In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there emerged a radically new kind of music based on recorded environmental sounds instead of sounds of traditional Western musical instruments. Centered in Paris around the composer, music theorist, engineer, and writer Pierre Schaeffer, this became known as musique concrète because of its use of concrete recorded sound fragments, manifesting a departure from the abstract concepts and representations of Western music notation. Furthermore, the term sound object was used to denote our perceptual images (...) of such fragments. Sound objects and their features became the focus of an extensive research effort on the perception and cognition of music in general, remarkably anticipating topics of more recent music psychology research. This sound object theory makes extensive use of metaphors, often related to motion shapes, something that can provide holistic representations of perceptually salient, but temporally distributed, features in different kinds of music. (shrink)

Buddhist philosophy and doctrines; an analytical study.

The paper reconstructs the trip to Rome of the first Bollandist Fathers, providing numerous historical, documentary and cultural details, while offering a generous cross-section of the academic life of the period.

This book consists of transcripts from two lecture courses on ethical relation Levinas delivered at the Sorbonne.

Traditional monotheism has long faced logical puzzles. We argue that such puzzles rest on the assumed logical truth of the Law of Excluded Middle, which we suggest there is little theological reason to accept. By way of illustration we focus on God's alleged stone problem, and present a simple but plausible ‘gappy’ framework for addressing this puzzle. We assume familiarity with the proposed logic but an appendix is offered as a brief review.

This wide-ranging anthology of philosophical writings on the concept of God presents a systematic overview of the chief conceptions of deity as well as skeptical and atheistic critiques of theological ideas. The selections cover key philosophic developments in this subject area from ancient times to modern in both the East and West. Editors Hartshorne and Reese-two of the most highly respected scholars in the philosophy of religion-have not only selected many arresting passages from the world's great thinkers but have also (...) analyzed and evaluated the underlying ideas, showing how they fit into major, overarching systems of thought. Part One, "Classical Views," includes passages from ancient Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, and Judeo-Christian scriptures as well as philosophical writings from ancient Greece, the medieval church, and the Enlightenment. Part Two, "Modern Views," considers the ideas of more recent influential thinkers from diverse cultures and philosophical schools: Schelling, Peirce, Whitehead, Schweitzer, Buber, Radhakrishnan, and Watts, among others, are represented and discussed. Part Three, "Skeptical or Atheistic Views: Ancient and Modern," examines various kinds of skepticism and includes selections from Carneades, Buddha, Hume, Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Dennes, and Freud. Throughout their presentation the editors analyze and contrast theistic, atheistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic systems of thought. Philosophers Speak of God is a richly varied selection of high-quality writing on a perennial subject that will provide the serious student a thorough foundation in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Panenetheism is the claim that God and the cosmos are intimately inter-related, with the cosmos being in God and God being in the cosmos. What does this exactly mean? The aim of this paper is to address this question by sheding light on four possible models of God-world-inter-relatedness. Being critical of those models, which understand maximal immanence in a literal, spatial sense, the paper argues in favor of a model, which cashes out immanence in terms of divine activity. God is, (...) where God acts. Since God acts upon all of creation everywhere and anytime, God is omnipresent to it at all times. Thus, the proposal is to read the ‘en’ in ‘panetheism’ in an ‘agential sense’: God is in the cosmos by creating and sustaining it and the cosmos is in God by constantly being within the sphere of divine activity. (shrink)

