On November 19, 2017, the eighth annual Analytic Theology Lecture was delivered in Boston, Massachusetts by N.T. Wright before the American Academy of Religion. His lecture, titled “The Meanings of History: Event and Interpretation in the Bible and Theology,” is printed here for the first time.

It is widely accepted that scientific theories should be simple, have inductive support and high empirical content, while other theories should be accurate and have high explanatory power. This book argues that these features can all be reduced to a single feature - the independence of theory from data. It also argues that theories possessing this feature are more likely to be true than those that don't.

According to N. T. Wright, anyone who is a Christian should at least think twice before he or she speaks about the soul, especially as an entity that is distinct from its physical body and can survive death in a disembodied intermediate state until the resurrection and reembodiment. In Wright’s mind, talk of the soul is talk about soul-body substance dualism (dualism, for short), which is the villain in Christian anthropological thought. As far as Wright is concerned, (...) it is time for Christians to renounce dualism once and for all. In this paper, I take issue with Wright’s position on substance dualism. (shrink)

At a 2011 meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, N. T. Wright offered four reasons for rejecting the existence of soul. This was surprising, as many Christian philosophers had previously taken Wright's defense of a disembodied intermediate state as a defense of a substance dualist view of the soul. In this paper, I offer responses to each of Wright's objections, demonstrating that Wright's arguments fail to undermine substance dualism. In so doing, I expose how popular (...) arguments against dualism fail, such as dualism is merely an unwarranted influence of Greek culture on Christianity, and substance dualism is merely a soul-of-the-gaps hypothesis. Moreover, I demonstrate that Wright himself has offered a powerful reason for adopting substance dualism in his previous works. In conclusion I offer a view that explains why the human soul needs a resurrected body. (shrink)

Philosophers of science don't very often discuss the place of mathematics between other sciences or the meaning of mathematics for other sciences. They consider mathematics as a formal language with mainly analytical statements about the use of symbols (Carnap, Russell, Ayer ). Originally Wittgenstein defended this formalistic interpretation of mathematics in his TLP. Gradually, however, he develops himself towards an intuitionistic and ontological position, in which mathematics is conceived as the central and therefore normative part of our thought (of course (...) : on what there is and how it is). Mathematical science plays the role of logic in relation to other sciences. Its universal applicability and efficiency are consequences of its creating beings on a necessary level, in virtue of the number of its relations (always still by substitution). This highly important philosophy of mathematics (misinterpreted by Crispin Wright) starts with his lectures in Cambridge (in the thirties ) and reaches its culmination in the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics and in On Certainty. In a second part this philosophical determination of mathematical reasoning is traced backwards through history. David Hume's contribution is reinterpreted from a new point of view. Inside the total field of our beliefs he distinguishes between different sciences with the critérium of the intricacy of relations between items of our knowledge field. The more and stronger these relations, the more forceful and necessary their influence on the remaining parts of the system of our belief. So mathematics is in the centre, the loose reveries of our fancy on the periphery. Quine's representation of ‘the tribunal of sense experience’, by which the total field should be judged and corrected, must be disqualified. Hume's dictum ‘Whatever we conceive, we conceive it to be existent’ reveals sharply that this evaluative and corrective role is performed by the necessary thoughts (or, if one likes it so, ‘realities’) of mathematical science. That reason and especially mathematical reason is the highest judge on the population and structure of our world and a very precious heritage of Pythagorism and Platonism. From the sources of Sextus Empiricus and Aristotle the author tries to reconstruct exactly the original assertion of Pythagoristic mathematical philosophy, which has nothing to do with a naive hypostazation of numbers or a kabbalistic number mysticism. Philolaos' saying, that some propositions are stronger than we, is demonstrated to refer to mathematical laws. The pythagorical position is fully integrated in Plato's dialectical philosophy. Mathematics is the great mediator towards the intuition of true being, the ‘metaxu’ between sensible phenomena and ideas. This tradition of philosophical taxation of mathematics as the ‘logic of science’ is broken by Aristotle, who didn't use mathematics in his qualitative natural science and considered mathematics as an abstract science (about the quantitative aspect of being). Moreover, he disowned its logical role and created a special science for this task. Human reason is mathematical in so far it is sure of its language and thought, which is excellently expressed by the Greek μαθηματιxα (= what can be understood, learned and taught) and by the Dutch word ‘wiskunde’ (= science of what is certain). The remarks and reflections of Wittgenstein have produced a new perspective on the placevalue (‘Stellenwert’) of mathematics among all possible sciences and beliefs and have proven that its onto-logical purport is an unavoidable implication. (shrink)

In the past 25 years or so, the issue of ethical universalizability has figured prominently in theoretical as well as practical ethics. The term, 'universaliz ability' used in connection with ethical considerations, was apparently first introduced in the mid-1950s by R. M. Hare to refer to what he characterized as a logical thesis about certain sorts of evaluative sentences (Hare, 1955). The term has since been used to cover a broad variety of ethical considerations including those associated with the ideas (...) of impartiality, consistency, justice, equality, and reversibility as well as those raised in the familar questions: 'What if everyone did that?' and 'How would you like it if someone did that to you? But this recent effloresence of the use of the term 'universalizability' is something that has deep historical roots, and has been central in various forms to the thinking about morality of some of the greatest and most influential philosophers in the western tradition. While the term is relatively new, the ideas it is now used to express have a long history. Most of these ideas and questions have been or can be formulated into a principle to be discussed, criticized, or defended. As we discuss these ideas below this prin ciple will be stated on a separate numbered line. The concepts of justice and equality were closely linked in Greek thought. These connections between these two concepts are apparent even in two authors who were hostile to the connection, Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

