This extended essay joins an old conversation at the intersection of freedom and necessity. Though it takes place at the beginning of the twenty-first century by the “Christian” reckoning that has become an integral part of European identity, it will at times read like a conversation between classical Greece and nineteenth-century Europe. The cast consists of characters drawn from Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Plato as well as the authors themselves - Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, MacIntyre, and Nussbaum. Some (...) of these writers have been associated with displaced, displacing claims of universality; but each is in place and in time in ways that are instructive for ethics. Myth, the matter of stories, becomes also the matter of critical reflection, which in turn is subjected to critical reflection. Every fragment of philosophy is a contribution to the reflection, and it is nothing if it is separated from the matter - the stories, the myths, and the characters (including us) who both make them and live in them. (shrink)

Thinking about the first coming and how it relates to visions of a second coming is one of the most important ways for the Christian tradition to contribute to serious reflection on the structure of history, the significance of anticipation, and their importance for the structure of action. This paper draws on two texts, Flannery O’Connor’s novel, Wise Blood, and Thomas Sheehan’s historical and theological study, The First Coming, to lay a groundwork for such reflection. Rather than treating the texts (...) sequentially, this article intertwines them, following the structure of Sheehan’s book but illuminating it with O’Connor’s story. (shrink)

Taking up John of Salisbury’s dictum that we read ancient texts to improve our eyesight, this article returns to an “old” book for “new” insight into the perennial philosophical problem of visual perception. A careful reading of Berkeley’s essay on vision improves our eyesight in at least four ways: First, it reminds us that the most interesting aspects of visual perception are not “primary” but “derivative.” Second, it reminds us that our relationship with the world is an interactive process of (...) making connections and proposes some ways in which those connections and the process of making them might be brought to consciousness and subjected to critical examination. Third, it reminds us of the extent to which making connections is a linguistic process: we live in language as surely as we live in the world, and the processes by which we take our places in the world are forms of language. Fourth, it introduces a concept of “levels” and movement between them that is particularly important to computational models that may result in nonhuman analogues of human vision. (shrink)

Taking up John of Salisbury’s dictum that we read ancient texts to improve our eyesight, this article returns to an “old” book for “new” insight into the perennial philosophical problem of visual perception. A careful reading of Berkeley’s essay on vision improves our eyesight in at least four ways: First, it reminds us that the most interesting aspects of visual perception are not “primary” but “derivative.” Second, it reminds us that our relationship with the world is an interactive process of (...) making connections and proposes some ways in which those connections and the process of making them might be brought to consciousness and subjected to critical examination. Third, it reminds us of the extent to which making connections is a linguistic process: we live in language as surely as we live in the world, and the processes by which we take our places in the world are forms of language. Fourth, it introduces a concept of “levels” and movement between them that is particularly important to computational models that may result in nonhuman analogues of human vision. (shrink)

This paper begins with three observations: 1) At what is generally believed to be its origin in ancient Greece, “Western” philosophy is not sharply distinguished from poetry, science, or theology; 2) At what is generally believed to be its origin, “Western” philosophy is not Western; it is born in a multicultural matrix consisting of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Southern European influences; 3) As philosophy comes to think of itself as “Western,” it separates itself from poetry, science, and the rest (...) of the world-particularly from its roots in Northern Africa.In the first three sections, I examine each observation in turn. In the fourth section, I take up the implications of “Western” philosophy’s alienation from its roots for the contemporary controversy surrounding multiculturalism. If the roots of “Western” philosophy are multicultural, I propose a “radical” philosophy that reclaims them in our own multicultural context. More specifically, I propose to ask a question posed here in its most brutal (but also most honest) form: does “Western” philosophy depend on the abandonment of its friends and the murder of the indigenous peoples it encounters? If yes, then it is necessary to ask whether (in Virgil’s terms) “piety” demands that the West march on in any case. Colonialism and neocolonialism join Aeneas in answering both questions affirmatively. If no, then it is possible to proceed with the kind of radical reclamation suggested above. (shrink)

This paper takes Gandhi's satyagraha, which he defined as "holding on to truth" (associating it simultaneously with knowing and doing) as a basis for a political philosophy of nonviolence that draws on voices familiar from twentieth century nonviolent struggles as well as sociobiology, literary criticism, and feminist approaches to sacrifice.

