This book explores the historical development of new moral concepts, an activity the author labels "moral articulation." Starting from examples of new moral language developed in the twentieth century, like 'sexual harassment', 'genocide', 'racism', and 'hate speech', this book asks: are we simply naming moral realities that already existed, fully formed and intact, prior to their expression in language? Or do changes in our concepts and language sometimes reshape the objects they bring to light? Moral Articulation outlines an ethical framework (...) that allows us to embrace a version of the latter, transformative view without sacrificing notions of moral truth, objectivity, and knowledge. The result is a variation of moral realism that is sensitive to deep historical changes in morality. The book presents a view of moral value as extending beyond what we are presently able to put into words, urging that new developments in moral language often begin in dissonant experiences of conceptual and discursive breakdown. Resisting a tendency in contemporary ethics to start with situations and dilemmas whose descriptions are already given, this book argues that the struggle to piece together a discursively articulate picture of a situation in the first place is an ethical task in its own right. The result is a thoroughly historical yet objective picture of ethics that emphasizes the role of language in prompting moral change in our life-form. It draws inspiration from Aristotelian, Hegelian, Wittgensteinian, and liberatory praxis-inspired philosophy, as well as from Charles Taylor and Iris Murdoch. (shrink)

In this paper, I make explicit some implicit commitments to realism and conceptualism in recent work in social epistemology exemplified by Miranda Fricker and Charles Mills. I offer a survey of recent writings at the intersection of social epistemology, feminism, and critical race theory, showing that commitments to realism and conceptualism are at once implied yet undertheorized in the existing literature. I go on to offer an explicit defense of these commitments by drawing from the epistemological framework of John McDowell, (...) demonstrating the relevance of the metaphor of the “space of reasons” for theorizing and criticizing instances of epistemic injustice. I then point out how McDowell’s own view requires expansion and revision in light of Mills' concept of 'epistemologies of ignorance'. I conclude that, when their strengths are used to make up for each others' weaknesses, Mills and McDowell’s positions mutually reinforce one another, producing a powerful model for theorizing instances of systematic ignorance and false belief. (shrink)

Recent discussions in critical social epistemology have raised the idea that the concept 'knower' is not only an epistemological concept, but an ethical concept as well. Though this idea plays a central role in these discussions, the theoretical underpinnings of the claim have not received extended scrutiny. This paper explores the idea that 'knower' is an irreducibly ethical concept in an effort to defend its use as a critical concept. In Section 1, I begin with the claim that 'knower' is (...) an irreducibly normative and social concept, drawing from some ideas in Wilfrid Sellars. In Section 2, I argue that one's being a knower involves demands for various sorts of ethically-laden recognition. I develop this thought by arguing that Axel Honneth's threefold typology of recognition—love, respect, and esteem—finds clear expression within the context of socio-epistemic practice. I conclude in Section 3 by arguing that Miranda Fricker's proposed " analogy " between epistemic and moral perception should be modified to indicate a closer relationship than mere analogy. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss cases in which moral grievances, particularly assertions that a moral injury has taken place, are systematically obstructed by received linguistic and epistemic practices. I suggest a social epistemological model for theorizing such cases of moral epistemic injustice. Towards this end, I offer a reconstruction of Lyotard’s concept of the differend, comparing it with Miranda Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice, and considering it in light of some criticisms posed by Axel Honneth. Through this reconstruction and a (...) series of examples, I demonstrate that a basic formal structure recurs in cases of discursively repressed moral injury, namely, a particular kind of dilemma. I argue that appreciating this dilemma pushes us in the direction of a form of non-ideal ethical theory and I conclude by elaborating a conception of moral reflective judgement that begins from particular experiences of moral injury and moves towards the creation of new moral universals. (shrink)

