This paper analyzes the nature of the Star Maker in Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker, as well as Stapledon’s exploration of the theological problem of evil, as compared with philosophical conceptions of God and their respective theodicies in the tradition of classical theism, as propounded by philosophers such as Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, and Avicenna. It argues that Stapledon’s philosophical divergence from classical theism entails that the Star Maker of the novel is more demiurge than true divinity, and that this (...) divergence is integral to the basically amoral character of the Star Maker, as well as the purely aesthetic resolution of the problem of evil articulated in Star Maker. This analysis, in turn, will hopefully bear on future studies touching on the trope of quasi-divinities, evolved and contingent gods, present in the work of other SF authors. (shrink)

The paper aims to show that by abstracting from a specific mythical historical- stylistic context and “ideation” of the notion of the Proto-Slavic deities Perun and Veles, especially in Croatian tradition, symbolic archetypes and abstract notions of form and primordial matter (materia prima) can be extracted from mythical content. We refer to mythical texts and contents according to the reconstructions and materials brought by Radoslav Katičić, and comparative analysis by Mislav Ježić. We distinguish form (1) as that in which identity (...) and possibility of a thing consists, (2) as the reasonableness of judgment and the form of existence, and (3) as the specific structure of a thing, which unites its parts and aspects as a whole and constitutes its internal necessity. These formative notions are relativized and nullified in Veles’ appearances, in which the archetypal notion of primordial matter is encoded. Examples of Platō’s dialogues historically confirm certain aspects of decoding myth as constitutive of philosophy. The above approach also opens a view of the roots of Croatian philosophical thought, which in its genesis can be traced back to Proto-Slavic mythical archetypes. With the implementation of Christianity, the questions of identity, reason and the structure of the whole are raised radically and sharply, as shown by the text of Trpimir’s grant (852). (shrink)

Traditional Yorùbá culture admits the hegemonic locus that humans rank above all else on the planet. The outlook received decisive ratification several millennia ago in one of the Odùs of their Ifá Corpus. Specifically, in Odù Ògúndá Otura, one of the numerous chapters of the Ifá Corpus, Ọ̀rúnmìlà, the founder and primordial deity of Ifá discloses his authorization, the use of non-human animals for sacrifice and other human ends interminably. In this study, we engage the Ifá chapter that upholds (...) this outlook. We riposte that the age long supercilious perspective among the Yorùbá that humans rank higher and over non-human animals, as documented in the said Odù is no longer tenable on biological and moral-legal grounds. If the biological and moral-legal thrusts are not invalid, what framework is plausible when the interest(s) of non-human animals clash with the interest(s) of Ifá tradition and Yorùbá culture? On what basis will it be appropriate to jettison the interest(s) of the one for the interest(s) of the other? In the light of these posers, we employ Kai Horsthemke’s ethical individualism as the suitable groundwork that considers the interest of animals recommended for sacrifice in Ifá obeisance. (shrink)

Religion and culture are interwoven and this can be seen among the Oron people in their use of the shrine as a socio-cultural and ethical institution. The shrine is an embodiment and the symbol of the very traditional religion of the people. As such, the shrine serves as a medium through which the norms, values, ethics, taboos, and morals are taught and enforced. There is also a great relationship between religion and justice as the shrine (Afi/Obio) as an ethical (...) institution serves as a tribunal of justice by the deities, divinities, and ancestors under the guidance and administration of the priest in tackling and resolving criminal activities, disputes as well as restoring social order and justice in Oron traditional society. The Oron Afi/Obio (Shrine) method of administering justice is beyond the Empirical application of the modern judiciary system that relies on physical facts and shreds of evidence, while the shrine, also, uses spiritual methods that involve Oath taking, incantation and necromancy. Globalization rather than modifying the lapses and loopholes of this system in the parlance of morality, ethics, and health has led to its abolition and break down. This work adopts the qualitative method. This work as primary research uses the conflict theory, phenomenological and Historical method. It identifies globalization as a threat to the traditional justice system and recommends that the shrine is a multi-faceted institution whose function can be adopted and applied to the Nigerian legal system where there is no or little evidence and oath swearing for politicians in our contemporary society. (shrink)

Abstract Taking the Big Bang as the singular source of universal evolution, gives potent contemporary metaphors for understanding spirituality, life, and death. We can discover the nature of the Universe as we observe that its evolution is radically indeterminate, but manifests tendencies toward connectivity that manifest in self-organizing wholes. Like a traditional deity, the singularity that existed in the moment before the Big Bang is eternal and timeless. Everything that exists or comes into being, no matter how creative, is (...) a manifestation of that first moment of creation. That the first moment of creation is always happening; it’s happening right now. We (and every other thing) are products of that original creation and our own creativity is an expression of its creativity. This should comfort us, for it implies that when we lose our personal creativity at the end of our physical lives, we are likely to experience rejoining the original creative force of the Big Bang, just as religious faithful often expect death to reunite them with their creator God. (shrink)

By taking into account Epicurus’s extant texts and the most recent bibliography, this article aims at showing that he was not a convinced and stubborn atheist, as it was often believed during the Middle Ages. Rather, his idea of religion was vivid, positive and respectful of the traditional deities: to such an extent that Epicurus can be characterized as an ascetic and even mystical figure.

