Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power (...) is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism. (shrink)

Collapse is a term that has attracted much attention in social science literature in recent years, but there remain substantial areas of disagreement about how it should be understood in historical contexts. More specifically, the use of the term collapse often merely serves to dramatize long-past events, to push human actors into the background, and to mystify the past intellectually. At the same time, since human societies are complex systems, the alternative involves grasping the challenges that a holistic analysis presents, (...) taking account of the many different levels and paces at which societies function, and developing appropriate methods that help to integrate science and history. Often neglected elements in considerations of collapse are the perceptions and beliefs of a historical society and how a given society deals with change; an important facet of this, almost entirely ignored in the discussion, is the understanding of time held by the individuals and social groups affected by change; and from this perspective ‘collapse’ depends very much on perception, including the perceptions of the modern commentator. With this in mind, this article challenges simplistic notions of ‘collapse’ in an effort to encourage a more nuanced understanding of the impact and process of both social and environmental change on past human societies. (shrink)

Chez Paul Tillich, le concept de Dieu s’oppose au modèle « interventionniste » du théisme traditionnel en Occident. Cet article se propose de déterminer si, et en quel sens, d’après Tillich, on peut dire que Dieu agit pour influencer le cours des événements historiques. On soutient que son concept de « pouvoir Spirituel » fournit une réponse à cette question. Pour clarifier cette thèse, on explore les concepts d’esprit, de pouvoir, de sens, de vocation, de kairos et de renoncement au (...) pouvoir. Selon Tillich, la vocation de groupes sociaux déterminés est animée d’un pouvoir divin conférant tout ensemble un don et une tâche. Pour les chrétiens, la vocation de Jésus le Christ, qui consiste à proclamer la venue du Royaume de Dieu comme le sens ultime de l’histoire, constitue le critère permettant de juger les vocations concrètes. Dieu agit en offrant un sens, qui doit être choisi et réalisé. (shrink)

Institutional explanations have been, and continue to be, one of the most important means of understanding the choices made by governments and other actors in society. This four volume set brings together a collection of the key readings in institutional theory and its applications to political phenomena. Although the principal focus of these readings is on institutional theory based in political science, articles from other disciplines that have been central to the development of theory in this discipline, or that have (...) substantial relevance for political phenomena, have also been included. Forming part of the SAGE Library of Political Science, this set contains a substantial overall introduction and conclusion as well as shorter introductions to each Part. It is an essential purchase for social science libraries around the world. (shrink)

