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Proceedings of a conference held in Apr. 2008 in Washington, D.C.

Vaught identifies the place where religion and philosophy meet--and he does so in constant conversation with Augustine, Hegel, Heidegger and Jaspers. Vaught argues that both religious and philosophical discourse assume one of four modes: figurative, analytical, systematic, and analogical. Any real innovation occurs by moving from one mode of discourse to another. Vaught also explores the relationship among "space," "time," and "place" as well as "mystery," "power," and "structure." Remarkably, Vaught shows how the category of "place" serves as the (...) intersection of both triads. In the end, "place" is the orientation that guides the discussions of Being and God, where philosophy and religion are joined. (shrink)

Taking the important work of Grace Jantzen as its starting-point, this article challenges the dominant pan-metaphoricism of feminism philosophy of religion. Throughout, I defend an apophatic interpretation of analogy – analogy as a dynamic rhythm between affirmation and negation, praise and silence. I argue that Jantzen's negative position on apophaticism is related to her negative stance on the infinite ontological difference between creatures and creator. However, Jantzen's rejection of “traditional theology” is really, it is shown, a rejection (...) of “dialectical theology”. Without analogy, moreover, we are ironically left with a theology of dialectical opposition. By contrast, the way of analogy guarantees that there is no dichotomy between the divine and the human. The “logic” of analogy is one of no contrast. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 28, Number 1, April 2002, pp. 113-130 Bayesianism, Analogy, and Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion SALLY FERGUSON Introduction Analyses of the argument from design in Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion have generally treated that argument as an example of reasoning by analogy.1 In this paper I examine whether it is in accord with Hume's thinking about the argument to subsume the version (...) of it given in the Dialogues under the model of probabilistic reasoning offered by Bayes's theorem. Wesley Salmon attempted this project in 1978.2 In related projects, David Owen3 as well as Philip Dawid and Donald Gillies4 have more recently attempted to construct Bayesian analyses of Hume's argument concerning testimony in "Of Miracles." I want to be careful at this stage to note exactly what I will claim. It is not that Bayesian reasoning sheds no light on the argument from design, or on arguments concerning testimony. All of the analyses mentioned above are beneficial in that they have been able to expose subtleties in these arguments that had previously gone unnoticed. Salmon's paper, in particular, contributes nicely to an understanding of just how the design argument may function in relation to contemporary scientific reasoning. In this paper I argue that, nonetheless, the attempt to apply Bayesian reasoning to the argument as presented in the Dialogues is not well supported as a reconstruction of Hume's own approach to the argument from design. Sally Ferguson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of West Florida, UOOO University Parkway, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 114 Sally Ferguson There are two stages to my treatment of the issue. I begin by considering how much Hume knew of Bayes's theorem, and what consequence that knowledge might have had on his treatment of the argument in the Dialogues. This discussion includes a consideration of exactly what has been claimed by other authors on this subject, including what some have argued concerning Hume's reasonings in "Of Miracles," section 10 of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. I conclude that, based on the historical data, there is little reason to think of Hume's approach to the argument from design as anything more than proto-Bayesian at best. I then argue further, through a close textual analysis of the Dialogues, that there are good reasons for not treating Hume's reasoning there as even proto-Bayesian. In the end, the benefits that have been claimed for that approach, in terms of exposing both the subtleties of the argument and of Hume's reasoning about it, can equally well be derived from a careful analysis of the argument under a model of analogical reasoning, without need of Bayes's theorem. Section One Perhaps one might think that there is not much use for a consideration of the question whether Hume himself conceived of any of his arguments along specifically Bayesian lines. As Gower argues,5 Hume's knowledge of mathematics in general was fairly limited, and Bayes's theorem was not well known even up until Hume's death. It is important, therefore, for me to establish that there have not only been those who thought that Bayesian reasoning illuminates the arguments Hume gave, but also his own thinking about those arguments. It is also important for me to establish that it is not obvious that knowledge of Bayes's theorem did not affect Hume's reasonings. Each of these points will be addressed in the following. As to the first point, the claims of some authors on the subject are ambiguous. Dawid and Gillie, for example, make no statement to the effect that the probabilities involved in Bayes's theorem were in fact examined in "Of Miracles," nor do they attempt to produce any passages from Hume in support of that view. Thus it would be assumed that they see their attempt not as an attempt to provide an analysis that represents Hume's own approach to the argument, but rather simply as one that provides an illuminating method of analysis and support for an argument that Hume happened to give. Indeed, their conclusion, to the effect that a... (shrink)