In order for the concept, 'recognition', to play a critical role in social theory, it must be possible to draw a distinction between due recognition and failures of recognition. Some recognition theorists, including Axel Honneth, argue that this distinction can be preserved only if we presuppose that due recognition involves a rational response to "evaluative qualities" that can be rightly perceived in the context of social interaction. This paper points out a problem facing recent defenses of this "perception model" and (...) proposes a solution. I begin by making explicit three criteria broadly shared by recognition theorists: an adequate theory of recognition must be (a) critical, capable of drawing a distinction between due recognition and recognitive failure; (b) minimally idealist, able to accommodate the mediating role of subjectivity in human receptivity to value; and (c) historicist, should not rule out a priori that the values involved in recognitive practice are historically emergent. I then argue that Honneth's version of the perception model cannot fulfill these criteria simultaneously. Drawing upon an Aristotelian notion of evaluative perception and working through an example from Zadie Smith's On Beauty, I defend an alternative view that is, I argue, better equipped to meet these three criteria. (shrink)

This paper develops two related theses concerning resentment. The first, which I label the ‘prior norm requirement’, holds that feelings of resentment are grounded in the resenter’s conviction that some portion of their existing normative expectations has been violated. The second holds that resentments can make a rational contribution to the development of new normative expectations, transforming the resenter’s existing normative outlook. Certain expressions of the prior norm requirement in recent theory clash with the notion of norm-creative resentments, portraying resentment (...) as essentially conservative of existing norms. Against this, I develop the notion of ‘emotional articulation’, according to which emotions like resentment can involve cognitively complex processes of working through the meaning of experiences of wrongdoing, in ways that give rise to genuinely new normative commitments. I develop this through critical comparison with Martha Nussbaum’s cognitive-evaluative theory of emotion and by drawing from Charles Taylor’s notion of articulation. (shrink)

Acts of interpersonal moral address depend upon a shared space of social visibility in which human beings can both display themselves and perceive others as morally important. This raises questions that have gone largely undiscussed in recent philosophical work on moral address. How does the social mediation of interpersonal perception by forces such as ideology shape and limit the possibilities for moral address? And how might creative acts of putting oneself on display make possible unanticipated forms of moral address, especially (...) under ideological conditions? In this paper, I propose that we can make progress towards answering such questions by treating moral address as a fundamentally aesthetic phenomenon. I begin by drawing examples from literature that invite the idea that humans and animals possess ethically value-laden features that are open to empirical view, and argue that approaches to moral address that do not avail themselves of this idea face serious limits, focusing on Stephen Darwall’s The Second-Person Standpoint. I then illustrate the role of the aesthetic in moral address by offering a reading of the “Capitol Crawl,” a 1990 direct action in which people with disabilities left behind assistive devices in order to ascend the stairs leading to the US Capitol. Drawing from some ideas in Iris Murdoch, I argue that the aesthetically striking features of this collective act of moral address are inseparable from the moral demands it expresses, and that, read as an aesthetic whole, its morally expressive power extends beyond the discursive while nevertheless remaining a part of the space of reasons. (shrink)

This paper argues that Aristotelian ethical naturalism can combine two commitments that are often held to be incompatible: (a) a commitment to a strong form of ethical objectivity and (b) a thoroughgoing historicism about ethical value. The notions of species and life-form invoked by ethical naturalism do not, I argue, rely upon an ahistorical picture of human nature. I develop this idea by building upon Philippa Foot's defence of ethical naturalism in Natural Goodness. I go on to argue that linguistic (...) changes in the ways we articulate the conditions of human flourishing can be understood, in some cases, as transforming those very conditions. (shrink)

The scene of philosophical interest in nonhuman animal life seems to have always been lacking in robust theoretical resources. The philosophical canon from ancient Greece onward contains only a few rare exceptions, and even in the past century, when research on nonhuman animals seems to have gained new momentum, this interest has remained confined primarily to conversations having to do with the moral status of animal life, with these discussions roughly divided into two major camps: animal rights discourse and a (...) utilitarian critique (à la Peter Singer) of that rights discourse. Against this historical backdrop, Jacques Derrida's The Animal That…. (shrink)

