The problem of divine agency and action is analogous to the problem of human agency and action: How is such agency possible in the absence of a dualistic causal interaction between disparate orders of being? This paper explores nondualistic accounts of divine agency that assert the following: (1) physical monism, (2) antireductionism, (3) physical realization, and (4) divine causal realism. I conclude that a robustly causal deity is incompatible with nonddualism's affirmation of physical monism. Specifically, I argue the incoherence of (...) nondualistic strategies that advocate divine information transfer without energy transfer or the divine downward causation of physical events. Furthermore, I claim that the principle of explanatory exclusion makes any nondualistic, noninterventionist account of divine agency highly dubious. Finally, I suggest that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can avoid a causally inert deity only if they are willing to deny the current presumption of the causal closure of the physical. (shrink)

The Derridean standpoint has made it challenging for philosophy to affirm a non-dualistic view of the world. If signification is a process where linguistic signs are always postponed or in deferment, then it is impossible to cultivate experiences without recurring to metaphysical thought. However, third generation Kyoto School thinker, Ueda Shizuteru, complicates this viewpoint. What Ueda describes as “exiting of language and exiting into language” is the dynamic movement of Zen experience that instantiates how language can be torn through and (...) resurrected. As a reversal of Derrida who prizes linguistic signs over experience, Ueda’s view of Zen seeks to set limits to language without denying its inherent existence by clarifying how humans live in a two-fold world of the metaphysical and non-metaphysical. In order to make the latter visible, however, Ueda speaks of how absolute silence operates as a negation of Being, that which brings forth the world of infinite nothing, accompanied by an infinite stillness and openness that is undisturbed by the utterance of words. And yet the implications of Derrida’s method of critique are something Zen must also confront. Since human experience cannot avoid the world of metaphysics by virtue of existing as signs inscribed in the historical context, Zen must ethically examine the repressiveness of its inherited linguistic structure in the return to the world of signs. In the attempt to dispel this particular tension between Derrida and Ueda, this article, as a concluding point, will close the gap between their view of language and freedom by demonstrating how the compassionate vow of the bodhisattva can interrupt the problems of exclusion and marginalization brought on by linguistic production. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Awareness of the Natural World in Shinjin: Shinran's Concept of JinenDennis HirotaAttainment of Shinjin and TruthThe primary issue regarding knowledge that Shinran (1173-1263) treats in his writings concerns the commonplace, "natural" presupposition that it is constituted by an ego-subject relating itself to stable objects in the world. From his stance within Buddhist tradition, Shinran identifies the crucial problem as the human tendency toward the reification of both sides (...) of this dichotomy-resulting in an autonomous self and substantial things-with the consequent attachments fueling the afflictions ("blind passions") of habitual pain and conflict for oneself and others. The focus of Shinran's treatment of this basic Buddhist concern is the point of engagement with dharma or true reality. In this, he draws into the arena of religious faith the probing scrutiny of lingering attachments to self, even in the dedicated practitioner, that is fundamental to the critical attitude of Mahayana Buddhist tradition.My aim in taking up the issue of truth in my article "Shinran and Heidegger on Truth" in The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science 1 is to suggest a way of reading Shinran that both avoids a common pitfall that Shinran himself cautions against-an engagement with Pure Land teachings that adheres to the subject-object dichotomy of ordinary awareness-and opens up his vision to resonances with contemporary western thought, particularly continental philosophy. This latter concern is not to claim that Shinran adumbrates contemporary thought or is affirmed by resemblances, but rather seeks to cast light on compelling aspects of his thought not often treated in traditional Shin scholastics. There are, therefore, both therapeutic and constructive sides in my attempt to engage Martin Heidegger's (1889-1976) thought from a perspective rooted in Shinran's Buddhism.The pitfall in reading Shinran indicated in my article is crystallized in the assumption, prevalent in Western scholarship but also widely seen in Japan, that his Shin Buddhist path centers on a simple faith in the Pure Land teachings, with such faith understood as the subjective acceptance of the truth of doctrinal propositions. In [End Page 189] other words, it is commonly presupposed that Shin Buddhist tradition (what he terms jōdo shinshū, "the true essence of the Pure Land way") implicitly affirms the subject-object dichotomy. This difficulty is frequently compounded by formulations of the supposed tenets of belief that are heavily molded and colored by Protestant Christian notions of self, sin, eschatology, and atonement. It is impossible to take up such comparative theological issues here. 2 In a sense, I have sought in my article to circumvent a hasty assessment of conceptual equivalence by pointing out the possibility of an encompassing or prior dissonance.Since Shinran's concept of "attaining shinjin" (true entrusting, which is also the Buddha-mind given to the practitioner) is built on the endeavor to deconstruct the reification of this dichotomy in engagement with the Pure Land Buddhist path, the unconsciousness reinstatement of it in reading his writings can lead one to a thorough but easily accomplished misconstrual of his thought. My suggestion in my article is that consideration of the analogues in Heidegger's thought can help us see all this. Such comparison also appears to present a relatively untested avenue for Buddhist-Christian conversation, particularly in view of Heidegger's early indebtedness to Luther's "theology of the cross" and the notion of the "alien work of God" as the critical stripping away of attachments to human capacities (destructio in the "Heidelberg Disputation"), and also his approach to Paul's letters to the Thessalonians in The Phenomenology of Religious Life. 3 The keystone in such interreligious conversation remains, however, not simply human fallibility as subject or culpability as agent, but the persistent challenge to the subject-object dichotomy, which may form a locus of refractory difference between the religious traditions.The constructive side of the comparison concerns two general dimensions of Shinran's thought that are highlighted in an approach to his writings that might be called phenomenological. One includes a shift from a reading based on scriptural foundationalism and doctrinal reasoning to a dialogical reading, one attentive to Shinran's effort to... (shrink)

Gregory Peterson's Minding God does an excellent job of introducing the cognitive sciences to the general reader and drawing preliminary connections between these disciplines and some of the loci of theology. The book less successfully articulates how the cognitive sciences should impact the future of theology. In this article I pose three questions: (1) What semantics is presupposed in relating the languages of theology and the cognitive sciences? How do the truth conditions of these disparate disciplines relate? (2) What precisely (...) does theology gain from what is central to cognitive science: the emphasis on information processing, inner representation, and the computer model of the mind? What exactly does cognitive science offer to theology beyond the now‐standard rejection of Cartesian dualism, the affirmation of an embodied mind, and the repudiation of reduction? (3) What can the cognitive sciences offer in tackling crucial questions in the theology‐science discussion such as divine agency and divine causation? Finally, I point to a possible begging of the question in the claim that cognitive science relates to theology because theology deals with meaning and purpose, and a particular interpretation of cognitive science grants more meaning and purpose to human beings than antecedent post‐Cartesian positions in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Part of Slavoj iek's philosophical background is located in German idealism. In this article, his relation to German idealism is critically assessed, and the key to this assessment is found in iek's favorite medium: film. In film, reality can only appear as a new image, replacing an old reality as fictitious, the real itself, however, remains unreachable by thought. At this point, a parallel with German idealism appears: it was Kant who turned reality into a desert, and Hegel and Schelling (...) who tried to retrieve it. Siding with Adorno and Heidegger, iek reaches a negative conclusion that does justice to neither German idealism nor indeed Schelling. His use of German idealism is one-sided and selective, regardless of the fact that it allows him to formulate an adequate critique of Western society. Perceiving a parallel between iek's conception of cinema and Kantian imagination [Einbildungskraft], the final conclusion is that he approaches German idealism not in terms of its conceptual system-character, but in terms of sensual multiplicity, not seeking unity in it, but precisely fragmentation. (shrink)