volume 1. Developing institutional theory -- volume 2. New research agendas -- volume 3. Applying institutional theory.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Review Essay:Aquinas, Modern Theology, and the TrinityGuy Mansini O.S.B.As one would expect from his Incarnate Lord, Thomas Joseph White's Trinity is no exercise in historical theology, although of course it calls on history, but aims to give us St. Thomas's theology as an enduring and so contemporary theology that both respects the creedal commitments of the Catholic Church and offers a more satisfying understanding of the Trinity than anything (...) proposed by the great theologians, Catholic and Protestant, of the past hundred years.1 The Trinity, however, gives a more complete and satisfying view of its subject than does The Incarnate Lord.Can St. Thomas really be fruitfully located within the dialectic of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Trinitarian speculation? Yes, and it is one of White's principal contributions to show how St. Thomas's medieval contemporaries, the early Franciscans on the one hand and William of Ockham on the other, remotely but really adumbrate nineteenth- and twentieth-century theological positions, once due attention is paid to the key issues of the analogical naming of God and his knowability. The reader is thus assured that Aquinas's original project was composed with some awareness of temptations and alternatives repeated (though not exactly, of course) in modern thought. It should be added that St. Thomas is by no means treated as the only systematic theological authority for Trinitarian theology, but White recognizes his paradigmatic place in the Catholic theological tradition. [End Page 1415]The most important issue for assessing the enduring value of Thomas's Trinitarian theology, then, whether in the thirteenth century or twentieth century, turns out to be the applicability and centrality of the psychological analogy for an understanding of the immanent intelligibility of the Trinity, an analogy suggested by Scripture, and developed by the Cappadocians, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and other medieval writers, not to mention John Henry Newman and Matthias J. Scheeben.What is the status of this analogy? Olivier-Thomas Venard laconically describes it as "revealed"—too hot. Michael Maria Waldstein has recently argued vigorously and at length that it is not revealed at all—too cold. White does not discuss this in detail but is satisfied with saying that it is "derived" from Scripture—just right. However one thinks this question is to be resolved, White robustly defends the psychological analogy as a proper analogy and as the only systematic theological instrument ever offered by the theological tradition that succeeds in providing real understanding of the immanent life of the Trinity, one that preserves the transcendence of God and honors the dogmatic tradition of the Church bearing on the nature of God and the Trinity of persons—Nicaea, Lateran IV, and Vatican I, especially. This is how he does it in chapter 22.1. We know the mystery of interior Trinitarian life based on God's manifestation of it to us in the economy of salvation via the missions of Word and Spirit, which disclose to us distinct personal processions.2. Such processions are either immanent or transitive.3. But transitive processions terminate in some substance distinct from whence they emanate.4. God, however, is one in nature (essence, substance) both specifically and numerically.5. Therefore, the processions are immanent to the godhead.6. However, there are only two immanent immaterial activities known to us, that of knowing and that of loving.7. Therefore, we cannot have some understanding of the mystery of interior Trinitarian life except by analogy with these two [End Page 1416] activities. That is to say, we know the mystery of the Trinitarian life according to the "psychological model" or not at all.This argument can be re-phrased with more pointed reference to modern theologies of the Trinity.1. If we wish to understand the mystery of the immanent Trinitarian life of distinct persons, but not by way of immanent activities and processions, then we must appeal to transitive activity to account for the distinction of persons.2. Transitive divine activity can be conceived of (1) as creative, (2) as within creation relative to its history (the continental way), or (3) as taking place between three already constituted divine individuals, relating transitively to one... (shrink)

The lack of moral conscience in contemporary society is frequently noted and lamented, but how valid is the idea of "conscience" today? Does it have a referent, or is the concept merely rhetorical? Guyton B. Hammond proposes in this book that the concept is valid, but that for its utopian possibilities to be recovered it must be revised.

In the 1760s, the international debate on the solution to determining longitude at sea is at its acme. Two solutions emerge, the mechanical and the astronomical ones. The Portuguese mathematician and astronomer José Monteiro da Rocha (1734–1819) is well aware of that debate. For him, Harrison’s No. 4 marine timekeeper cannot be seen as a solution. The desirable solution could only be astronomical. In a manuscript from c. 1765, which unfortunately he fails to publish, Monteiro da Rocha is very critical (...) of Lacaille's lunar-distance method (1759) and proposes another one. In this paper, we intend to analyse Monteiro da Rocha’s criticisms and proposals, trying to understand how this manuscript fits into the international longitude debate and the Portuguese scientific scenario at the time. Concurrently, we will re-examine the classical historiography around the English vs. French priority proposal of the lunar-distance method, purging it from its mythologies to shift it towards a more open, less linear history. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

What does political science tell us about important real-world problems and issues? And to what extent does and can political analysis contribute to solutions? This is the challenge addressed by leading political scientists in this original text which will be essential reading for students and scholars alike.

This book shows the surprising dynamism of the field of civil procedure through its examination of a cross section of recent developments within civil procedure from around the world. It explores the field through specific approaches to its study, within specific legal systems, and within discrete sub-fields of civil procedure. The book reflects the latest research and conveys the dynamism and innovations of modern civil procedure - by field, method and system. The book's introductory chapters lay the groundwork for researchers (...) to appreciate the flux and change within the field. The concluding chapters bring the many different identified innovations and developments together to show the field's ability to adapt to modern circumstances, while retaining its coherence even across different legal systems, traditions, fields and analytic approaches. Specifically, in this book the presence of dynamism is explored in the legal systems of the EU, France, the US, Brazil, Australia, the UK and China. So too that dynamism is explored in the contributions' analyses and discussions of the changes or need for change of specific aspects of civil procedure including litigation costs, class actions, derivative actions, pleadings, and res judicata. Furthermore, most of the individual contributions may be considered to be comparative analyses of their respective subjects and, when considered as a whole, the book presents the dynamism of civil procedure in comparative perspective. Those discrete and aggregated comparative analyses permit us to better understand the dynamism in civil procedure - for change in the abstract can be less visible and its significance and impact less evident. While similar conclusions may have been drawn through examinations in isolation, employing comparative analytic methods provided a richer analysis and any identified need for change is correspondingly advanced through comparative analysis. Furthermore, if that analysis leads to a conclusion that change is necessary then comparative law may provide pertinent examples for such change - as well as methodologies for successfully transplanting any such changes. In other words, as this book so well reflects, comparative law may itself usefully contribute to dynamism in civil procedure. This has long been a raison d'être of comparative law and, as clear from this book's contributions, in this particular time and field of study we find that it is very likely to achieve its lofty promise. (shrink)