African cultural values connote core principles and ideals that maintains good, right, fair and just in African societies. This culture is developed over a long period of time, preserved and promoted by all members of a given group or society. Corruption as a phenomenon on the other hand has been variously described as a societal vice. Though research shows that some levels of corruption exist in almost every human society, it is over accommodated in some societies or nations and as (...) such it has notoriously continued to destroy such societies/nations. This is particular to a number of African nations, with Nigeria being among (if not) the worse corrupt nation(s) in the continent. It is not difficult to understand that the value placed on corruption in Nigeria is synonymous to the way cultural values are cherished by people in some nations of the world. In view of this, there is a serious and immediate need to educate the Nigerian public about the consequences of developing a culture of corruption in the country. It seems that some Nigerians take corruption to be a normal way of life, thereby, equating the vice to acceptable cultural values. Today, many Nigerians are not interested in developing and/or preserving amiable cultural values for the nation. Rather, more attention is focus on the promotion of corrupt practices that enables the destruction of even the good cultural values of the nation that were left behind by our forefathers. Therefore, this paper seeks to unmask the importance of developing and preserving good African cultural values that will guarantee unity, patriotism, social cohesion and sustainable development in Nigeria. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The philosophical tradition approaches to morals have their grounds predominantly on metaphysical and theological concepts and theories. Among the traditional ethics concepts, the most prominent is the Divine Command Theory (DCT). As per the DCT, God gives moral foundations to the humankind by its creation and through Revelation. Morality and Divinity are inseparable since the most remote civilization. These concepts submerge in a theological framework and are largely accepted by most followers of the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, (...) and Islam: the greatest part of the human population. Holding faith and Revelation for its grounds, the Divine Command Theories are not strictly subject to the demonstration. The opponents to the Divine Command conception of morals, grounded in the impossibility of demonstration of its metaphysical and religious assumptions, have tried for many centuries (albeit unsuccessfully) to devalue its importance. They held the argument that it does not show material evidence and logical coherence and, for this reason, cannot be taken into account for scientific nor philosophical purposes. It is just a belief and, as so, should be understood. Besides these extreme oppositions, many other concepts contravene the Divine Command theories, in one or another way, in part or in full. Many philosophers and social scientists, from the classic Greek philosophy up to the present date, for instance, sustain that morality is only a construct, and thus culturally relative and culturally determined. However, this brings many other discussions and imposes the challenge to determine what is the meaning of culture, which elements of culture are morally determinant, and finally, what are the boundaries of such relativity. Moral determinists claim that everything related to human behavior, including morality, is determined, once free will does not exist. More recently, modern thinkers argued that there is a strict science of morality. However, the scientific method alone, despite explaining several facts and evidence, cannot enlighten the entire content and full meaning of ethics. Morals’ understanding requires a broader perception, and an agreement among philosophers, which they have never achieved. All of these questions have many different configurations depending on each philosophical strand, and start complex analysis and endless debates, as long as many of them are reciprocally conflictive. The universe and the atmosphere involving this thesis are the dominions of all these conceptual conflicts, observed from an objective and evolutionary standpoint. Irrespective of this circumstance and its intrinsic importance, however, these questions are far distant from the methodological approach of an analytical discussion on objective morals, what is, indeed, the aim and scope of this work. We should briefly revisit these prominent traditional theories because this thesis shelters a comparative study, and its assumptions at least differ profoundly from all traditional theories. Therefore, it becomes necessary offering direct and specific elements of comparison to the reader, for the right criticism, dispensing interruptive researches. However, even revisiting the traditional theories, for this comparative and critical exposure purpose, they will be kept by the side of our main concerns, as “aliena materia.” Irrespective of the validity of any or all of the elements of this discussion, and their meaning as the philosophical universe of this thesis, the purpose of this work is demonstrating and justifying the existence and meaning of prehistoric moral archetypes arisen directly from the very first social needs and efforts for survival. These archetypes are the definition of the essential foundation of ethics, its aggregation to the collective unconscious and corresponding logic organization and transmission to evolutionary stages of the human genome and different relations space-time, irrespective of any contemporary experience of the individuals. The system defined by these archetypes composes an evolutionary human social model. Is this a metaethical position? Yes, it is. Moreover, as in any metaethical reasoning, we should look carefully for the best and coherent routes, as the Analytical Philosophy offers them. Thus, this work should reasonably demonstrate that morals are not a cultural product of the civilized men or modern societies and that despite being subject to several cultural relative aggregations and subtractions, its essential foundations are archetypal and have never structurally changed. This reasoning induces that morality is an original attribute of the “homo sapiens”; it is not a property and nor an accident: it integrates the human essence and belongs to the realm of the ontological human identity. The human phenomena is a continuing process, playing its role between random determination and free will, and we need to question how morality began and how did it come to us in the present. (shrink)

Belief in God is a steady epistemic state sustaining an ancient social institution. Not only is it still with us, it is still the same as it ever was. It rests on the same inspiration it did thousands of years ago, commanding the same attention with the same motivation. Deities come and go but the belief stays the same. That is the thesis of this paper. It is more specifically a study of classical Greek polytheism as a paradigm for our (...) longstanding relationship with religious social structures. The main methodological vehicle is a survey of Hesiodic theogony for insight into the monotheism(s) we have adopted in its place. The evidence and implications for meaningful continuity are explored largely through the Judeo-Christian tradition, though that choice is representative rather than exhaustive with respect to the present spectrum of religious affiliation. The overall aim is not to dispute the validity of any particular belief system, past or present, but to expose the prevailing ones as extensions of the abandoned ones originally embraced with the same passion exhibited today. The underlying conviction is that theological explanation and religious orientation are reciprocal parts of a collective work in progress mapping out our common initiative to make sense of the world. (shrink)

Are religious beliefs psychologically different from matter-of-fact beliefs? Many scholars say no: that religious people, in a matter-of-fact way, simply think their deities exist. Others say yes: that religious beliefs are more compartmentalized, less certain, and less responsive to evidence. Little research to date has explored whether lay people themselves recognize such a difference. We addressed this question in a series of sentence completion tasks, conducted in five settings that differed both in religious traditions and in language: the US, Ghana, (...) Thailand, China, and Vanuatu. Participants everywhere routinely used different verbs to describe religious versus matter-of-fact beliefs, and they did so even when the ascribed belief contents were held constant and only the surrounding context varied. These findings support the view that people from diverse cultures and language communities recognize a difference in attitude type between religious belief and everyday matter-of-fact belief. (shrink)

Having elsewhere connected Walter Otto’s interpretation of Dionysus as a politically progressive deity to Huey P. Newton’s vision for the Black Panthers, I here expand this inquiry to a line of Otto-inspired scholarship. First, Alain Daniélou identifies Dionysus and Shiva as the dancing god of a democratic/decolonizing cult oppressed by tyrannical patriarchies. Arthur Evans sharpens this critique of sexism and heteronormativity, concluding that, as Dionysus’s chorus is to Greek tragedy, so Socrates’s circle is to Western philosophy. I thus call for (...) the creation of a hybrid Dionysian-Socratic revolutionary philosophical chorus, modeled on Dionysus Lyseus, wielding philosophical analysis to loosen injustice’s bonds, as a vanguard of social justice. I find a handbook for this chorus’s creation in Euripides’s Bacchae, whose Dionysus is an ally of immigrant women, overthrower of Theban patriarchy, and international revolutionary. Finally, I offer a contemporary example of such a chorus that is based in my hometown in Alabama, namely, the Birmingham Philosophy Guild. (shrink)