Part of Slavoj Žižek's philosophical background is located in German idealism. In this article, his relation to German idealism is critically assessed, and the key to this assessment is found in Žižek's favorite medium: film. In film, “reality” can only appear as a new image, replacing an old “reality” as fictitious, the “real” itself, however, remains unreachable by thought. At this point, a parallel with German idealism appears: it was Kant who turned reality into a “desert,” and Hegel and Schelling (...) who tried to retrieve it. Siding with Adorno and Heidegger, Žižek reaches a “negative” conclusion that does justice to neither German idealism nor indeed Schelling. His “use” of German idealism is one-sided and selective, regardless of the fact that it allows him to formulate an adequate critique of Western society. Perceiving a parallel between Žižek's conception of cinema and Kantian imagination [Einbildungskraft], the final conclusion is that he approaches German idealism not in terms of its conceptual system-character, but in terms of sensual multiplicity, not seeking unity in it, but precisely fragmentation. (shrink)

One argument raised against the classical view of concepts is the argument from categorization, which infers from empirical evidence concerning acts of categorization that the best explanation for that evidence is inconsistent with the classical view. Building on an argument and basic distinction drawn by Georges Rey, the present paper gives an improved response to the argument from categorization by drawing further distinctions among various epistemic and satisfaction conditions for concepts. The paper shows that given such further distinctions, one sort (...) of objection to Rey's account can be avoided, and it is seen with further force that the classical view escapes refutation at the hands of the argument from categorization. (shrink)

The significance of A. N. Whitehead’s contribution to 20th century metaphysics has become widely recognized. The focus on the novelty of his process ontology, however, has led to a view that isolates him from the mainstream of the tradition of Western philosophy. Hence, it is often overlooked that on the methodological level Whitehead is a pragmatist, whose much quoted indebtedness to William James is reflected in the project of his speculative metaphysics. A detailed analysis of the respective theories of (...) truth and knowledge in James and Whitehead illustrates their common methodological approach and allows us to assess the role of Whiteheadian thinking within the pragmatist tradition. James advances a form of epistemic conservatism that supplements the pragmatic idea of a concept’s cash-value with the demand for internal consistency. New beliefs have to fit in the totality of all previously accepted convictions in order to become accepted as true. James argues his case on three levels – a psychological, an epistemological and a pragmatic one – and develops a theory of truth that comprises an empirical and a rational dimension. Whitehead takes up this two-sided approach, but modifies the idea of genetic consistency into that of systematic coherence. The fundamental concepts of an ontological theory must not be isolated from each other to allow for a cosmology which is both rational and satisfies the pragmatic test of applicability. With the close relation of James and Whitehead in mind, the latter can be identified as the ‘missing link’ that bridges the gap between the so-called classical pragmatism and its more analytic versions as advanced by Quine, Lewis and Rescher. (shrink)

On its face, Leibniz's argument for primitive concepts seems to imply that unless we can analyze non-primitive concepts into their primitive constituents, we cannot grasp them. This implication, together with Leibniz's belief that we do conceive of some non-primitive concepts, entails that we can analyze some non-primitive concepts into their primitive components. However, Leibniz claims elsewhere that we are incapable of doing this. To resolve this inconsistency, I argue that, for Leibniz, grasping a concept is not an all-or-nothing affair; instead (...) we possess concepts in degrees. When reinterpreted in line with this, Leibniz's argument can avoid the inconsistency. (shrink)

The impact of social media technologies (SMTs) on digital wellbeing has become an increasingly important puzzle for ethicists of technology. In this article, we explain why individualised theories of digital wellbeing (DWB) can only solve part of this puzzle. While an individualised conception of DWB is useful for understanding online self-regulation, we contend that we must seek greater understanding of how SMTs connect us. To build an account of this, we locate the conceptual resources for our account in Confucian ethics. (...) In contrast to individualised conceptions of human flourishing that are found in the Western tradition, Confucian thinkers strongly emphasise that individuals cannot flourish alone, but need wider social structures (partner, family, society, nation). Not only do strands of Confucian ethics explain how individuals are defined by the roles they take up in relationships, but this perspective also makes practical suggestions for how these roles can be cultivated. We conclude our article by identifying the Confucian notions that seem to have most promise for the future design of SMTs. (shrink)