In what we might call its particularly Christian manifestation, “guilt” denotes the feeling or fact of having offended, the failure to uphold an ethical code. Under such terms, “guilt” connotes negative consequences: shame, punishment, and estrangement. Yet, penetrating further into its meaning and value, one finds that guilt extends beyond this narrow classification, playing a productive, necessary, and ineluctable role for recognitive sociality. This paper examines guilt as it appears in Hegel’s thinking. I find that Hegel’s understanding of Schuld (guilt) (...) in the Phenomenology , undergoes a crucial development over the course of the chapter titled, “Spirit,” culminating in a robust understanding of guilt that represents not a hopelessly broken bond, but a bond that awaits its fulfillment, its very incompleteness exerting a palpable pull upon the guilty party towards its fulfillment. I examine three key moments in “Spirit”: Hegel’s treatments of Antigone , the French Revolution, and the confession and forgiveness of evil. By comparing these moments, I distinguish between “abstract guilt,” guilt that only brings about shame and punishment, and what we might call “determinate guilt”: guilt that brings about action, reminds one of her/his indebtedness to the other. Understanding the development of guilt from the beginning to end of “Spirit” provides an entryway into a discussion of the social and political relevance of Hegel’s conception of the subject as—in a certain sense—always already guilty. I go on to argue that guilt as indebtedness and responsibility only exists as embedded within an already recognitive social structure. Re-thinking guilt as responsibility is not, therefore, a call to a new objective a priori moral system. Rather, it invites us to think through our recognitive being-together in a way that shakes off its metaphysical fetters. Such an ethics of recognitive intersubjectivity is an infinite task—not in the futile sense of the “unhappy consciousness”—but in the sense that we are responsible for constantly understanding, critiquing, and reforming ethical commitments that can only be (understood as) ours. (shrink)

This book is a guide to the process of artistic self-discovery.

The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy took the dialogue of science and philosophy from Aristotle through to Newton. This second edition adds eight chapters, taking the dialogue through the Enlightenment and up to Darwin. This anthology is an attempt to help bridge the gap between the history of science and the history of philosophy.

Imagine I hold up a Granny Smith apple for all to see. You would thereby gain justified beliefs that it was green, that it was apple, and that it is a Granny Smith apple. Under classical foundationalism, such simple visual beliefs are mediately justified on the basis of reasons concerning your experience. Under dogmatism, some or all of these beliefs are justified immediately by your experience and not by reasons you possess. This paper argues for what I call the looks (...) view of the justification of simple visual beliefs. According to the looks view, such beliefs are mediately justified on the basis of reasons concerning how the relevant things look. Unlike under classical foundationalism, under the looks view as I develop it, these reasons are public. They are public with respect to both their content and possession: with respect to content, they are not about ourselves and our experiences, and with respect to their possession, many people can have the very same looks-related reasons. (shrink)

Abstract I provide an account of the nature of seemings that explains why they are necessary for justification. The account grows out of a picture of cognition that explains what is required for epistemic agency. According to this account, epistemic agency requires (1) possessing the epistemic aims of forming true beliefs and avoiding errors, and (2) having some means of forming beliefs in order to satisfy those aims. I then argue that seeming are motives for belief characterized by their role (...) of providing us with doxastic instructions guided by our epistemic aims. Understanding the nature of seemings allows us to underwrite recent epistemological work by Michael Huemer, and shows why he was right to claim that seemings are the source of all justification. I then look at some objections both to my arguments regarding the connection between seemings and justification, and to Huemer’s related “Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism”. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9830-2 Authors Matthew Skene, Syracuse University, 8330 E. Quincy Ave., I-307, Denver, CO 80237, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