Samuel Alexander was a central figure of the new wave of realism that swept across the English-speaking world in the early twentieth century. His Space, Time, and Deity (1920a, 1920b) was taken to be the official statement of realism as a metaphysical system. But many historians of philosophy are quick to point out the idealist streak in Alexander’s thought. After all, as a student he was trained at Oxford in the late 1870s and early 1880s as British Idealism was beginning (...) to flourish. This naturally had some effect on his philosophical outlook and it is said that his early work is overtly idealist. In this paper I examine his neglected and understudied reactions to British Idealism in the 1880s. I argue that Alexander was not an idealist during this period and should not be considered as part of the British Idealist tradition, philosophically speaking. (shrink)

The principle that one cannot deliberate over what one already knows is going to happen, when suitably qualified, has seemed to many philosophers to be about as secure a truth as one is likely to find in this life. Fortunately, it poses little restriction on human deliberation, since the conditions which would trigger its prohibition seldom arise for us: our knowledge of the future is intermittent at best, and those things of which we do have advance knowledge are not the (...) sorts of things over which we would deliberate in any case. But matters appear to stand otherwise with an all-knowing agent such as God is traditionally conceived to be; for what an omniprescient deity ‘already knows is going to happen’ is everything that is going to happen; and if He cannot deliberate over such things, there is nothing over which He can deliberate. (shrink)

In "To Bet The Impossible Bet", Harmon Holcomb III argues: (i) that Pascal's wager is structurally incoherent; (ii) that if it were not thus incoherent, then it would be successful; and (iii) that my earlier critique of Pascal's wager in "On Rescher On Pascal's Wager" is vitiated by its reliance on "logicist" presuppositions. I deny all three claims. If Pascal's wager is "incoherent", this is only because of its invocation of infinite utilities. However, even if infinite utilities are admissible, the (...) wager is defeated by the "many gods" and "many wagers" objections. Moreover, these objections do not rely on mistaken "logicist" presuppositions: atheists and agnostics traditionally and typically hold that they have no more--or at any rate, hardly any more--reason to believe in the traditional Christian God than they have to believe in countless alternative deities. (shrink)

Thailand has a rich history of using aesthetics as a means of communication. This is seen not only in the communication of basic ideas, but aesthetics are also used to communicate the cultural values of the nation. Aesthetical images in Thailand have the tendency to dwell both in the realm of the mundane and the supernatural, in the daily and the esoteric. Historically, many faith traditions have used aesthetics as an effective form of communication, including Buddhism, Brahmanism, as well as (...) other local expressions of deities across the country. Art plays a large role in the daily communication of religious values and concepts. -/- While Christianity has a rather long history in Thailand, the large-scale impact that Christianity, and specifically Protestantism, has had is rather minimal. There can be a myriad of reasons for this, but one potential possibility is Christianity’s lack of an aesthetical engagement upon and within Thai culture. This potentially is not an issue of only the Protestant church in Thailand but also stems from some of the western Christian roots throughout its faith tradition. One finds a chasm between aesthetical practices and faith from the Heidelberg Confession, in which Christians became so worried about the ramifications of idol worship, that they threw out the proverbial ‘baby with the bathwater’ and basically condemned the use of icons and other forms of art in western Protestantism. -/- Therefore, this paper will examine the relationship between Thai culture and Christianity, trying to remove the western biases in Christianity and will attempt to suggest new ways that the Thai Christian Church may develop organic, indigenous Thai art, that can be used as a more effective means of communication. If Christianity wants to effectively convey its concepts into Thai culture, it must value aesthetics as a means of communication. Is it possible that Christianity could not only communicate a more effective message in Thailand, but also that Christianity could experience a more robust self-analyzation of its core concepts through Thai aesthetics? Therefore, one needs to explore the ways that Christianity may be able to better understand itself through current Thai aesthetical practices. These concepts will be explored to develop a more robust and organic way of communicating the Christian concepts through a Thai paradigm. (shrink)

For Vajrayana Buddhism, the now is an interval, a boundary, a point of tension and suspension with an atmosphere of uncertainty. It is a bifurcation point of variable length; its name is “bardo.” The bardo is immersed in the conventional, or “seeming” reality. It emerges from what is called the “unstained” ultimate or primordial emptiness or “basal clear light.” Further, the ultimate is not the sphere of cognition. Cognition, including cognition of time, belongs to conventional reality. Buddhahood, in contrast, is (...) a condition of uncompounded knowledge where basic mind blossoms without temporal or other cognitive distinctions, unmade, unfabricated, luminous and pristine. Cyclical existence involves both the ultimate and the conventional as it moves through six bardos—all of which are the effulgent of the basal clear light—until Buddhahood. The six are: the bardo of this life ; the bardo of dream; the bardo of meditation; the bardo of dying; the bardo of dharmata ; and the bardo of existence. Each realm is both ultimate and conventional, and has specific initiation-based yogas to investigate these differences. The process of transition from one to the next involves at least three bodies, one mind, and aspects of speech. In each bardo, the character of the now as embodiment and temporal knowing varies yet a complete and consistent cross-bardo yogic wisdom leads to its total cessation in the basal clear light; the now is extinguished. The author presents, from the viewpoint of a knowledgeable practitioner of over 30 years, an essay on Vajrayana Buddhist time, drawing implications for Fraser’s time typology. The essay will draw from English translations of significant older, tantric texts on dream yoga, deity yoga, the Chod, tantric time, the bardo of death, and empowerment. Useful practices that can be applied by the audience to test the tradition and author’s assertions will be suggested. (shrink)

