This collection of ground-breaking essays considers the many dimensions of prayer: how prayer relates us to the divine; prayer's ability to reveal what is essential about our humanity; the power of prayer to transform human desire and action; and the relation of prayer to cognition. It takes up the meaning of prayer from within a uniquely phenomenological point of view, demonstrating that the phenomenology of prayer is as much about the character and boundaries of phenomenological analysis as it is about (...) the heart of religious life.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Bruce Ellis Benson, Mark Cauchi, Benjamin Crowe, Mark Gedney, Philip Goodchild, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Lissa McCullough, Cleo McNelly Kearns, Edward F. Mooney, B. Keith Putt, Jill Robbins, Brian Treanor, Merold Westphal, Norman Wirzba, Terence Wright and Terence and James R. Mensch. Bruce Ellis Benson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Norman Wirzba is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown College, Kentucky. He is the author of The Paradise of God and editor of The Essential Agrarian Reader. (shrink)

Presenting significant new research on the moral and religious philosophy of David Hume, this volume illustrates the importance of intellectual context in understanding the work and career of one of the most important thinkers of the eighteenth century. Distinctive in its reappraisal of the influence of John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, and others, it examines how Hume reacted to, and in turn affected, other thinkers whose views, like his own, were bound up with specific philosophical, theological, and scientific traditions and commitments. (...) This volume also publishes for the first time in facsimile form the newly discovered fragment on evil. (shrink)

What is the status of belief in God? Must a rational case be made or can such belief be properly basic? Is it possible to reconcile the concept of a good God with evil and suffering? In light of great differences among religions, can only one religion be true? The most comprehensive work of its kind, Reason and Religious Belief, now in its fourth edition, explores these and other perennial questions in the philosophy of religion. Drawing from the best in (...) both classical and contemporary discussions, the authors examine religious experience, faith and reason, the divine attributes, arguments for and against the existence of God, divine action (in various forms of theism), Reformed epistemology, religious language, religious diversity, religion and science, and much more. Retaining the engaging style and thorough coverage of previous editions, the fifth edition features revised treatments of omnipotence, miracles, and providence and updated suggestions for further reading. A sophisticated yet accessible introduction, Reason and Religious Belief, Third Edition, is ideally suited for use with the authors' companion anthology, Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, Fifth Edition (OUP, 2015). (shrink)

what is now the mainstream view as to the best way forward in the dream of engineering reliable software systems out of autonomous agents. The way of using formal logics to specify, implement and verify distributed systems of interacting units using a guiding analogy of beliefs, desires and intentions. The implicit message behind the book is this: Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) can be a respectable engineering science. It says: we use sound formal systems; can cite established philosophical foundations; and will (...) be able to build reliable and flexible software systems. (shrink)

Interview with Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone, editors of Just the Arguments.

Crispin Wright joins the ranks of those who have sought to refute mechanist theories of mind by invoking Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. His predecessors include Gödel himself, J. R. Lucas and, most recently, Roger Penrose. The aim of this essay is to show that, like his predecessors, Wright, too, fails to make his case, and that, indeed, he fails to do so even when judged by standards of success which he himself lays down.

This is the first scholarly study of Atlas Shrugged, covering in detail the historical, literary, and philosophical aspects of Ayn Rand's magnum opus. Topics explored in depth include the history behind the novel's creation, publication, and reception; its nature as a romantic novel; and its presentation of a radical new philosophy.

The essays in this collection treat historical, literary, and philosophical topics related to Ayn Rand's Anthem, an anti-utopia fantasy set in the future. The first book-length study on Anthem, this collection covers subjects such as free will, political freedom, and the connection between freedom and individual thought and privacy.

This book addresses the idea of justice in order to guide society towards a more effective justice system. The authors trace impoverished and accomplished thinking in criminological and justice discourses and show that when justice and love are seen as synonyms, the historic ills that have plagued humanity tend to evaporate.

In "Evil and the Justice of God", N.T. Wright presses the point that attempting to solve the philosophical problem of evil is an immature response to the existence of evil--a response that belittles the real problem of evil, which is just the fact that evil is bad and needs to be dealt with. As you might expect, I am not inclined to endorse this sort of sweeping indictment of the entire field of research on the philosophical problem of evil. (...) (I sort of doubt that Wright really meant to either.) But I do think that there is a kernel of truth in what I take to be Wright's fundamental objection to attempts to solve the philosophical problem of evil. In the first section of what follows, I will try briefly to explain why. I will then go on to argue that, despite this fact, certain efforts at solving the problem of evil avoid Wright's objection. Indeed, drawing on recent work by Elenore Stump, I will argue that one perfectly legitimate way to try to solve the philosophical problem of evil is to follow precisely what seems to be the main piece of advice in "Evil and the Justice of God": namely, to look more seriously than we have at the attitudes taken toward evil by human authors of and characters in the Bible, and to attend more carefully to what the Bible says about how God deals with evil. (shrink)

This paper considers the role of physicaleducation researchers within current publicconcerns about body shape and weight. UsingUlrich Beck's notion of `risk' it examines howcertainty about children, obesity, exercise andhealth is produced in the contexts of `expert'knowledge and recontextualised in the academicand professional physical education literature.It is argued that the unquestioning acceptanceof the obesity discourses in physical educationhelps to construct anxieties about the body,which are detrimental to students and silencesalternative ways of thinking and doing physicaleducation.