Background. Attending to goal-relevant information can leave us metaphorically ‘blind’ or ‘deaf’ to the next relevant information while searching among distracters. This temporal cost lasting for about a half a second on the human selective attention has been long explored using the attentional blink paradigm. Although there is evidence that certain visual stimuli relating to one’s area of expertise can be less susceptible to attentional blink effects, it remains unexplored whether the dynamics of temporal selective attention vary with expertise and (...) objects types in the auditory modality. Methods. Using the auditory version of the attentional blink paradigm, the present study investigates whether certain auditory objects relating to musical and perceptual expertise could have an impact on the transient costs of selective attention. In this study, expert cellists and novice participants were asked to first identify a target sound, and then to detect instrumental timbres of cello or organ, or human voice as a second target in a rapid auditory stream. Results. The results showed moderate evidence against the attentional blink effect for voices independent of participants’ musical expertise. Experts outperformed novices in their overall accuracy levels of target identification and detection, reflecting a clear benefit of musical expertise. Importanly, the musicianship advantage disappeared when the human voices served as the second target in the stream. Discussion. The results are discussed in terms of stimulus salience, the advantage of voice processing, as well as perceptual and musical expertise in relation to attention and working memory performances. (shrink)

Psalm 73 is a challenging Psalm in which the Psalmist draws on rich imagery to juxtapose doctrine and experience and to juxtapose the goodness of God with divine retribution. Drawing on data provided by 15 theological educators within the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, this study tests the thesis that the imagery of Psalm 73 will be perceived differently by sensing types and by intuitive types and that the issue ‘Is God really good to the upright?’ will be (...) judged differently by feeling types and by thinking types. The findings from this study are consistent with the broader hermeneutical theory that the psychological type profile of the reader, in terms of perceiving preference and judging preference, plays a formative part in shaping the interpretation of biblical material.Contribution: Situated within the reader-perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, the SIFT method is concerned with identifying the influence of the psychological type of the reader in shaping the interpretation of text. The present study demonstrates that this theory holds true for the way in which theological educators read Psalm 73. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty claims that we as body-subjects have an immediate sensational understanding of the world. A body that perceives and experience the world before any thought and word can render it. The words we use describing sensations are interpretations of sense-experiences, and will never render the total bodily understanding of the world. This article gives a brief insight of what an understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s body-subject implies for the researcher in body-phenomenological studies of toddlers.

Central to classical theism is the conception of God as the sole ultimate reality, the creator of all things apart from Himself. Such a doctrine is rooted in Hebrew-Christian scripture and unfolded by the ante-Nicene church fathers. Platonism, which postulates the existence of uncreated abstract objects, is therefore theologically objectionable. In order to overcome the presumption which anti-Platonism enjoys theologically, the Platonist would have to show that all other positions, both realist and nonrealist, are rationally untenable. No one has even (...) attempted so audacious a project, nor is there any reasonable expectation that it could be carried out. (shrink)

The theological turn in French phenomenology has been of great interest to scholars working in contemporary continental thought, but according to J. Aaron Simmons, not enough has been done to bring these debates into conversation with more mainstream philosophy. Building on the work of Kierkegaard, Levinas, Marion, and Derrida, among others, Simmons suggests how continental philosophy of religion can intersect with political philosophy, environmental philosophy, and theories of knowledge. By productively engaging philosophical "God-talk," Simmons proposes a robust model of postmodern (...) religious belief and ethical existence. (shrink)

Reformed epistemology involves a view of knowledge of God which Kelly James Clark and Justin Barrett have brought cognitive science to bear on. They argue that the cognitive science of religio...

This book provides an introduction to the emerging field of Continental philosophy of religion by treating the philosophical thought of its most important representatives, including its appropriations by several thinkers in the US. Part I provides a context to the field by looking at the religious aspects of the thought of Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Lévinas, and Jacques Derrida. It contends that although the work of these thinkers is not apologetic in nature, it prepares the ground for the more religiously motivated (...) work of more recent thinkers by giving religious language and ideas some legitimacy in philosophical discussions. Part II devotes a chapter to each of the contemporary French thinkers who articulate a phenomenology of religious experience: Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Jean-Yves Lacoste and Emmanuel Falque. This part argues that their respective philosophies can be read as an apologetics of sort, namely as making arguments for the coherence of thought about God and the viability of religious experience, though each does so in a different fashion and to a different degree. Part III considers the three major thinkers who have popularized and extended this phenomenology in the US context: Merold Westphal, John D. Caputo, and Richard Kearney. The book thus both provides an introduction to important contemporary thinkers many of whom have not yet received much treatment in English and also argues that their philosophies can be read as providing an argument for Christian faith. (shrink)

Obstacles to Divine Revelation examines the notion that there are obstacles to God giving revelation, if God exists. Rolfe King argues that exploring these significantly refines ideas of evidence for God, including the claim that God must operate within a logically necessary structure of revelation. Examining obstacles to divine revelation clarifies this structure and paves the way to evaluating its significance.