One’s account of the meaning of ethical sentences should fit – roughly, as part to whole – with one’s account of the meaning of sentences in general. When we ask, though, where one widely discussed account of the meaning of ethical sentences fits with more general accounts of meaning, the answer is frustratingly unclear. The account I have in mind is the sort of metaethical expressivism inspired by Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare, and defended and worked out in more detail recently (...) by Blackburn, Gibbard, and others. So, my first aim (§1) in this paper is to pose this question about expressivism’s commitments in the theory of meaning and to characterize the answer I think is most natural, given the place expressivist accounts attempt to occupy metaethics. This involves appeal to an ideationalist account of meaning. Unfortunately for the expressivist, however, this answer generates a problem; it’s my second aim (§2) to articulate this problem. Then, my third aim (§3) is to argue that this problem doesn’t extend to the sort of account of the meaning of ethical claims that I favor, which is like expressivism in rejecting a representationalist order of semantic explanation but unlike expressivism in basing an alternative order of semantic explanation on inferential role rather than expressive function. (shrink)

Assertion is governed by an epistemic norm requiring knowledge. This idea has been hotly debated in recent years, garnering attention in epistemology, philosophy of language, and linguistics. This chapter presents and extends the main arguments in favor of the knowledge norm, from faulty conjunctions, several conversational patterns, judgments of permission, excuse, and blame, and from showing how. (Paired with a chapter by Peter J. Graham and Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen, "Knowledge is Not Our Norm of Assertion.").

This chapter contains sections titled: Categorical Prescriptiveness Uniformity as a Moral Matter Uniformity Contrasted with Neutrality The Overridingness of Moral Principles.

This paper explores some surprising effects of psychological trauma on memory and develops the puzzle of observer memory for trauma. Memory for trauma tends to have a third-person perspective, or observer perspective. But it appears observer memory, by having a novel visual point of view, tends to misrepresent the past. And many find it plausible that if a memory type tends to misrepresent, it cannot yield knowledge of, or justification for believing, details of past events. But it is also plausible (...) that, with respect to details of past trauma, observer memory can yield knowledge or justification. I argue for a novel set of views that offers a way out of the puzzle: observer memory does tend to misrepresent, but it still has epistemic power regarding details of the past, although with special limits; but observer memory for trauma has other epistemic powers too, in that it allows for a kind of self-awareness. (shrink)

What is it to know someone? Epistemologists rarely take up this question, though recent developments make such inquiry possible and desirable. This paper advances an account of how such interpersonal knowledge goes beyond mere propositional and qualitative knowledge about someone, giving a central place to second-personal treatment. It examines what such knowledge requires, and what makes it distinctive within epistemology as well as socially. It assesses its theoretic value for several issues in moral psychology, epistemic injustice, and philosophy of mind. (...) And it offers an account of the complex content in play if interpersonal knowledge is to be understood in terms of its mental states and their functions. (shrink)

We regularly appeal to claims of the form it seems that p in defense of a claim p. When we do so, we typically take it seems that p to be a reason for thinking that p but also a reason that “gets at” a relevant body of facts and its support for p. Other things being equal, we should want to vindicate our ordinary beliefs on this matter. We should want to vindicate the claim that facts about things seeming (...) certain ways can be reasons to think that things are that way while at the same time being somehow derivative reasons, that is, reasons only because they “get at” support from a certain body of facts. However, on the dominant view of how things seem—subjectivism—it is hard to see how to secure this result. Subjectivism takes how things seem to be a matter of how things do or would seem to some relevant subject. What we need is a defensible, nonsubjectivist account of how things seem. I propose and defend an account according to which, roughly, it seems that p iff the body of facts in the relevant perspective supports that p. (shrink)

This book examines a main theme in religious epistemology, namely, the possibility of knowledge of God. Most often philosophers consider the rationality or justification of propositional belief about God, particularly beliefs about the existence and nature of God; and they will assess the conditions under which, if there is a God, such propositional beliefs would be knowledge, particularly in light of counter-evidence or the availability of religious disagreement. This book surveys such familiar areas, then turns toward newer and less-developed terrain: (...) interpersonal epistemology, namely what it is to know another person. It then explores the prospects for understanding what it might take to know God relationally, the contours of which are significant for many theistic traditions. (shrink)