Many scholars often use the terms “metaphors,” “analogies,” and “models” interchangeably and inadvertently overlook the uniqueness of each word. According to recent cognitive studies, the three terms involve distinct cognitive processes using features from a familiar concept and applying them to an abstract, complicated concept. In the field of science and religion, there have been various objects or ideas used as metaphors, analogies, or models to describe the science–religion relationship. Although these heuristic tools provided some understanding of the (...) complex interaction, they failed to address the broad nature of science and religion as well as the multifarious relationship between the two in a sociocultural context. Unlike the previous candidates, the concept of language, including the notions of linguistic worldview, linguistic identity, dialects, power, and bilingualism, offers a unique and comprehensive window through which science, religion, and the relationship between the two are seen with clarity. (shrink)

Carl Vaught wove together a number of papers he delivered on various occasions from 1969-2004 to produce this densely philosophical book, which thus may be taken to represent some of the fundamental issues that occupied the recently deceased Vaught during his prestigious career.

Utilizing the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, Rory Misiewicz argues for a new approach to the problem of theological language in Christian theology. This approach, the "analogy of signs," serves as a critical alternative to influential models of theological language based upon an analogy of being, grammatical analogy, or analogy of faith.

ABSTRACTThis article considers some analogies for religion which are so common in our ordinary language that they might pass without notice. I explore five in detail to show how each in different ways limits what we can say, and indeed think, about religion. By using multiple religious belonging as an example, I am able to compare the things we ordinarily say about religion with the complexities of real, lived religion and illustrate some of the ways in (...) which our analogies for religion fall short. Many of these analogies are so ‘natural’ – so deeply embedded in the ways ordinary language works – that without this specific attention, they can shape what can be said about religion without the speaker noticing. Often, this makes things which the sociological evidence shows people are getting on and doing, like practising multiple religious belonging, seem ‘impossible’ when we try to describe them. By paying attention to the analogies which underlie this sensation, I am able to show that a wider variety of analogies, used with more conscious attention, can be employed to allow us to think more clearly about complex lived religion, including multiple religious belonging. (shrink)

If God is transcendent, how can human beings speak meaningfully about him? The answer lies in analogy, which recognizes both similarity and dissimilarity between God and our God-talk. In his erudite study, Archie Spencer argues for a christological account of analogy as the answer to the problem of God's speakability.

Analogien lassen sich aus unserem vernünftigen Nachdenken und Argumentieren kaum wegdenken. Ganz zurecht stellen sie eines der klassischen Themen der Argumentationstheorie dar. Doch wie genau sollte die argumentative Rolle von Analogien in Argumentrekonstruktionen dargestellt werden? Das ist die Leitfrage dieses Beitrags. Zunächst wird mit Michael Dummetts Schach-Analogie ein prominentes Beispiel dargestellt und eine genauere Charakterisierung des Analogiebegriffs vorgeschlagen. Danach wird die gängigste Rekonstruktionsform von Analogien diskutiert, das Analogieargument, und in einigen Punkten verfeinert. Vor diesem Hintergrund schlägt der Beitrag eine zweite, (...) alternative Rekonstruktionsform vor, in der zwei analoge Argumente an die Stelle eines einzelnen Analogiearguments treten. Nachdem diese beiden Rekonstruktionsformen an einem weiteren berühmten Beispiel vorgeführt wurden, an Peter Singers Teich-Analogie, wird diskutiert, wie sich diese beiden Varianten gegenseitig ergänzen und welche Stärken und Schwächen sie haben. Es zeigt sich, dass Analogien nicht nur in Form von Analogieargumenten einen zentralen Topos eines Einzelarguments darstellen. Darüber hinaus kann die Untersuchung analoger Argumente bereits selbst als argumentationstheoretische Topik verstanden werden. (shrink)

An influential version of doxastic voluntarism claims that doxastic events such as belief-formations at least sometimes qualify as actions. William Alston has made a simple response to this claim by arguing on empirical grounds that in normal human agents intentions to form specific beliefs are simply powerless. However, despite Alston’s observation, various authors have insisted that belief-formations may qualify as voluntary in perfect analogy to certain types of actions or even to actions in general. I examine three analogy (...) arguments of this type and argue that they all fail. (shrink)