This thesis argues for the fundamental importance of the opposition between holistic and reductionistic world-views in economics. Both reductionism and holism may nevertheless underpin laissez-faire policy prescriptions. Scrutiny of the nature of the articulation between micro and macro levels in the writings of economists suggests that invisible hand theories play a key role in reconciling reductionist policy prescriptions with a holistic world. An examination of the prisoners' dilemma in game theory and Arrow's impossibility theorem in social choice theory sets the (...) scene. The prisoners' dilemma epitomises the collective irrationality coordination problems lead to. The source of the dilemma is identified as the combination of interdependence in content and independence in form of the decision making process. Arrovian impossibility has been perceived as challenging traditional views of the relationship between micro and macro levels in economics. Conservative arguments against the possibility in principle of a social welfare function are criticised here as depending on an illicit dualism. The thesis then reviews the standpoints of Smith, Hayek and Keynes. For Smith, the social desirability of individual self-seeking activity is ensured by the 'invisible hand' of a god who has moulded us so to behave, that the quantity of happiness in the world is always maximised. Hayek seeks to re-establish the invisible hand in a secular age, replacing the agency of a deity with an evolutionary mechanism. Hayek's evolutionary theory, criticised here as being based on the exploded notion of group selection, cannot underpin the desirability of spontaneous outcomes. I conclude by arguing that Keynes shares the holistic approach of Smith and Hayek, but without their reliance on invisible hand mechanisms. If spontaneous processes cannot be relied upon to generate desirable social outcomes then we have to take responsibility for achieving this ourselves by establishing the appropriate institutional framework to eliminate macroeconomic prisoners' dilemmas. (shrink)

Mark Johnston’s book, Saving God (Princeton University Press, 2010) has two main goals, one negative and the other positive: (1) to eliminate the gods of the major Western monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as candidates for the role of “the Highest One”; (2) to introduce the real Highest One, a panentheistic deity worthy of devotion and capable of extending to us the grace needed to transform us from inwardly-turned sinners to practitioners of agape. In this review, we argue that Johnston’s (...) attack on traditional forms of monotheism has less force than his criticism of the “undergraduate atheists” (e.g., Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins); and that his candidate for Highest One is not the greatest possible being, and so could not play the role Johnston casts for it. -/- . (shrink)

Aptamimamsa by Ācārya Samantabhadra (2nd century CE) starts with a discussion, in a philosophical-cum-logical manner, on the Jaina concept of omniscience and the attributes of the Omniscient. The Ācārya questions the validity of the attributes that are traditionally associated with a praiseworthy deity and goes on to establish the logic of accepting the Omniscient as the most trustworthy and praiseworthy Supreme Being. Employing the doctrine of conditional predications (syādvāda) – the logical expression of reality in light of the foundational principle (...) of non-absolutism (anekāntavāda) – he faults certain conceptions based on absolutism. He finally elucidates correct perspectives on issues including fate and human-effort, and bondage of meritorious (punya) or demeritorious (pāpa) karmas. (shrink)

This essay investigates the tensions between traditional music and its modern codification as intellectual property. It will begin by considering the myths concerning the divine source of music. In traditional music and in folk music, music is closely connected to religious ritual. In these rituals the source of the music is recognized and attributed to certain deities. For instance, in Thai traditional music, the Wai Khru ceremony venerates the Duriyathep or devatas drawn from Indian mythology: Phra Visawakarm, (...) Phra Panjasinghkorn, and Phra Parakhonthap (Narot). Much of modern and contemporary music has long been disengaged from ritual and its traditional forms of transmission. Especially since the nineteenth century with the growth of popularity of music printing, it has been subject to copyright law. With these restrictions in transmission, the more fluid routes of transmission have become broken and the ritualistic and religious identifications have been transferred to the cult of performers, to legal codification, to the control of corporations, and the construction of new mythologies through marketing. This essay will use Walter Benjamin’s reflections on the loss of “aura” in the reproduced work of art to try to understand the consequences of this transition in the function of music. And it will consider the situation in Thailand where traditional music and mythology stands side by side with marketed music, and traditional performance stands side by side with commercial performance. It will demonstrate that these conflicts cannot be resolved. But it is precisely in the appreciation and preservation of these conflicts, that traditional culture can itself be recognized and preserved. (shrink)

Soren Kierkegaard was a profound and prolific writer in the Danish “golden age” of intellectual and artistic activity. His work crosses the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary criticism, devotional literature and fiction. Kierkegaard brought this potent mixture of discourses to bear as social critique and for the purpose of renewing Christian faith within Christendom. At the same time he made many original conceptual contributions to each of the disciplines he employed. He is known as the “father of existentialism”, but (...) at least as important are his critiques of his peer Hegel and of the German romantics, his contributions to the development of modernism, his literary experimentation, his vivid re-presentation of biblical figures to bring out their modern relevance, his invention of key concepts which have been explored and redeployed by thinkers ever since, his interventions in contemporary Danish church politics, and his fervent attempts to analyse and revitalise Christian faith. Kierkegaard is regarded by modern contemporaries as somewhat of an intellectual ‘time bomb’, although writing in the early 19th century, Kierkegaards ideas did not explode upon the western intellectual world until the 20th century. Both the contemporary philosophical and theological scenes have been profoundly influenced by this explosion, and chances are that in coming generations writers will still draw insight on some of Kierkegaards unique ideas. His philosophy on religious belief took centuries of philosophical discourse concerning the existence of God and took the discussion in a completely new direction. Up until the writing of Kierkegaard religious philosophy was centered around attempts to ‘prove’ Gods existence via means of a logically consistent, well reasoned argument ala Aquinas’ Five Ways, Anselm etc. To vindicate religious belief, one would traditionally offer some form of structured argument in favour of deity that appealed to reason e.g First Cause, Ontological argument etc, a field which is now known as apologetics-the intellectual defense of religious belief. For Kierkegaard however, reason and faith are a false dichotomy- rational argument and human reason are somewhat irrelevant to religious belief,and this plays a central role in his philosophical doctrine which is an attempt to vindicate Christian faith through his thesis that ‘truth is subjectivity’(Schaeffer, 1982). Firstly, what will be discussed here is a critical evaluation of Kierkegaards philosophy of religious belief as expounded in his works Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Secondly, a look at some responses and criticisms of Kierkegaards religious views- as he was a notoriously ambiguous and vague writer, he wrote the majority of his famous works pseudonymously, his work has been frequently scrutinised. Finally, concluding with an analysis of his philosophy and if we can consider his work a complete vindication of religious belief. (shrink)

