This article compares two attempts to return to realism after Kant’s ‘Copernican Revolution’. Quentin Meillassoux, representing the ‘speculative realism’ school, rejects both Kantian and post-Kantian idealism in favour of a materialism based on the epistemology of the modern sciences. But Meillassoux is unaware of the element of choice in his philosophical position, and he does not solve the essential problem posed by idealism which concerns the place of the subject in being. Ricœur, on the other hand, sublates Kant by a (...) deeper embrace of finitude that leads to the self-displacement of the subject, and a ‘Second Copernican Revolution’, one that he freely admits can only be arrived at by Jaspersian ‘Philosophical Faith’. The article concludes by showing how crossing the border into theological faith offers a virtue-ethical perspective on the question of realism and idealism: it is in fact the choice between a childlike humility that receives reality as it is, and an arrogant self-positing that puts the subject in the position of God. (shrink)

Genesis – known by many, understood by few. After reading his lectures, there is no doubt that Viktor von Weizsäcker falls under the second category. Weizsäcker was not a philosopher by profession,...

This article aims to elucidate the relationship between Agamben’s notion of messianism and his project of philosophical archaeology. Whereas the former relates to political and ethical aspects of Agamben’s philosophy, the latter belongs to the domain of methodology of philosophical research itself. The main thesis of the paper argues that these two components rely on each other and constitute one and the same project. The author demonstrates that Agamben’s notion of messianic action and scholarly activity of philosophical archaeology overlap, which (...) leads to a problematization of political dimension of Agamben’s messianism. The orientation towards the past in Agamben’s understanding of the messianic is its crucial presupposition that imposes limits on its applicability to the realm of politics. This thesis is substantiated by an investigation of the problem of relation between theory and practice in Agamben’s thought and by a close reading of the ‘Mystery of Anomia’ section in The Time that Remains. Beginning with the problem of the possibility of a transition from the tragic narrative elaborated in the Homo Sacer project to the messianic state of lawlessness, the author demonstrates that in Agamben’s thought this transition is made possible only by means of an archaeological inquiry. (shrink)

In the present paper, I investigate the ways in which the grammar of God-talk in David B. Burrell’s philosophical theology comes to meet Muhammad Husiyn-i Tabatabai’s account of divine names, which has been developed in his theory of religious language. I begin the first part of the paper by introducing Tabatabai’s innovative articulation of the concept of Mental Construct and its relevance to his account of language and meaning. I, then, clarify how he proceeds to elucidate his conception of religious (...) language in terms of what he calls ‘focal meaning’, i.e. his idea of a true sense underlying the application of a word. In the second part of the article, Burrell’s methodology of God-talk is introduced and briefly discussed, before proceeding with interlocutory explanations as well as an examination of Tabatabai’s semantics of divine names. On the basis of Burrellian reading of via analogia, I propose a novel interpretation of the principle of focal meaning. This interpretation is particularly concerned with the most appropriate manner in which we can comprehend the literality of religious language. I conclude by explaining the way in which Burrell’s analysis is useful and elucidating for a contemporary interpretation of Tabatabai’s work. (shrink)

Hope beyond certainty is a significant element in contemporary theological discourse after the death of God. This relation between hope and uncertainty is not new. In the nineteenth century, a growing number of intellectuals started to call themselves agnostic, but did not always end up in scepticism and nihilism. On the contrary, new ways to search for meaning and fulfilment in life beyond the traditional answers of institutional religions (i.e. the church) were explored. The Dutch intellectual Allard Pierson (1831–1896) is (...) a good case in point. From a contemporary postsecular perspective and radical theology, this article argues that Pierson’s agnosticism should not be seen as an attitude of indifference, but as opening up the possibility for an eschatological hope beyond certainty. First, the (im)possibility of hope is discussed by debating the views of David Newheiser, Richard Kearney, and John D. Caputo. Second, the article analyses Pierson’s view by focusing upon hermeneutics instead of epistemology, an openness to transcendence, and imagination. The article thereby contributes to the understanding of nineteenth-century religious and secularisation developments as well as to contemporary theological debates on the (im)possibility of faith and hope after the death of God. (shrink)

Since the work of the late Jacques Derrida often found a more positive reception in the United States than in Europe, it is perhaps fitting that the Derrida-influenced writings of John Caputo have...

