This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, the debate about life on other worlds is quickly changing from the realm of speculation to the domain of hard science. Within a few years, as a consequence of the rapid discovery by astronomers of planets around other stars, astronomers very likely will have discovered clear evidence of life beyond the Earth. Such a discovery of extraterrestrial life will change everything. Knowing the answer as to whether humanity has company in the universe will trigger one of (...) the greatest intellectual revolutions in history, not the least of which will be a challenge for at least some terrestrial religions. Which religions will handle the discovery of extraterrestrial life with ease and which will struggle to assimilate this new knowledge about our place in the universe? Some religions as currently practiced appear to only be viable on Earth. Other religions could be practiced on distant worlds but nevertheless identify both Earth as a place and humankind as a species of singular spiritual religious importance, while some religions could be practiced equally well anywhere in the universe by any sentient beings. Weintraub guides readers on an invigorating tour of the world's most widely practiced religions. It reveals what, if anything, each religion has to say about the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists and how, or if, a particular religion would work on other planets in distant parts of the universe. (shrink)

Dutch science flourished in the late sixteenth and in the seventeenth century thanks to the immigration of cartographers, botanists, mathematicians, astronomers and the like from the Southern Netherlands after the Spanish army had captured the city of Antwerp in 1585, and thanks to the religious and the socio‐economic situation of the country. A strong impulse for practical scientific activities started from the Reformation, mainly thanks to its anti‐traditional attitude, which had an anti‐rationalistic tendency. Therefore, in the Northern Netherlands there was (...) no ‘warfare’ between science and religion and the biblical arguments leading to Galileo's condemnation were not used.Although the growth of the exact sciences and of technology in the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries in Protestant cirles may be partly attributed to the expansion of trade, industry, navigation and so on, this does not explain why there was also at the same time a great interest in subjects as botany and zoology, which had no immediate economic utility. There were discussions about Copernicanism and Cartesianism. So a number of astronomers and theologians rejected the earth's movement on scientific and religious grounds, but there were also those who did not reject the Copernican system on biblical grounds. In the seventeenth century there was much discussion between science and religion in the Northern Netherlands, but that discussion was not followed by censure by the Church of the State. In the Republic there was a large amount of intellectual freedom in the study of the natural sciences, thanks to practical and ideological considerations. In the eighteenth century the seventheenth century tension between science and religion changed into a physicotheological natural science. It was believed that investigations into the workings of nature should lead to a better understanding of its Creator. So Bernard Nieuwentijt in his well‐known book: The right use of‐world views for the conviction of atheists and unbelievers (1715) intended to prove the existence of God on the basis of teleological arguments. (shrink)

These last decades, the many contributions to the literary output on science and religion have dealt with topics that are on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, topics mainly in the area of theoretical physics, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology. Philosophers of religion, responding to this trend, have therefore struggled with intricate arguments, and have often made use of the highly technical language of these sciences. The overall result was that truly original philosophical contributions, ones that present new (...) perspectives regarding this area, have been very rare. Of these few new research programs, one seems to be particularly promising, especially because of the way it has been throwing new light on how science relates to other disciplines. The originality of this research-area lies in the fact that it refers not to particular scientific discoveries, considered individually, but to the general dynamics of the practical side of science. The crucial concept is expertise, which involves the appeal to authority for the justification of arguments. Many people like to think that scientific knowledge is far from all this, that it is purely objective and that it floats way above the murky waters of subjectivism. Those who are directly involved in scientific practice however know that science is not so clean. Appeal to authority remains very much part of the natural sciences, whether we like it or not. Some philosophers have recently ventured into these somewhat dark caverns of scientific thought and practice, and the result of their work has become very significant. In this paper, I will first offer a brief overview of this philosophical work, and then explore how the new insights regarding scientific expertise and scientific appeal to authority can throw light not only on how science works but also on the issue of authoritative knowhow within the Church. To avoid getting lost within the dim world of abstract principles, I will focus on one particular concrete case, the one of Vatican astronomers. This is a particularly interesting case because this group’s complex role lies precisely at the intersection between theological and scientific expertise. (shrink)