This book presents a new account of Thales based on the idea that Acheloios, a deity equated with water in the ancient Greek world and found in Miletos during Thales’ life, was the most important cultic deity influencing the thinker, profoundly shaping his philosophical worldview. In doing so, it also weighs in on the metaphysical and epistemological dichotomy that seemingly underlies all academia—the antithesis of the methodological postulate of Marxian dialectical materialism vis-à-vis the Platonic idea of fundamentally real transcendental forms. (...) Unbeknownst to many scholars, there are various Neo-Marxian thinkers that position the origin of coinage as the pivotal technological development giving rise to impersonal “metaphysical cosmology,” suggesting that the value of money was more-or-less projected back onto the cosmos in the form of “ideal substances.” While the arguments are incredibly sophisticated and persuasive, their conclusions (either stated or implied) are rather difficult to swallow: the self is merely an illusion, abstract ideas of an ultimate source of value, like God or the Good, are totally delusional (as is the soul, and presumably any notion of inherent human dignity), and essentially everything is reducible to mankind’s enslavement to commodities and the notion of our own objectified labor, which is the true source of all value according to Marx. Not only is this an alarming belief that many scholars (consciously or unconsciously) have adopted, since essentially any action could be “justified,” it is also demonstrably false, since it rests on a misunderstanding of Thales and misconception of philosophy as such. -/- My work rectifies that misunderstanding. In an important sense, it is an attempt at redefining philosophy as a “love of wisdom,” which I argue was accurate even in the Presocratic setting, and it uses the influence of Acheloios on Thales to do so. Throughout its pages I explore the etymology and historical uses of the word ὔδωρ, examine the archaeological context of 7th to 6th century Miletos, consider various aquatic myths Thales encountered, and highlight a hitherto overlooked tradition stemming from Thales and influencing such thinkers as Pythagoras, Empedokles, and Hippo, which culminates in a completely new reading of Plato’s Phaedrus, a dialogue in which Plato responds to the exact type of thinking employed by the Neo-Marxians. It is there that we find Socrates and Phaedrus surrounded by the iconography of Acheloios and the nymphs, all while they lie reclined like river gods (the sinews of Acheloios) on the banks of the Ilisos. And it is in that dialogue that Plato defines philosophy as a love of wisdom—the beholding of a multiplicity of hermeneutical frameworks—and alludes to the fact that it began with the sacrifice of Acheloios, the initial philosophical maneuver which he attributes to Thales. The book ends with a threefold rejoinder to the Neo-Marxian school, corresponding to the λόγος, μῦθος, and ἔργον of Acheloios. It turns out that, (1) the λόγος of Acheloios contained the ideal preconditions conducive to an abstraction to a more refined philosophical worldview in which divine water operated as the One among the Many; (2) the μῦθος of Acheloios actually encouraged the application of the notion of sacrifice to Acheloios himself (thus revealing his essence as divine water); and, (3), the ἔργον of Acheloios, in which he kneels in assent to sacrifice, is found on a coin that was probably designed by Thales. In the final analysis, I suggest that the tradition of Acheloios is reflective of a greater philosophical truth, and that by following Thales’ lead, we transcend the Marxian hermeneutic of doubt and reorient ourselves toward the οὐσια ὄντως οὖσα. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Spectres of False Divinity: Hume’s Moral AtheismJohn J. TilleyThomas Holden. Spectres of False Divinity: Hume’s Moral Atheism. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xvi + 246. Cloth, $50.00.Thomas Holden argues that a key element of David Hume’s irreligious agenda is his case for moral atheism. According to Holden, Hume defends (conclusively, Hume believes) not merely weak moral atheism, according to which there is no morally praiseworthy deity, (...) but strong moral atheism, according to which there is no deity with any moral characteristics. The idea here is that if any being approximates the traditional notion of God as a first cause or designer, it cannot meet the preconditions for having moral attributes. Holden also discusses arguments that some might expect to be central to Hume’s case but which, according to Holden, are not. For instance, Holden maintains that Hume does not even endorse the evidential argument from evil, let alone use it to support moral atheism. Instead, Hume intends it as a parody of traditional natural theology. Holden closes with several points about the historical and philosophical import of Hume’s moral atheism.Right from the start, Holden faces challenges. How can he square his interpretation of Hume as a moral atheist with Hume’s repeated strictures against theological speculation? And how can he square his interpretation with the fact that Hume never explicitly advocates moral atheism?Holden skillfully meets these challenges. Regarding the first challenge, for example, he distinguishes “core natural theology,” which aims at knowledge of the deity’s distinctive, intrinsic properties, from “liminal natural theology,” which lacks such aims. This distinction, Holden contends, reconciles two elements of Hume’s philosophy that seem to conflict. The first is Hume’s rejection of theological speculation as beyond our cognitive capacities. The second is Hume’s frequent willingness to draw conclusions about divine attributes. Holden argues that although Hume’s strictures against theological speculation pertain to [End Page 297] core natural theology, they are not aimed at liminal natural theology—that is, at speculation about the deity’s non-distinctive or relational properties. Hume’s defense of moral atheism, Holden believes, falls within liminal natural theology.After addressing challenges to his reading of Hume, Holden discusses Hume’s arguments for strong moral atheism. These do not stand out in Hume’s writings (though many of their components do), but Holden finds them there. He does so not through overly imaginative reconstruction but through careful interpretation, with an eye on many texts.Hume’s first argument, the “argument from sentimentalism,” draws on Hume’s theory of the passions and his sentimentalist metaethics. Holden reconstructs it as follows. S1: The deity is not a natural object of any human passion. S2: Moral sentiments are a species of human passion. S3: If a being is not a natural object of the moral sentiments, then it cannot have moral attributes (either virtues or vices). Therefore, S4: The deity cannot have moral attributes. The first premise is the least familiar of the three, and Holden devotes considerable effort to clarifying it, examining Hume’s rationale for it, and addressing objections to it. He performs similar tasks regarding S2, S3, and the argument in general. For instance, he addresses at length three possible objections to the argument, his concern being that if they were sufficiently damaging (he argues that they are not), this might tell against interpreting Hume as advancing the argument.Hume’s second argument, the “argument from motivation,” goes roughly as follows. Although we know nothing about the deity’s distinctive intrinsic properties, we have good reason to think that most likely, the deity (like any unknown being picked out in advance) lacks a sentimental nature anything like ours. But without a sentimental nature akin to ours, a being’s behavior is not intelligible in human terms—for example, it cannot be said to reflect moral concern or such motives as malice and benevolence. And if a being’s behavior is not intelligible in human terms, that being is not morally assessable, which is to say that it lacks moral attributes. Thus, we should conclude that the deity most likely lacks such attributes. Holden... (shrink)