This paper reflects on two ideas addressed in Benoît Vermander’s essay “Edit by Number.” First, how can we apply “coherence in structure” to the historical development of textual production and edition in ancient China? And second, what concept of number underlies the considerations in the Huáinán Zǐ 淮南子? To answer the first question, this article compares the different compositional patterns of texts that, as with the Lǎo Zǐ 老子and the Yì Jīng 易經, are available to us in different versions. The (...) result of the comparison shows that the differences seem to outweigh the coherent patterns, so we must assume that some texts have undergone very large changes historically. Regarding the concept of number, different views on number are highlighted in texts of the Warring States Period and the Hàn 漢 dynasty, which shows that the Huáinán Zǐ contains a very specific concept of number and its own theory of the One. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:OBJECTIVITY AND RELlGIOUS TRUTH: A COMPARISON OF WILFRED CANTWELL SMITH AND BERNARD LONERGAN DENNIS M. DOYLE University of Dayton Dayton, Ohio WILFRED CANTWELL SMITH •and Bernard Lonergan both propose a new agenda for theology n response to ;the same basic cultura.I developments.1 Both Smith and Lonergan pinpoint the crux of the current siturution!aJS the convergence of various cultures in a world where Western culture had.been heM by (...) its pwrticiipants to be univers•al.and normrutive. The majo'l" problem concerning religious truth :that 1 arises out of this situation concerns universality. Formulrutions tha:t were once taken for granted are now seen to he relative to their context. Concepts that it.T1anscend particular formulations are themselves recognized irus indigenous to 1a culture. T·ruth itself is questioned as to whether it too is not!l'elative to eaich oontert. The responses of Smith and Lonergan to this situa:tion are remarkably ·similar in structure. In the midst of these similarities, 1 however, arise some differences with important implications concerning oibjectivity, itruth, and theology in a global context. Objec:tivity, Method, and Human Knowledge Smith and Lonergan both 'address rthe issue of human knowing before establishing their programs for theo1 logy.2 For botih, 1 Smith's proposal is put forth in Towards a World Theology (Phila.: Westminster Press, 1981 )• Lonergan's proposal can be found in Method in Theology (N.Y.: Herder and Herder, 1972). 2 Smith's reflections on human knowing are in "Objectivity and the Humane Sciences,'' in Towards a World Theology, pp. 56·80'. Lonergan's 461 462 DENNIS M. DOYLE a major problem in wayis of conceiving human knowing in recent centuries has heen an ohjectivism according to which knowledge was iheld to he absolute without regard to human SUJbjectivity and without an openness to other cultures. Both find a £acile cultural remtivism to he.an unsatisfactory reaction to this problem. In response, :both Smith and Lonergan try to re-root human knowing in a human conte:rl. Lonergan does ·this hy establishing the ground of knowing in an analysis of human intentionality. Smith does this by estaiblishing the ground of knowing in a mutual interchange between persons who participate in some traditions and who are observers of other traditions. Smith la.bels such knowing ·a" 001·iporaite critica1 self-iconsciousness." What emerges from such consciousness is "humane knowledge." Although some major di:ffevences arise at this point, the context of istructul'lal similarities must he noted.3 For hoth Smith and Lonergan, hruman knowing is intrinsically connected with :the quality of living both individually and oommullla1ly. Eiach in his own way stresses that knowing is vitally linked to the consciousness of individuals. Each in his own way stresses that knowing takes place within ·community, and that the breadth and quality of the community affects the breadth and quality of the knowing. Smith •and Lonergan both, furthermore, envision the taisk of theology as the conceptualization and articulation in a new context of wihat was once known in a strictly objective, theoretical f:vame;work. Both, finailily, 'lay ouit the major work on human knowing is Insight: A Study of Human Understo;nding (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1957). For a summary view, see chapter one of Method in Theology. For Lonergan's position on objectivity, see "The Origins of Christian Realism" in A Second Collection (Phila.: Westminster Press, 1974), ·pp. 239-61. a For an earlier comparison of the methods of Smith and Lonergan, see Walter E. Conn, "'Faith' and 'Cumulative Tradition' in Functional Specialization : A Study in the Methodologies of Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Bernard Lonergan," Studies in ReligiOn/Soiences Religieuses 5 (1975/76) : 221-46•.Although this article was published before several of Smith's major works in the area, the methodological similarities unearthed by Conn still hold true. WILFRED CANTWELL SMITH & BERNARD LONERGAN 463 problem specifically in terms of tmnscending false subject/object :dichotomies. At this point, however, differences between Smith and Lonwgian begin to emerge, foir each attempts to transcend false.suibjoot/oibject dichotomies in a different way. Lonergan holds that objectivity is the fruit of authentic ;subjectivity.4 1t is intended hy the self-transcending subject who loves... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism (1350–1550) by Bernard McGinnDennis J. Billy C.Ss.R.The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism (1350–1550). By Bernard McGinn. New York: Crossroad, 2012. Pp. xiv + 721. $70.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-8245-9901-0.This fifth volume of McGinn’s Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism covers the Dutch, Italian, and English vernacular mystics of the late Middle Ages. In previous volumes, the author treated the Foundations (vol. (...) 1), Growth (vol. 2), Flowering (vol. 3), and Harvest (vol. 4) of Western Christian mysticism from its roots in the Jewish matrix and the Greek ideal to its fruition in the German vernacular writings of Meister Eckhart and his students. In this latest volume, he continues his history of Western Christian mysticism by focusing on varieties of vernacular mysticism in the Low Countries, Italy, and England from 1350 to 1550.Conscious of the dangers of historical periodization and regional classification, as well as the relationship of mysticism to the greater ecclesiastical world, McGinn takes pains to show the distinctive character of each mystic under consideration, while at the same time pointing out appropriate parallels with Western and Eastern Christian mystics from past historical epochs and those contemporary voices from both within and [End Page 476] without each mystic’s linguistic region. In his preface, he apologizes to his readers for the long gestation of the present volume and offers a brief account of how his original plan of writing a three-volume history of Western Christian mysticism evolved into a series of seven, due in large part to the sheer wealth of sources and his desire to give them a thorough treatment. Rather than following his original intention of including other vernacular traditions in his previous volume on German mysticism, he wisely chose to devote an entire volume to these other important strands (ix–x).Instead of writing a general introduction to the volume, McGinn decides to give a brief introduction to each of the three major parts. He divides his work into thirteen chapters constructed along the following lines: (1) “Late Medieval Mysticism in the Low Countries” (chaps. 1–5), (2) “Mysticism in Late Medieval Italy” (chaps. 6–9), and (3) “Mysticism in Late Medieval England” (chaps. 10–13). The volume closes with a brief conclusion (491–94), extended annotations (495–661), an extensive bibliography (662–704), and indices for Scripture references (705–6), names (707–12), and subjects (713–21). The book’s organization reflects the theme of diversity highlighted in its title. Although each part has its own internal structure and stands on its own as a survey of the material at hand, it also fits well into the volume’s overall plan of pointing out the distinctiveness and great variety of the vernacular mysticisms produced during this period. Taken individually, each part can be considered a probing monograph on the vernacular mysticism in each region. Taken together, the parts offer a unique glimpse into the mystic and literary creativity that sets this period apart as one of the most fertile periods in the history of Christian mysticism.In part 1, “Late Medieval Mysticism in the Low Countries,” McGinn notes that “the period ca. 1350 to ca. 1550 is the central era for Dutch mysticism” and “witnessed a florescence of mystical authors writing in the Dutch-Flemish language” (1). Although he hesitates to refer to a Dutch “school” of mysticism and thinks that “Ruusbroec should not be made the yardstick by which all later Dutch mystics are measured,” he has no reservations about considering him “a gravitational center in the history of Dutch mysticism” (2). This section of the book begins with an in-depth look at the mystical writings of Jan van Ruusbroec (1293–1381) (chap. 1) and continues with a study of Goenendaal mysticism after Ruusbroec (chap. 2). It then turns to a treatment of the mystical aspects of the Devotio Moderna, with a special emphasis on The Imitation of Christ and some vernacular mystics numbered among the Devout, such as Hendrik Mande (ca. 1360–1431, Gerlach Peters (ca. 1375–1411), and Alijt Bake (1415–55), and adds a brief note on the nominalistic... (shrink)

We propose an analysis of backward causation in terms of interventionism that can avoid several problems typically associated with backward causation. Its main advantage over other accounts is that it allows for reducing the problematic task of supporting backward causal claims to the unproblematic task of finding evidence for several ordinary forward directed causal hypotheses.