I start by way of clarifying briefly the problem of special divine intervention. Once this is done, I argue that laws of nature are generalizations that derive from the dispositional behaviour of natural kinds. Based on this conception of laws of nature I provide a metaphysical model according to which God can realize acts of special divine providence by way of temporarily changing the dispositions of natural entities. I show that this model does not contradict scientific practice and is consistent (...) with the assumption that the physical realm is causally closed. I then argue that prima facie any putative candidate for an act of God could also be seen as a random event or as indicating that there is something wrong with our formulation of the corresponding law of nature. While there is no sufficient philosophical or scientific reason to prefer one of these models, I argue that there are sufficient and legitimate theological reasons to endorse a framework in which at least the obtaining of some anomic states of affairs is seen as the effect of special divine intervention. Doing so, theology has the hermeneutic resources to uncover a dimension of meaningful reality, which without faith could not be seen. (shrink)

In this original work, Steven DeLay, using a wide breadth of philosophical sources, articulates a view of selfhood which emphasizes humanity’s ineluctable experience before-God.

In this paper I will investigate one way of resolving the apparent tension between the following three propositions, endorsed by some theists: Every worldly event is a consequence guaranteed by God’s unimpedible causal activity, People sin, God is not the cause of sin. In particular, I will examine what I will call the unadorned privation defense, which has roots in Aquinas and continues to find defenders. I will argue that although defenders of this view successfully rebut certain criticisms, their defense (...) ultimately fails to reconcile these three propositions. (shrink)

ArgumentIt is argued that the sensorium of God was introduced into theQuaestionesadded to the end of Newton’sOptice(1706) as a way of answering objections that Newton had failed to provide a causal account of gravity in thePrincipia. The discussion of God’s sensorium indicated that gravity must be caused by God’s will. Newton did not leave it there, however, but went on to show how God’s will created active principles as secondary causes of gravity. There was nothing unusual in assuming that God, (...) acting as the First Cause, operated in nature by means of secondary causes; but it was unusual to devote as much time to discussing God’s precise role as to discussing the secondary causes themselves. It is contended that Newton felt the need to do this to persuade readers that what might seem like a second cause that could not possibly work could be made to work by the omnipotent God. (shrink)

A modern philosopher described religion as “that region in which all the enigmas of the world are solved.” Smith argues in Experience and God that religion itself has become an enigma for modern man. In the book, smith attempts to reunite philosophy with religion. He argues that in recent decades the prevailing attitude has been chiefly one of indifference. This indifference, leading to the failure of understanding can be overcome only through radical reflection and self-criticism: a re-consideration of the nature (...) of religion, its place in the total structure of human life, and its relations to the secular culture in which the faith of man must live. The task Smith lays out must be of a largely philosophical nature, not only because of the necessity to understand religion in relation to a comprehensive scheme of things, but also because the idea of religion is intimately connected with the issues of metaphysics. Smith’s purpose is to bridge the gap between the ontological approach to God as represented by Augustine, Anselm, and Bonaventure, and the cosmological approach represented by Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great. Smith shows that, although the two approaches significantly differ, they can be interpreted as ways of leading the meditating mind to the Presence of God, through the soul and through the world. (shrink)

Christ as symbol in Kant¿s religion -- Hegel's conception of God -- The reality of religion in Hegel's idealist metaphysics -- Hegel's version of the ontological argument for the existence of God -- The trinity and the I -- The death of God and recognition of the self -- Beyond subjectivism -- The relevance of Hegel's philosophy of religion today.