This paper attempts to provide a high-level comparison of Eastern and Western conceptions of deity. It finds some significant similarities—involving worshipworthiness and the ideal shape of human lives—and some important differences—concerning the ultimate nature of reality, the relation of supreme deity to the rest of reality, and the relative frequency of divine incarnation.

What constitutes numerically one and the same tradition diachronically, at different times? This question is the focus of often violent dispute in societies. Is it capable of a rational resolution? Many accounts attempt that resolution with a diagnosis of ambiguity of the disputed concept-Islam, Marxism, or democracy for example. The diagnosis offered is in terms of vagueness, namely the vague criteria for sameness or similarity of central beliefs and practices.

Examines the relevance of empirical studies of responsibility judgments for traditional philosophical concerns about free will and moral responsibility. We argue that experimental philosophy is relevant to the traditional debates, but that setting up experiments and interpreting data in just the right way is no less difficult than negotiating traditional philosophical arguments. Both routes are valuable, but so far neither promises a way to secure significant agreement among the competing parties. To illustrate, we focus on three sorts (...) of issues. For illustration, we discuss an error theory for incompatibilist intuitions proposed by Eddy Nahmias and colleagues, the role that empirical studies might have in the assessment of manipulation arguments for incompatibilism, and the suggestion that empirical studies reveal that core criteria for moral responsibility ought not to be applied invariantly across different sorts of cases. (shrink)

Aristotle said that induction (epagōgē) is a proceeding from particulars to a universal, and the definition has been conventional ever since. But there is an ambiguity here. Induction in the Scholastic and the (so-called) Humean tradition has presumed that Aristotle meant going from particular statements to universal statements. But the alternate view, namely that Aristotle meant going from particular things to universal ideas, prevailed all through antiquity and then again from the time of Francis Bacon until the mid-nineteenth century. Recent (...) scholarship is so steeped in the first-mentioned tradition that we have virtually forgotten the other. In this essay McCaskey seeks to recover that alternate tradition, a tradition whose leading theoreticians were William Whewell, Francis Bacon, Socrates, and in fact Aristotle himself. The examination is both historical and philosophical. The first part of the essay fills out the history. The latter part examines the most mature of the philosophies in the Socratic tradition, specifically Bacon’s and Whewell’s. After tracing out this tradition, McCaskey shows how this alternate view of induction is indeed employed in science, as exemplified by several instances taken from actual scientific practice. In this manner, McCaskey proposes to us that the Humean problem of induction is merely an artifact of a bad conception of induction and that a return to the Socratic conception might be warranted. (shrink)

In this paper, I give an account and critique of what I call ‘Traditional Islamic Exclusivism’ – a specific Islamic interpretation of religious exclusivism. This Islamic version of religious exclusivism rests on exclusivist attitudes towards truth, epistemic justification and salvation. After giving an account of Traditional Islamic Exclusivism by explaining its theological roots in the Qur’an and ahadith, I proceed to critique it. I do so by arguing that Islamic epistemic exclusivism, which forms the main core of (...) class='Hi'>Traditional Islamic Exclusivism, is implausible. This criticism subsequently opens up further lines of criticism and discussion of both salvific and alethic exclusivism in an Islamic context. I conclude with some remarks about the implications and significance of my criticisms of Traditional Islamic Exclusivism. (shrink)

Essentialism is widely regarded as a mistaken view of biological kinds, such as species. After recounting why (sections 2-3), we provide a brief survey of the chief responses to the “death of essentialism” in the philosophy of biology (section 4). We then develop one of these responses, the claim that biological kinds are homeostatic property clusters (sections 5-6) illustrating this view with several novel examples (section 7). Although this view was first expressed 20 years ago, and has received recent discussion (...) and critique, it remains underdeveloped and is often misrepresented by its critics (section 8). (shrink)

Philosophers and theologians acknowledge that "fideism" is difficult to define but rarely agree on what the best characterization of the term is. In this article, I investigate the history of use of "fideism" to explore why its meaning has been so contested and thus why it has not always been helpful for resolving philosophical problems. I trace the use of the term from its origins in French theology to its current uses in philosophy and theology, concluding that "fideism" is helpful (...) in resolving philosophical problems only when philosophers scrupulously acknowledge the tradition of use that informs their understanding of the word. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a new interpretation of Quine’s epistemology in the hopes of clarifying the relationship between naturalized epistemology and traditional epistemology. Quine’s naturalized epistemology is commonly criticized on the grounds that it amounts to giving up on traditional epistemological projects in favor of projects in natural science. But, I argue, this criticism rests on a mistaken interpretation of Quine’s epistemology. This is because Quine’s naturalized epistemology retains an important meliorative component; part of its aim is (...) to improve our systems of beliefs. Quine’s approach emphasizes improving our beliefs by engaging in conceptual clarification, which is a central part of both traditional and naturalized epistemology, as well as, on Quine’s conception, scientific inquiry. Thus, I argue, a central task of naturalized epistemology is to clarify science from within. Once this is properly understood, it is evident that Quine’s naturalized epistemology constitutes a re-orientation, rather than a wholesale rejection, of the projects of traditional epistemology. (shrink)

