Originally pulished in 2000, In Search of First Century Christianity contends that Christianity in the first century had no founder but rather evolved as a convergence of many forces: political disillusionment, cultural mutations, religious and theological motifs, psychosocial losses and new expectations. Moving on from an examination of the foundations of historical and literary criticism in the Renaissance, and a detailed study of two writers in antiquity, Thucydides and Chariton, to examine writings in the period between Plato and the Gospel (...) of Mark, the authors then explore the writing of Paul and the stories told in the Gospels. With the early Christians drawing from both Greek and Hebrew sources, Barnhart and Kraeger propose that, like Plato, Paul and other Christians generated an "anti-tragic theatre" gospel with the Jesus figure being the creation of a culture steeped in an anthropomorphic, metaphysical view of the world. (shrink)

This work looks at the ontology of personalism in his major fiction and opens a door to a fresh understanding of Dostoevsky's version of the origin of human evil. In his philosophical novels, Dostoevski's view of original conflict and inevitable evil goes far beyond Augustine, Pelagius, and Luther. The authors are the first to build a case for viewing Dostoevsky as a philosophical personalist whose approach to nature provides insight to ecologists. They offer a radically new analysis of the themes (...) of suffering, incarnation, and atonement that will appeal to both psychologists and students of religion and theology. The section on atonement and its relation to the classical theory of tragedy breaks new ground. (shrink)

An essay exploring various manifestations of anthropomorphism in history and possible explanations of why it endures.

This book seeks a conception of God that will sastisfy inquiring twentieth-century minds. Carefully, it sorts out the evidence that has been given for the existence of a deity -- the word of Sacred Scriptures, the logical proofs of Anselm and others, and the witness of those who claim mystical experience -- and separates what can be believed from what cannot. It then explores what this deity could be like. Can we credit the all-powerful Calvinist and Islamic God who is (...) above and separate from his creation? The author seeks further -- on to the more subtly-conceived Gods of Spinoza, Kierkegaard, and such philosophers of our own time as A.N. Whitehead, E.S. Brightman, and Charles Hartshorne. Many topics of particular interest today -- "paranormal" phenomena; miraculous healing and exorcism; drugs, psychosurgery, and brain-washing; and ideas on karma -- are brought in as the author proceeds to his stimulating conclusions. [Back cover]. (shrink)

The problem of self-determination in the dying process confronts a dilemma regarding clients’ desire to know and not to know. Ambivalence and guilt make “free choice” problematic in choosing the way to die. Telling dying clients the “whole truth” about their condition is an art or skill. The question of a meaningful death raises questions that philosophical analysis can help clarify.

The book provides a practical guide to the application of Critical Realism (CR), an increasingly popular philosophy of social science, in empirical research projects. Each purpose-written chapter reviews major social science research methods and contains extended illustration of how to conduct inquiry using CR.

When Milan Kundera introduces the concept of graphomania, he seems to register only two extremes: the person who writes for a few known people and the person who writes for a very large audience. Joe Horton’s all-or-nothing problem provides a way of making sense of this conceptualization of the situation, though in a way that breaks with Kundera’s emphasis on a writer’s craving for audience attention.

Joe Horton’s all-or-nothing problem concerns a situation in which it is morally permissible to do nothing and to save two people but not to save only one. This description seems to entail that we should do nothing rather than save only one. I object to Horton’s solution and challenge a principle he draws attention to, which is required to generate the problem but which Horton regards as beyond dispute.

This paper presents what I call “the flowchart solution” to Joe Horton’s all-or-nothing problem. Rather than three options – don’t save any child, save one, or save two – there is a flowchart with a choice of don’t save or save, and then within save, save one or save two.

In this unique study of the process of filmmaking, director Edward Dmytryk blends abstract film theory and the practical realities of feature film production to provide an artful and elegant analysis of the conceptual foundations of filmmaking and film studies. Dmytryk explores the technical principles underlying the craft of filmmaking and how their use is effective in developing the viewer's involvement in the cinematic narrative. Originally published in 1988, this reissue of Dmytryk's classic book includes a new critical introduction (...) by Joe McElhaney. (shrink)

David Gauthier and Edward McClennen have claimed that it could be rational to form an intention to A because it maximizes utility to intend to A, and that acting on such an intention could be rational even if it maximizes utility not to A. Michael Bratman has objected to this way of thinking, claiming that it is equivalent to the familiar rule-utilitarian mistake of rule-worship. The purpose of this paper is to argue that, so long as one is aware (...) at the time of forming an intention to A that it maximizes utility not to A, then acting on that intention need not be rule worship, but the result of a rational refusal to reconsider an issue which has already been adequately considered. (shrink)

The all-or-nothing problem, formulated by Joe Horton, presents us with a situation in which you can do nothing or save one child or save two. It is dangerous to save any, making doing nothing morally permissible, but there is no extra danger in saving two, so it seems wrong to just save one. But then doing nothing is morally better than saving one. I present a solution in response to this problematic result, which is that doing nothing is not an (...) accurate description of a permissible option. (shrink)

