of ontology in relation to Gadamer’s turn to language. Fuyarchuk argues that Chung-ying Cheng’s criticism of Gadamer’s hermeneutics is informed by Heidegger’s concept of Dasein and thereby overlooks how Gadamer’s Platonic-Pythagorean problem of the division between the One and Many is harmonized in the event of language, which in turn positions Gadamer in proximity to the presupposed grounds of receptivity in Cheng’s onto-generative hermeneutics. Lauren Pfister’s contributing article addresses the year 2000 meeting between Cheng and Gadamer in Heidelberg and expands the transhistorical grounds of meaning in Gadamer to matters of theology. Pfister’s summary of the written Chinese record of their conversation indicates that Cheng does not address the role of Christian philosophy and hence, the role of the inner word in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. This is important not only for detecting changes in Cheng’s philosophical development, but also for modifying his hermeneutics along the lines of a living conversation, possibilities explored by Pfister in a sequel to the article submitted to this issue. Nevertheless, by raising the issue of how Gadamer’s turn to language for understanding the meaning of Being extends possibilities in Cheng’s thought, Pfister anticipates the article by Katarina Gajdosova. She returns to the roots of Chinese thought during the Warring States period and broadens the meaning of names in recently excavated texts. Contrary to the conventions about how to understand terms, she appeals to both Heidegger’s ontology and Cheng’s notion of receptivity and creativity to reinterpret naming in relation to cosmology. Along the same lines, insofar as the event of Being is lingual, Jay Goulding captures its emergent structure in an evolving community of scholars and scholarship. He recalls his philosophical journey toward Cheng’s philosophy that begins in conversations with Gadamer at McMaster University in Hamilton, leads to Heidegger and Asian thought, expands into turning points with teachers and colleagues from various backgrounds that by increments contributed to Goulding’s formulation of “Daoist phenomenology.” -/- Although differing traditions guide their inquiries and research, Cheng and Gadamer recall the wisdom of the past to ameliorate the fragmentation in contemporary life. This leads them to re-examine the origins of philosophy; historical roots and thus sources of creative re-interpretations East and West whose affinities are developed in contributions by Hyun Höchsmann and Friederike Assandri. Höchsmann assesses convergences and divergences in the origins of Chinese and Western philosophy (Confucius and Socrates, the Yijing and Pre-Socratics) that culminates in pairing Gadamer’s understanding of paideia in the context of Plato’s political cosmology in the Timaeus with moral and social cultivation in The Western Inscription. She delineates the limits of this comparison which in turn justifies introducing Vattimo’s notion of locality. Assandri’s comparative analysis moves between India and China, Buddhism and Tang Daoism. Based on Gadamer’s argument that writing detaches concepts from their cultural moorings, she defines and applies three levels of understanding in onto-generative hermeneutics to Buddhist terms that were assimilated into the Benji Jing and in so doing clarifies essential dimensions of Daoism. -/- Contributions by Stephen Palmquist and Nicholas Brasovan position Cheng in relation to Kant and Gadamer by way of Aristotle’s ethics respectively. On the one hand, Palmquist plots Cheng’s evolving criticism of Kant’s moral philosophy and draws on crucial dimensions of Gadamer’s hermeneutics to reposition that criticism in a constructive relation to Kant’s emphasis on the philosophical conditions of morality while also indicating how religious dimensions of his thought answer Cheng’s concerns for lived moral action. For Palmquist, Gadamer enables a constructive criticism of Cheng. On the other hand, Brasovan compares Cheng’s Yijing-based account of moral deliberation with Gadamer’s Aristotelian-based ethics and reasons that in contrast to Cheng, Gadamer’s hermeneutical consciousness is disengaged from practical knowledge. For Brasovan, Cheng is a constructive critic of Gadamer. Palmquist and Brasovan’s divergent angles on Gadamer and Cheng map onto a dialectic of contrast and complementarity that constitutes the inner logic of Cheng’s philosophy. In other words, Gadamer and Cheng ought to be read alongside one another for the sake of removing discrepancies and contradictions, which constitutes the organic structure of their thinking. -/- 3 Our Mode of Being in History Is Not Historical The conversations between Cheng and Gadamer in this issue of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy pivot on language, philosophy of history and ethics within a comparative framework of analysis, but also explore the grounds that make the comparisons possible. Those grounds are informed by Chinese cosmology, and function to wrest Gadamer from the shadow of Heideggerian facticity and reposition him within the range of Cheng’s ideas about our place in nature that is embedded in his question about how mind emerges from inorganic matter.8 -/- For Gadamer scholars of Heidegger, human finitude, our ownmost individuating death ensures that hermeneutics is always open to the other as other, always on the way toward understanding the meaning of Being. To arrest the process in a concept of “the Absolute” cannot but represent someone’s point of view, and thereby render hermeneutics indistinguishable from ideology. However, insofar as finitude is defined by them in terms of an onto-theological concept of immorality, finitude is a metaphysical concept consistent with epistemologies and confuse beings with the meaning of Being. As a result, the celebrated political value of hermeneutics to always be on the way toward an understanding of the meaning of Being admits subtle