"C.E. Emmer’s article addresses the ongoing debates over how to classify and understand kitsch, from the inception of postmodern culture onwards. It is suggested that the lack of clear distinction between fine art and popular culture generates 'approaches to kitsch – what we might call 'deflationary' approaches – that conspire to create the impression that, ultimately, either 'kitsch' should be abandoned as a concept altogether, or we should simply abandon ourselves to enjoying kitschy objects as kitsch.' The author offers critical (...) insight into 'kitschy' items made in response to 9/11 and tries to examine the reception of these products through scrutinizing a selection of remarks posted by the Internet commentators." Editor Justyna Stępień's summary from her introduction to Redefining Kitsch and Camp in Literature and Culture (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), p. 2. The final pages of the chapter analyze the seemingly sweet landscape paintings of Thomas Kinkade to show the spirit of revenge their Christian coding can conceal. (shrink)

Kwame Gyekye offers a philosophical interpretation and critical analysis of the African cultural experience in modern times. Critically employing Western political and philosophical concepts to clear, comparative advantage, Gyekye addresses a wide range of concrete problems afflicting postcolonial African states, such as ethnicity and nation-building, the relationship of tradition to modernity, the nature of political authority and political legitimation, political corruption, and the threat to traditional moral and social values, practices, and institutions in the wake of rapid social change.

I argue that, in the second half of the second Millennium, three parallel processes took place. First, normative ethics, or natural morality, that had been a distinct subject in the education of European elites from the Renaissance times to the end of the eighteenth century, disappeared as such, being partly allotted to the Churches via the teaching of religion in State School, and partly absorbed by the study of history and literature, assumed to be channels for imbibing younger generations with (...) the shared values of the State, the Nation, or the People. Second, religion, or better the prevailing religion or, in most countries, the “State Religion,” became a compulsory subject in the State school. Both the State school and Religion as a discipline were indeed novelties. Third, a result of a tacit pact between two ruling groups was that the canon of European culture was transformed into something less consistent and less comprehensive than its previous post-Renaissance version had been. In more detail, the tradition to be transmitted to younger generations was construed around a fable, or better a lie, namely that the modern European is the ancient Greek’s grandson, and the ancient Hebrew had nothing to bequest to the Modern European. Besides, the canon was reduced to a bark without a kernel, in so far as literature and history took the place that used to belong to “philosophy” or to Studia Humanitatis. (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)

Traditional compatibilism about free will is widely considered to be untenable. In particular, the conditional analysis of the ability to do otherwise appears to be subject to clear counterexamples. I will propose a new version of traditional compatibilism that provides a conditional account of both the ability to do otherwise and the ability to choose to do otherwise, and I will argue that this view withstands the standard objections to traditional compatibilism. For this, I will assume with (...) incompatibilists that the mere possession of a general ability to do otherwise is not sufficient for having the ability that is required for free will. This concession distinguishes the view from the traditional conditional analysis and from recent dispositional accounts of the ability to do otherwise, and we will see that this concession enables a straightforward response to the counterexamples. This, in turn, will play a crucial role in my response to the strongest version of the consequence argument for incompatibilism. (shrink)

This essay gives an account of how traditional morality is best understood and also why it is worth defending (even if some reform is needed) and how this might be done. Traditional morality is first contrasted with supposedly more enlightened forms of morality, such as utilitarianism and liberal Kantianism (i.e., autonomy-centered ethics). The focus here is on certain sacred values that are central to traditional morality and which highlight this contrast and bring out the attractions of (...) class='Hi'>traditional morality. Next, this essay explores and offers support for the convergence thesis to which traditional morality, understood as common morality, is committed. This thesis states that although there are diverse moral traditions, insofar as they are in good order we should expect them to converge upon a common or universal morality, even if there remain some differences in the details. The defense of this thesis provides justification for the validity of traditional morality as it suggests an objective basis. (shrink)

If we define tradition too hastily we leave to one side the question of what the relevance of tradition is for us. Here the concept of tradition is opened up by considering the different views of it taken by Hannah Arendt, Michael Oakeshott and Alasdair MacIntyre. We see that each has put tradition into a fully developed picture of what our predicament is in modernity; and that each has differed in their assessment of what our relation to tradition is or (...) should be. Arendt sees tradition as something which no longer conditions action, Oakeshott sees tradition as something which conditions all action, and MacIntyre sees tradition as something which should condition right action. In each case, the view of tradition is clearly one element in an attempt to see how the most important constituent elements of human existence – variously called the human condition, human conduct, or human virtue – should be understood in a modernity which is ours because it has put the traditional concept of tradition into question. (shrink)

The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation (Bil dung) and its Historical Meaning. This article aims at analysing the historical meaning of the German ideal of self-cultivation (Bildung), considering its different uses and interpretations over time. Based on the historical semantics of Reinhart Koselleck and the bibliography on the subject, it reconstructs the core transformations in its semantic structure from the beginnings in the late Middle Ages to its institutionalization in the German school system in the nineteenth century. The development of the (...) ideal of Bildung in Germany is characterised by the tension between its function as means of integration through education and its function as instrument of social distinction. The reflexion on this educational ideal is presented as a counterpoint to some of the contemporary educational practices, based on the imperatives of the market and the neoliberal management of human capital. (shrink)

This paper concerns an ethics of our medieval tradition (in particular good, happiness, natural law and virtue) and tries to show how to recover it, facing the problems of pluralism, freedom and scientific approach in modern and contemporary age. The author points out: - The central role of the desire for good and happiness and for goods adequate or inadequate to the openness of desire (particularly of the human person). Today we speak of the meaning of life. - The role (...) of ethical virtues as the flowering of the first principles of natural law. - The principle of the entirety of the good (bonum ex integra causa) in order to judge the moral goodness of an action and as a criterion to compare different ethics in a pluralistic world. This is to distinguish between different levels of the human and moral good. - The principles of natural law as a result of the encounter between certain inclinations and practical rationality that recognizes them as normative. Nature and natural law are the conditions of freedom, not primarily a limit to it. - Now we must increase the role of freedom of choice – which is based on rationality – and the virtues as a way to freedom. It is essential to emphasize the value of personal risk and the fact that evil can serve the good. In general the author tries to face the challenges of deontology, utilitarianism and contemporary virtue ethics. -/- . (shrink)