The subject which has been chosen for me is sufficiently comprehensive. Several years ago I wrote the last of a series of essays in a book called Science, Religion, and Reality , in which, as requested, I tried to sum up the contributions of the other writers, with reflections of my own. I have also given a short statement of my opinions in the first volume of that interesting book, Contemporary British Philosophy . Lastly, I have tried, in a (...) book published in the autumn of 1933, to consider the religious and philosophical implications of recent scientific theories and discoveries, and particularly of the conviction held by our leading astronomers and mathematicians that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is unassailable, so that the ultimate extinction of the universe as we know it is certain. I showed that the acceptance of this verdict raises important questions for the philosopher and theologian. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:TAKING OTHER RELIGIONS SERIOUSLY: SOME IRONIES IN THE CURRENT DEBATE ON A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OF RELIGJ:ONS * 1GAvIN D'CosTA West London Institute of Higher E'ducation Isleworth, Middlese111 HE QUESTION oi Christian attitudes to the world eligions is becoming increasingly important. An lnterpretatwn of Religion is emblematic of a growing trend, which runs across 1denominational lines, that attempts fo take other,religions seriously. John Hick.argues that for most of its (...) ihistory Christianity has hrud a rpolitioaUy and theologicrully imperialist attitude towards the ireligions of the world. Superiority :and uninformed arrogance have generally prev:ailed with the accompanying attitude that the religions of the world 1aire 1 generally sinful and incapable of being 1 salvific. The 1 time has come foT a change of a;ttitude: the wol"ld reHgions must be taken seriously :and this means ·affil"ming them as alternative paths to salvation, possibly neither worse nor better than·Christianity. This Hick cru1ls a "pluralistic" outlook. The agenda is irrudical and Hick's Vioice is not solitary. Hick'1 s hook!is a ma;gisteri:al 4rn paiges and is ibrused on his Giffol'ld Lectmes of 1986-87. It contains cons!i.derruble indological, philosophicail and theological material, hut in what follows I shall,be dea1ing with one aspect oll!ly, his argument for p1uiialism. Hick is acknowledged :as a leading irepresentative of this pluralistic approach. Initially he began as a conservative,and exclusivist Christian,and has over the years enoompassed a wide!l.'ange of thoofogica1 positions now,culminating *John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 519 520 GAVIN D'COSTA in this p11esent rbook.1 In :this review discussion I propose that many o[ the most mdical strategies in the theology of re1ligions in 'Spite 0£ their wish to take other rreligions seriously have an il'!Onic tendency to do just the opposite! In attempting to be genuinely accommodating to the 11eligions 0£ the world, Hick, I will argue, unwittingly ends up in danger of accommodating none, including Christianity. This tendency, which iI believe to 1be clearly illustrated in Hick's rrecent rbook, is shared in various degrees hy numerous theologians pursuing a, pluralist p111oject similar to that of Hick's.2 It would he foolish to assume they are " all the 'Saime," hut they certainly share common theological and philosophical tendencies which I wish to isolate and comment on. I should 1state dearly that iby such a critique I do not intend to discount the possibility that 1 a:ll religions ma,y lead fo God, but that the stmtegies often employed to a111g111e.for this are deepJy problematic. ~o put Hiok"s new rbook into :perspective it will he helpful to wace its genesis 1briefly. In 1973, using an astronomical analogy, Hick suggested a Copernican revolution in the Christian theoology of rreligions whereby Christians should "shift from the 1 He began, in his own words, as a "strongly evangelical and indeed fundamentalist " Christian: see God Has Many Names (London: Macmillan, 1980), p. 2. See also my analysis of his entire pilgrimage in John Hick's Theology of Religions (London/New York: University Press of America, 1987). 2 For some of those on Hick's trajectory, see A. Race, Olllristians and Religious Pluralism (London: SCM, 1983); Paul Knitter, No Other Name'! (New York: Orbis, 1985); Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1978); R. Ruether, Pluralism and Ohristology; the latter three and other influential co-contributors (including Hick) are to be found in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Towards a Pluralistio Theology of Religions, ed. J. Hick and P. Knitter (New York: Orbis, 1987). More recently, we can see the extremely thin line between pluralists and essentialist "inclusivists" in E. Hillman, Many Paths·: A Oatholic Approach to Religious Pluralism (New York: Orbis, 1989), who marries K. Rahner and W. C. Smith, divorces faith from history and tradition, and thereby provides an essentialist analysis. See the pertinent comments of K. Surin on Smith's essentialist project in "An Examination of the Discourse of John Hick and Wilfred Cantwell Smith", in Religious Pluralism and Unbelief, ed. I. Hamnett (London, Routledge... (shrink)