Institutionalism has become one of the dominant strands of theory within contemporary political science. Beginning with the challenge to behavioral and rational choice theory issued by March and Olsen, institutional analysis has developed into an important alternative to more individualistic approaches to theory and analysis. This body of theory has developed in a number of ways, and perhaps the most commonly applied version in political science is historical institutionalism that stresses the importance of path dependency in shaping institutional behaviour. The (...) fundamental question addressed in this book is whether institutionalism is useful for the various sub-disciplines within political science to which it has been applied, and to what extent the assumptions inherent to institutional analysis can be useful for understanding the range of behavior of individuals and structures in the public sector. The volume will also examine the relative utility of different forms of institutionalism within the various sub-disciplines. The book consists of a set of strong essays by noted international scholars from a range of sub-disciplines within the field of political science, each analyzing their area of research from an institutionalist perspective and assessing what contributions this form of theorizing has made, and can make, to that research. The result is a balanced and nuanced account of the role of institutions in contemporary political science, and a set of suggestions for the further development of institutional theory. (shrink)

This paper responds to the commentaries from Stacy Carter and Alan Cribb. We pick up on two main themes in our response. First, we reflect on how the process of setting standards for empirical bioethics research entails drawing boundaries around what research counts as empirical bioethics research, and we discuss whether the standards agreed in the consensus process draw these boundaries correctly. Second, we expand on the discussion in the original paper of the role and significance of the concept of (...) ‘integrating’ empirical methods and ethical argument as a standard for research practice within empirical bioethics. (shrink)

The effects of research ethics training on medical students' attitudes about clinical research are examined. A preliminary randomized controlled trial evaluated 2 didactic approaches to ethics training compared to a no-intervention control. The participant-oriented intervention emphasized subjective experiences of research participants (empathy focused). The criteria-oriented intervention emphasized specific ethical criteria for analyzing protocols (analytic focused). Compared to controls, those in the participant-oriented intervention group exhibited greater attunement to research participants' attitudes related to altruism, trust, quality of relationships with researchers, desire (...) for information, hopes about participation and possible therapeutic misconception, importance of consent forms, and deciding quickly about participation. The participant-oriented group also agreed more strongly that seriously ill people are capable of making their own research participation decisions. The criteria-oriented intervention did not affect learners' attitudes about clinical research, ethical duties of investigators, or research participants' decision making. An empathy-focused approach affected medical students' attunement to research volunteer perspectives, preferences, and attributes, but an analytically oriented approach had no influence. These findings underscore the need to further examine the differential effects of empathy-versus analytic-focused approaches to the teaching of ethics. (shrink)

The effects of research ethics training on medical students' attitudes about clinical research are examined. A preliminary randomized controlled trial evaluated 2 didactic approaches to ethics training compared to a no-intervention control. The participant-oriented intervention emphasized subjective experiences of research participants. The criteria-oriented intervention emphasized specific ethical criteria for analyzing protocols. Compared to controls, those in the participant-oriented intervention group exhibited greater attunement to research participants' attitudes related to altruism, trust, quality of relationships with researchers, desire for information, hopes about (...) participation and possible therapeutic misconception, importance of consent forms, and deciding quickly about participation. The participant-oriented group also agreed more strongly that seriously ill people are capable of making their own research participation decisions. The criteria-oriented intervention did not affect learners' attitudes about clinical research, ethical duties of investigators, or research participants' decision making. An empathy-focused approach affected medical students' attunement to research volunteer perspectives, preferences, and attributes, but an analytically oriented approach had no influence. These findings underscore the need to further examine the differential effects of empathy-versus analytic-focused approaches to the teaching of ethics. (shrink)

Applied Christian Ethics addresses selected themes in Christian social ethics. Part one shows the roots of contributors in the realist school; part two focuses on different levels of the significance of economics for social justice; and part three deals with both existential experience and government policy in war and peace issues.