variations on the same worldview that are insufficiently self-critical. -/- Gadamer scholars of Heidegger are right. A transformation in ethos and opening to the meaning of Being depends on awareness of finitude. Yet this awareness does not yield openness to more of the same, i.e., discourse structurally incapable of coming to unity but instead, for both Gadamer and Cheng, openness to a distinctly different ontological dimension of reality. As Sandra Wawrytko and So-Seong Park indicate,9 this ontological dimension is prefigured in the experience of being-as-a-whole or the totality of all possible relations in both Chinese totemic shamanistic rituals,10 and Greek Dionysian festivals.11 Through these religious experiences human ethos and therefore consciousness is expanded and elevated from being centered on one’s ownmost concerns toward an affinity with all sentient beings from insects and plants to animals. The channel for this affinity is an auditory disposition and hence, the emotions, compassion, and feeling response. -/- The capacity for an auditory disposition, or as Gadamer calls it, listening consciousness to respond to the inter-relationality and therefore inherent balance of nature is developed through music, song and dance of the religious rituals and festivals. They facilitate the unity of mind with nature. This use of music, that transforms ordinary consciousness, explains Cheng’s emphasis on the receptivity of feeling response in comprehensive observation, and Gadamer’s emphasis on openness to the other in attunement. However, an auditory disposition characteristic of pre-literate oral cultures that reveals the “All” need not rely on religion. As theorists about the evolution of language have explained,12 modern languages preserve their pre-historical past in music or prosody. That is to say, the song and dance that revealed the totality of inter-related beings to an ethos of comprehensive observation and attunement toward beings in classical civilizations is retained in the back-and-forth movement or rhythm of the dialogue form. Our mode of being in history is a mode of being in nature – through the music of language. -/- While alerting the reader to the limits of a nominalist interpretation, Gadamer expresses the inner law of the nature as follows: “in perishing there is always becoming, and in becoming there is always perishing.”13 Considered in process, opposites generate and blend into each other. This law of nature applies to everything.14 Hence, in a manner comparable to Pfister’s concluding insights, onto-dialogical hermeneutics is not only open to discrete events of otherness but moreover, to the moving structure of reality expressed, as Gajdosova suggests, in the existential moment of naming. Considered as interplay of tension and resolution with a life of its own, the dialectic of a dialogue is self-similar to the way in which an organism grows (by instinct). There is, therefore, a sense in which the art of interpretation extends the human mind into the eternal cycles of nature such that we participate in the articulation of the inner telos/homeostasis toward which all beings strive and importantly for Gadamer scholars of Heidegger, within the material limits of energy to which our embodied minds are self-evidently subject. In mortality there is always immortality. (shrink)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY ETHICS. AFTER NIETZSCHE -/- Preface This book tells the story of twentieth-century ethics or, in more detail, it reconstructs the history of a discussion on the foundations of ethics which had a start with Nietzsche and Sidgwick, the leading proponents of late-nineteenth-century moral scepticism. During the first half of the century, the prevailing trends tended to exclude the possibility of normative ethics. On the Continent, the trend was to transform ethics into a philosophy of existence whose self-appointed task was (...) that of describing the human condition as consisting of choices, as unavoidable as arbitrary, without any attempt at providing criteria for making such choices. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, the heir of ethics was a philosophy of morality, that is, an analysis of the language of morality that intended to clarify valuations without trying to justify them. 1958 was the year of the normative turn that led to the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy, a turn followed by decades of controversies between distinct kinds of normative ethics: utilitarian, Kantian, virtue ethics. While the controversy was raging, a quiet revolution took place, that of applied ethics which surprisingly dissolved the controversy's very subject matter by providing methods for making convergence possible on intermediate principles even when no agreement was available about first principles. The normative turn and the revolution of applied ethics have led us, at the turn of the century, to a goal that was quite far from the starting point. Instead of scepticism and relativism that was the fashion at the beginning of the century, at the beginning of the third millennium impartial and universal moral arguments seem to hold the spot being supported, if not by a final rational foundation, at least by reasonableness, the most precious legacy of the Enlightenment. -/- ● TABLE OF CONTENTS -/- ● I Anglo-Saxon philosophy: naturalism 1. Dewey beyond evolutionism and utilitarianism 2. Dewey and anti-essentialist moral epistemology 3. Dewey and naturalist moral ontology 4. Dewey and normative ethics of conduct and function 5. Perry and semantic naturalism -/- ● II Anglo-Saxon philosophy: ideal utilitarianism and neo-intuitionism 1. Moore's critique of utilitarian empiricism 2. Moore on the naturalistic fallacy 3. Moore on the nature of intrinsic value 4. Moore on ideal utilitarianism 5. Prichard on the priority of the right over the good 6. Ross's coherentist moral epistemology 7. Ross's moral ontology: realism, pluralism, and non-naturalism 