The article presents the question of understanding divine causality and its analogical character in the context of Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on Divine Providence. Analyzing Aquinas’s texts concerning the relation of God’s action towards nature and its activities it is necessary to emphasize the proper understanding of mutual relations between secondary causes and the primary cause which are not on the same level. Influenced by the reflection of M. Dodds and I Silva, the author of the article refers to Aquinas’s biblical (...) commentaries which have not been discussed so far from the perspective of the character of God’s action. In the final part of the article, metaphors used by Thomas in reference to the relation of God towards the world will be presented. (shrink)

It is widely believed today that John Duns Scotus’s doctrine of the univocity of being ushered in various deleterious philosophical and theological consequences that resulted in the negative features of modernity. Included in this common opinion, but not examined, is the belief that by affirming univocity Scotus thereby also denied the analogy of being. The present essay challenges this belief by recovering Scotus’s true position on analogy, namely that it obtains in the order of the real, and that (...) complex concepts of creatures are analogically related to complex concepts of God. Scotus’s doctrine is then compared to the later Scotist tradition. The common opinion of the Scotist school from the fourteenth century onward followed Scotus’s position on analogy and considerably expanded upon his scattered remarks. (shrink)

Introduction -- The mathematical roots of the concept of analogy -- Aristotle : the uses of analogy -- Aristotle : analogy and language -- Thomas Aquinas -- Immanuel Kant -- Karl Barth -- Final reflections.

First principles and the challenge of Parmenidean monism -- St. Thomas on analogia entis in the Scriptum super sententiis and in De veritate -- Consideration of objections to the view that the analogia entis is the analogy of proper proportionality -- The analogy of being and the transcendence and analogical intelligibility of the act of faith.

Cajetan's treatment of analogy in De Nominum Analogia is well known as the most influential and sophisticated theory of a central issue in Thomistic philosophy. The late twentieth century saw that theory subject to a family of criticisms. If the critics are correct, Cajetan's analogy theory is also significant historically for exposing weaknesses latent in medieval semantic assumptions. According to the critics, the Aristotelian assumptions that words signify by means of discrete “concepts,” and that the meaning of propositions (...) depends on the significations of its component terms, cannot do justice to the complexity, variety, and flexibility of actual human discourse; in De Nominum Analogia they see the elegant structure of classical semantics collapsing under the pressure of analogical language. In this article, I examine these criticisms of Cajetan's analogy theory, and argue that, in light of both Cajetan's semantic principles and his hermeneutic practice, they fall short. The conclusion not only implies a defense of Cajetan's project, but clarifies the general philosophical alternatives available within the traditional Aristotelian semantic framework. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on the important semantic components involved in analogy in hopes of providing an epistemic ground for predicating names of God analogously. To this task, I address a semantic/epistemic problem, which concludes that the doctrine of analogy lacks epistemological grounding insofar as it presupposes a prior understanding of God in order to sufficiently alter a given concept to be proportionate to God. In hopes of avoiding this conclusion, I introduce Aquinas’s specifically semantic aspects that (...) follow after the real distinction between a thing’s esse and its essence or form in the context of analogy and show that the ratio of a term can be altered in a way proportionate to a consideration of the mode of being of God. (shrink)

At the beginning of his influential De Nominum Analogia, Thomas de Vio Cajetan mentions three mistaken positions on analogy. He does not attach names to these positions, but each one was held by distinguished Thomists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Furthermore, their proponents were responding to the same set of challenges from John Duns Scotus that set the agenda for the De Nominum Analogia. In this paper, I would like to do something that Cajetan did not do, and (...) that is, directly consider the merits of the first position in his list of mistaken accounts of analogy; namely, the position that analogy is constituted by disjunction. More specifically, this paper investigates the polemical use for which Hervaeus Natalis deployed analogy of disjunction; the reply of John Duns Scotus; and the implications of this back and forth for understanding the Thomist-Scotist dispute over the concept of being. (shrink)

According to the parent analogy, as a caretaker’s goodness, ability and intelligence increase, the likelihood that the caretaker will make arrangements for the attainment of future goods that are unnoticed or underappreciated by their dependents also increases. Consequently, if this analogy accurately represents our relationship to God, then we should expect to find many instances of inscrutable evil in the world. This argument in support of skeptical theism has recently been criticized by Dougherty. I argue that Dougherty’s argument (...) is incomplete, for there are two plausible ways of construing the parent analogy’s conclusion. I supplement Dougherty’s case by offering a new argument against the parent analogy based on failed expectations concerning the amount of inscrutable evils encountered in the world. Consequently, there remains a significant empirical hurdle for skeptical theism to overcome if it is to maintain its status as a defeater for our reliability when tracking gratuitous evils. (shrink)

