Philosophy of Religion, Miscellaneous

In the face of violent crime, mothers are often the most vocal in fighting for justice. When those mothers are also active in a Christian Church, they are well versed in the motifs of sacrifice and forgiveness. From a feminist perspective, these motifs have been severely criticised for weighing more heavily on women than men, given Christianity’s long history of teaching the submission of women and the dominance of men, and, further, have been instrumental in keeping women in abusive relationships. (...) This paper will ask whether: when faced with the traumatic loss of a daughter or son due to the violent actions of another, are the motifs of sacrifice and forgiveness equally problematic or do they help mothers through their grief? Is forgiveness another form of sacrifice required of Christian mothers in the aftermath of violent crime? Does a mother’s fight for justice require that she does not forgive the perpetrator? How do mothers navigate their Christian faith and these varied motifs in recovering from the traumatic grief that they experience following sudden bereavement? This paper will explore these questions by engaging with the accounts of, for example, Julie Nicholson, the Anglican Priest, whose daughter was killed in the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005; Doreen Lawrence, whose son, Stephen, was murdered in a racist attack in London in 1993; Sybrina Fulton and Lucy McBath, whose sons, Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, were fatally shot in separate incidents in Florida in 2012; and mothers affected by the Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017. (shrink)

This chapter argues that gender equality ought to be a primary area of thought and activity for public theology, and, yet, there are very few public theologians engaging with issues of domestic violence, reproductive rights and sexual equality. ‘Public theology’ has been enjoying something of a revival in recent years, with new networks, centres and publications adopting the title; however, there is a substantial imbalance in gender representation amongst them. It seems that public theology still relies upon a notion of (...) the public sphere, drawn from the work of Jürgen Habermas, that employs a concept of reason from which women have frequently been excluded. Consequently, the prevalence of male voices in the public theology canon does little to prioritise women’s voices or issues of concern. Moreover, in so far as public theology fails to acknowledge or critique the patriarchy on which it is based, it falls short of challenging misogyny in church and society. As is all too apparent from the populist presidential campaign of Donald Trump, white evangelical support remained high, despite his overt sexism, racism and lies. His female opponent, Hillary Clinton was clearly held to a higher standard, while Christian forgiveness was poured over each of Trump’s offensive remarks. Thus, partly on the basis of the Republican opposition to abortion, large numbers of white evangelicals, including women, were prepared to cast their vote in favour of a misogynist. While there are some dissenting voices, more churches and public theologians should be speaking out against misogyny in church and society; they should be supporting women, fighting with them for justice and equality. Hence, I will conclude that public theologians need to make a greater effort to hear women’s voices, by recognising that theology takes place outside as well as inside the academy; the current #ChurchToo movement is a prime example here and an opportunity for churches and theologians to respond. (shrink)

In this paper I consider Simone Weil’s notion of attention as the fundamental and necessary condition for mystical experience, and investigate Iris Murdoch’s secular adaptation of attention as a moral attitude. After exploring the concept of attention in Weil and its relation to the mystical, I turn to Murdoch to address the following question: how does Murdoch manage to maintain Weil’s idea of attention, even keeping the importance of mysticism, without Weil’s religious metaphysical background? Simone Weil returns to the importance (...) of attention throughout her writing. To attend, for Weil, means to empty oneself of all that is personal, primarily one’s will, which Weil sees as the essence of the human individual. This act imitates God’s act of creation, considered as a withdrawal in order to let something other than himself exist. Since such withdrawal represents God’s supreme act of love, salvation for human beings lies in the attempt to do likewise. By giving up one’s will, while desiring God with all of one’s soul, one creates the conditions for God to descend into the soul. This ‘passive activity’ is attention. Weil’s writings had a deep impact on Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy. In particular, Weil’s concept of attention is carried into Murdoch’s thought almost unchanged, with one striking exception: the absence of God in Murdoch’s system. Just as surprisingly, Murdoch at the same time maintains that mysticism and spirituality are crucial for morality, nor does she wish to sever the connection between attention and mysticism. Is Murdoch being inconsistent? I believe not. But the idea of attention as a mystical concept, within a metaphysics which has no room for God, requires further examination. For Murdoch, attention is the central capacity of the morally good person. Attention is, like in Weil, connected with an emptying of the self (for Murdoch the Ego) and a renunciation of will, in order to let something external make an impression in the subject. However, in Murdoch’s philosophy such external impression is not given by God, but by reality itself. Thus far, it appears, the notion of mysticism would be unnecessary. Yet for Murdoch reality is not something that we passively perceive, but something that requires a moral faculty – attention – made up of selflessness and desire for the good, in order to be apprehended. Two elements of mysticism then begin to surface: firstly, apprehension of reality requires a faculty that is not purely intellectual, but that involves the whole of the individual, including intuitions that one may be unable to explain (which Murdoch is happy to call ‘the soul’); secondly, the reality thus apprehended is considered as transcendent, insofar as its truth, infinitely distant, transcends the individual’s complete grasp. Thus the mystic, in Murdoch’s system, is regarded as an ideal moral person, not because s/he is guided by God, but because of his/her selfless ability to attend to the world beyond oneself and intuit its moral and metaphysical truth. (shrink)