The aim in this paper is to focus on one of the proposals about successful perception that has led its adherents to advance some kind of disjunctive account of experience. The proposal is that we should understand the conscious sensory experience involved in successful perception in relational terms. I first try to clarify what the commitments of the view are, and where disagreements with competing views may lie. I then suggest that there are considerations relating to the conscious character of (...) our perception of events that speak in its favour. (shrink)

Deleuze & Guattari, Politics and Education mobilizes Deleuzian-Guattarian philosophy as a revolutionary alternative to the lingering forms of transcendence, identity politics, and nihilism endemic to Western thought. Operationalizing Deleuze and Guattari's challenge to contemporary philosophy, this book presents their view as a revolutionary alternative to the lingering forms of transcendence, identity politics, and nihilism endemic to the current state of Western formal education. This book offers an experimental approach to theorizing, creating an entirely new way for educational theorists to approach (...) their work as the task of revolutionizing life itself. Examining new conceptual resources for grappling with and mapping a sustainable political alternative to the cliche's that saturate contemporary educational theory, this collection of essays works toward extracting a genuine image of education and learning that exists in sharp contrast to both the neo-liberal educational project and the critical pedagogical tradition. (shrink)

In Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition, Matthew Owen argues that despite its nonphysical character, it is possible to empirically detect and measure consciousness. -/- Toward the end of the previous century, the neuroscience of consciousness set its roots and sprouted within a materialist milieu that reduced the mind to matter. Several decades later, dualism is being dusted off and reconsidered. Although some may see this revival as a threat to consciousness science aimed at (...) measuring the conscious mind, Owen argues that measuring consciousness, along with the medical benefits of such measurements, is not ruled out by consciousness being nonphysical. Owen proposes the Mind-Body Powers model of neural correlates of consciousness, which is informed by Aristotelian causation and a substance dualist view of human nature inspired by Thomas Aquinas, who often followed Aristotle. In addition to explaining why there are neural correlates of consciousness, the model provides a philosophical foundation for empirically discerning and quantifying consciousness. En route to presenting and applying the Mind-Body Powers model to neurobiology, Owen rebuts longstanding objections to dualism related to the mind-body problem. With scholarly precision and readable clarity, Owen applies an oft forgotten yet richly developed historical vantage point to contemporary cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

Does a flourishing life involve pursuing passionate attachments? Can we choose what these passionate attachments will be? This book offers an original theory of how we can actively cultivate our passionate attachments. The author argues that not only do we have reason to view passionate attachments as susceptible to growth, change, and improvement, but we should view these entities as amenable to self-cultivation. He uses Pierre Hadot's and Michel Foucault's accounts of Hellenistic self-cultivation as vital conceptual tools to formulate a (...) theory of cultivating our passionate attachments. First, their accounts offer the conceptual resources for a philosophical theory of how we can cultivate our passionate attachments. Second, the exercises of self-cultivation they focus on allow us to outline a practical method though which we can cultivate our passionate character. Doing this brings out a significantly new dimension to the role of the passionate attachments in the flourishing life and offers theoretical and practical accounts of how we can cultivate them based on the Hellenistic conception of self-directed character change. Cultivating Our Passionate Attachments will be of interest to advanced students and scholars working in virtue ethics, moral philosophy, and ancient philosophy. (shrink)

In 2005, Charles Mills published “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology” in Hypatia: a withering critique of much of contemporary political philosophy and ethics. For Mills such work in philosophy failed to attend to the realities of social life and politics, and in remaining silent on actual issues of domination and oppression served an ideological role in supporting the interests of white bourgeois men. Around the time that Charles Mills launched his broadside against ideal theory, trans theorists had been fighting their own (...) battle against the abstraction of theory from the realities of trans lives and oppression. Vivian Namaste (2000) and Jay Prosser (1998) argued that contemporary gender theory failed to justice to the actuality of trans life, retreating instead to understanding trans life through literary archetypes and idealized radical figures. In this chapter I’ll compare Mills’ critique of ideal theory with the transfeminist critique of 1990s gender theory, arguing that they share much in common. Centrally, both critiques share an underlying commitment to theory needing to be grounded in the actuality of oppression and power relations. This common thread, I suggest, must continue to guide transfeminist thought and action: contra Marquis Bey (2022) transfeminist thought and praxis must continue to be about trans lives, about the oppression of trans women, and about ways of actually achieving liberation from our current dire position. (shrink)