This report aims to offer insights into cutting-edge research on digital well-being. Many of these insights come from a 2-day academic-impact event, The Future of Digital Well-Being, hosted by a team of researchers working with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in February 2024. Today, achieving and maintaining well-being in the face of online technologies is a multifaceted challenge that we believe requires using theoretical resources of different research disciplines. This report explores diverse perspectives on how digital (...) well-being can be actively cultivated, while also emphasising the importance of considering individual differences, societal contexts, and nuanced cultural factors. We aim to offer a holistic view of the future of digital well-being, one that will inspire the next generation of designers of online tools, as well as policymakers who will regulate these tools. We start by asking what digital well-being is – how we can best define a concept that is used by diverse stakeholders and researchers from many disciplines in various ways. To do this, we explore the classic ethical theories of well-being, showing how they can give us insights into how the term digital well-being is currently deployed. We then move to look at the existing strategies that have been proposed to actively cultivate digital well-being, exploring the business models that threaten digital well-being and the relative advantages of the digital and non-digital solutions that are currently proposed. On the one hand, digital tools – such as Apple’s Screen Time and app blockers such as Opal and Forest – integrate seamlessly with the digital lifestyles of users. They also create precise metrics for digital well-being, which facilitates their solutions to reduce screen time. On the other hand, non-digital solutions, including mindfulness practices, digital detoxes, and digital well-being coaching, offer a new set of tools to reconnect individuals to their natural rhythms and help to actively promote offline activities. We then move to discuss diversity and how various groups of users have strikingly different digital well-being needs. Embracing neurodiversity in digital well-being is crucial as it strongly impacts the users’ experience of online technologies. When designing for diversity, organisations and designers alike need to prioritise customization for people with physical disabilities, mitigate harmful content for users with mental well-being conditions, address gender stereotypes and online harassment, and be designed in ways that recognize the very real risks of online technologies. This report closes by examining cultural differences. We believe that non-Western conceptions of well-being offer rich sources for enhancing digital well-being insofar as these traditions can inform and inspire the designers of future online technologies. We focus on East-Asian and South-Asian traditions, although in further work we recognise it would be useful to investigate conceptions of well-being that are influential in the Gulf region, Africa, and South America. Each of these areas have ethical frameworks that discuss well-being in depth as well as a rich cultural heritage. In conclusion, this report’s insights underscore the imperative of recognizing diversity in digital well-being, both in terms of cultural contexts and disciplinary perspectives. It emphasises the need for culturally responsive design methodologies and the integration of non-Western philosophical perspectives into current digital well-being research. Embracing this diversity, we believe, offers the best chance to create digital environments that prioritise well-being for users and the societies they live in across the world. Ultimately, we believe that it is not only about designing better online products; it’s about shaping a digital landscape that promotes well-being and flourishing for everyone. (shrink)

The work of the later Schelling seems antithetical to that of Nietzsche: one a Romantic, idealist and Christian, the other Dionysian, anti-idealist and anti-Christian. Still, there is a very meaningful and educative dialogue to be found between Schelling and Nietzsche on the topics of reason, freedom and religion. Both of them start their philosophy with a similar critique of the Western tradition, which to them is overly dualist, rationalist and anti-organic. In response, they hope to inculcate a more lively (...) view of reality in which a new understanding of freedom takes center stage. This freedom can be revealed and strengthened through a proper approach to religion, one that neither disconnects from nor subordinates religion to reason. Religion is the dialogical other to reason, one that refreshes and animates our attempts to navigate the world autonomously. In doing so, Schelling and Nietzsche open up new avenues of thinking about freedom, reason and religion. (shrink)

The historical period of the 18th and early 19th century is usually perceived as the high point of human self-emancipatory optimism. Specifically, the Enlightenment believed that reason would guide humanity from darkness to the light. Ay, there's the rub, so rhymes the Bard of Avon, for wherefrom arriveth the urge to flee the dark? The rationalist propensity to remodel and re-invent the world is testament to a dreary and pessimistic analysis of the human condition. Thus, the Enlightenment made a largely (...) self-content analysis of the natural, traditional and historical condition of humanity which suggested that underneath its emancipatory, rationalist optimism lurks an unspoken perspective on reality that, in the verse of Alexander Pope, on weak wings, from far, pursues [its] flights. In this dissertation, I have called that perspective the horror of existence : the tacit acknowledgment that whatever is naturally and historically presented to the human agent is to be treated with suspicion. Nietzsche even declared such squinty eyes part and parcel of the bad blood of Western metaphysics in its ignoble resentment towards the vitalistic full-bloodedness of existence. Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer are the protagonists in the investigation into the pessimistic focal point that looms underneath the Enlightenment s alleged optimism. Three points of inquiry are central to unravelling this pessimism. First, it is to be established that Immanuel Kant the proverbial vanguard of the Aufklärung actually subscribed to a sense of pessimism. Virtuous duty is the code word of Kant s ethics: to act in a fashion in opposition to certain countermoral inclinations. While Kant calls such behavior autonomy in the supposed fullest sense of the term, such autonomy is lacking in appeal in comparison to the pursuit of happiness. If rational morality is left unassisted, it remains in the perennial danger of being ineffective. The human agent is ill-disposed towards the moral law and radically inclined to overturn the moral world order. Accordingly, Kant turns to certain religious tools to bestow a kind of moral education that would augment the appeal of morality without ever making the human agent in any way inclined to moral virtue. At best, the human agent is justified in his/her rational faith to moral progress. In sum, while Kant believed that immanent rationality is the appropriate guide for moral pursuits, it is lacking in appeal to the finite and frail human agent. Second, it is to be shown that Schopenhauer s more overtly pessimistic philosophy is a continuation of a certain philosophical impetus at work in Kant s philosophy. After Schopenhauer questions the irresistible appeal of rationality, he finds that the Kantian recalcitrance to morality could very well be understood as self-justified self-expression of a blind, amoral will. Since even Kant admitted that rationality lacks in appeal to draw humanity in line, why would rationality be the most intimate aspect of noumenal reality? Instead, the human agent is mired in a depravity from which only his/her own frail and quasi-powerless tools can facilitate an escape. Accordingly, an ethics of compassion, a sublime piece of art, a pessimistic religion and proper philosophical insight can facilitate an escape from reality and turn the human agent to blissful nothingness. Third, it is to be shown that Kant and Schopenhauer s specific sense of pessimism is a philosophical translation of a certain theological perspective on the interplay between nature and goodness. Instead of thinking about nature and good as on a continuum, the Protestant Reformation introduced a radical dualism between nature and goodness which requires nature to be radically reformatted. No good is to come from the exercise of nature: works do not justify. Similarly, Kant and Schopenhauer reiterate how a radical change in the normal behavior of the human agent is the only escape from his/her depraved condition. But how do you fuel a quest for health if that which would do the healing is diseased to its core? (shrink)