8. Ross's normative ethics of prima facie duties -/- The chapter reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore's early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. It stresses the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. It argues that PE is more a patchwork of somewhat diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. -/- ●III Anglo-Saxon philosophy: non-cognitivism 1. The Scandinavian School, the Vienna circle and proto-emotivism 2. Wittgenstein and the ineffability of ethics 3. Russell's and Ayer's radical emotivism 4. Stevenson and moderate emotivism 5. Stevenson and the pragmatics of moral language 6. Stevenson and the methods for solving ethical disagreement 7. Hare and prescriptivism The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of 'good', its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with 'emotive' meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell's ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson's theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. A section reconstructs the discussion from the Forties about Hume's law, mentioning Karl Popper's argument and Richard Hare's early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- ●IV Anglo-Saxon philosophy: critics of non-cognitivism 1. Neo-naturalism and its objections to the naturalistic fallacy argument 2. Objections to Hume's law 3. Clarence Lewis and the pragmatic contradiction 4. Toulmin and the good reasons approach 5. Baier and moral reasons 5. Baier, social moralities and the absolute morality 6. Baier and the moral point of view 7. Baier and the contents of absolute ethics -/- ● V Continental philosophy: the philosophy of values 1. Max Weber and the polytheism of values 2. Phenomenology against psychologism and rationalism 3. Reinach and the theory of social acts 4. Scheler and the material ethics of values 5. Hartmann and the ontology of values 6. Plessner, Gehlen and the Philosophische Anthropologie -/- The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl's project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the apriori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy conducted in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach's theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that sketches the ideas 'discovered' later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section discusses Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of 'values' – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler, who claimed to be Husserl's legitimate heirs. -/- ● VI Continental philosophy: the critics of the philosophy of values 1. Freud, the Superego and Civilization 2. Heidegger on original ethos against ethics 3. Sartre and de Beauvoir on authenticity and ambiguity 4. Adorno and Horkheimer on emancipation and immoralism -/- ●VII Post-liberal theologians and religious thinkers 1. Barth on the autonomy of faith from ethics 2. Developments of Reformed moral theology after Barth 3. Bonhoeffer on the concrete divine command and ethics of penultimate realities 4. Developments of Reformed and Catholic moral theology after world war II 5. Baeck and the transformation of liberal Judaism 6. Rosenzweig against liberal Judaism 7. Buber and religion as the vital lymph of morality 8. Heschel and Judaism as a science of actions -/- The chapter examines the main protagonists of Christian theology and Jewish religious thinking in the twentieth century. It stresses how the main dilemmas of contemporary philosophical ethics lie at the root of the various path of inquiry taken by these thinkers. -/- ● VIII Normative ethics: neo-Utilitarianism 1. The discussion on act and rule utilitarianism 2. Hare on two-tiered preference utilitarianism 3. Harsanyi, Gauthier and rational choice ethics 4. Parfit, utilitarianism and the idea of a person 5. Brandt and indirect conscience utilitarianism -/- The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick's and Moore's fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine refuted. Two examples give the reader a glimpse at this uproarious process. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This transformation results in preference utilitarianism combined with a 'Kantian' version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare's two-level preference utilitarianism, where act utilitarianism plays the function of the eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of an action-guiding practical device. -/- ● IX Normative ethics: neo-Aristotelianism and virtue ethics 1. Hannah Arendt, action and judgement 2. Hans-Georg Gadamer and phronesis 3. Alasdair MacIntyre on practices, virtues, and traditions 5. Stuart Hampshire on deliberation 6. Bernard Williams and moral complexity 7. Feminist ethics -/- Sect 1 reconstructs the post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named 'Rehabilitation of practical philosophy' is described. Heidegger's most brilliant disciples were the promoters of this Rehabilitation. Hans-Georg Gadamer is a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle's lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger's lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the significant role of the notion of phronesis. Sect 3 discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. It argues that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. The chapter gives a short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot's and Peter Geach's critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre's grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly inevitable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- ● X Normative ethics: Kantian and rights-based ethics 1. Dialogical constructivism 2. Apel, Habermas and discourse ethics 3. Gewirth and rights-based ethics 4. Nagel on agent-relative reasons 5. Donagan and persons as ends in themselves Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This current started