This book takes up the philosophical task described by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and F.D. Maurice as digging toward the common humanity that is the ground of value. The book is an essay in philosophy defined by time (its focal point is the nineteenth century), space (its focal point is Britain), and persons (it is concerned especially with Maurice's contribution to social theory). The first chapter explores the Victorian Age as historical context and background for Maurice's work. The second explores Coleridge's (...) thought as philosophical context and background. The third explores a range of Maurice's theological works that spans his entire career. The fourth turns, finally, as Maurice did, to the practice of adult education as the place of social transformation and, more particularly, the contested terrain where human nature and human souls are turned to work in the world as persons, not hands. (shrink)

This book redefines religious studies as a field in which a plurality of disciplines interact. A social science when understood as a body of knowledge, religion is also marked by discovery, appreciation, orientation, and application--an interplay of the arts and sciences. Teaching religious studies involves the question of the occupation of territories and disentangling occupation from violence.

How are the teachings of a thirteenth-century master relevant today? Twenty contemporary writers unpack Dogen's words and show how we can still find meaning in his teachings. Engaging Dogen's Zen is a practice oriented study of Shushogi (a canonical distillation of Dogen's thought used as a primer in the Soto School of Zen) and Fukanzazengi (Dogen's essential text on the practice of "just sitting," a text recited daily in the Soto School of Zen). It is also a study of the (...) entire self. Here, the principles of Soto Zen practice are unpacked and explained by leading contemporary Buddhists from the living tradition--monks, priests, academics, and community teachers. Tackling Dogen's approach to key issues, such as the preeminence of shikantaza, universal buddha nature, and what it means to be a Mahayana Buddhist, the contributors to the volume help Zen practitioners and any who are trying to deepen their lives to appreciate better the teachings of Soto Zen and make these teachings part of their lives. By revisiting what remains precious in Shushogi and Fukanzazengi, we let them breathe just as we learn to breathe in zazen. We find that Soto practice not only engages Dogen and Sakyamuni, but all of our sisters and brothers, and indeed the great earth itself. Includes essays from Kosho Itagaki, Taigen Dan Leighton, Tenshin Charles Fletcher, Shudo Brian Schroeder, Glen A. Mazis, David Loy, Drew Leder, Steven DeCaroli, Steve Bein, John Maraldo, Michael Schwartz, Tetsuzen Jason M. Wirth, Leah Kalmanson, Erin Jien McCarthy, Dainen David Putney, Steven Heine, Graham Parkes, Mark Unno, Shudo Brian Schroeder, and Kanpu Bret W. Davis. (shrink)

Nondescriptivist views in many areas of philosophy have long been associated with the commitment that in contrast to other domains of discourse, there are no propositions in their particular domain. For example, the ‘no truth conditions’ theory of conditionals1 is understood as the view that conditionals don’t express propositions, noncognitivist expressivism in metaethics is understood as advocating the view that there are not really moral propositions,2 and expressivism about epistemic modals is thought of as the view that there is no (...) such thing as the proposition that Jack might be at home, over and above the proposition that Jack is at home.3 Of course, it is nearly always acknowledged that advocates of a nondescriptivist theory need not deny that there are conditional, moral, or modal propositions ‘at the end of the day’ – for if they also endorse a deflationary reading of talk about propositions, as famously advocated by Simon Blackburn, then they can employ such deflationary talk just as much as the rest of us. They just don’t appeal to propositions to do any of the work in their theories. Rather, they ‘earn the right’ to talk about propositions.4 It is the aim of this paper to upset this way of thinking about the proper attitude of nondescriptivists toward propositions, and to advocate a more constructive and in some ways more radical alternative on behalf of the nondescriptivist. I will begin by introducing and developing a set of problems that are faced by any nondescriptivist theory which tries to do without propositions. All of these problems are easily solved by any view which postulates propositions across the board, but none of them are solved by merely deflationary talk about propositions – their most promising solutions require propositions to do real theoretical work, and therefore the problems themselves remind us of and illustrate some of the important reasons why it is worth positing propositions in the first place.. (shrink)