Research from psychology, neurobiology and behavioral economics indicates that a binary view of motivation, based on approach and avoidance, may be too reductive. Instead, a literature review suggests that at least seven distinct motives are likely to affect human decisions: “consumption/resource seeking,” “care,” “affiliation,” “achievement,” “status-power,” “threat approach” (or anger), and “threat avoidance” (or fear). To explore the conceptual distinctness and relatedness of these motives, we conducted a semantic categorization task. Here, participants were to assign provided words to one of (...) the motives. By applying principal component analysis to the categorization assignments we represent the semantic inter-relations of these motives on a two-dimensional space, a “semantic atlas.” This atlas suggests that, while care and affiliation are conceptually close, affiliation is closer to threat avoidance (or fear); opposite to these motives we find achievement, consumption and power, with the latter lying closer to threat approach (or anger). In a second study, we asked participants to rate how well the motive-specific words obtained in the first study described their currently experienced feelings. We find that semantically close motives are also more likely to be experienced together, that is, we replicate most of the semantic relations in the “subjective atlas.” We discuss our findings in comparison to other multi-dimensional models of motivation, which show clear similarities. In addition to these motivational atlases, we provide a database of motive-specific words, together with the valence and arousal scores. These can be used for future research on the influence of motives on decision making. (shrink)

SummaryChristian theologians can explain the Trinitarian faith today in dialogue with Islamic thinkers as “deepened monotheism”. Therefore it is important to widen the systematic-theological discourse in an ecumenical and transcultural perspective and to retrieve resources from Western and non-Western traditions of Trinitarian thought (I).In this paper I will first work out historically that the Trinitarian creed of Nicea and Constantinople was originally an ecumenical but non-Western creed (II). Afterwards, I investigate the philosophical-theological reflection on the Trinity (...) by Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) in the context of early interreligious encounters in the Latin West. Based on biblical, augustinian and Greek sources, he developed an approach to understand the mystery of the Trinity by rational arguments as “deepened monotheism” (III). Then I will proceed to explore the philosophical-theological dialogues on the Trinity from the Arabic philosopher and Syrian-orthodox theologian Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī (893–974). Much earlier he developed rational arguments for the Triunity of God with reference to Aristotle. Thereby he answers to anti-trinitarian arguments from Islamic thinkers like al-Kindī and al-Warrāq. He intends that the Trinitarian faith of Christian minorities can thereby be understood and tolerated by Islamic thinkers as rationally founded “deepened monotheism” (IV).In the end I will evaluate what these classics from the Western and non-western traditions of Trinitarian thought contribute to explicate the doctrine of the Trinity today in a pluralistic religious context as “deepened monotheism” (V). (shrink)

This essay seeks to demonstrate that there are no compelling reasons to exclude non-Western artefacts from the domain of art. Any theory of art must therefore account for the universality of the concept of art. It cannot simply start from ‘our’ art traditions and extend these conceptions to other cultures, since this would imply cultural appropriation, nor can it resolve the matter simply by formulating separate criteria for non-Western art, since this would imply that there is no unity (...) in the concept of art. At first sight, cluster theories of art seem capable of accounting for the universality of art since they (can) start from a broad cross-cultural range of artworks and nowhere seem to extend one conception of art to other conceptions. Yet cluster theories remain unsatisfactory, because they can neither avoid misapplication of the proposed criteria, nor clarify the unity in the concept of art. (shrink)

This Element traces the effects of science's rise on the cultural status of monotheism. Starting in the past, it shows how monotheism contributed to science's rise, and how, returning the favour, science provided aid and support, until fairly recently, for the continuing success of monotheism in the west. Turning to the present, the Element explores reasons for supposing that explanatorily, and even on an existential level, science is taking over monotheism's traditional roles in western culture. (...) These reasons are found to be less powerful than is commonly supposed, though the existential challenge can be made effective when framed in an unusual and indirect manner. Finally, the Element considers how the relationship between science's high standing and the status of monotheism might appear in the future. Could something like monotheism rise again, and might science help it do so? The Element concludes that an affirmative answer is possible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Liberalism without Illusions: Renewing an American Christian Tradition by Christopher H. Evans, and: Robust Liberalism: H. Richard Niebuhr and the Ethics of American Public Life by Timothy A. Beach-VerheyJames M. BrandtLiberalism without Illusions: Renewing an American Christian Tradition Christopher H. Evans Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010. 207pp. $24.95Robust Liberalism: H. Richard Niebuhr and the Ethics of American Public Life Timothy A. Beach-Verhey Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, (...) 2011. 238pp. $49.95Christopher Evans’s Liberalism without Illusions and Timothy Beach-Verhey’s Robust Liberalism have much in common, although they do not mean the same thing when they refer to “liberalism.” Evans traces the trajectory of liberal Christianity or “liberal theology” from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to the present and suggests how it might renew itself. Beach-Verhey considers the political tradition of liberal democracy and how the radical monotheism of H. Richard Niebuhr can help form a “robust liberalism.” Both books attend to the present situation of public life in the United States and assert the need for theology that points emphatically to the God who is in and beyond history.Evans admits that liberal theology is difficult to define and that it includes significant diversity. One reason for its elusiveness is the “remarkable elasticity” (7) it has shown over time. Theological liberalism “supports critical engagement with both Christian traditions and contemporary intellectual resources” (6). In a way different from traditional theology, it “has been characterized by an affirmation of personal and collective experience, systemic social analysis and open theological inquiry” (6).At its best, liberal theology, appealing to Jesus’s ministry and especially his teaching of the reign of God, inspired people to believe they could make a difference in the here and now. And liberal theology did this without an uncritical endorsement of Western “progress.” In its heyday, liberal theology’s leaders were pulpiteers who spoke to both personal and social issues and commanded significant and loyal followings.From the pinnacle of its ecclesial and cultural significance in the mid-twentieth century, liberal theology has fallen to a low place. Evans argues that [End Page 190] this has happened because liberal theology has lost its congregational base and become isolated in academia and among denominational leaders. Liberal theology has been unable to sustain its vigor at a popular level. Meanwhile, after its seeming defeat in the 1930s, fundamentalism recast itself as evangelicalism, organized at the grassroots level, and developed popular theologies that resonated with large numbers of people. Much of evangelicalism has been held together by dispensationalism and its attention to the end times. Liberals deemed dispensationalism unworthy of response, but Evans argues that liberals’ failure to engage dispensationalism seriously is to their detriment. While liberals were right to reject dispensationalism’s literalism and pessimism, Evans recognizes that its appeal has been the way it holds biblical texts together with concrete historical events, and that it is a logical development of traditional Protestant insistence on the authority of scripture.Evans’s prescription for the rejuvenation of liberal Christianity includes a posture of exile, knowing that the larger culture will not care much about what liberals say or do. Liberals need to regain a connection with scripture and tradition, offer a compelling alternative to the conservative vision, and get in touch with the deepest yearnings and anxieties of people in the pew (and those not in the pew).Liberal theology has made significant contributions to church and society, not least its call for transformation of structures of oppression. Evans counsels that liberals today need to speak to social issues but avoid being too closely identified with them. He appeals to Reinhold Niebuhr’s claim that the pursuit of justice is important, but it is not what constitutes Christian identity. Liberal Christianity’s enduring legacy is its faith that God is at work in the world. Evans affirms that liberals must continue to function as the church and attend to the deepest truths of the tradition, not least this active hope in the living God.Evans’s book provides a broad overview of the liberal tradition and charts well its historical passage, its strengths, and its failings... (shrink)