with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. The chapter offers an examination of his argument in some detail, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas's elaboration on Apel's theory. -/- ● XI The applied ethics renaissance 1. Elisabeth Anscombe on the atom bomb 2. From medical ethics to bioethics 3. Rawls and public ethics 3. Nozick, Dworkin and further developments of public ethics 5. Sen and the revival of economic ethics -/- The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin's new casuistry. The chapter argues that Rawls's distinction between a "political" and a "metaphysical" approach to the theory of justice, one central part of ethical theory, is a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and the new casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter. The idea is that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls' view never will be close – on the essential criteria for judgment. -/- ● XII Fin-de-siècle metaethics 1. Deontic logics 2. Anti-realism 3. External realism 4. Internal realism 5. Kantian constructivism -/- The chapter illustrates the fresh start of meta-ethical discussion in the Eighties and Nineties and the resulting new alignments: metaphysical naturalism, internal realism, anti-realism, and constructivism. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein, in the "Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics", often refers to contradictions as deserving special study. He is said to have predicted that there will be mathematical investigations of calculi containing contradictions and that people will pride themselves on having emancipated themselves from consistency. This paper examines a way of taking this prediction seriously. It starts by demonstrating that the easy way of understanding the role of contradictions in a discourse, namely in terms of pure convention within a (...) specific linguistic community, is naive and therefore to be avoided. A number of steps will then be taken to formulate and justify what will be called a ‘containment-account’ of contradiction. This term refers to a way of understanding how a contradiction in a discourse can be contained without allowing it to infect the entire discourse with inconsistency. The account builds on work done by N. Rescher and involves complex ontologies that are either over-determined or under-determined at some points. These worlds are such that, for some P, they allow us to deny simultaneously both that P and that -P. They likewise allow us to hold both that P and that -P. The ontological status of P and that of -P are considered independent issues, so as to block the inference from P and -P to the conjunction (P & -P). In this way, the task of containment is carried out by the complexity of the ontology determining the possible worlds under consideration. The paper proceeds by countering the objection that such possible worlds are useless fictions. This is carried out by highlighting three significant areas of application, one in philosophy of science, one in philosophy of religion, and one in the area of epistemology. In general, one may say that, in some language-games, a contradiction can be a useful instrument to attest that rationality goes beyond ratiocination, in other words to indicate that there is more to discourse and practice than what can be expressed in precise algorithmic trees. The upshot of the entire argument is that the proposed ‘containment-account’ of contradiction can be an adequate illustration of how Wittgenstein’s prediction is not sterile, but a possible source of inspiration. (shrink)

This study explores the core teachings of Buddhism and Confucianism, especially about homosexuality, and compares the two. This study argues that the attitude of Buddhism and Confucianism towards homosexuality is highly dependent on the cultural context in which these religions exist and are practiced. In other words, certain Buddhist/Confucian societies are sometimes more tolerant of homosexual practices than other Buddhist/Confucian societies. That is, the core teachings of religions cannot be merely a measure; culture participates in shaping religious responses (...) to homosexuals. However, it also does not mean that these two religions do not have a unique view on homosexuality. Using the literature study method, this study will focus on exploring the attitudes of these two religions, Buddhism and Confucianism, towards the practice of homosexuality, especially to queering the core teachings of both. The results of this study indicate that in both Buddhism and Confucianism, acceptance and rejection of homosexual practices exist, and almost all use their respective core teachings as arguments. In short, this study contributes to providing an overview of how homosexuality is accepted and rejected in Buddhism and Confucianism. (shrink)

Eliade and the Doctrine of Mystic Lights Eliade believed that in every religion there are reports about an experience of mystic light. Furthermore, all such reports mention that the person who experienced the light subsequently underwent a deep transformation of her or his spirit and began a new life, the life of a holy man or homo religiosus, which is identical – in its purest form – with the life of a mystic. A clear example of one such transformation is (...) Saul turning into Paul. But a closer analysis indicates, says the Author, that these changes can be of two kinds. They either come suddenly to an unsuspecting and unprepared individual, and that was the case of Saul, or they are a result of concentrated spiritual training, and such a case was described by Gregory Palamas. The former transformation leads to a religious conversion, the latter is the beginning of a new, mystic life. The Author argues that these forms of experience are seeing without using eyes, and as such, they may have served as a paradigm of vivid mental understanding. He quotes Plato and Heidegger to support these views. (shrink)