“No lies": The Hurricane Notebook, found on a Wilmington beach after a storm, contains the thoughts, artistic experiments, vignettes, and recorded dialogues of an unknown author calling herself "Elizabeth M." Its entries record the inner life of a soul in crisis, perpetually returning to the moment she learned of her sister's suicide and making an unrelenting attempt to understand herself and the human condition. Whether engaged in introspective soul-searching, or reconstructing her discussions with friends, mentors, and acquaintances, she challenges herself (...) to accept "No lies" that would mask or hide her own responsibility for evil in the world. The notebook ends abruptly; having traversed subjects as diverse as God, childhood, chess, philosophy, ballet, self-hood, conscience, guilt, and friendship, Elizabeth's questions are left uncertain and hanging in the air, just like her hope that she might find "one person on earth who understands me," and unanswered, like her plea "Having understood me, would you grieve on my behalf, my friend?". (shrink)

Guy Axtell's new book, as the title suggests, is an attempt to assess the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. In trying to delineate those limits Axtell thinks that it is useful to employ the notions of luck and risk in examining how reasonable a particular religious (or atheistic) stance is.

Puede obtener un resumen rápido de este libro en p 135 o 326. Si no estás a la velocidad de la psicología evolutiva, primero debe leer uno de los numerosos textos recientes con este término en el título. Uno de los mejores es "el manual de la psicología evolutiva" 2Nd Ed por Buss. Hasta hace unos 15 años, las explicaciones del comportamiento no han sido realmente explicaciones de los procesos mentales, sino descripciones vagas y en gran medida inútiles de lo (...) que la gente hizo y lo que dijeron, sin ninguna idea de por qué. Podríamos decir que la gente se reúne para conmemorar un acontecimiento, alabar a Dios, recibir sus (o sus) bendiciones, etc., pero nada de esto describe los procesos mentales relevantes, por lo que podríamos decir que son explicaciones de la misma manera que explica por qué una manzana cae al suelo si decimos que es porque la lanzamos, y es pesada-no hay ningún mecanismo y ninguna potencia explicativa o predictiva. Este libro continúa la elucidación de la base genética del comportamiento humano que ha sido casi universalmente ignorado y negado por el mundo académico, la religión, la política y el público (véase el excelente libro de Pinker ' ' The Blank Slatè '). Su declaración (P3) de que no tiene sentido preguntar si la religión es genética se confunde como el porcentaje de variación de cualquier comportamiento debido a los genes y el medio ambiente se pueden estudiar, tal como lo son para todos los demás comportamientos (ver por ejemplo, Pinker). El título debe ser "intentos preliminares para explicar algunos aspectos de la religión primitiva", ya que él no trata la conciencia superior en absoluto (por ejemplo, Satori, iluminación, etc.) que son, con mucho, los fenómenos más interesantes y la única parte de la religión de interés personal a las personas inteligentes, educados en el siglo 21. Leyendo todo este libro, nunca adivinaría que esas cosas existirían. de la misma manera, para el inmenso campo de las drogas y la religión. Carece de un marco para la racionalidad y no menciona los sistemas duales de visión del pensamiento que ahora es tan productivo. Para eso sugiero mis documentos recientes. Sin embargo, el libro tiene mucho interés, y a pesar de estar fechada todavía vale la pena leer. Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna Dos Sistemas Punto de Vista puede consultar mi libro 'La estructura lógica de la filosofía, la psicología, la mente y lenguaje en Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle ' 2ª Ed (2019). Los interesados en más de mis escritos pueden ver 'Monos parlantes--filosofía, psicología, ciencia, religión y política en un planeta condenado--artículos y reseñas 2006-2019 3a Es (2019) y Delirios utópicos suicidas en el siglo 21 5ª Ed (2019) y otras. (shrink)

In dealing with arguments against the Christian faith in his book The Philosophy of Religion, Herman Bavinck uses a series of argumentative strategies. One of these strategies is the apologetic of despair. This study tries to fi gure out whether this strategy tends to be observed in most essays of the book or its use is only circumstantial.