In the early 1950s, astronomer Allan Sandage inherited from Edwin Hubble the task of determining whether expansion was real. In the succeeding forty years, Sandage “established the discipline of observational cosmology” (Overbye 1991, 188). At the same time, he encountered the limits of science to address the full mystery of existence. In seeking an answer to the question of purpose, in particular, Sandage came to the “abyss of reason” and made the “leap of faith.” This conversion, however, involved, and continues (...) to involve, an ongoing process of balancing two avenues to the truth, drawing upon resources from both scientific and religious traditions. Reason and faith seem reconcilable in life lived as an experiment and in “bowing before the mystery” (Sandage 1990). Ultimately, Sandage suggests that religious conversion comes not so much through reasoned pursuit as in the realization of being pursued. (shrink)

This study aims to integrate hadith, astronomy and sociology studies in examining the implementation of Hijri calendar unification through a multidisciplinary approach. The Hijri calendar is based on the astronomical phenomena of the earth-moon-sun system and should refer to the provisions of Islamic law or fiqh to be implemented in worship. For the preparation of a good Hijri calendar, agreement on criteria, date line, and authority is necessary. Furthermore, agreement on criteria requires a valid argument based on astronomical (...) studies. An agreement on the implementing region boundaries is necessary due to the round earth and the hilal [crescent moon] cannot be observed simultaneously anywhere. It is also needed to resolve unavoidable differences, specifically in the appearance of the hilal and in schools of Islamic law. The problems to be solved are as follows: What is the strategy for implementing Hijri calendar unification? This study is based on a review of hadith and fiqh literature, analysis of astronomical data related to criteria, and experiences of Indonesia and Islamic countries regarding the Hijri calendar unification. The results show that implementing the Hijri calendar unification through the three approaches above can be carried out and accelerated. Contribution: This study contributes to showing the results of a multidisciplinary approach in the problem of implementation of the new Ministers of Religious Affairs of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (MABIMS) criteria towards unification of the Hijri calendar. (shrink)

This paper argues that that political context of British science popularization in the inter-war period was intimately tied to contemporary debates about religion and science. A leading science popularizer, the Quaker astronomer A.S. Eddington, and one of his opponents, the materialist Chapman Cohen, are examined in detail to show the intertwined nature of science, philosophy, religion, and politics.

From the time immemorial thinking men have sought an answer as to wether or not the world is actually what it appears to be. Delving into the fields of science, medicine, and philosophy, answers to this question are sought in this book by the famed Mount Wilson astronomer. Advancing the concept that life and mind can be understood only in terms of the nonphysical, he explores the ultimate nature of our own thought, the existence of a universal Mind-God-and life after (...) death. Here is a new world to explore, a world that is much greater that you ever imagined. As you search through the dynamic and enlightening ideas in The Searchers you will come to a new appreciation of the nature of things as they really are. (shrink)

As David White explains in the Introduction to Tantra in Practice, Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy that grounds the universe, in creative and liberating ways. The subsequent chapters reflect the wide geographical and temporal scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, ranging from the seventh century to the present day, and representing the full range of Tantric experience--Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and even Islamic. (...) Each text has been chosen and translated, often for the first time, by an international expert in the field who also provides detailed background material. Students of Asian religions and general readers alike will find the book rich and informative. The book includes plays, transcribed interviews, poetry, parodies, inscriptions, instructional texts, scriptures, philosophical conjectures, dreams, and astronomical speculations, each text illustrating one of the diverse traditions and practices of Tantra. Thus, the nineteenth-century Indian Buddhist Garland of Gems, a series of songs, warns against the illusion of appearance by referring to bees, yogurt, and the fire of Malaya Mountain; while fourteenth-century Chinese Buddhist manuscripts detail how to prosper through the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper by burning incense, making offerings to scriptures, and chanting incantations. In a transcribed conversation, a modern Hindu priest in Bengal candidly explains how he serves the black Goddess Kali and feeds temple skulls lentils, wine, or rice; a seventeenth-century Nepalese Hindu praise-poem hammered into the golden doors to the temple of the Goddess Taleju lists a king's faults and begs her forgiveness and grace. An introduction accompanies each text, identifying its period and genre, discussing the history and influence of the work, and identifying points of particular interest or difficulty. The first book to bring together texts from the entire range of Tantric phenomena, Tantra in Practice continues the Princeton Readings in Religions series. The breadth of work included, geographic areas spanned, and expert scholarship highlighting each piece serve to expand our understanding of what it means to practice Tantra. (shrink)