Thomas Jefferson and Philosophy: Essays on the Philosophical Cast of Jefferson’s Writings is a collection of essays on topics that relate to philosophical aspects of Jefferson’s thinking over the years. Much historical insight is given to ground the various philosophical strands in Jefferson’s thought and writing on topics such as political philosophy, moral philosophy, slavery, republicanism, wall of separation, liberty, educational philosophy, and architecture.

Games and simulations--from quantitative modeling to immersive, experiential scenarios--as methods for engagement within futures studies have a substantial history. In recent years, there has been a surge of projects using a wide array of tools. As practitioners and researchers have gravitated toward more playful approaches, there is a need to review and evaluate such approaches. This chapter provides an introduction to gaming and simulations as anticipatory processes. Offering a snapshot of contemporary projects from around the world, this chapter utilizes a (...) range of voices and perspectives on gaming and simulations to explore how such tools and methods use the future. (shrink)

On 18–19 May 2018, a symposium was held in the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Ronald W. Hepburn (1927–2008). The speakers at this event discussed Hepburn’s oeuvre from several perspectives. For this book, the collection of the revised versions of their talks has been supplemented by the papers of other scholars who were unable to attend the symposium itself. Thus this volume contains contributions from (...) eighteen notable scholars of different disciplines, ranging from contemporary aesthetics and art theory through to philosophical approaches to religion, education and social anthropology. It also includes a bibliography of Hepburn’s writings. The essays were first published in two special issues of the Journal of Scottish Thought, vols. 10–11 (2018–2019). -/- Ronald William Hepburn was born in Aberdeen on 16 March 1927. He went to Aberdeen Grammar School, then he graduated with an M.A. in Philosophy (1951) and obtained his doctorate from the University of Aberdeen (1955). His tutor at Aberdeen was Donald MacKinnon (1913– 1994), a Scottish philosopher and theologian, the author of A Study in Ethical Theory (1957) and The Problem of Metaphysics (1974). Hepburn taught as Lecturer at the Department of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen (1956–60), and he was also Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at New York University (1959–60). He returned from the United States as Professor of Philosophy at Nottingham University. In 1964, he was appointed as a Chair in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and between 1965 and 1968 he was also Stanton Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. From 1975 until his retirement in 1996, he held the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. He died in Edinburgh on 23 December 2008. His philosophical interests ranged from theology and the philosophy of religion through moral philosophy and the philosophy of education to art theory and aesthetics. Notably, Hepburn is widely regarded as the founder of modern environmental and everyday aesthetics as a result of the influence of papers in the 1960s which pioneered a new approach to the aesthetics of the natural world. (shrink)

The Continuous Parameter Estimation Model is applied to develop individual genomic-level heritabilities for the latent hierarchical structure and developmental dynamics of Life History (LH) strategy LH strategies relate to the allocations of bioenergetic resources into different domains of fitness. LH has moderate to high population-level heritability in humans, both at the level of the high-order Super-K Factor and the lower-order factors, the K-Factor, Covitality Factor, and General Factor of Personality (GFP). Several important questions remain unexplored. We developed measures of genome-level (...) heritabilities employing an American sample of 316 monozygotic (MZ) and 274 dizygotic (DZ) twin dyads and a Swedish sample of 863 MZ and 475 DZ twin dyads. This novel heritability index measures individual genetic transmissibility, therefore opening new avenues for analyzing complex interactions among heritable traits inaccessible to standard structural equations methods. For these samples: (1) moderate to high heritability of factor loadings of Super-K on its lower-order factors is demonstrated, evidencing biological preparedness, genetic accommodation, and the gene-culture coevolution of biased epigenetic rules of development; (2) moderate to high heritability of the magnitudes of the effect of the higher-order factors upon their loadings on their constituent factors, evidencing genetic constraints upon phenotypic plasticity; and (3) that heritability of the LH factors, of factor loadings, and of the magnitudes of the correlations among factors are weaker among those with slower LH speeds, demonstrating that inter-individual variation in transmissibility is a function of individual socioecological selection pressures. (shrink)