In European philosophies of history, the linear paradigm that has prevailed for centuries as a derivative of Christian salvation history (Heilsgeschichte), ultimately lost its monopoly with the arrival of the “post-age.” The result of this has been that ideas that have survived on the margins, even the cyclical interpretation of time attached to religious traditions, now seem capable of outliving the short-lived belief in continuous progress. According to the cyclical view of history, those who came last will leave first, with (...) those who came first leaving as the last adherents of the driving force of Western rationalization. Thus, within a century, beginning with World War 2, a major turning point has been crossed: Socialism was the first to disappear, and it looks like Secular Liberalism will be the next; then Protestantism, followed by Islam, and so forth. As seductive as these images may appear, they only mirror an auto-destructive thread at the very center of Europe’s troubled Geist. But can anything be done to save the most important European values, and specifically, the ethical drive to say “no” to power, which is perhaps the most important legacy of monotheism? Either as a self-limitation from within powerful institutions or as a mode of resistance on the margins of powerful developments—there is a strong adherence to the good (often named God) that helps people and communities survive their diasporic state. I will present this kernel of ethical monotheism by two relatively unknown twentieth-century examples of “diasporic knowledge”: Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), in which she recorded her observations of the devastating effects of empires on Yugoslavia, and two poems by Rosario Castellanos, who decades before the debate on postcolonialism voiced the concerns of displaced indigenous cultures in her Mexican homeland. I suggest that, paradoxically, attention to diasporic voices is one way of realizing the spirit of European self-limitation that is so much needed today to prevent further damage to our societies and environment wrought by the excessive drive for progress fostered by an unethical monorationalism. (shrink)

Critical social theories look critically at the ways in which particular social arrangements hinder human flourishing, with a view to bringing about social change for the better. In this they are guided by the idea of a good society in which the identified social impediments to human flourishing would once and for all have been removed. The question of how these guiding ideas of the good life can be justified as valid across socio-cultural contexts and historical epochs is the most (...) fundamental difficulty facing critical social theories today. This problem of justification, which can be traced back to certain key shifts in the modern Western social imaginary, calls on contemporary theories to negotiate the tensions between the idea of context-transcendent validity and their own anti-authoritarian impulses. Habermas makes an important contribution towards resolving the problem, but takes a number of wrong turnings. (shrink)

This essay examines Nancey Murphy's commitment to downward causation and develops a critique of that notion based upon the distinction between the causal relevance of a higher‐level event and its causal efficacy. I suggest the following: (1) nonreductive physicalism lacks adequate resources upon which to base an assertion of real causal power at the emergent, supervenient level; (2) supervenience's nonreductive nature ought not obscure the fact that it affirms an ontological determination of higher‐level properties by those at the lower level; (...) and (3) the notion of divine self‐renunciation, while consonant with Murphy's claim of supervenient, divine action, is nonetheless problematic. Throughout, I claim that the question of the causal efficacy of a level is logically independent from the assertion of its conceptual or nomological nonreducibility. (shrink)

The reception of Martin Bernal’s Black Athena in 1987 by classicists focused on Bernal’s errors of fact rather than on the content of his message. The thrust of this message was that Classics is a Eurocentric project that systematically excluded the Levantine and Egyptian contribution to European civilization. In 1996, I was hired to develop a Black Athena course to counter the Afrocentric view that black people were systematically excluded from their contribution to the fetishization of “Western Civilization” in (...) Classics, Near Eastern Studies, Art History, and History, among other fields of study. I chose to avoid devaluating Afrocentric views or valorizing traditional views of Greece as the ethnically pure fount of European civilization. Instead, the course structure underscored that a thorough interrogation of the evidence could promote inclusive and multicultural histories by focusing on how civilization began in the east. Fast forward to the present: classicists have embarked on numerous projects to decolonize the fields of ancient studies through outreach, “colorizing” the Classics, and by recruiting people of color to reshape these fields. In considering the ethical issues involved in this project to decolonize Classics and related areas of research, I argue that the institutional positionality of a discipline that inscribes itself as central can never de-colonize itself but should de-center its privileged position in favor of a broader approach including neighboring regions. (shrink)

This article evaluates two opposing approaches to the Western transition from a monotheistic and metaphysically grounded religious dispensation to secularized modern political theory. Where some philosophers emphasize the independence of modern political ideals, others argue that these ideals cannot remain theoretically coherent or practically effective once they are separated from the religious sources that have given rise to them. The theory of communicative action can bring together the insights of both independency and dependency theorists, thereby accounting for the public-political (...) significance of redemptive criticism and other important forms of religious discourse. Yet given that religious groups are no longer embedded within the nation state, an additional and pressing contemporary challenge is to develop an adequate constitutional framework for global society. (shrink)

Melancholia is a commonly experienced feeling, and one with a long and fascinating medical history which can be charted back to antiquity. Avoiding the simplistic binary opposition of constructivism and hard realism, this book argues that melancholia was a culture-bound syndrome which thrived in the West because of the structure of Western medicine since the Ancient Greeks, and because of the West's fascination with self-consciousness. While melancholia cannot be equated with modern depression, Matthew Bell argues that concepts from recent (...) depression research can shed light on melancholia. Within a broad historical panorama, Bell focuses on ancient medical writing, especially the little-known but pivotal Rufus of Ephesus, and on the medicine and culture of early modern Europe. Separate chapters are dedicated to issues of gender and cultural difference, and the final chapter offers a survey of melancholia in the arts, explaining the prominence of melancholia - especially in literature. (shrink)

In the history of western philosophy, people were often encouraged to seek knowledge by starting from their own minds and proceeding in a highly individualistic spirit. In recent contemporary philosophy, by contrast, there is a movement toward Social Epistemology, which urges people to seek knowledge from what others know. However, in selected fields some people are experts while others are laypersons. It is natural for self-acknowledged laypersons to seek help from the experts. But who, exactly, are the experts? Many (...) people claiming to be experts are not the real thing. How can laypersons identify genuine experts? This essay explores the problems that arise, pointing out some of the mistakes that can be made and how to avoid them. (shrink)

Some contemporary Western theories of consciousness, such as the higher-order thought (HOT) theory and self-representationalism, hold that there is an implicit (pre-reflective) “self-awareness” that accompanies each conscious mental state. Important twentieth-century historical figures, such as Sartre and Brentano, have also embraced a similar position. This view, or something very close to it, can also be found centuries earlier in some Indian philosophy (such as in Dignāga) where conscious experience is thought of as “inherently reflexive” and cognition is understood to (...) have a “dual-aspect.” In this chapter, I lay out some of the similarities and differences among these views and explain why I prefer the way that HOT theory accounts for such self-awareness as compared to the others, including HOT theory’s ability to avoid the much-discussed infinite regress threat and its more plausible explanation of introspection. I also explain how HOT theory, like many Buddhist accounts, is not logically committed to the existence of an enduring substantial “self.”. (shrink)