In the sentence marked DK22 B52, Heraclitus describes a boy playing with small objects. The boy has the entire kingdom at his disposal and he himself is identified with the eon. This famous fragment has been interpreted in numerous ways both by classical philologists and philosophers. Its current interpretation is that it is a metaphor for human life. The child, not yet familiar with rules of social life, introduces elements of randomness and careless play into that life. Meanwhile, comparison of (...) Heraclitus’ sentence with the Old Indic tales, lets recognize in the sentence the mythological theme of the act of creation – God creating and governing the world. Such governing means establishing fundamental mathematical rights – the same rights that are applied in astronomical observations and scientific research as a whole. Hypothesis, that the ancient Indo-European culture affected – through India – Heraclitus, lets better understand this philosopher’s thought which harmonically combines elements of science, religion and arts. The India hypothesis also explains the aura of sublimity and holiness found in our tradition. The aura that was present in the late antiquity thinkers who acknowledged Heraclitus’ sentence and passed it to the Western literature. (shrink)

Abstract Centuries of both theologians and astronomers have wondered what the Star of Bethlehem (Matt 2:2, 9) actually was, from miracle to planetary conjunction. Here a history of this search is presented, along with the difficulties the various proposals have had. The natural theories of the Star are found to be a recent innovation, and now almost exclusively maintained by scientists rather than theologians. Current problems with various theories are recognized, as well as general problems with the approach. The interactions (...) between the sciences and religion are categorized and explored. (shrink)

For 150 years after Galileo’s condemnation in 1633, there were many references to the trial, but no sustained, heated or polarized discussions. Then came the thesis that Galileo was condemned not for being a good astronomer but for being a bad theologian ; it began in 1784–1785 with an apology of the Inquisition by Mallet du Pan in the Mercure de France and the printing in Tiraboschi’s Storia della letteratura italiana of an apocryphal letter attributed to Galileo but forged by (...) Onorato Gaetani. This thesis is not only untenable and false but inverts and subverts the truth; it proved to be long-lasting and widely accepted; so it may be labeled a myth. It was held by such writers as Bergier; Bergier; B; Feller; Cooper; Purcell; Marini; Reumont; Madden and Duhem. Afterwards, it was generally abandoned, its death knell being pope John Paul II’s speeches in 1979–1992. The myth seems to have acted as a catalyst insofar as its creation encouraged the proliferation of pro-clerical accounts and the articulation of pro-Galilean ones, thus making the discussion of Galileo’s trial the cause célèbre it is today.Author Keywords: Galileo; Galileo affair; Science versus religion; Theology; Biblical exegesis; Myth. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 277-278 [Access article in PDF] John Hedley Brooke, Margaret J. Osler, and Jitse M. van der Meer, editors. Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Journals Division, 2001. Pp. xiii + 376. Cloth, $39.00. Paper, $25.00. Some twenty years ago, when I submitted a dissertation proposal to explore connections between theologies of creation and views of scientific (...) knowledge in the seventeenth century, my doctoral committee was not initially enthusiastic—my idea might make a good dissertation in religion, but was it really history of science? I doubt I would have a similar experience today. Not only has the "warfare" thesis of science and religion been laid permanently to rest, historians have begun seriously to question whether it makes sense even to treat "religion" and "science" in an essentialist manner as separate ways of thinking that do not ordinarily interact. Many detailed case studies demonstrating a variety of fascinating, often important connections between science and religion have appeared from leading scholars in the past two decades. This trend continues in the latest volume of Osiris, which contains sixteen essays documenting various ways in which religious beliefs have influenced the actual content and presentation of science.The volume opens with two companion essays laying out the terrain. First, Brooke engages the new methodological and conceptual problems that confront historians following the demise of the "warfare" thesis. Then Stephen Wykstra offers criteria for sorting out the various roles for metaphysical and religious beliefs (which he distinguishes) in shaping scientific knowledge. The case studies begin with E. Jamil Ragep's essay on medieval Islamic astronomy, arguing that religion sometimes had a constructive role—a rather novel claim for Islamic science, he points out. Noah J. Efron and Menachem Fisch show how early modern Jewish exegetical practices influenced David b. Solomon Gans's interpretations of astronomical texts, and quite possibly his interpretation of nature also. A Christian astronomer is next, as Peter Barker and Bernard R. Goldstein detail how Johannes Kepler's theology contributed directly to the discovery of scientific laws. Maurice A. Finnocchiaro then reviews various accounts of the Galileo affair, finding far more conflict in the subsequent historiography of the events than in the trial itself.Moving from astronomy to natural philosophy, Margaret G. Cook's essay on Robert Boyle examines the web of connections between theology, the mechanical philosophy, and [End Page 277] "the Aristotelian philosophy that he sought to replace." She demonstrates that Boyle used the classical art/nature distinction "to interpret the biblical account of the Creation and to argue that chemical techniques offered experimental confirmation that the world, created by art, worked by the same mechanical principles as artificial objects, not by the inherent agency of Aristotelian nature" (136). Margaret J. Osler also writes about Boyle. Contrary to the traditional view that final causes were expunged from science by the mechanical philosophy—a view that originated in the "positivism and scientific optimism" of the postwar period (168)—she proves that final causality remained central to the thought of Boyle and Pierre Gassendi. The essay by Stephen D. Snobelen presents substantial evidence that the famous General Scholium, appended to the second edition of Isaac Newton's Principia, was a carefully worded declaration of Newton's heterodox theology. "A Trinitarian," Snobelen concludes, "could not have written the General Scholium" (186). He also shows the degree to which Newton's theology shaped his overall natural philosophy, decisively debunking the late Richard S. Westfall's view that such influences could not be found.The final seven essays are mainly devoted to nineteenth-century science. Michael J. Crowe documents several ways in which Christian beliefs about divine goodness and the Incarnation affected astronomy. Martin Fichman shows how Alfred Russel Wallace's theism—not merely a vague spiritualism, as traditional accounts claim—"shaped the cognitive content of his mature evolutionary synthesis, which included a theoretical reconceptualization of the scope of natural selection" (227). In a revisionist account of Charles Darwin's philosophy of "nature," Phillip R. Sloan challenges the received view that... (shrink)

