Our Book Review Editor, James Keller, invited William Hasker to write a review of the Book by D. Z. Phillips, "The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God" and then in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief invited Phillips to respond. Aware of both their respect for each other and their philosophical differences we planned that Hasker's review and Phillips' response would appear in the same issue of the "International Journal for Philosophy of Religion." Unfortunately (...) that was not to be. Dewi, as he was known to his many friends throughout the world, collapsed at his desk on 25 July, 2006 in the library of his beloved University of Wales, Swansea. Although we were not able to have the review and response appear in the same issue as we had all planned, we are now printing his response to Hasker's review, "D. Z. Phillips's Problems with Evil and with God," which appeared in IJPR, Vol. 61,3. Dewi had completed the review and thanks to the efforts of Helen Baldwin who prepared the manuscript and Dewi's wife, Monica, and family we are able to print it here. Since Dewi was responding to an earlier version of Hasker's review, a few minor editorial changes have been made. Dewi's death is a great loss to the philosophical community and a deep personal loss to his family and friends, but I am confident that he would be pleassed to have this response appear. He might even have a story to tell, a comment that those who knew him well will fully understand. Eugene Thomas Long. (shrink)

Our Book Review Editor, James Keller, invited William Hasker to write a review of the Book by D.Z. Phillips, The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God and then in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief invited Phillips to respond. Aware of both their respect for each other and their philosophical differences we planned that Hasker’s review and Phillips’ response would appear in the same issue of the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Unfortunately that (...) was not to be. Dewi, as he was known to his many friends throughout the world, collapsed at his desk on 25 July, 2006 in the library of his beloved University of Wales, Swansea. Although we were not able to have the review and response appear in the same issue as we had all planned, we are now printing his response to Hasker’s review, “D.Z. Phillips’s Problems with Evil and with God,” which appeared in IJPR, Vol. 61,3. Dewi had completed the review and thanks to the efforts of Helen Baldwin who prepared the manuscript and Dewi’s wife, Monica, and family we are able to print it here. Since Dewi was responding to an earlier version of Hasker’s review, a few minor editorial changes have been made. Dewi’s death is a great loss to the philosophical community and a deep personal loss to his family and friends, but I am confident that he would be pleased to have this response appear. He might even have a story to tell, a comment that those who knew him well will fully understand. Eugene Thomas Long. (shrink)

When I was asked to review this book, I thought it was to be a single essay, since the title gave no indication that the relation of David Lyons to the book was that of editor to a collection to which he also contributes. Most of the essays are so well known that no descriptive comment is necessary and no critical one adequate in a review of this length. The essays included are as follows: H. L. A. Hart's (...) "Are There Any Natural Rights?" and "Bentham on Legal Rights"; Rawls on "Constitutional Liberty and the Concept of Justice" which anticipates the central position of his A Theory of Justice; Richard Wasserstrom on "Rights, Human Rights and Racial Discrimination"; Joel Feinberg on "The Nature and Value of Rights"; Ronald Dworkin "Taking Rights Seriously"; Thomas E. Hill, Jr., "Servility and Self-Respect"; Robert Nozick, "The Entitlement Theory"; David Lyons's "Rights, Claimants and Beneficiaries" and "Human Rights and the General Welfare". David Lyons also has a useful introduction which raises and discusses the main points in the essays. (shrink)

The author's aim is to show that Leontev's ideas are not disconnected, as many critics have held, but form a system that is both logically consistent and interconnected by the "inner logic" of a powerful emotion. To uncover the emotional sources of Leontev's philosophy, half the book is devoted to Leontev's life, and especially his relation to his mother. Since childhood, he feared and loved her, and associated her with religion, refinement, and absolutism. Leontev's first formulation of his doctrine of (...) aestheticism when he returned from the Crimean War probably coincided with his first suspicions of his homosexuality. His unexpected marriage to his former mistress was an attempt to overcome his guilt and weakness. His first ideological work, Byzantism and Slavdom was written under the double strain of his mother's death, and his own experience of fear of death during an illness. Leontev's doctrine of aestheticism when applied to the individual, yields "a poetry of life" beyond good and evil. One's personal life must be maximally original, complex, and unified at whatever cost in happiness to oneself or others. Religious faith is needed to reconcile one with suffering and death. Yet, religion dictates an ethics which conflicts with the aesthetics of life. The constant struggle between the two principles enriches personality and heightens creativity, and must finally end in a heroic total rejection of aesthetics. Applied to society and history, aestheticism demands a society stratified into unequal and hostile classes and unified by ruthless despotism. Such a society was to be most conducive to the development of original personalities. The egalitarian, happiness-orientated West was in decline and sacrificed beauty to banality. Without much confidence in its realization, Leontev advocated "freeze up Russia" to avoid infection from the West.--T. D. Z. (shrink)