A growing body of evidence suggests that cognition is embodied and grounded. Abstract concepts, though, remain a significant theoretical chal- lenge. A number of researchers have proposed that language makes an important contribution to our capacity to acquire and employ concepts, particularly abstract ones. In this essay, I critically examine this suggestion and ultimately defend a version of it. I argue that a successful account of how language augments cognition should emphasize its symbolic properties and incorporate a view of embodiment (...) that recognizes the flexible, multi- modal and task-related nature of action, emotion and perception systems. On this view, language is an ontogenetically disruptive cognitive technology that expands our conceptual reach. (shrink)

In the past, notions of embodiment have been applied to robotics mainly in the realm of very simple robots, and supporting low-level mechanisms such as dynamics and navigation. In contrast, most human-like, interactive, and socially adept robotic systems turn away from embodiment and use amodal, symbolic, and modular approaches to cognition and interaction. At the same time, recent research in Embodied Cognition (EC) is spanning an increasing number of complex cognitive processes, including language, nonverbal communication, learning, and social behavior.This article (...) suggests adopting a modern EC approach for autonomous robots interacting with humans. In particular, we present three core principles from EC that may be applicable to such robots: (a) modal perceptual representation, (b) action/perception and action/cognition integration, and (c) a simulation-based model of top-down perceptual biasing. We describe a computational framework based on these principles, and its implementation on two physical robots. This could provide a new paradigm for embodied human–robot interaction based on recent psychological and neurological findings. (shrink)

An accessible introduction to some of the main issues in the philosophy of well-being, aimed at the general reader.

Face à la défense aristotélicienne de l'esclavage, il faut, dit-on "sauver l'honneur des philosophes". Objectif: dévoiler le coût de cette entreprise dans un contexte où l'on préconise de plus en plus le recours à Aristote pour surmonter les impasses imputées à la pensée éthico-politique contemporaine. Au delà de sa portée historique, cet ouvrage interroge l'image actuelle du philosophe grec véhiculée par ses commentateurs francophones (1932-1999) et la pertinence attribuée à son message.

L'ouvrage de Pesot, qui se veut une initiation à la sémiologie (ou sémiotique), consacre ses trois parties au domaine de cette discipline, à la notion de communication, puis à ses principaux théoriciens. Dans le premier cas, on montre que la notion de signe n'est pas suffisamment précise; que la description du champ de la sémiologie est insatisfaisante; et que la caractérisation de ses tendances laisse à désirer. Dans le second, on montre que la notion de code qu'il propose reste floue, (...) et que dissocier le code du processus général de la communication n'est pas justifié. Dans le troisième, on montre que, si mettre l'accent sur la pensée de Peirce n'est pas une mauvaise idée, se fonder sur une seule des trois périodes qui la caractérisent est une simplification inacceptable masquant son immense complexité. (shrink)