Infin de siècleArgentina a secularist ideology of science was part of the positivist world view espoused by liberals and socialists. Between the years 1910 and 1935, a period in which the Catholic Church experienced a significant cultural expansion, the activities of the Catholic naturalist Ángel Gallardo and the astronomer and priest Fortunato Devoto challenged the so far prevailing idea of science as opposed to religion. This paper explores the connections between the scientific, religious and political aspects of those figures (...) in order to get some insights into the complexity of the relationships between science and secularization in societies with a Catholic majority. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Greek historical accounts of ancient eclipses were an important, if peculiar, focus of scientific attention in the nineteenth century. Victorian-era astronomers tried to correct the classical histories using scientific methods, then used those histories as data with which to calibrate their lunar theories, then rejected the histories as having any relevance at all. The specific dating of these eclipses—apparently a simple exercise in celestial mechanics—became bound up with tensions between scientific and humanistic approaches to the past as well as (...) with wider social debates over the power and authority of science in general. The major figures discussed here, including G. B. Airy, Simon Newcomb, and T. H. Huxley, argued that the critical question was whether science could speak authoritatively about the past. To them, the ability of science to talk about the past indicated its power to talk about the future; it was also the fulcrum of fierce boundary disputes among science, history, and religion. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Greek historical accounts of ancient eclipses were an important, if peculiar, focus of scientific attention in the nineteenth century. Victorian-era astronomers tried to correct the classical histories using scientific methods, then used those histories as data with which to calibrate their lunar theories, then rejected the histories as having any relevance at all. The specific dating of these eclipses—apparently a simple exercise in celestial mechanics—became bound up with tensions between scientific and humanistic approaches to the past as well as (...) with wider social debates over the power and authority of science in general. The major figures discussed here, including G. B. Airy, Simon Newcomb, and T. H. Huxley, argued that the critical question was whether science could speak authoritatively about the past. To them, the ability of science to talk about the past indicated its power to talk about the future; it was also the fulcrum of fierce boundary disputes among science, history, and religion. (shrink)