Political theology has multiple provenances. One less cited is the seventeenth century irenic dictum: “and we would all embrace a mutual unity in things necessary; in things non necessary liberty; in all things charity.” While aimed at ecumenical peace, this call for mutual unity implied a deliberative context that went beyond sectarian Christian concerns. Liberty and charity were as conducive to a comprehensive church as more modest laws of toleration. My claim is that this dictum’s themes are extemporized in recent (...) pragmatist thought. (shrink)

In his Fear and Trembling Søren Kierkegaard (alias Johannes de Silentio) wrote that Abraham wanted to sacrifice Isaac for God’s sake as well as for his own sake. Drawing mainly on what Kierkegaard wrote (alias Anti-Climacus) in his Sickness unto Death I disclose that Kierkegaard construes Abraham as someone who becomes a true self, that is, as someone who becomes transparent before God. What this means and how our relationship to God is supposed to be involved in the process of (...) becoming a self is the focus of my paper. While various papers have been written on that topic, my aim here is to give the most charitable interpretation of Kierkegaard’s theses and the theological concepts involved. (shrink)

En este artículo investigamos el pensamiento de Kierkegaard y Nietzsche al respecto de un concepto teológico que aparece formulado, por primera vez, en la carta de Pablo a los Filipenses, a saber: la kénosis o el «anonadamiento» de Jesús de Nazaret. Este concepto juega un papel determinante en la crítica que ambos pensadores dedican al cristianismo. Sin embargo, nuestro propósito es mostrar cómo “la nada” de Jesús, adquiere, en sus respectivas filosofías, una significación tan importante como irreconciliable.

Religious exclusivism is the biggest threat for multi-religious society at the same time, ambivalent thoughts among religion in religious pluralism due to religious diversity often yields religious violence. In both of the extreme, (religious exclusivism and religious pluralism) there is the possibility of religious violence, i.e., religious riots, terrorism, mob lynching, and communalism. The objective of this paper is to discuss the significance of interreligious dialogue (IRD), its basic principle, how IRD will help us for addressing the problems of humanity (...) (i.e., Religious diversity and contradictory thoughts in major religions, Religious Dogma, superstition, and terrorism). If there is any biggest challenge for religion in the 21st century, is this one that how religion can deal with these problems and became a good tool for establishing peace and prosperity in the region. (shrink)

This article offers a critical interpretation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a philosophical notion which exemplifies a secular conception of thinking. One way in which AI notably differs from the conventional understanding of “thinking” is that, according to AI, “intelligence” or “thinking” does not necessarily require “life” as a precondition: that it is possible to have “thinking without life.” Building on Charles Taylor’s critical account of secularity as well as Hubert Dreyfus’ influential critique of AI, this article offers a theological (...) analysis of AI’s “lifeless” picture of thinking in relation to the Augustinian conception of God as “Life itself.” Following this critical theological analysis, this article argues that AI’s notion of thinking promotes a societal privilege of certain rationalistic or calculative ways of thought over more existential or spiritual ways of thinking, and thereby fosters a secularization or de-spiritualization of thinking as an ethical human practice. (shrink)

The problem of the definition of religion is studied in this volume from many angles and by different disciplines. Apart from papers on the history of the concept of religion, methodological reflections on its definition are presented, as well as explicit definition proposals and their relation to research programs. In addition, the volume contains analyses of the pragmatics and polemics of defining religion. The focus of this collection is on the pragmatic instrumentality and strategic intent of whatever concept of 'religion' (...) is being proposed. We argue in favor of an anti-essentialist, anti-hegemonic and multi-dimensional approach and the legitimacy of developing and proposing a broad variety of definitions of religions. (shrink)

This volume explores the ways in which religion became the object of scientific research in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Bringing insights from the cognitive science of religion and cultural evolution together, this chapter describes a process of coevolution between escalating societal size and complexity on one hand, and devotional practices to increasingly powerful and interventionist deities, credible displays of faith, and rituals and practices that promote ingroup solidarity and intergroup competition and conflict. Cultural traditions with such features spread at the expense of rival ones, giving shape to the world religions of today. A variety of empirical evidence is discussed (...) in relation to several hypotheses that are guided by this theoretical synthesis. (shrink)

An invited commentary on Ara Norenzayan's Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict, focusing on whether early China constitutes an exception to his general theory.