I use an explanation of Yanomami warfare given by the anthropologist Brian Ferguson as a case study to compare the merits of the causal and unification approaches to explanation. I argue that Ferguson's insistence on explaining actual occurrences and patterns of Yanomami warfare together with his claim that all of his generalizations are statistical raises difficulties for the unification approach, because of its commitment to "deductive chauvinism." Moreover, I show that there are serious difficulties involved in comparing the "unifying power" (...) of Ferguson's explanations to those of his competitors. I show that the causal approach can provide a rich analysis of Ferguson's explanation while avoiding these difficulties. (shrink)

Among the different approaches to comparative tax law the one adopted here views comparative taxation as a descriptive tool conducive to tax design, a tax policy approach grounded in an evolutionary concept of tax change. Comparative taxation should be based on the functions of tax rules, with the goal of identifying similarities and differences between domestic tax systems, and should indicate potential alternative solutions to common policy issues by looking at how the basic elements of tax law-in-action interact. The Article (...) develops a theoretical framework for comparative tax research and uses examples drawn from a comparative study on the General Anti-Avoidance Rule in Canada and China, thus endeavouring to provide a crosscultural inquiry into tax transplants across the divide of Western and non-Western legal traditions. It is claimed here that a common model of tax systems should be adopted for the purpose of comparing them, and that legal theory is needed to pursue this task. The use of legal theory as a critique of municipal tax ideas is discussed in Part I, while Parts II and III deal with how legal theory can be used to describe the structure and evolution of tax systems by relying on concepts of legal hierarchies and chains of productions of tax rules. Part IV concludes with practical applications of legal theory in comparative tax research in respect to tax transplants and tax design issues by providing an explanatory framework of General Anti-Avoidance Rules in Canada and China. (shrink)

The moral foundations theory (MFT) proposes that there are five moral foundations that work as the standard to make moral judgments. Among them, the purity foundation is a complex concept. It is considered to be a distinctive foundation compared with the other ones partly because it involves religious beliefs. The assumption underlying the purity foundation is Christian beliefs, so the MFT was developed and made prevalent mostly in the Western cultures. However, because of that assumption, cultural differences in perceiving (...) the purity foundation should be observed with a non-Western sample, such as Japan. It would be important to discuss and clarify the Japanese unique aspect of their orientation toward the pure and impure. We constituted a scale to measure people's tendency toward purity orientation–pollution avoidance (POPA), based on the purity/sanctity subscale of the MFT. For validation, we administered several scales along with POPA. In Study 1, we developed the scale and measured the relationship between the degree of one's POPA, disgust, and animism. We identified four factors as POPA subscales. In Study 2, we investigated the test–retest reliability of POPA and conducted questionnaire surveys to measure attitudes toward paranormal phenomena and the degree of concern for each of the moral foundations. The results showed the validity of the scale, based on the moderate correlations with other scales. The POPA can be a promising tool to better understand the phenomena involving the purity foundation in a Japanese context. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has become an important rival to deontology and consequentialism, the two dominant moral theories in modern Western philosophy. What unites various forms of virtue ethics and distinguishes virtue ethics from its rivals is its emphasis on the primacy of virtue. In this article, I start with an explanation of the primacy of virtue in virtue ethics and two dilemmas, detected by Gary Watson, that virtue ethics faces: (1) virtue ethics may maintain the primacy of virtue and thus (...) leave virtue non-explanatory, or it may attempt to explain virtue in terms of something else and thus render virtue secondary at most; (2) the explanation of virtue may be objective and thus become morally indeterminate, or it may be normative and thus lack objectivity, merely re-expressing the virtue it intends to explain (Section II). After showing the failure of both classical Aristotelian and contemporary neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to escape these dilemmas, I turn to the ethical theory of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200)—the greatest synthesizer of neo-Confucianism, whose place in Confucianism is comparable to that of Thomas Aquinas in the Christian tradition—to show how it can successfully avoid both dilemmas. (shrink)