Faced with the immensity of space, do astronomers regard us humans as insignificant specks in the vast cosmos? Do evolutionary biologists consider themselves to be mere animals? Do neuroscientists anticipate that one day the dissection of the brain will explain away our minds? Do experts on Artificial Intelligence see themselves as nothing but a form of robot? In Science and Wonders Russell Stannard asks the ultimate questions of a host of leading scientists and theologians in Britain and America. He talks (...) to the Archbishop of York in his Palace, to the psychiatrist Montague Barker on Freud's couch in Hampstead, to the biologist Steven Rose in his lab. How should we view ourselves in the light of modern science? Did the Big Bang mark the creation of the Universe, and if so does it imply or rule out a Creator? And how might human beings continue to evolve? (shrink)

The Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopadie der Theologie und der Kirchen (DBETh) (German Biographical Encyclopaedia of Theology and the Church) offers biographical articles on 8,000 people from the areas of church, theology and the non-Christian religions, in the German-speaking regions. This biographical encyclopaedia of the church and the history of religion reaches from the early Middle Ages to the present, covering a period of more than a thousand years. Christians of different confessions and communities, Jews, prominent theologians and religious leaders and (...) representatives of religious studies are presented with their life histories and life's work. The DBETh is a unique type of lexical work of unparalleled extensiveness. The geographical area covered by the DBETh is defined by the German language. Besides Germany, it covers Austria, German-speaking Switzerland, the Alsace and Transylvania, the Baltic and South Tyrol. The biographical articles are free of value judgements and censorship, and do not cover people still living. Men and women, who made a significant impact during their lives and had far reaching influence following their deaths, are dealt with more extensively in articles written and signed by experts. Almost all the articles have details of further reading. Indexes of persons and places make it easier to use and to find connections. The sphere of people covered is broad: theologians, holders of church offices, philosophers with a religious-theological emphasis as well as artists concentrating primarily on ecclesiastical themes and activities - writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, and architects. Also included are secular leaders who were specifically influential in church politics. Vicars recognized as writers or as naturalists are not forgotten any more than members of orders, acknowledged as astronomers or mathematicians.". (shrink)

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington was a key figure in the development of modern astrophysics, who also made important contributions to the philosophy of science and popular science writing. The Arthur Eddington Memorial Trust was set up after his death in order to hold annual lectures on the relationship between scientific thought and aspects of philosophy, religion or ethics. This 2012 collection gathers together six of these lectures, including contributions by Sir Edmund Whittaker, Herbert Dingle, Richard B. Braithwaite, John C. (...) Eccles, Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, and Baroness Mary Warnock, together with Eddington's 1929 Swarthmore Lecture on Science and the Unseen World. A preface written by the Astronomer Royal, Baron Rees of Ludlow, is also included. This is a fascinating book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in the philosophy of science and Eddington's legacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:690 BOOK REVIEWS Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible. By RICHARD J. BLACKWELL. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1991. Pp. 272. $29.95 {cloth). Although this well-hound, manageable volume, complete with an artistic seventeenth-century dust jacket, has not received an official ecclesiastical "imprimatur," nevertheless, it is (according to this Dominican reviewer) both free from doctrinal error and filled with true and useful historical, philosophical, and theological information. Seemingly no (...) other case in the history of our western intellectual tradition has generated more controversy, more ill feeling, and more mutual misunderstanding across more lines of intellectual, political, and religious division than the "Galileo affair." Few people today are equipped historically, scientifically, philosophically, and theologically to discuss accurately the wide range of issues surrounding this unfortunate incident. A seasoned veteran of the strong historical, philosophical tradition of the Jesuit-run St. Louis University, and himself an active member of the Roman Catholic Church, Richard J. Blackwell, historian of philosophy and philosopher of science, has done a marvelous service to the academic community hy presenting us with this volume. In this well-researched, well-argued, and very readable manuscript, Blackwell helps to place Galileo's intellectual and ecclesiastical struggle within the broader historical, philosophical, religious, and theological context of rthe late 16th and early 17th centuries. Quoting the words of Olaf Pedersen, Blackwell considers the Galileo affair " not only as an episode in the history of science, but also as an important event in the history of theology" {p. 3). His principal purpose in writing this book is " to study the Galileo affair from this perspective " and, in particular, to understand "the role played by the Bible in the Galileo affair" (p. 3). Without attempting to praise, to blame, or to excuse, Blackwell sets out to understand precisely how it was that the historical, religious, and theological factors came to have such a profound effect on the scientific and philosophical questions of Galileo's time. He argues convincingly that the Roman insistence on upholding the traditional interpretation of certain key biblical passages can he understood adequately only within the historical and religious climate of postTridentine theology, Jesuit obedience, and strict adherence to the Thomistic synthesis of philosophy and theology. Toward this end, Blackwell brings together for the first time certain important texts, concepts, and historical arguments that help to alleviate some of the " murkiness " blurring our view of the Galileo affair, and help to make that incident more intelligible to our modern minds. BOOK REVIEWS 691 Blackwell argues that the Roman hierarchy was not so much concerned with the content of the new astronomy as it was determined to reassert itself as the authentic interpreter of Scripture and tradition. According to Blackwell, the new astronomy challenged not only the philosophy of Aristotle and the theology of Thomas Aquinas, but, perhaps more importantly, it challenged the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman hierarchy in its role as interpreter and teacher of the Apostolic faith. How could the new astronomy be anything but a hypothetical model, when it so clearly contradicted the words of Scripture as in· terpreted by the Church Fathers? How could mere mathematicians and astronomers insist on philosophical propositions that seemed to make the Bible false? No single individual was invested with the authority to interpret the Bible for the whole body of believers, as the Church had so painfully learned from the lessons of the Protestant Reformers. That authority lay solely with the "Church," that is, with the Roman hierarchy, the Pope in union with a council, as was clear from the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent. Moreover, strict obedience was the order of the day as many Jesuit thinkers so agonizingly came to realize. Blackwell divides his own text into seven chapters: (1) Trent and Beyond; (2) Bellarmine's Views Before the Galileo Affair; (3) Gali· leo's Detour into Biblical Exegesis; (4) Foscarini's Bombshell; (5) The Bible at Galileo's Trial (6) The Jesuit Dilemma: Truth or Obedience ; and (7) Reflections on Truth in Science and in Religion. In the first two chapters, he establishes a context for the Galileo affair by discussing :the theological interpretation and importance of the Council of Trent... (shrink)