The hypothesis that we may be living in a digital simulation is utilized as a ‘thought experiment’ to help clarify important questions in theology and philosophy, including the nature of God, the significance and importance of an afterlife, and the ultimate nature of reality. It is argued that a consideration of the simulation hypothesis renders problematic traditional conceptions of a personal, creator, omnipotent deity, makes the theological significance of a purported afterlife far less significant, and paradoxically undermines the very materialistic (...) view of reality that underlies the simulation hypothesis in the first place. It is concluded that the simulation hypothesis renders ‘science’ virtually irrelevant to ultimate questions in philosophy and theology and elevates ethics and axiology to fundamental status for our understanding of reality and any defensible conception of the divine. (shrink)

The book argues for the relevance of Mary Wollstonecraft’s intellectual legacy for the contemporary debate on ethics. The study is based on the whole of Wollstonecraft’s literary corpus and is char...

Recent discussions about Eucharistic practice in the United States have received increased public attention with stories of pro-life politicians being excluded from participation. In this practice of exclusion, there is a depiction of protecting the Eucharist from impurity, with the priests citing the pro-life framework as the basis for inclusion. Using this site for reflection, this article seeks to interrogate these representations of (im)purity specifically with reference to the abortion debate and the Eucharist. Taking the concept of impurity found in (...) the works of Judith Butler and Bruno Latour and placing it in conversation with ‘purity culture’ and the disproportional focus on bodies of women in cases of abortion, I seek to address constructed boundaries between dualisms such as pure and impure, as well as Church and the world. More specifically, I aim to reconfigure impurity away from being an ‘evil that must be avoided’ (Thomas Bauer) by the Church and instead ask how this can serve as a rich resource for scholars reflecting on religious practices today, rethinking the Body of Christ as one of inherent interdependency and porosity – not a space in need of protection from ‘impurity’, but one that further divides representations of purity and impurity altogether. (shrink)

Can rational choice theory justify hope and patience in dealing with calamities such as financial collapse or terminal illness? The Book of Job is a good entry-point. Three friends of Job counsel him to avoid hopelessness and bitterness arising from frustration regarding calamities. They do so on non-rational grounds. They argue that Job should ignore the evidence and instead blindly uphold the belief ‘God is just.’ However, such blindness permits magic, superstitions, and cultish beliefs. The specter of such beliefs is (...) probably what prompted the fourth friend, Elihu, to dismiss the arguments of the three friends. Elihu reasons that one should be rational, i.e., acknowledge the evidence. This need not entail the conclusion ‘God is unjust’ – as God cannot perform miracles on a daily basis. That is, given the evidence, one cannot sustain hopeful beliefs that God will interfere and reverse the course of natural catastrophes and shocks from which humans, as well as other living beings, suffer. One at best can be patient, accept suffering considering worse counterfactuals. Based on Elihu’s critique of the arguments of the three friends, and building on Maimonides’s interpretation, this paper concludes that standard rational choice theory can explain patience, but not hope. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an account of the structural differences, neglected in the literature, between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Emmanuel Levinas, showing how Bonhoeffer’s account of persons and responsibility is differentiated through creation, fall, and redemption, whereas Levinas’s account of ethical selfhood offers itself as a kind of transcendental account of persons in which the self is structured by its encounter with the other which commands responsibility. This difference (situationally differentiated vs. transcendental) plays out in two ways – the role (...) of the will in ethical selfhood and the identity of the primal governing agent in the encounter with others. Bonhoeffer’s account, through its differentiation into different modes of existence, allows for the possibility of different stages and modes of the encounter with the other, and thus allows for the incorporation of one model of encounter at one stage, and another model at a different stage. As a consequence, Bonhoeffer’s account includes and develops upon the kind of demand-based account Levinas offers. This can serve as an advantage over Levinas’s model insofar as it provides a ‘multi-modal’ framework to absorb other views into one’s own in a way that a transcendentally conceived framework of selfhood does not. (shrink)

Luther, a controversial figure during his lifetime is the subject of Lyndal Roper’s research. She responds to the ongoing fascination with Luther and his constant presence in contemporary self-fash...

In this article, we present for the first time Schelling’s early critique of absolute idealism within his middle metaphysics (1804–1820), which has great relevance and influence on the subsequent course of German philosophy, and, more broadly considered, on later systematic thinking about the categories of unity and duality. We aim to show how Schelling defends a form of metaphysical duality, from 1804 onwards, without relapsing into a stronger Kantian dualism. In this sense, our author rejects both the dualism between nature (...) and spirit, necessity and freedom, as well as the monist-immanent metaphysical stance later associated with Hegelian panlogism. Against Hegel, Schelling increasingly vindicates the reality of the finite and degrades the infinite to mere ideality in a movement that resembles later existentialism. Furthermore, we defend Schelling against the accusation of irrationalism that sections of Hegelianism formulated against him and present the concept of infinity without the notion of totality, which he thinks of, much like Fichte, in the light of the concept of an ‘infinite task’. Schelling’s later criticisms of Hegel are shown to be influenced by his early idealist critique of the period at hand. (shrink)