In the last decade there arose a debate between William P. Alston and Nicholas Wolterstorff on the subject of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of analogia—that is, the position that perfection terms, when properly predicated of God and of creatures, are distinct, yet related in meaning. Whereas Alston interprets Aquinas to hold this well-known position before criticizing it, Wolterstorff argues that Aquinas actually did not hold the position as it is usually presented. In this paper, I show why Alston’s “orthodox” interpretation is (...) more faithful to the letter of Aquinas’s text than is Wolterstorff’s “heterodoxy” and attempt to defuse Alston’s criticisms. (shrink)

A widely debated question in current research centres on determining the precursors to G. W. F. Hegel's theory of recognition. Until now Fichte, Rousseau and Aristotle have been discussed. However, the present paper analyses a further surprising correspondence between Marsilio Ficino's theory of love and Hegel's theory of recognition. Here it is shown that Hegel studied Ficino in 1793 and that we can discover syntactical, semantical, and structural vestiges of Ficino's De amore II 8 in Hegel's early fragments on (...) class='Hi'>religion (1793) and love (1797), which are closely related to the general theory of recognition found in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Not only may this thesis be relevant for Hegel or Ficino scholarship, but it could also be a further indication that social theories with normative content are an integral characteristic of (early) modern self-consciousness. (shrink)

In this essay, an attempt is made to formalize the idea of analogy in a way which is as faithful as possible to Thomas Aquinas’ theory of analogy. To accomplish this, we must first present Aquinas’ theory of analogy as it appears in his main works; we then express the contents of Aquinas’ theory of analogy using Leśniewski’s Ontology, a symbolic language which is both rigorous and true to the spirit of Aquinas’ philosophy. In doing this (...) we present definitions and theorems lying outside the scope of Leśniewski’s Elementary Ontology and we demostrate that the notion of “to be the definition of” is not an extensional functor. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Analogy of Grace: Karl Barth’s Moral Theology by Gerald McKenny, and: Christian Ethics as Witness: Barth’s Ethics for a World at Risk by David HaddorffVictor ThasiahThe Analogy of Grace: Karl Barth’s Moral Theology Gerald McKenny New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 310 pp. $120.00Christian Ethics as Witness: Barth’s Ethics for a World at Risk David Haddorff Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010. 482 pp. $54.00Karl Barth’s (...) theology remains a resource for Christian ethics. Let me suggest why. Instead of marginalizing or bracketing out consideration of divine agency, Barth presupposes God’s past, present, and future action; God’s inalienable subjectivity and indissoluble over-againstness in relationship (irreducible, for example, to ecclesial action); and God’s ongoing judgment of good and evil, and thus of moral thought and practice. These presuppositions determine the method, structure, content, and purpose of his theology and ethics. His concept of grace consists of God accomplishing the good in our place and on our behalf, a perspective more substantive than supplementary in nature. Finally, his eschatological view of human freedom involves resistance and responsibility—the freedom to resist evil (having been delivered from the determination of evil by grace) and the freedom to witness to God’s action in faith, love, and hope in the world. Barth’s work serves the field of Christian ethics well, burdened as we are by unprecedented global awareness with its challenges and uncertainties.Two new books on Barth’s theology and ethics seek to increase our understanding of his work and engage contemporary Christian moral thought and practice. Gerald McKenny’s The Analogy of Grace is now the indispensable guide to Barth’s ethics. His exposition is comprehensive, critical, and contextual as it relates Barth’s dogmatics to current academic work in Christian ethics and moral philosophy. The tradeoff, however, is that it pays insufficient attention to the ecclesial, cultural, and political contexts for embodying Barth’s ethics. McKenny makes an important contribution to our understanding of Barth’s work. By closely reading primary texts and secondary literature, McKenny shows that many of Barth’s critics and friends continue to misunderstand [End Page 192] him by resolving the unresolvable, airbrushing ambiguities and thus converting Barth’s “strange” ethics into a more conventional moral theory. McKenny argues that it is precisely the strangeness of Barth’s theology—with all its implications—that continues to challenge and contribute constructively to contemporary Christian ethics.What is so strange and significant about Barth’s work? For McKenny, it is Barth’s claim that “God resolves on the good from eternity in the determination of humanity in Jesus Christ to commission and service as active witnesses of God’s glory; fulfills it in time in the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, who performs this commission and service in place of all of humanity; and summons, empowers, and directs human beings in every time to correspond to this fulfillment in their conduct” (288). Thus, our action should be modeled on God’s action; it should be an analogy of grace. “The telos of God’s grace is realized,” McKenny concludes, “when human beings in their action become the image of God” (208). The Analogy of Grace traces the way Barth develops this ontological and analogical vision as McKenny differentiates Barth’s work from modern theories that presuppose that people are relatively capable of knowing and doing the good.McKenny suggests that there is a possible deficiency in the way Barth’s account of divine agency determines the form and content of his theology and ethics. Barth’s consistent opposition to moral theories that emphasize observable signs of moral progress in either self or society results in the “liability” of the “extraordinarily qualified affirmation he gives to visible human goodness” (223). McKenny asks if Barth “does justice to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives” and “can make sense of the participation of our action in God’s action or of the way in which the Holy Spirit accomplishes this participation” (223). In other words, Barth’s “extraordinarily qualified affirmation” might neglect the work of the Spirit in... (shrink)