Trenton Merricks, among others, has recently championed in a series of papers what he takes to be a novel and simple solution to an age-old problem concerning the compatibility of divine omniscience and human freedom. The solution crucially involves the thesis that God’s beliefs about the future actions of human persons asymmetrically depend on the future actions of those persons. I show that Merricks’s defense of this thesis is inadequate and that the prospects for improving his defense of it would (...) require him to enter the fray of articulating and defending a view about the mechanics whereby divine foreknowledge is achieved—something he and other advocates of the strategy he advances had hoped to avoid. (shrink)

David Brown argues for the importance of experience of God as mediated through place in all its variety. He explores the various ways in which such experiences once formed an essential element in making religion integral to human life, and argues for their reinstatement at the centre of theological discussions about the existence of God. In effect, the discussion continues the theme of Brown's two much-praised earlier volumes, Tradition and Imagination and Discipleship and Imagination, in its advocacy of the need (...) for Christian theology to take much more seriously its relationship with the various wider cultures in which it has been set. In its challenge to conventional philosophy of religion, the book will be of interest to theologians and philosophers, and also to historians of art and culture generally. (shrink)

""This book contains a careful, thorough, and where necessary skeptical as regards doubtful evidence (especially in the case of Plato and the Old Academy) of the beginnings in European thought of the negative or apophatic way of thinking and its relations to more positive or kataphatic ways of thinking about God. One of its greatest strengths, perhaps the greatest, is that the author makes clear that none of the persons concerned, Hellenic, Jewish or Christian, was engaged in the pursuit of (...) a philosophical abstraction, or the heaping of rhetorical superlatives on God. They were rather concerned to present the origin of the universe as an intimately present living reality which infinitely transcends our thought and speech. This, combined with careful attention to the varieties of negative theology and its relations with positive, and the particular difficulties experienced by the members of the various traditions involved, makes the book the best introduction to the negative theology available."" -A. H. Armstrong, Emeritus Professor of Greek, University of Liverpool, England. Emeritus Professor of Classics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Senior Fellow of the British Academy. Irish academic Deirdre Carabine has lived and taught in Uganda for more than twenty years. She has recently been founder Vice-Chancellor at the Virtual University of Uganda (VUU), the first fully online university in Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to that she set up International Health Sciences University in Kampala. She has taught at Queen's Belfast, University College Dublin, and Uganda Martyrs University. Currently, she is Director of Programmes at VUU. She attended the Queen's University of Belfast where she graduated with a PhD in philosophy, and University College Dublin where, as one of the first Newman Scholars, she gained a second PhD in Classics. She is also author of John Scottus Eriugena in the Great Medieval Thinkers Series (2000). (shrink)

The main thesis of this essay is that contemporary management problems are results of the inherent reductionism in classical science and modernist worldview. Reductionism is inherent in modernist worldview since it limits its scope of cognition and considerations to the seen and sensible aspects of reality. It ignores the unseen divine aspect of it. To overcome reductionism and expand management ethical responsibility, I build on the contemporary Moroccan philosopher Taha Abderrahmane work to argue that the unseen divine dimension of reality (...) should be restored to guide man’s continuous spiritual and ethical development. The restoration of this dimension requires emphasizing Man-God relationship rather than being concerned with conceptualizing God himself. I argue that understanding God as beyond man’s realization while conceptualizing Man-God relationship as a dimension of continuous spiritual exaltation for man can overcome reductionism. This view expands man’s existence and cognition. It restores the excluded divine aspect without reducing it to certain values or specific practices since the ultimate reality (God) is always above and ahead. Consequently, it expands man’s responsibility when dealing with (managing) things in the world, including himself. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * The Universe We Know * Theories of Creation * Why This Universe? * The Multiverse and Fine-Tuning * Accounting for the World * God as a Theory * Note * References * Further Reading.