No Professor's Lectures Can Save Us: William James's Pragmatism, Radical Empiricism, and Pluralism draws critically on the full range of the writings of William James--his psychology, theory of belief and truth, radical empiricism, pluralism, and his accounts of religion, ethics, politics, and society-to develop a powerful case for an original pragmatic world view and temperament resonant with James's philosophy. In a manner that avoids the "vicious intellectualism" that James criticized, the book engages more than a century of scholarship on James, (...) and places him in conversation with both his contemporaries and more recent writers. Throughout the book's seven interwoven chapters, the author moves both with James and at times against James to address and illuminate central issues about the nature of the self, freedom, morality, community, truth, reality, and possibility. The chapters take up, in turn, James's views on: faith and freedom; habit, attention, and flourishing; inclusive and ethical lives; democratic politics; the temperament of pragmatism; a radically empirical ontology of relations; and, a pluralistic and unfinished universe. The focus throughout is practical: the book aims to show the differences in concrete lives that it makes to take up a broadly Jamesian pragmatic, radically empirical, and pluralistic personal perspective across the fallible and "ever not quite" endeavours of our finite lives. "From this unsparing practical ordeal," James noted, "no professor's lectures and no array of books can save us." In this spirit, this book does not pretend to provide, by itself, salvation. Instead, it effectively develops insights in the writings of William James that continue to constitute invaluable resources for new problems, new possibilities, and new forms of personal and social life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 111 A Critical History of Western Philosophy. Edited by D. J. O'Connor. (Giencoe: The Free Press, 1964. Pp. x + 604. $9.95.) Professor O'Connor and his collaborators have, in their Critical History of Western Philosophy, produced a novel and, to my mind, unusually good textbook. The volume, which is designed primarily as a text for undergraduate philosophy students, is made up of twentynine essays, each (...) one devoted to a major philosopher in the Western tradition--or, in a few instances, to a philosophical movement. The essays (29) have been written by 25 persons and each includes a sho[t biography of the philosopher under discussion followed by a fairly lengthy presentation and critical analysis of his philosophical views, with particular attention to metaphysics and epistemology. The contributors to the volume are mostly British, although they include a sprinkling of Americans and one Norwegian. This reviewer was pleased to note several representatives from the new British universities among them. The philosophers selected for study in the book have, I believe, been well chosen. The standard greats, from Plato through Hegel, are all included. In going beyond this repertory, the editor has used good judgment in his selections. It is always possible to question individual choices, but this proves only that different editors would produce different books. In the present ease, it might be argued that in making his selections from the seco~td rank the editor showed some partiality in favor of the insular over the continental tradition. There is, however, a quite reasonable reply to such an objection: that the selection of philosophers was determined by the purpose for which the book was designed--namely, to serve as a text for students in British and American universities. One of the problems in a book of this type, containing essays by more than two dozen writers, is to maintain a measure of uniformity--of style, of method, of complexity, and so on. Once again, the result seems to me to be on the whole successful. The essays in general are clearly written; they approach their subjects at a level that avoids oversimplification on the one hand, yet should almost always be intelligible to the average, studious undergraduate on the other. One notes an occasional idiosyneracy of interpretation; however, because the essays are written by different people, such peculiarities do not repeat themselves long enough to become an annoyance. Indeed, if I have any criticism to make on this point, it would be that the editor has been too successful in achieving uniformity in his essays. The result is writing that strikes me as being somewhat on the bland side, as though each of the contributors had made a conscious effort to produce an essay indistinguishable in anything but its content from all the others. I shall not attempt in this review to discuss critically the separate essays contained in the book. That would be an endless task, of dubious value. Instead I should like to raise two quite general issues that seem pertinent to the book as a whole. The first concerns the editor's statement, in the Preface, of the purposes of the book: In his words: "The writers have tried to do two things: (1) to explain the principal philosophical concepts and theories in the order in which they were developed; and (2) to evaluate and criticize them in the light of contemporary knowledge and to bring out whatever may be in them that is of permanent philosophical interest." The first of these two aims raises no questions; the second, however, is a different matter. I am puzzled, specifically, by its first clause, that the essays will evaluate and criticize past philosophical theories in the light of contemporary knowledge. Is this really a meaningful task? If the book were a history of science rather than of philosophy, I could understand how the writers might go about criticizing earlier theories in the light of contemporary knowledge. In philosophy, however, the situation is quite different. On what contemporary knowledge can one base his criticisms? Most of us recognize the prodigious advances that have been made during our century in the accumulation of empirical knowledge. If by contemporary... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.4 (2000) 83-101 [Access article in PDF] Martin Heidegger and his Japanese InterlocutorsAbout A Limit of Western Metaphysics Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht 1 Quite obviously, the central position that Western philosophical discourses have assigned, over the past two centuries, to the concept of "sense" hinges upon the epistemological dominance of the Subject/Object paradigm. In whichever specific ways this concept has been defined (and we all know how (...) confusing the range of those proposals has become), 1 it always ends up referring to the modalities in which an "Observer-Subject" can refer to what (s)he is observing as the "World of Objects." "Making sense," then, may be described as the selection, performed by an observer, of a specific object of reference among all the objects of which the world is believed to consist; or as the drawing of a line by which (s)he makes a distinction, at every given moment, between those parts of the world that (s)he is observing and those that (s)he is not observing; or as the positioning of a chosen topic within a preexisting context of possible associations. All these different descriptions can be turned into definitions of "sense making" as long as they point to the awareness that whatever has been chosen, divided, or contextualized could have been chosen, divided, or contextualized differently. Another way of evoking the same type of relation between what remains "potential" and what becomes "actual" would be to say that the concept of "sense" always refers to cases of entropy transformed into structure—under the condition that alternative patterns of transforming entropy into structure remain available. What we call the Subject's consciousness (Bewusstsein) is the place where these selections take place and where their alternatives are held available.If we consider the Subject/Object paradigm as the core element of that style of philosophizing which has been called (sometimes from a purely descriptive and sometimes from a critical angle) "Western metaphysics," then it is a both true and trivial conclusion to say that, within Western metaphysics, sense making is inevitable (that is, that Subjects cannot help producing sense and, also, that there can be no effects of sense without pointing to a Subject). An interesting case that proves the point of this implicational relationship is Niklas Luhmann's systems theory. Despite Luhmann's sustained effort to be epistemologically eccentric, despite all his great conceptual ambition to bypass the instance of the Subject, 2 his books (and, above all, their reception) make it [End Page 83] very clear how a philosophical discourse that gives as central a position to the concept of "sense" as Luhmann's cannot help producing Subject-effects. The frequently used everyday expression, on the other hand, that "something makes no sense" is not in conflict with our point about the inevitability of sense making within the metaphysical—and also within our Western everyday—framework of discursive presuppositions.For if we say that "something makes no sense," we are not using the word "sense" in accordance with the conventional philosophical meaning of "sense making," and we are thus not referring to individual phenomena that would "resist" individual acts of sense attribution. 3 Rather, when we say that "something makes no sense," we react to situations where a (shorter or longer) sequence of those elementary and inevitable acts of sense attribution does not produce an impression of "coherence" or "consistency"; we refer to situations where we lack a larger perspective from which we could subsume the results of different individual acts of sense making [see Hahn]. Astonishingly enough (or not astonishingly at all), all those loud intellectual slogans from a decade or two ago about the "death of the Subject" never reached this—altogether unsurprising—point: that any attempt at (or the mere historical process of) overcoming a Subject-centered epistemological tradition (or, with the more Heideggerian concept, of overcoming "metaphysics") would have to ask how one could—begin to—avoid sense making. On the contrary, that "weak subject" and that so-called "weak thinking" as which the Subject/Object paradigm seems to... (shrink)

The notion that Western ways are superior can be used to justify subsidising advocacy to the poor in Africa who might otherwise reject those ways out of ignorance. This ignores differences in culture that can trip up Western logic in Africa. When generosity is the reason to subsidise Western interventions, outside agents can be paid back in honour in ways not appropriate for Christians to accept. Perceived global inequalities used to convince donors to part with their money (...) are impositions when those inequalities are not realised by recipients. When something inherently good, like the gospel, is routinely subsidised, some African people only value it when it comes with money. This disenfranchises poor evangelists. In order to overcome missionary ignorance, promotion of the prosperity gospel, and corruption associated with excessive foreign subsidies, this article advocates that vulnerable mission, namely, foreign intervention using local languages and resources, be permitted. (shrink)

In this paper several problems are raised concerning Ian Barbour's four ways of interrelating science and religion—Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration—as put forward in such publications as his highly influential Religion in an Age of Science (1990) and widely adopted by other writers in this field. The authors argue that this taxonomy is not very useful or analytically helpful, especially to historians seeking to understand past engagements between science and religion.

Virtue ethics has become an important rival to deontology and consequentialism, the two dominant moral theories in modern Western philosophy. What unites various forms of virtue ethics and distinguishes virtue ethics from its rivals is its emphasis on the primacy of virtue. In this article, I start with an explanation of the primacy of virtue in virtue ethics and two dilemmas, detected by Gary Watson, that virtue ethics faces: (1) virtue ethics may maintain the primacy of virtue and thus (...) leave virtue non-explanatory, or it may attempt to explain virtue in terms of something else and thus render virtue secondary at most; (2) the explanation of virtue may be objective and thus become morally indeterminate, or it may be normative and thus lack objectivity, merely re-expressing the virtue it intends to explain (Section II). After showing the failure of both classical Aristotelian and contemporary neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to escape these dilemmas, I turn to the ethical theory of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200)—the greatest synthesizer of neo-Confucianism, whose place in Confucianism is comparable to that of Thomas Aquinas in the Christian tradition—to show how it can successfully avoid both dilemmas. (shrink)

Fincher & Thornhill's (F&T's) model is not entirely supported by common patterns of affect behaviors among people who live under varying climatic conditions and among people who endorse varying levels of (Western) religiosity and conservative political ideals. The authors' model is also unable to account for intra-regional heterogeneity in assortative sociality, which, we argue, can be better explained by a framework that emphasizes the differential expression of fundamental social cues for maintaining distinct social network structures.