The Principle of Analogy. ABSTRACT. Sceptics question whether ‘distinctively human’ predicates such as ‘just’, ‘loving’ and ‘powerful’ can intelligibly be attributed to a divine being. If not, then a vicious form of agnosticism seems to threaten orthodox theism. Especially if one assumes a broadly empiricist semantics the challenge, whether formulated in terms of a univocal or an equivocal understanding of predicates, seems to generate intractable philosophical problems. Aquinas’ theory of analogical predication, understood either in terms of ‘analogy duorum (...) ad tertium’ or in terms of ‘analogy unus ad alterum’, is an influential response to this sceptical challenge. Difficulties in each understanding are explored and it is suggested that a more fruitful framework for understanding theistic language is to be found in late 20th century nativism of Fodor and Quine. (shrink)

The great religions often claim that their books or creeds contain truths revealed by God. How could we know that they do? In the second edition of Revelation, renowned philosopher of religion Richard Swinburne addresses this central question. But since the books of great religions often contain much poetry and parable, Swinburne begins by investigating how eternal truth can be conveyed in unfamiliar genres, by analogy and metaphor, within false presuppositions about science and history. In the final part (...) of the book, Swinburne then applies the results of Parts I and II to assessing the evidence that the teaching of the Christian Church constitutes a revelation from God. -/- In the course of his philosophical exploration, Swinburne considers how the church which Jesus founded is to be identified today and presents a sustained discussion of which passages in the Bible should be understood literally and which should be understood metaphorically. -/- This is a fuller and entirely rewritten second edition of Revelation, the most notable new feature of which is a long chapter examining whether traditional Christian claims about personal morality (divorce, homosexuality, abortion, etc.) can be regarded as revealed truths. A formal appendix shows how the structure of evidence supporting the Christian revelation can be articulated in terms of the probability calculus (and shows that Plantinga's well-known argument from 'dwindling probabilities' against probabilistic arguments of this kind is not cogent). (shrink)

I argue that Stephen Wykstra’s much discussed Parent Analogy is helpful in responding to the evidential problem of evil when it is expanded upon from a positive skeptical theist framework. This framework, defended by John Depoe, says that although we often remain in the dark about the first-order reasons that God allows particular instances of suffering, we can have positive second-order reasons that God would create a world with seemingly gratuitous evils. I respond to recent challenges to the Parent (...) Analogy by arguing that God, like a good parent, wants a rightly ordered relationship of mutual love with created beings. (shrink)

Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Dialogues 1–11 discuss religion’s foundation in human reason. Dialogue 12, in which Philo. the relentless opponent of pro-theistic arguments, makes his “confession” that he embraces natural religion; namely, the view that the cause or causes of order in nature bear some remote analogy to human intelligence. Hume’s Natural History of Religion, although published earlier than the posthumous Dialogues, is, in effect, a second volume to them. It presents a complex naturalistic (...) explanation of religion’s origin in human nature, providing a sophisticated account of religion’s origin that is also a critique of religious belief. The core of this critique is an argument that theistic belief cannot be rendered so as to significantly differ from an atheism that grants that natural order has some cause or other. (shrink)