One phenomenon arising in epistemic life is allegiance to, and break from, a tradition. This phenomenon has three central features. First, individuals who adhere to a tradition seem to respond dogmatically to evidence against their tradition. Second, individuals from different traditions appear to see the same evidence differently. And third, conversion from one tradition to another appears to be different in kind from ordinary belief shift. This paper uses recent work on the nature and rationality of faith to show that (...) these features can all emerge from individuals acting rationally—in particular, from individuals rationally having faith in the core assumptions of their traditions. One upshot is that we don't need to employ the idea of incommensurability to explain these features. (shrink)

Despite centuries of colonization in the Philippines, the traditional Filipino healing system has survived. However, as modern education has continued to spread and Western medicine has grown in influence, traditional healing practices have been pushed to the margins and labeled as unscientific or mere superstition. This also suggests that unrecorded information may be lost forever. For future generations to appreciate this rich cultural heritage, cultural mapping of traditional healers in a local community is necessary. Thus, the researcher (...) explored, identified, documented, and analyzed the cultural profile of the traditional healers in a local community. Specifically, he studied the (1) background information, (2) description of the intangible cultural heritage, (3) stories/narratives associated with traditional healing, (4) significance of the practice, (5) assessment of the practice, and (6) references/supporting documentation of the traditional healers. The study was conducted in one of the local communities in the province of Quezon. The research participants were selected using inclusion criteria, and 11 traditional healers served as the key informants of the study. This study also employed qualitative research through cultural mapping, and pertinent data were obtained using participant observation, documentation, and interview guides. Qualitative content analysis was used in analyzing the gathered data. The findings revealed that the traditional healers have diverse background information, reflected in the element types, the geographical location and range of the element, and the related domains of the intangible cultural heritage. Likewise, the description of the intangible cultural heritage gave a wide array of descriptions of the history of practice, occasion/season, processes, and procedures involved, beliefs associated, settings, aims, social functions, and cultural meaning, culture bearer/s and practitioner/s of the element, mode of transmission, list of significant tangible movable heritage used associated with the element and list of significant flora/fauna used associated with the element. Meanwhile, spiritual guides and supernatural claims, healing severe cases, and being accused of malpractice or maltreatment were some of the stories/narratives associated with the element. In addition, traditional healing has historical, aesthetic, scientific, social, socio-economic, socio-political, and spiritual significance. Moreover, the assessment of practice exposed the condition/status of traditional healing, which is in danger because of the elderliness of the traditional healers and because no one is accepting the knowledge and practices. Furthermore, the constraint, threat, issue, or challenge experienced by the traditional healers is making false accusations against them. Nevertheless, traditional healers have identified several safeguarding measures in their traditional healing practice. These are transmission through informal education, identification, documentation, research, promotion, enhancement, and revitalization. Finally, sacred texts, books, pictures, prayers, and saints are the references or supporting documentation used in traditional healing. Based on the findings and conclusions, it is recommended to utilize the two research outputs: “Kaalaman at Kasanayan: Cultural Profile of Traditional Healers,” a booklet, and “Tanging Healing,” a documentary film about traditional healing for the preservation of local heritage, community development, and heritage education. (shrink)

The original purpose of the present study, 2011, started with a preprint «On the Probable Failure of the Uncountable Power Set Axiom», 1988, is to save from the transfinite deadlock of higher set theory the jewel of mathematical Continuum — this genuine, even if mostly forgotten today raison d’être of all traditional set-theoretical enterprises to Infinity and beyond, from Georg Cantor to David Hilbert to Kurt Gödel to W. Hugh Woodin to Buzz Lightyear.

This paper clarifies the significance of philosophy for traditional societies and modern societies and their evolution. In this paper ethics is the mainstream philosophy which studies and analyses the values of both the traditional societies and modern ones. This paper is only the ethical study of the traditional values and modern values. There are three ways to philosophize societies as traditional and modern: Ethical perspective, economical and theological, but this paper deals only with the ethical approach. (...) Philosophers from ancient to modern era played an important part in the transformation of traditional into modern. Morality and religion changed the mind of the nations towards development and ethical progress. In this article ancient philosophy, medieval philosophy, modern philosophy and others religious philosophies of India, china, and Muslim philosophies exercised key attempts to study traditional societies and modern societies. This paper highlights the factors that are responsible for the vices in traditional societies and also the elements that are productive for the promotion of modern societies. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss two attempts to challenge mainstream liberal education, by Hannah Arendt and by contemporary Israeli philosopher Hanan Alexander. Arendt and Alexander both identify problems in liberal-secular modern politics and present alternatives based on reconnecting politics and education to tradition. I analyze their positions and bring them into a dialogue that suggests a complex conception of education that avoids many of the pitfalls of modern liberal thought. First, I outline Arendt and Alexander’s educational views and discuss their (...) similarities, arguing that both may be understood as opposed to the modern attempt to adopt a «view from nowhere» at the world. Next, I suggest that Alexander’s view may benefit from adopting Arendt’s conceptions of tradition and authority. In the consecutive section, I argue that Alexander sheds light on significant problems in Arendt’s approach to education, problems his understanding of critical dialogue can help solve. The succeeding section joins the two views together to form an approach I call «critical traditionalism», and examines it against prevailing approaches to political education. I conclude by pointing to an important point overlooked by both Arendt and Alexander, namely the need for internal political struggle within each tradition. (shrink)

The paper is meant to introduce a symposium on aesthetics in Hungary today. Through a brief survey of the Hungarian aesthetic tradition, which goes back to the eclectic “university aesthetics” of the late 18 th century and produced a number of prominent figures such as Georg Lukács and his disciples in the “Budapest School” in the 20th century, the paper seeks to point out some key characteristics of this tradition and to reflect on the intellectual landscape of contemporary aesthetics in (...) Hungary, diversified by many fields of study, methods and subdisciplines. (shrink)

After generalizing the Archimedean property of real numbers in such a way as to make it adaptable to non-numeric structures, we demonstrate that the real numbers cannot be used to accurately measure non-Archimedean structures. We argue that, since an agent with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) should have no problem engaging in tasks that inherently involve non-Archimedean rewards, and since traditional reinforcement learning rewards are real numbers, therefore traditional reinforcement learning probably will not lead to AGI. We indicate two (...) possible ways traditional reinforcement learning could be altered to remove this roadblock. (shrink)