This paper traces the reception of Babylonian astronomy into the history of science, beginning in early to mid twentieth century when cuneiform astronomical sources became available to the scholarly public. The dominant positivism in philosophy of science of this time influenced criteria employed in defining and demarcating science by historians, resulting in a persistently negative assessment of the nature of knowledge evidenced in cuneiform sources. Ancient Near Eastern astronomy was deemed pre- or non-scientific, and even taken to reflect a (...) stage in the evolution of thought before the emergence of science. Two principal objections are examined: first, that the Near East produced merely practical as opposed to theoretical knowledge and, second, that astronomy was in the service of astrology and religion. As the notion of a universal scientific method has been dismantled by post-positivists and constructivists of the second half of the twentieth century, an interest in varieties of intellectual and cultural contexts for science has provided a new ground for the re-consideration of Babylonian astronomical texts as science developed here.Author Keywords: Babylonian astronomy; Cuneiform texts; Epistemology; Hellenistic astronomy; Religion and science; Theory. (shrink)

Examines the ancient cosmic science of the female megalithic astronomers.

Several recently published books quote the British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington as having said that “religion first became possible for a reasonable scientific man about the year 1927.” In this essay it is shown that these words have been taken out of context and are not representative of Eddington’s views on the relation between science and religion.

On 30 December 1634 the Bodleian Library in Oxford received an important gift. Fourteen trunks bearing a mass of manuscripts bound in no fewer than 237 “handsome calf” volumes arrived from London. They bore the coat of arms of Sir Kenelm Digby , courtier and philosopher, who was to be prominent three decades later in the early Royal Society. At least half of the volumes contain material of scientific and philosophical interest and have been extensively quarried by twentieth‐century scholars of (...) “medieval” science. Many of them are from Merton College and have cast light on “Merton science.” Most of the manuscripts, as has only recently been fully appreciated, were bequeathed to Digby by Thomas Allen of Gloucester Hall. Allen was reputedly one of the “magi” who had served Henry Percy, ninth earl of Northumberland , during his long imprisonment in the Tower after the Gunpowder Plot. Digby's father had been executed for alleged complicity in that plot when Kenelm was only an infant. Allegiance to the old religion, while conforming outwardly to the English church, constituted a strong bond between Allen and Kenelm. It may also explain the untiring zeal with which Allen sought out manuscripts from the purged libraries of Oxford colleges and from dissolved religious houses throughout the land. He thereby rescued them from being totally destroyed or surviving only as binding material for the flood of volumes from the printed press for which librarians now had to find shelf space.Digby's decision to present the Allen manuscripts to the Bodleian was rather sudden. It came very soon after he came into their possession and just after he had them sorted and bound. Those of scientific and philosophical interest had, for example, been classified as astronomical, astrological, alchemical, mathematical, or medical. The decision to part from “the library which with so much cost and labour I haue raked together” followed his resolve, after the death of his wife in 1633, to devote the rest of his life to penitence, prayer, and meditation.William Dunn Macray, the compiler of the original 1883 catalogue of the Bodleian Digby manuscripts, succeeded in tracing only a few of them to the Allen bequest. With A. G. Watson's researches, spanning a quarter of a century, Allen's status as one of the most important contemporary English collectors of medieval manuscripts has secured full recognition. The “Notes” in the present volume supplement Macray's own descriptions of individual manuscripts and help to indicate the importance of the collection as a resource for historical research. There is an index of incipits, as well as an index of the manuscripts cited in the original catalogue and its notes. Watson has appended a catalogue of Allen's own manuscript collection that was compiled during Allen's lifetime and consulted by Macray but has never before been published.The revised edition of the catalogue will greatly assist the study of the Digby manuscripts. It also adds much to our knowledge of the English collectors who saved manuscripts from wanton destruction after the dissolution of religious foundations and the purging of university libraries that followed the Henrician Reformation. (shrink)