N.T. Wright remains an influential biblical interpreter among evangelical and conservative-mainline Christians. Critiques of his readings of Paul by scholars from the wider academy are not common in these spaces. This article illustrates the historical inaccuracies, Judeophobia, and erasures of exploitation that animate Wright’s discussions of Paul and philosophy, ancient Judaism, and the question of whether Paul was counter-cultural in Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Ultimately the apostle becomes a ventriloquist for the narratives, fixations, and voices that (...) are comfortable to Wright’s readers, especially since they elide the people who do not benefit from the Christianity of Wright’s Paul. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 263 articles, and supplementing his anthology of Wright (Liberal Arts Press). The biographical chapter presents Wright as an attractive character among devoted friends and also as a solitary, original scientist. Wright's primary achievement was to apply utilitarian principles to Darwinian natural selection theory. Since Darwin himself made no such attempt, nor did John Stuart Mill, and since Darwin showed an evident interest in (...) class='Hi'>Wright's attempt, this represents a major contribution to evolutionary theory. On the negative side, too, Wright was incisive in his criticisms of Spencer, Mivart, Hamilton, Mansel, and Lewes. The pragmatic strains in Wright's philosophical method were incidental to his primary interest in showing that sciences are metaphysically "neutral." But his influence on Peirce and James was direct and strong, both on their cosmological and methodological doctrines. He deserves to be mentioned as the prime mover in this trinity of early pragmatism and naturalism, but since his own writings were relatively few and scattered, his historical importance rests largely on the use which Peirce and James made of his ideas and the development which they gave to his philosophy. HER~VRTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont, California Propos sur Jules Lequier: Philosophe de la libert~--R~flexions sur sa vie et sur sa pens~e. Par s Callot. (Paris: l~ditions Marcel Rivi~re et Cie, 1962. Pp. 142 [1]. Biblioth6que Philosophique.) L'oeuvre de Jules Lequier est importante. Nos philosophes am~ricains Charles Hartshorne et William L. Reese en ont fait un grand ~loge dans leur Philosophers Speak of God (pp. ix, 17, 109, 118, 227-230). Dans ce nouveau livre I~mile Callot nous donne des rfiflexions, des considerations, vraiment des Propos sur Jules Lequier en occasion du centenaire de la mort de Lequier (1862). La vie de Lequier est incontestablement dramatique. N~ en 1814 en Br6tagne off il passa son enfance, Lequier subit l'influence de son pays natal, de sa m~re dont il ~tait le ills unique, et d'une 6ducation profond~ment catholique. I1 entra ~t l'l~cole Polytechnique et il en sortit peu apr~s. Mais il y connut Renouvier et c'est grace ~ Renouvier que la pens~e de Lequier nous est connue. Renouvier intercala dans ses livres des fragments de Lequier et en publia des bonnes pages sous ce titre La recherche d'une premiOre v~rit& A l'~ge de 37 ans Lequier eut un acc6s de dfimence. Puis il eut un amour exaltfi pour une jeune fille qui le refusa en mariage. Lequier mourut, noy~, ~t l'~ge de 48 ans. De sa fin il nous est impossible de savoir si elle a 6t~ un suicide ou un accident, mais Lequier garda toujours con- 264 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY science de son g6nie: "Je crois avoir trouv6 un myst~re merveilleux de simplicitY, de profondeur et de t~n6bres: quelque chose h quoi nul ne pense." Lequier est un philosophe de la libert& Tout philosophe part de l'id& de v~rit~, cela est n&essaire, mais la prudence exige qu'on la mette sans cesse en cause. Comme Vinet (1797-1847) a dit, "La v6rit~, sans la recherche de la verit6, n'est que la moiti~ de la v~rit& On ne salt bien que ce qu'on n'a pas su toujours; on ne croit bien qu'apr& avoir dour6; on n'est vainqueur qu'apr6s avoir &6 vaincu. Et c'est pourquoi, en cette mati~re, notre premier effort doit avoir pour objet de mettre l'homme en demeure de choisir." Lequier avait eu tr& fort le sentiment du d&erminisme universel. Mais, au moment oth la croyance ~ la n&essit6 semblait devoir triompher dans son esprit, il la rejetta brusquement "par une r&olte de l'&re entier." Selon Lequier, la premiere et fondamentale d6marche de l'esprit est une affirmation de la libert~ par la libert6 m~me. La libert~ ne cr& pas la v6rit6, mais la croyance en la libert6 est une premi6re v6rit6. Sans cette croyance, on ne peut rien chercher et rien d&ouvrir. Mais l'homme, auteur de ses actes par la libertY, ne l'est pas de sa libert& Le Dieu de la Bible est un &re infini qui rien ne peut &happer. Ainsi le probl6me entier de la pr6destination se pose ici de nouveau. Et Lequier d&ouvre une solution originale: Si Dieu... (shrink)

How people react emotionally to the positive or negative events that they experience in their lives depends in part on whether particular outcomes are perceived to be deserved or undeserved. For ex...