One of the most influential studies in all expertise research is de Groot’s (1946) study of chess players, which suggested that pattern recognition, rather than search, was the key determinant of expertise. Many changes have occurred in the chess world since de Groot’s study, leading some authors to argue that the cognitive mechanisms underlying expertise have also changed. We decided to replicate de Groot’s study to empirically test these claims and to examine whether the trends in the data have changed (...) over time. Six Grandmasters, five International Masters, six Experts, and five Class A players completed the think-aloud procedure for two chess positions. Findings indicate that Grandmasters and International Masters search more quickly than Experts and Class A players, and that both groups today search substantially faster than players in previous studies. The findings, however, support de Groot’s overall conclusions and are consistent with predictions made by pattern recognition models. (shrink)

_Does the existence of evil call into doubt the existence of God? Show me the argument._ Philosophy starts with questions, but attempts at answers are just as important, and these answers require reasoned argument. Cutting through dense philosophical prose, 100 famous and influential arguments are presented in their essence, with premises, conclusions and logical form plainly identified. Key quotations provide a sense of style and approach. _Just the Arguments_ is an invaluable one-stop argument shop. A concise, formally structured summation of (...) 100 of the most important arguments in Western philosophy The first book of its kind to present the most important and influential philosophical arguments in a clear premise/conclusion format, the language that philosophers use and students are expected to know Offers succinct expositions of key philosophical arguments without bogging them down in commentary Translates difficult texts to core arguments Designed to provides a quick and compact reference to everything from Aquinas’ “Five Ways” to prove the existence of God, to the metaphysical possibilities of a zombie world. (shrink)

Introduction to edited volume, Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy.

This short chapter evaluates the logic of Epicurus' argument that considers the problem of evil (how could an all powerful, all knowing, and all good God permit the existence of evil?) It is part of larger set of evaluations of famous arguments presented in the history of philosophy.

The last thirty years have seen a resurgence of interest in virtue among philosophers, psychologists, and educators. This co-authored book brings an interdisciplinary response to the study of virtue: it not only provides a framework for quantifying virtues, but also explores how we can understand virtue in a philosophically-informed way that is compatible with the best current thinking in personality psychology. The volume presents a major contribution to theemerging science of virtue and character measurement.

Philosophical analyses of science tend to ignore illustrations, implicitly regarding them as theoretically dispensible. If challenged, it is suggested that such neglect is justifiable, because the use of illustrations only leads to faulty reasoning, and thus is the mark of bad or inadequate science. I take as an example one of the most famous illustrations in the history of evolutionary biology, and argue that the philosophers' scorn is without foundation. I take my conclusions to be support for a naturalistic approach (...) to philosophy. (shrink)

Michael A. PetersBeijing Normal UniversityMy deepest condolences to Pepe, Dom and Marcus and to Jim’s grandchildren. Tina and I spent a lot of time at the Marshall family home, often attending dinn...

Universities and Colleges with a Christian affiliation have in recent years sought to renew and redefine their identities and almost all have rearticulated their mission for the modern age after a long and serious process of reappraisal. This process has been accompanied by an ongoing discussion of the nature and identity of higher education itself. This discussion has required leadership that is different from most secular leadership. This book provides a range of experienced voices, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, that (...) reflect on the character and mission of leadership in Christian higher education in the 21st Century. (shrink)

This book integrates philosophy of science, data acquisition methods, and statistical modeling techniques to present readers with a forward-thinking perspective on clinical science. It reviews modern research practices in clinical psychology that support the goals of psychological science, study designs that promote good research, and quantitative methods that can test specific scientific questions. It covers new themes in research including intensive longitudinal designs, neurobiology, developmental psychopathology, and advanced computational methods such as machine learning. Core chapters examine significant statistical topics, for (...) example missing data, causality, meta-analysis, latent variable analysis, and dyadic data analysis. A balanced overview of observational and experimental designs is also supplied, including preclinical research and intervention science. This is a foundational resource that supports the methodological training of the current and future generations of clinical psychological scientists. (shrink)