On Sense and Direct Reference: Readings in the Philosophy of Language focuses on the debate between neo-Fregeans and neo-Russellians in philosophy of language. With a foreword by Nathan Salmon, the volume collects more than 40 of the most important papers in philosophy of language in the last 40 years; including David Kaplan's "Demonstratives" and "Afterthoughts", and a paper written by Scott Soames especially for the volume. It is suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses.

It's often thought that when we reason to new judgments in inference, we aim at believing the truth, and that this aim of ours can explain important psychological and normative features of belief. I reject this picture: the structure of aimed activity shows that inference is not guided by a truth‐aim. This finding clears the way for a positive understanding of how epistemic goods feature in our doxastic lives. We can indeed make sense of many of our inquisitive and deliberative (...) activities as undertaken in pursuit of such goods; but the evidence‐guided inferences in which those activities culminate will require a different theoretical approach. (shrink)

A recent movement within political philosophy called luck egalitarianism has attempted to synthesize the right’s regard for responsibility with the left’s concern for equality. The original motivation for subscribing to luck egalitarianism stems from the belief that one’s success in life ought to reflect one’s own choices and not brute luck. Luck egalitarian theorists differ in the decision procedures that they propose, but they share in common the general approach that we ought to equalize individuals with respect to brute luck (...) so that differences in distribution are only a consequence of the responsible choices that individuals make. I intend to show that through the application of its own distributive procedures, the interpersonal luck egalitarian approach actually undermines its original motivation by making the lives of individuals subject to brute luck. I propose two alternative methods that the luck egalitarian could use to prevent the problems suffered by the interpersonal luck egalitarian standard. (shrink)

MacIntyre argues that management embodies emotivism, and thus is inherently amoral and manipulative. His claim that management is necessarily Weberian is, at best, outdated, and the notion that management aims to be neutral and value free is incorrect. However, new forms of management, and in particular the increased emphasis on leadership which emerged after MacIntyre’s critique was published, tend to support his central charge. Indeed, charismatic and transformational forms of leadership seem to embody emotivism to a greater degree than do (...) more Weberian, bureaucratic forms of management; hence, MacIntyre’s central contention about our emotivistic culture seems to be well founded. Having criticised the details but defended the essence of MacIntyre’s critique of management, this paper sketches a MacIntyrean approach to management and leadership by highlighting the affinities between MacIntyre’s political philosophy and Greenleaf’s concept of servant leadership. (shrink)

From film theory to post-theory -- Sublime objects of cinema -- Class struggle in film studies -- Interlude: the pervert and the analyst -- Cinema, ideology, and form -- Enjoyment in the cinema -- Conclusion: theory as realism set in drive.

It has been argued that nonreductive physicalism’s problems with mental causation disappear if we abandon the intuitive but naïve production-based conception of causation in favor of one based on counterfactual dependence and difference-making. In recent years, this response has been thoroughly developed and defended by James Woodward, who contends that Kim’s causal exclusion argument, widely thought to be the most serious threat to nonreductive mental causation, cannot even be given a coherent formulation within Woodward’s preferred interventionist framework. But Woodward has, (...) even more recently, defended a pair of necessary conditions on mental causation and higher-order causation more generally, and it is here that the interventionist framework proves less friendly to nonreductive mental causation. Functionalism is arguably the most important species of nonreductive physicalism concerning specifically mental properties, but, as I argue, functional properties fail both of Woodward’s tests of causal relevance, one of them in two different ways. The problem, moreover, seems unique to functionalism, for other types of higher-order properties appear to pass Woodward’s tests. If functionalism faces defeat even in such friendly territory, its problems with mental causation are not an artifact of naïve metaphysics. They run deep. (shrink)