Short paper about debate on cognitive meaning of religious use of language in early analytic philosophy of religion. Published in Companion to Philosophy of Religion, edited by Janusz Salamon, Cracow: WAM, 2016.

Partiendo de la distinción entre śivaísmo pre-tántrico y śivaísmo tántrico proponemos una introducción al śivaísmo no dualista de Cachemira, especialmente de las escuelas que componen el sistema Trika y de una de sus principales figuras, tanto místicas como intelectuales: Abhinavagupta (ss. X-XI d.n.e.). Conocida como el «darśana de la reconciliación», la filosofía tántrica de Cachemira se caracteriza por conjugar liberación (mokṣa) y placer (bhoga) en una actitud vital y filosófica diferente y, en ocasiones, incluso opuesta al resto de darśanas propias (...) del conservadurismo brahmánico. Finalmente, describiremos las tres vías de liberación principales y la no-vía siguiendo el célebre tratado de Abhinavagupta, el Tantrāloka. (shrink)

In this interview Prof. Brian Leftow answers questions concerning the causes of the emergence of Analytic Philosophical Theology within the analytic tradition; the advantages of maintaining the traditional picture of perfect being theology with regards to divine attributes; his conception about the origin of necessary truths; the problem of evil; and the importance for universities of investing in research on philosophical theology.

Divine Foundationalism is the thesis that God is the source of all things (apart from God hirself). I clarify and defend the thesis, before I consider the main arguments for and against it.

I survey John Leslie's Platonic thesis that if something sufficiently good possibly exists, then it could be ethically required that it actually exists—along with the pantheistic world‐picture to which this thesis leads.

Religious conversion gives rise to disagreement with one’s former self and with family and friends. Because religious conversion is personally and epistemically transformative, it is difficult to judge whether a former epistemic peer is still one’s epistemic peer post-conversion, just like it is hard for the convert to assess whether she is now in a better epistemic position than prior to her conversion. Through Augustine’s De Utilitate Credendi (The Usefulness of Belief) I show that reasoned argument should play a crucial (...) role in assessing the evidential value of religious conversions, both for the person who converts and for her (former) peers. (shrink)

Philosophy of religion is often regarded as a philosophical discipline in which irrelevant influences, such as upbringing and education, play a pernicious role. This paper presents results of a qualitative survey among academic philosophers of religion to examine the role of such factors in their work. In light of these findings, I address two questions: an empirical one (whether philosophers of religion are influenced by irrelevant factors in forming their philosophical attitudes) and an epistemological one (whether the influence of irrelevant (...) factors on our philosophical views should worry us). My answer to the first question is a definite yes, my answer to the second, a tentative yes. (shrink)

IS NATURE ENOUGH? TRUTH AND MEANING IN THE AGE OF SCIENCE by JOHN F. HAUGHT Cambridge University Press, 232 pages, $19.99 -/- JOHN HAUGHT ASKS, "IS nature enough?"--which naturally elicits the question, "Enough for what?" Indeed, one way to understand the age-old debate between science and religion is to see it as an argument as to whether there is something about nature that nature is not enough to explain. -/- Among contemporary theologians, Haught is one of the few scientifically serious (...) enough to come up with a case that scientists could take seriously--even if only as a philosophical proposal. The Landegger Distinguished Research Professor of Theology at Georgetown University, Haught addresses them by continuing the long career he has made of advocating engagement between theology and modern science (as opposed to the easier and more popular options of "conflict" and "separation"). .. (shrink)