A intenção deste artigo é primàriamente exegética. Não pretende chegar a conclusães filosóficas substanciais nem fazer uma apreciação crítica. Pretende simplesmente esclarecer a versão de Russell quanto ao atomismo lógico, apresentando a sua teoria do juízo empírico num contexto histórico. A maior parte dos comentários contemporâneos falham neste ponto; contudo, afigura-se impossível compreender perfeitamente a teoria de Russell aeerca do conhecimento, bem como a Teoria das Descrições, como parte integrante daquela teoria, se não for encarada como uma tentativa para evitar (...) as consequencias de certas teorias alternativas do juízo. Pensa o autor que muitas críticas contemporâneas da Teoria das Descrições estão deslocadas, simplesmente por não conseguirem apreender o papel que aquela teoria devia desempenhar na análise russelliana do juízo empírico. A título de exemplo tenta o autor mostrar como as críticas de P. F. Strawson a respeito da Teoria das Descrições, como foram formuladas no seu artigo On Referring, não vêm a propósito (cf. Secção VT). A principal comparação histórica aqui apresentada refere-se à teoria idealista do juízo de F. H. Bradley. Contudo, parece também importante salientar o acordo que existe entre Russell e Bradley quanto a rejeitar como inadequado o tipo de análise do juízo apresentado por Leibniz e, numa primeira etapa da sua carreira, por G. E. Moore. Leibniz e Moore apresentaram, em moldes diversos, aquilo a que podíamos chamar teorias 'essencialmente genéricas' do juízo. Para Leibniz uma proposição é uma conexão analitica de conceitos, para Moore uma proposição é uma conexão sintética de conceitos. Tanto Russell como Bradley afirmam que é impossível formular uma teoria do juízo satisfatória, se concebermos a relação entre uma mente e uma proposição, implicada no juízo, como uma simples conexao de conceitos. O juízo deve ser apresentado como algo que implica experiência imediata pré-conceitual, experiência essa que, embora em si mesma não seja capaz de verdade ou falsidade, está pressuposta na própria possibilidade de qualquer juízo, verdadeiro ou falso, acerca da realidade. Dum modo geral, podíamos dizer que um juízo, cujo conteúdo é conceitual, é em virtude da experiência imediata que 'atinge a realidade' ('reaches right up to reality'). Contudo, embora Russell e Bradley concordem neste ponto, a análise da experiência imediata apresentada pelo primeiro é muito diferente da do segundo. Na medida em que se pode falar duma tese exegética positiva neste artigo, dir-se-ia que a análise russelliana da experiência imediata, contida na sua doutrina do 'conhecimento por experiência directa' dos particulares na sensação, é formulada especificamente (a) para ser compatível com a existência dum universo pluralista de particulares externamente relacionados e (b) para permitir uma versão da teoria de correspondência da verdade. Por outras palavras, a análise russelliana do juízo empírico, implicando necessàriamente um 'conhecimento por experiência directa' dos particulares na sensação, foi formulada especìficamente para evitar as consequências que, tanto Bradley como Russell, viram seeguir-se da análise idealista do juízo. Isto ilustra uma diferença fundamental entre o método filosófico de Russell e o de Bradley. Bradley aceita o monismo, a irrealidade das relações externas, e a teoria de coerência da verdade como consequência da sua teoria inicial do juízo. Russell, por outro lado, pensa que estas consequências se tornaram inaceitáveis perante a prática e as descobertas da ciência empírica; e tenta, por isso, construir uma teoria do juízo compatível com o tipo de metafísica e com a teoria da verdade, que lhe parece serem exigidos pela ciência empírica. (Resumo do Autor. Trad. A. M.). (shrink)

Comment s’est constituée, dans l’histoire européenne jusqu’aux Lumières, la réflexion sur les phénomènes religieux? C’est la question centrale de ce livre foisonnant de suggestions nouvelles et de remarques pertinentes. Philippe Borgeaud (Ph. B.), professeur honoraire à l’université de Genève, est depuis longtemps l’un des historiens des religions les plus originaux et les plus marquants en Europe. Après son premier livre, Recherches sur le dieu Pan (1979), Ph. B. n’a cessé de franchir les l...

Guy Longworth asks whether we can gain knowledge from others.

Les deux fragments d'inscriptions publiés par Graindor et repris dans IG II2, 4308 avec la signature du sculpteur Agathon d'Anagyre recollent, à condition de mettre le fragment a à droite du fragment b. Cette base vraisemblablement en l'honneur d'un citoyen du dème de Mélité, se dressait sur l'Acropole.

Wittgenstein’s “Lectures on Religious Belief” (LRB) provide a source for as yet unexplored connections to religious ideas as treated in Robert N. McCauley’s book Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not (2013), and to other CSR scholars who focus attention on how “cognitively speaking it is religion that is natural and science that is largely unnatural.” Tensions are explored in this paper between our “maturationally natural” religious inclinations to adopt religious ideas and the “unnatural” demands sometimes made upon people, (...) either a) by imposition of evidentialist norms over religious utterances, or b) by an agent’s adherence to perceived demands of theological correctness and to a particularly demanding conception of genuine or authentic faith. Wittgenstein uses Bertrand Russell and Father O'Hara to articulate these two tensions, and to offer alternatives which to some degree assuage them. I argue that such tensions are not only illuminating of the more and less helpful models of the relationship between reason and faith, but also open up new research questions which connect contemporary CSR and Wittgensteinian (or more broadly Continental) approaches to philosophy of religion. (shrink)