The author's thesis is that a formal system of plausible noncertain reasoning is possible. Its basic patterns of inference are: A implies B; B is true; therefore A is more credible, and non-A is more credible is equivalent to A is less credible. From these all other patterns of plausible reasoning are derivable. Such a calculus is to be employed within contexts of alternative hypotheses to pick out the strongest hypothesis. Unfortunately, no measure for credibility is provided. The author tries (...) to relate his system of plausible reasoning to a logic of discovery, but fails to make the relation clear. Sometimes he feels that the former implies the latter, and at other times that the former may be possible without the latter being possible. A "logic" of plausible reasoning, if it were possible, would go a long way in explaining why scientists consider seriously only very few of a great number of possible hypotheses.--T. D. Z. (shrink)

These remarkable memoirs were published first in Russian in 1953 and were translated into French in 1964. At last they are available in English in a very readable translation. The author was on friendly terms with Lenin in Geneva from January to June 1904, a period of great stress in Lenin's life when he was writing One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. The human, all too human, side of the great historical figure is vividly and sympathetically portrayed. Lenin was fascinated (...) with violence, but always kept himself at a safe distance from it. His vanity and pride made him incapable of frankness. His ignorance of Shakespeare, Byron, Molière, Schiller, and his enthusiasm for Chernyshevsky's What is to be Done? reflect his intellectual narrowness. He was incapable of grasping a fresh idea, or of respecting any person who disagreed with his convictions. No tactics were too low in settling personal scores. Among his more appealing characteristics one might mention his firm faith in the Russian Revolution, his energy and dedication to his work, his love of music, nature, and physical activity. But the book contains much more than a new and clear-headed insight into Lenin's intellectual development and personality. There are vivid descriptions of many leaders of the Revolution, of the oppressive atmosphere of life in exile, of the discrepancy between hopes and reality. The personality of the author, his fairness, sincerity, and honesty, are stamped on the whole book making it an entertaining and rewarding experience.--T. D. Z. (shrink)

This book spans roughly a century, 1860-1960, of Russian thought on the subject of God, and focuses on ten thinkers who formulated distinctive and extreme views on the subject. The connections and similarities among these highly original thinkers are admirably traced, and give an unexpected unity to the book. Bakunin, the "political anarchist," and Tolstoy, the "cultural anarchist" rejected the State, Church, and God to free men either from oppression by others or from the fear of death and oppression of (...) others. Their critique of religion had a powerful influence on the Russian Marxists. Leontyev and Rozanov, the "religious neo-conservatives" reacted against European humanism and Tolstoy's "tyranny of ethics." Both turned to the Old Testament for inspiration and support. Leontyev discovered there a faith based on the fear of God the Judge. Rozanov found a religion of joy based on the mystery of procreation and God as the loving Father. Reversing Bakunin's "if God exists, then man is a slave" the "religious existentialists," Shestov and Berdyaev, held that "if man is free, then God exists." They attempted to give a religious foundation for human freedom and values by attacking the supremacy of reason and its necessary truths. Gorky and Lunacharsky, the left wing of the Bolshevik faction, replaced God with a future mankind which is to be perfected gradually in history by the combined efforts of men. These "God-builders" were quickly silenced by Lenin. While Plekhanov remained faithful to Marx in treating religion as a historically determined illusion which will simply wither away in the socialist society, Lenin saw it as a sinister tool in the class struggle, and proclaimed total war on religion. The last chapter investigates the policies of the Soviet government toward the churches and sects, and recent interest in religious ideas among Soviet writers. Each of the mentioned thinkers receives a special section. Although some important thinkers, such as Solovyov, Dostoevsky, Fyodorov, do not get full attention, their influence is made clear. The author's style has a lucidity and simplicity which are a mark of complete mastery of subject matter.--T. D. Z. (shrink)

The author presents an ethical theory which, as he admits, has much in common with the theories of M. Cohen, R. Sellars, H. Feigl, C. Lamont, and G. Williams. His first task is to define the scientific world view on which his ethical conclusions will be based. It comprises the following suppositions, logically derived from and justified by scientific practice: there is a real world independent of the knower, natural events are uniform, every event is related to some other events, (...) everything is in constant change, all changes are orderly, causes are efficient not final. Before the good life can be defined, science must define human nature, i.e., man's basic and universal needs, which are: physical health, recognition, love, excitement and novelty, knowledge. The good life must satisfy all these needs, but since this may be done improperly, a condition must be added: that satisfaction must come from a real adjustment to the environment in the long run. Moral rules must be both happiness-producing and life-promoting. This framework allows for diversity in moral codes. Determinism does not conflict with morality, for the only freedom that morality presupposes is the absence of external or irrational causes. An act is free to the extent that it is determined by the agent's self-knowledge. The book ends with a brief discussion of the problems of overpopulation, pollution, and world-scale planning.--T. D. Z. (shrink)

