Using Martin Heidegger’s later philosophy as his springboard, Peter S. Dillard provides a radical reorientation of contemporary Christian theology. From Heidegger’s initially obscure texts concerning the holy, the gods, and the last god, Dillard extracts two possible non-metaphysical theologies: a theology of Streit and a theology of Gelassenheit. Both theologies promise to avoid metaphysical antinomies that traditionally hinder theology. After describing the strengths and weaknesses of each non-metaphysical theology, Dillard develops a Gelassenheit theology that ascribes a (...) definite phenomenology to the human encounter with divinity. This Gelassenheit theology also explains how this divinity can guide human action in concrete situations, remain deeply consonant with Christian beliefs in the Incarnation and the Trinity, and shed light on the Eucharist and Religious Vocations. Seminal ideas from Rudolf Otto and Ludwig Wittgenstein are applied at key points. Dillard concludes by encouraging others to develop an opposing Streit theology within the non-metaphysical, Heidegerrian framework he presents. (shrink)

Introduction -- Early Heidegger and scholasticism -- Heidegger's atheology of appropriation -- Heideggerian atheology and the Scotist causal argument -- Appropriation and the problem of sufficient comprehension -- Heidegger's atheology of nothingness -- Nothingness and the problem of possibility -- A positive application.

Deflationism about truth is the claim that the concept of truth is completely explicated by the disquotational view of truth, where the latter is the specification of a device of semantic ascent that avoids the semantical paradoxes. Over the last twenty years, the plausibility of deflationism has been intensely debated by philosophers of language. A number of writers have argued that even though deflationism is a coherent view, it is false. Some maintain that this is because a complete account of (...) truth must reduce truth to purely physical concepts but that the disquotational view of truth provides no such reduction. Others hold that there are important uses of the truth predicate that cannot be assimilated to its use as a device of semantic ascent. (shrink)

The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor encourages the study of many disciplines in order for the soul to acquire knowledge that aids in the restoration of human nature. However, according to Hugh's epistemology much of the acquired knowledge depends upon sensory qualities internalized as images which distract the soul and cause it to degenerate from its original unity. This essay explores the tension between Hugh's educational optimism and Hugh's epistemological pessimism. After considering and rejecting two unsuccessful strategies the soul (...) might pursue for avoiding degeneration and distraction, we shall utilize Hugh's non-representational conception of cognition to develop a plausible intellectual strategy. We shall also build upon some of Hugh's remarks about music to sketch a model of self-knowledge as a kind of proportionality in the soul. (shrink)

The Franciscan thesis maintains that the primary motive of the Incarnation is to glorify the triune God in the person of Jesus Christ: though Christ atones for human sins, his coming isn't relative to our need for redemption but rather has an absolute primacy. The Franciscan thesis is sometimes associated with the counterfactual claim that Christ would have come even if humans hadn't sinned. In recent work on the Franciscan thesis, an attempt is made to prove the counterfactual claim on (...) the basis of a purely logical argument drawn from the writings of Bl. John Duns Scotus. After showing that this proof fails, I construct an axiological argument for the Franciscan thesis that disentangles it from unsubstantiated counterfactual claims while respecting the subtle interplay between natural and revealed theology. I then provide a metaphysical interpretation of the axiological argument that builds upon Scotist notions. Seen through this interpretive lens, Scotus's logical argument can be understood not as attempting to prove a counterfactual claim but as articulating Scotus's vision of what is required of any created order that is radically contingent on God's will yet perfectly glorifies its Creator. Thus understood, the Franciscan thesis challenges a powerful and influential picture in philosophical theology. (shrink)

Mass incarceration has become a flashpoint in a number of recent political and public policy debates. Consensus about how to balance the just punishment of offenders with the humanitarian goal of providing inmates with genuine opportunities for reconciliation, rehabilitation, and reintegration into society is lacking. Unfortunately, a dualistic “us-versus-them” narrative surrounding these issues has become entrenched, occluding fruitful dialogue and obscuring our ability to see the detrimental effects that our nation’s punitive turn has created. In this essay, we affirm the (...) insights of Wacquant, Clear, and other sociologists and introduce a theological narrative of solidarity and vulnerability that undermines the “us-versus-them” dichotomy and opens up a path for cultivating a “we” community. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