Joe Sachs has a refreshing and unusual view of Aristotle's Physics: he thinks that it is a physics. In contrast, most recent writers have seen the work as an exposition of the way nature is spoken and thought about, as metaphysics, or as an anticipation of modern physics. The reason the work is often misunderstood, Sachs maintains, is that translators render it into meaningless terms rooted in medieval Latin translations. Aristotle's own "philosophic vocabulary is... incapable of dogmatic use" because he (...) takes his terms "from the simplest content of everyday speech, the kind of language that is richest in meaning and most firmly embedded in experience and imagination". Sachs thinks that replacing the technical vocabulary traditionally used to translate Aristotle's terms with ordinary speech will, by itself, insure that readers not only think about something but think about "the very things he intended". Thus, Greek terms usually rendered as "essence," "substance," and "actuality" become here, respectively, "what it is for something to be," "thinghood," and either "being-at-work" or "being-at-work-staying-itself". Also, instead of the traditional names for the categories, Sachs uses more literal translations like "of-this-kind" and "so much"; and to avoid the modern connotations of "matter," he translates the term hulê as "material." All this leads to a certain awkwardness that is intended to mirror the original: Sachs wants readers to pause over difficult concepts and, thus, to use the text to spur philosophical thinking. To the same end, he attempts to follow the syntax of the Greek text, and he thinks that he can capture Aristotle's meaning better by not always rendering a technical term the same way. The translation is supplemented by two- to four-page commentaries, one or two per book of the Physics, and also by an introduction describing his principles of translation as well as the content and perspective of the Physics, a note explaining the internal relations of some of Aristotle's terms, and a useful Glossary detailing usages of individual terms. Four "digressive" chapters, deemed too technical for "a first study," are placed in an appendix. (shrink)

I introduce an argument for rejecting Joe Horton’s all-or-nothing problem on the grounds that saving one child is not a genuine option for most people.

I consider a proposal for what the relation between philosophy and fiction is: the same problems appear in both, but fiction explores solutions which are not available to philosophers. I use Joe Horton’s all-or-nothing problem to illustrate the proposal, but pose an objection to it.

Establishing acceptable norms of behavior and consistent standards of conduct has been part of the human enterprise since the dawn of time. Without principles of ethics and the moral rules that affect individual behavior, humankind would plunge into a state of chaotic indifference, insecurity, and unending fear. But while few question the need for moral guidance, a growing number of people believe that the only ethic worth considering must rest on a biblical foundation. Is morality dependent upon God and "revealed (...) truths" found in scripture? Must this claim be accepted without question lest we risk the torment of eternal damnation for questioning it? Without critical evaluation and careful scrutiny, there is little hope of distinguishing truth from unfounded belief. How valuable is the Bible as a source for ethical truth? Do the scriptures truly have the insight needed to guide humankind safely through the moral dilemmas of modern society? What constitutes a biblical ethic? Should the Bible be construed as the only basis for moral teaching? Is it really the final authority on moral issues, or are there secular alternatives that can serve as guides to acceptable conduct within the human community? A distinguished group of social philosophers, biblical scholars, and ethicists met at the University of Richmond, Virginia, under the aegis of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion and its Biblical Criticism Research Project, to address these and related questions. The essays in this provocative work demonstrate a diversity of perspective and breadth of insight that will shed much needed light on the nature of ethics. The contributors to this volume include: Robert S. Alley, Joe Edward Barnhart, Joseph L. Blau, Frank E. Eakin, Jr., Lewis S. Feuer, Joseph Fletcher, Theodor H. Gaster, James H. Hall, R. Joseph Hoffmann, Paul Kurtz, Gerald A. Larue, John Priest, Ellis Rivkin, Richard L. Rubenstein, and Richard Taylor. (shrink)

Does metacognition--the capacity to self-evaluate one's cognitive performance--derive from a mindreading capacity, or does it rely on informational processes? Joëlle Proust draws on psychology and neuroscience to defend the second claim. She argues that metacognition need not involve metarepresentations, and is essentially related to mental agency.

Policymakers who seek to make scientifically informed decisions are constantly confronted by scientific uncertainty and expert disagreement. This thesis asks: how can policymakers rationally respond to expert disagreement and scientific uncertainty? This is a work of non-ideal theory, which applies formal philosophical tools developed by ideal theorists to more realistic cases of policymaking under scientific uncertainty. I start with Bayesian approaches to expert testimony and the problem of expert disagreement, arguing that two popular approaches— supra-Bayesianism and the standard model of (...) expert deference—are insufficient. I develop a novel model of expert deference and show how it can deal with many of these problems raised for them. I then turn to opinion pooling, a popular method for dealing with disagreement. I show that various theoretical motivations for pooling functions are irrelevant to realistic policymaking cases. This leads to a cautious recommendation of linear pooling. However, I then show that any pooling method relies on value judgements, that are hidden in the selection of the scoring rule. My focus then narrows to a more specific case of scientific uncertainty: multiple models of the same system. I introduce a particular case study involving hurricane models developed to support insurance decision-making. I recapitulate my analysis of opinion pooling in the context of model ensembles, confirming that my hesitations apply. This motivates a shift of perspective, to viewing the problem as a decision theoretic one. I rework a recently developed ambiguity theory, called the confidence approach, to take input from model ensembles. I show how it facilitates the resolution of the policymaker’s problem in a way that avoids the issues encountered in previous chapters. This concludes my main study of the problem of expert disagreement. In the final chapter, I turn to methodological reflection. I argue that philosophers who employ the mathematical methods of the prior chapters are modelling. Employing results from the philosophy of scientific models, I develop the theory of normative modelling. I argue that it has important methodological conclusions for the practice of formal epistemology, ruling out popular moves such as searching for counterexamples. (shrink)