Brings together and interprets previously hard-to-find texts, new translations and passages detailing the interplay between philosophy and psychopathology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On David Bentley Hart's Account of TraditionMatthew LeveringIn Tradition and Apocalypse, David Hart argues that "the concept of 'tradition' in the theological sense, however lucid and cogent it might appear to the eyes of faith, is incorrigibly obscure and incoherent."1 This claim coheres with the New Testament scholar Ernst Käsemann's notion of apocalyptic, as set forth in Käsemann's well known rhetorical questions—to which he answers in the negative—"Has there (...) ever been a theological system which has not collapsed? Have we been promised that we should know ourselves to be in possession of a theologia perennis?"2 For Käsemann, Christian theological "continuity" (if such there is) consists in "the hope of the manifestation of the Son of Man on his way to enthronement"3—Easter hope. Hart follows his own version of this path.Hart contends that he does not intend to overthrow the truth of the Nicene Creed.4 But he bemoans the claims of various Christian communities—Catholic, [End Page 215] Orthodox, Protestant—to have faithfully communicated the Gospel: "All Christian communions of any size or duration have their distinctive traditionalisms, their myths of continuity amidst rupture and rupture amidst continuity, their claims of doctrinal pedigree and of allegiance to the authority of the Christian past."5 Hart rejects all such ecclesial claims of dogmatic continuity and fidelity. Theologically, he deems it impossible for anyone "to say with absolute finality what the one true tradition is."6 Historically, he thinks it impossible to discern any "rational unity within the course of Christian tradition that one could confidently claim has been sustained intact amid the flux of times and cultures."7There are certain rhetorical emphases that stand out as Hart describes his own constructive view of Christian "tradition." He states that tradition is "the constant creative recollection of a promise whose fulfillment and ultimate meaning are yet to be unveiled"—not in the sense that the Church awaits the fullness that is to come and that dogmatic propositions, while true, are always inadequate to divine realities, but in the stronger sense of appealing to "a future apocalyptic horizon where the tradition's ultimate meaning is to be found" and rejecting "any reduction of that final revelation to whatever formulations of belief happen to be available at any given stage of doctrinal development." Hart depicts Christian tradition as an active transmission of a gift that remains fundamentally hidden and unknown. He invokes the image of "the impartation of a gift that remains sealed, a giving always deferred toward a future not yet known." There is a giving, but this giving is "always deferred," its future is "not yet known," and the gift itself "remains sealed." Hart argues that the "gift must remain sealed until the very end, so that the glory will not dissipate into ordinary time, whose atmosphere is incapable of sustaining and nourishing it." Time—history—cannot sustain or nourish the divine gift, and so it must be "sealed" until the end of time; and yet it can be known "in and as" ever-changing, historical tradition.8Tradition accomplishes this handing on of the sealed gift, says Hart, through its "ceaseless flow of... intertwining variations." Hart adds with regard to historicity and to "the animating impulse of the tradition": "Once that vital force has moved on to assume new living configurations, the attempt unnaturally to preserve earlier forms can achieve nothing but... the perfumed repose of a cadaver."9 The "earlier forms" that once [End Page 216] contained the "vital force" must constantly be reconfigured within tradition's "ceaseless flow."Hart pictures a destabilizing "play of tension and resolution, stability and disintegration," and he holds that we must possess a "positive desire for moments of dissolution" if we are to be faithful to "whatever is most original and most final in a tradition." Only thus can whatever is "most imperishable in a tradition... be fitfully perceived, or at least sensed," by those few persons spiritually and intellectually able to do so. By comparison, I would suggest that the core realities of faith can be much more than "fitfully perceived" or "sensed"; I think dogmatic formulations serve... (shrink)