In philosophical literature terms: „natural theology” (or „rational theology”) and „philosophical theology” are used as exchangeable. The author argues that natural and philosophical theology are different philosophical disciplines. It is possible to point out a philosophic theology, different from natural theology, the former aims are not only supposed to show that God exists but to unifícate, interpret and explain (understand) religious faith and her tasks are not primary apologetic. The author considers that the aims of the latter discipline are bound (...) with the preference of cognitive values such as certainty, rationality and being able to use one ’s rationality to convince your opponent. In the end of this article author introduces a sketch of method of philosophical theology as different form natural theology, which could overcome one-sided views about role of philosophical argument in study of religious belief and faith and their propositional content and lead not only to a more adequate analysis of the researched reality but also to the development of other disciplines. (shrink)

The proposals gathered under the rubric of “Hilbert Problems” (HPs) demonstrate the progress, the disciplinary maturity, and the distinctive analytical potential of bio-cultural approaches to the study of religion. The HPs identify and investigate the ubiquitous evolutionary, cognitive, and neural processes that undergird the disparate array of religious phenomena. Many of the proposals offer fresh perspectives on conventional components of religion by connecting the study of religion to disciplines as diverse as psychiatry, semiotics, and statistics. In these ways, the HPs (...) demonstrate the naturalness of religion in the evolution of the human species. This short commentary briefly explores the issues of the definition of religion, religion and morality, the naturalistic basis for religious hermeneutics, and tradition-centered research and suggests ways in which the humanities can inform and enrich bio-cultural approaches. It proposes that collaboration between science and the humanities can advance research and help illuminate religion’s relevance to humanity’s lived experience. (shrink)

This chapter reviews the philosophy and religion dialectic from the end of the sixth century BCE through the second century CE, focusing on theology, mythology, and personal religious experience. It suggests that the familiar philosophy–religion dichotomy has acquired some of its plausibility from scholars who misunderstand the nature of religion and draw their concept of ancient philosophy too narrowly. The chapter stresses instead the interrelation of philosophy and religion, with special attention to how some philosophers incorporated religious thought into their (...) own views. The chapter argues that philosophers generally saw themselves as commending a modified understanding of their own religious heritage. (shrink)

By far the most respected response by theists to the problem of evil is some version of the free will defense, which rests on the twin ideas that God could not create humans with free will without them committing evil acts, and that freedom is of such value that it is better that we have it than that we be perfect yet unfree. If we assume that the redeemed in heaven are impeccable, then the free will defense faces what I (...) call the Heaven Dilemma: either the redeemed in heaven are free, in which case it is false that you cannot be free without doing evil, or they are not, in which case (heaven being better than earth) it is false that we are better off with freedom and evil than without either. James Sennett has tried to defend a view of freedom that effectively allows us to be impeccable in heaven so long as we are not on earth, while claiming that we are free in both. I argue that this view leads to a new dilemma: either there is no point to earth at all, and given its miseries, it is wrong for God to make us pass through it to get to heaven (especially if we face the risk of ending up in hell), or Sennett’s view consigns millions who die tragically young to an eternity of unfreedom. (shrink)

An increasingly common complaint about philosophy of religion—especially, though not exclusively, as it is pursued in the “analytic tradition”—is that its preoccupation with questions of rationality and justification in relation to “theism” has deflected attention from the diversity of forms that religious life takes. Among measures proposed for ameliorating this condition has been the deployment of “thick description” that facilitates more richly contextualized understandings of religious phenomena. Endorsing and elaborating this proposal, I provide an overview of different but related notions (...) of thick description before turning to two specific examples, which illustrate the potential for engagement with ethnography to contribute to an expanded conception of philosophy of religion. (shrink)

I examine Bernard Lonergan's approach to the problem of evil. I look to determine whether his solution, which is based on the conjugate forms of faith, hope, and charity, and culminates in a heuristic where forgiveness plays an essential role in moving beyond the problem of evil is adequate. I examine the distinction between basic sin, moral evil, and physical evil as well as his claim that from the viewpoint of the unrestricted act of understanding the non-systematic vanishes.

I review the book “Religion Explained? The Cognitive Science of Religion after Twenty-Five Years.” I discuss all the papers in the book and highlight some recurrent issues.

Substance dualism is on the move. Though the view remains unfashionable, a growing and diverse group of philosophers endorse it on impressive empirical, religious, and purely metaphysical grounds. In this note, I develop and evaluate one conceptual argument for substance dualism. According to that argument, we may derive a conclusion about our nature from the mere fact that we have the concept of a spirit. The argument is intriguing and fruitful; but I shall contend that it is, nonetheless, unsound.