I examine two arguments for the conclusion that thinking is not a physical process. James F. Ross argues that thinking is determinate in a manner that nopurely physical process can be. Peter Geach argues that thinking is a basic activity that, unlike basic physical processes, cannot be assigned a precise position in time. I present two objections to Ross’s argument. I then show that even if Geach’s argument avoids these objections, it is vulnerable to two other objections. I conclude (...) that neither argument establishes the immateriality of thinking. (shrink)

In The Logical Basis of Metaphysics, Dummett articulates and develops his “fundamental assumption” that the introduction rules for a logical constant determine its meaning. According to Dummett, logical laws in harmony with the introduction rules are justified, while logical laws not in harmony with the introduction rules are unjustified. This powerful picture enables Dummett to criticise certain aspects of our linguistic practice, such as the Law of Excluded Middle and the metaphysics of realism he believes it embodies, as not remaining (...) responsible to the meanings of the logical constants. Against Dummett's fundamental assumption, I bring to bear what in the Tractatus Wittgenstein describes as his “fundamental thought” that the logical constants do not represent. Properly understood, Wittgenstein's point is that since the logical constants may be eliminated from the propositional signs of a fully precise logical notation, the constants do not express meanings to which our use of expressions containing the constants is responsible. I then apply Wittgenstein's fundamental thought to Dummett's proof‐theoretic notation to show that far from determining the meanings of the logical constants, the introduction rules merely allow the constants to be edited from certain inferences, leaving Dummett with no semantic kernel with which to criticise other sentences or inferences featuring the constants. Thus, his picture of what it is to make clear the working of our language collapses. (shrink)

Drawing upon Saul Kripke’s discussion of rules, James F. Ross deduces the immateriality of thinking from the metaphysical determinacy of thinking and the metaphysical indeterminacy of any physical process. It has been objected that Ross does not establish the metaphysical indeterminacy of what function a physical process realizes, that Ross does not show the incoherence of a highly deflationary view of our talk about thinking, and that Ross opens up an unbridgeable gulf between sui generis thinking and behavior. Edward Feser (...) has recently defended Ross’s argument from these objections. The present paper explains why Ross’s argument remains vulnerable to all three objections. (shrink)

Drawing upon Saul Kripke’s discussion of rules, James F. Ross deduces the immateriality of thinking from the metaphysical determinacy of thinking and the metaphysical indeterminacy of any physical process. It has been objected that Ross does not establish the metaphysical indeterminacy of what function a physical process realizes, that Ross does not show the incoherence of a highly deflationary view of our talk about thinking, and that Ross opens up an unbridgeable gulf between sui generis thinking and behavior. Edward Feser (...) has recently defended Ross’s argument from these objections. The present paper explains why Ross’s argument remains vulnerable to all three objections. (shrink)

This essay argues that Hume's political and historical thought is well read as skeptical and skeptical in a way that roots it deeply in the Hellenistic traditions of both Pyrrhonian and Academical thought. It deploys skeptical instruments to undermine political rationalism as well as theologically and metaphysically political ideologies. Hume's is politics of opinion and appearance. It labors to oppose faction and enthusiasm and generate suspension, balance, tranquility, and moderation. Because Hume advocate the use of reflectively generated but epistemically and (...) metaphysically suspensive general rules, his political thought is not intrinsically conservative. While it valorizes stability and peace, Humean politics accepts a contested and open-ended political order, one that requires continuous maintenance and revision but does not pretend to any ultimate or final progress or end. (shrink)

A unique introductory guide to the rich, complex and diverse tradition of Islamic philosophy, this book comprises over a hundred concise entries, alphabetically ordered and cross-referenced for easy access. All the essential aspects of the Islamic philosophical tradition are covered here: key figures, schools, concepts, topics and issues. Articles on the Peripatetics, Isma'ilis, Illuminationists, Sufis, kalam theologians and later modern thinkers are supplemented by entries on classical Greek influences as well as Jewish philosophers who lived and worked in the Islamic (...) world. Topical entries cover various issues and key positions in all the major areas of philosophy, making clear why the central problems of Islamic philosophy have been, and remain, matters of rational disputation. (shrink)