What should we be animists about? This chapter aims to answer that question. I begin by distinguishing between ontological and ideological formulations of animism. I suggest that plausible forms of animism will be merely ideological, and I distinguish between full-strength and less-than-full-strength animism. Next, I consider the extent to which idealism, pantheism and panpsychism might be taken to support some sort of universal animism. I conclude that there is no plausible form of full-strength universal animism. After noting that animals are (...) the easy case for animism, I turn to a discussion of a range of hard cases: flora, geological features, astronomical bodies, word tokens, artefacts and institutions. I will argue that we should not be full-strength animists about any of these things. Finally, I will consider whether the discussion that I have given is insensitive to the kinds of reasons that people have had for holding animistic beliefs about things other than animals. In this last part of the discussion, I draw a clear distinction between veneration of flora, artefacts, etc., and the belief that flora, artefacts, etc., are full-strength animated. (shrink)

C. S. Peirce's indictment that "the chief cause of [metaphysics'] backward condition is that its leading professors have been theo (Collected Papers 6:3) falls heavily at my door. For it logians" was out of reflection upon religious experience and its meaning that the present relational metaphysic was conceived. My hope, however, is that its scope is sufficiently wider than its theological origins to justify its appearance as a work in philosophy. Having been nurtured in existential philosophy and having reached some (...) measure of maturity with the wise counsel of Professor Dr. Fritz Buri, of Basel, I came to feel that theology as a modern discipline had reached an impasse owing to its overextended commitments to a subject-object paradigm of thought. Even those theologians who despaired of these ties seemed unable to find an independent alternative idiom for their ideas. A second tension in my thinking resulted from the inordinate neglect by theologians of the natural world. Also, my natural interest in physical understanding seemed unfulfilled within the narrow confines of theology, even of philosophical theology as then practiced. As I turned decisively toward the study of modern physics, and especially of cosmology, a new world seemed to open up to me. After extensive study with prominent astronomers and physicists, it began to dawn on me that the new physics has devised conceptual paradigms of thought which could be generalized into a metaphysical system of universal interest. (shrink)

Hard direction, e.g.: Universalese to Organicese. Suggestion: ‘Some chairs wobble’ should become something like ‘If composition were universal, some chairs wobble’ or ‘Assuming that composition is universal, some chairs wobble’ or ‘According to the fiction that composition is universal, some chairs wobble’.

The history of the concept of “religion” in Western tradition has intrigued scholars for years. This important collection of eighteen essays brings further light to the ongoing debate. Three of the invited participants, W.C. Smith, M. Despland and E. Feil, has each previously written impressive books treating this subject; the last two acknowledged the impact and continuing influence of Smith’s work, The Meaning and End of Religion. An introduction and a recapitulation of Smith’s contribution as a scholar set (...) the stage for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltsch’s concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of “World Religions.” The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of “religion.” Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smith’s publications. (shrink)