We are presently confronted with an impressive growth of the religious phenomenon. This can be observed not only related to both the outbreak of new religions and the increasing attendance to worship services, but also for the presence of the religious language in the political discourse. We can see nowadays a political use of religion and a religious use of politics. When we approach the religions in a large scale perspective is possible to verify that in all of them both (...) aspects live together, and they are contradictory and excludent only in appearance. This evidence brings some particular questions: there would be more political and bellicose religions than others? Or maybe the contentious nature of religions rises when they become ideologies, in the same way ideologies impose themselves politically when they act like religion? We will let ourselves be guided by this hypothesis in order to explore the ambiguous relation between politics and religion. It was precisely after the death of the ideologies that religions of any creed reappeared strongly in the scenario. We will take as references to this theoretical task two thinkers in particular: Marsilius of Padua and Machiavelli. They both will guide us to think respectively the religious use of politics and the political use of religion. -/- Estamos confrontados na atualidade com um vertiginoso crescimento do fenômeno religioso. Isso pode ser observado não apenas pelo surgimento de novas religiões e o aumento da frequência aos cultos, mas também pela presença da linguagem religiosa no discurso político de tal modo que podemos falar num uso político da religião e um uso religioso da política. Quando abordamos as religiões na longa duração, percebemos que em todas elas coabitam estes dois aspectos, contraditórios e excludentes apenas na aparência. Esta constatação leva ao questionamento: existiriam religiões mais políticas, ou mais conquistadoras, do que outras? Ou então, talvez, a natureza belicosa das religiões emergiria a partir do momento em que elas se erigem em ideologias, da mesma forma como as ideologias se impõem politicamente quando agem à maneira de religiões? Neste trabalho nos orientaremos por esta hipótese para explorar a relação ambígua entre política e religião, pois foi precisamente após a morte das ideologias que as religiões, independente do credo, retornaram com toda a força. Para tanto, tomaremos como referência teórica dois pensadores, Marsílio de Pádua e Nicolau Maquiavel, para pensar, respectivamente, o uso religioso da política e o uso político da religião. (shrink)

The article critically examines Hans Urs von Balthasar’s core intuition that human holiness has apologetic value for Christianity. It argues that von Balthasar’s claim relies on two notions of ‘proof’, and, in distinguishing between the two notions, it clarifies his position. This clarification is followed by a defense of von Balthasar’s view that it can be rational to accept Christian faith on the grounds of human holiness. However, by way of conclusion, the article proposes that von Balthasar’s intuition could, in (...) principle, be applied to a variety of both religious and non-religious traditions, which thus undermines his assumption that human holiness has apologetic value for Christianity alone. (shrink)

The approach to religion -- The soul of a saint, St. Catherine of Genoa -- The philosophy of religion.

F. H. Bradley did not write extensively or systematically on the philosophy of religion, and much of what he did write has the character of either tentative speculation or the pre-emptive rebuttal of potential misinterpretations that might threaten his general philosophical position. ‘I admit that on this subject I never had much to say’ he warns. But such a remark should not discourage us from considering his views on this topic, since the disclaimer is typically Bradleian, and more reflective of (...) his high standards for what is required in order to claim to have something to say about some matter than of any genuine lack of opinion. On closer inspection we find that he has, scattered throughout his work, a great many important things to say about this subject. (shrink)

If in our use of imagery we are all of us the unacknowledged legislators of the world, it would follow that one can ‘serve the cause of sexual equality in education’ by challenging the way our images of the academic are gendered.1 This is the excellent stated purpose of Sabina Lovibond's short new book, Iris Murdoch, Gender and Philosophy.2.

This commentary was suggested to me in part by a colleague's remark that it would be nice if we could make William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience "respectable." The implication was that though there was something redeemable about the book, it somehow wasn't philosophically or scientifically proper. The remark awakened me to—or at least reminded me of—the fact that this has been a traditional take on James's text. As Julius Bixler points out, ridicule began soon after the book was (...) published: "The Varieties of Religious Experience, appearing at about the same time as Ernest Thompson Seton's book of animal stories, was soon nicknamed 'Wild Religions I Have Known'" (1926, 1). My awakening to this attitude—a prevalent if not a pervasive one among contemporary intellectuals—led me to consider that it would be better, and crucially important to James himself, to keep James "unrespectable." James may have been a renegade and... (shrink)