This comparative examination of Nietzsche and the Islamic philosopher al-Kindi emphasizes their mutual commitment to the recovery of classical Greek and Hellenistic thought and the idea of philosophy as a way of life. Affiliating both thinkers with the Stoic lineage in particular, I examine the ways in which they appropriate common themes such as fatalism, self-cultivation via spiritual exercises, and the banishing of sorrow. Focusing primarily on their respective conceptions of self and nature, I argue that the antipodal worldviews of (...) al-Kindi and Nietzsche can be understood as a bifurcation of Stoic philosophy. (shrink)

This paper initiates a dialogue between classical Islamic philosophy and late modern European thought, by focusing on two peripheral, ‘heretical’ figures within these traditions: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyāʾ al-Rāzī and Friedrich Nietzsche. What affiliates these thinkers across the cultural and historical chasm that separates them is their mutual fascination with, and profound indebtedness to, ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy. Given the specific themes, concerns and doctrines that they appropriate from this common source, I argue that al-Rāzī and Nietzsche should (...) be read as Epicureans and seen in relation to their predecessor as part of the subterranean tradition of philosophical naturalism. However, while each figure appropriates the philosophy of Epicurus, they ultimately transform it in important ways: al-Rāzī offers us a qualified “Platonic” Epicureanism, while Nietzsche forges a radicalized “Dionysian” Epicureanism. The point of such a comparative examination is twofold. First, analyzing the divergent paths of these “wayward” Epicureans sheds new light on the historical trajectory of naturalism as a philosophical stance (as well as its current prospects and limitations). Second, by initiating a dialogue between the classical Islamic and modern European philosophical traditions, we can better understand the antagonisms and shared concerns between these two horizons, as well as the ambiguities and self-questioning that occur within them. (shrink)

Peter S. Fosl offers a radical interpretation of Hume as a thoroughgoing sceptic on epistemological, metaphysical and doxastic grounds. He first contextualises Hume's thought in the sceptical tradition and goes on to interpret the conceptual apparatus of his work - including the Treatise, Enquiries, Essays, History, Dialogues and letters.

We can think of the club not as a small business, but as a would‐be “anarchist‐syndicalist commune.” Anarcho‐syndicalism is a kind of anarchism based in labor unions, where workers take control of the economy not through a top‐down government bureaucracy but through revolutionary labor associations called “syndicates. The club resembles just such a syndicate: it's hierarchical, but, unlike capitalist enterprises, it is a democratically governed hierarchy. The state is essentially an instrument of class struggle and will gradually “wither away,” as (...) both the “anarchy” of capitalist markets and the centralized command economy are replaced with socialist anarchism. This chapter portrays the difference between Marxists and classical anarchists such as the French Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon and the Russian Peter Kropotkin, for whom the state should immediately be abolished. SAMCRO seems anarchistic in its principal economic relations, too, with decisions about production, distribution, and labor made by members of the MC collectively. (shrink)

This volume explores the many dimensions of the work of Joseph P. Fell. Drawing from continental sources such as Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre as well as North American thinkers such as John William Miller, Fell has secured a place as an enduring and important thinker within the tradition of phenomenological thought. Fell’s critical development of these strands of philosophy has resulted in a provocative and original challenge to complacent dualism and persistent problems of skepticism, alienation, and nihilism.

The Critical Thinking Toolkit is a comprehensive compendium that equips readers with the essential knowledge and methods for clear, analytical, logical thinking and critique in a range of scholarly contexts and everyday situations. Takes an expansive approach to critical thinking by exploring concepts from other disciplines, including evidence and justification from philosophy, cognitive biases and errors from psychology, race and gender from sociology and political science, and tropes and symbols from rhetoric Follows the proven format of The Philosopher’s Toolkit and (...) The Ethics Toolkit with concise, easily digestible entries, “see also” recommendations that connect topics, and recommended reading lists Allows readers to apply new critical thinking and reasoning skills with exercises and real life examples at the end of each chapter Written in an accessible way, it leads readers through terrain too often cluttered with jargon Ideal for beginning to advanced students, as well as general readers, looking for a sophisticated yet accessible introduction to critical thinking. (shrink)

Many philosophers are little devoted to the love of wisdom. In only a merely “academic” way do they aspire to intellectual virtue. Even less often do they exhibit qualities of moral excellence. On the contrary, many philosophers, or what pass as philosophers, are, sadly, better described as petty social climbers, meretricious snobs, and acquisitive consumerists.