What is one to make of Sartre's treatment of his waiter in one of his famous analyses of bad faith? The example is supposed to be an obvious one, but the more we examine it, the less obvious it becomes. Let us remind ourselves of Sartre's example: Let us consider this waiter in the café. His movement is quick and forward, a little too precise, a little too rapid. He comes toward the patrons with a step a little too quick. (...) He bends forward a little too eagerly; his voice, his eyes express an interest a little too solicitous for the order of the customer. Finally there he returns, trying to imitate in his walk the inflexible stiffness of some kind of automaton while carrying his tray with a recklessness of a tight-rope walker by putting it in a perpetually unstable, perpetually broken equilibrium which he perpetually re-establishes by a light movement of the arm and hand. (shrink)

In 1958, moral philosophers were given rather startling advice. They were told that their subject was not worth pursuing further until they possessed an adequate philosophy of psychology. What is needed, they were told, is an enquiry into what type of characteristic a virtue is, and, furthermore, it was suggested that this question could be resolved in part by exploring the connection between what a man ought to do and what he needs : perhaps man needs certain things in order (...) to flourish, just as a plant needs water; and perhaps what men need are the virtues, courage, honesty, loyalty, etc. Thus, in telling a man that he ought to be honest, we should not be using any special sense of ought: a man ought to be honest just as a plant ought to be watered. The ‘ought’ is the same: it tells us what a man needs. (shrink)

A psychoanalyst is said to provide the real explanation of a person's behaviour; an explanation which the person has arrived at with the help of a psychoanalyst. The person was not aware of the real character of his behaviour. It may have exhibited unconscious thoughts, beliefs, motives, intentions and emotions. In his paper ‘The Unconscious’, in Mind 1959, Ilham Dilman says, ‘What those who talked of “Freud's discovery of the unconscious” had in mind is a group of innovations which “the (...) founder of psycho-analysis” brought to bear on the study of the human mind’. I have ten questions concerning the relation of this ‘group of innovations’ to human behaviour. (shrink)

Many analyses of belief in the soul ignore the soul in the words. Dislocations of concepts occur when words are divorced from their normal implications. The ‘soul’ is sometimes the dislocated utterer of such words. Pictures, including pictures of the soul leaving the body, may mislead us by suggesting applications which they, in fact, do not have. But pictures of the soul may enter people's lives as desires for a temporal eternity. Contrasting conceptions of immortality and eternal life depend on (...) a willingness to say farewell to life. Atheistic denials of temporal eternities, do not appreciate these other possibilities. (shrink)

The concern of this book is the nature of religious belief and the ways in which philosophical enquiry is related to it. Six chapters present the positive arguments the author wishes to put forward to discusses religion and rationality, scepticism about religion, language-games, belief and the loss of belief. The remaining chapters include criticisms of some contemporary philosophers of religion in the light of the earlier discussions, and the implications for more specific topics, such as religious education, are investigated. The (...) book ends with a general attempt to say something about the character of philosophical enquiry, and to show how important it is to realise this character in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Five reasons are given for why Wittgensteinianism, though a major movement in philosophy of religion, has never been a dominant one. The remainder of the chapter is divided as follows: - I: The influence of Descartes’ Legacy. - II: Philosophy of Religion’s epistemological inheritance as seen in Reformed epistemology and the influence of Thomas Reid, and in neo-Kantianism. - III: The return from metaphysical reality in Wittgenstein. - IV: Difficulties in the metaphysical notion of God: as being itself or pure (...) consciousness. - V: The importance of ordinary certitudes in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. - VI: The sense of God’s “otherness” from the world. - VII: Religion and contemplative philosophy. (shrink)

Recent books by Paul Johnston, D. Z. Phillips, Philip Shields, and B. R. Tilghman all depict Wittgenstein as centrally concerned with ethics, but they range from representing his main works as expressing and advocating a particular religious-ethical outlook to arguing that his work has no ethical content but aims primarily to clarify such logical distinctions as that between ethical and empirical judgments. All four books raise the question about the moral philosopher's proper role, and each suggests a rather different (...) answer. Via the discussion of these books, I argue that Wittgenstein's stress on diversity in the ways of human life, his notion of conceptual grammar, the idea of a perspicuous representation, his lifelong involvement with art and his suggestions about its connection with morality, and his preoccupation with aspect-seeing-all suggest new possibilities of rehabilitating the historically recurrent idea that the philosopher may be a moral sage. (shrink)

Many analyses of belief in the soul ignore the soul in the words. Dislocations of concepts occur when words are divorced from their normal implications. The 'soul' is sometimes the dislocated utterer of such words. Pictures, including pictures of the soul leaving the body, may mislead us by suggesting applications which they, in fact, do not have. But pictures of the soul may enter people's lives as desires for a temporal eternity. Contrasting conceptions of immortality and eternal life depend on (...) a willingness to say farewell to life. Atheistic denials of temporal eternities, do not appreciate these other possibilities. (shrink)

I: Winch’s emphasis on philosophy’s concern with language and on rule-following; II: Winch’s misgivings about limits of analogy between rules and language; III: Rhees’ comparison of the unity of discourse with conversation, and claim that language makes sense if living makes sense; IV: Winch’s later emphasis on the fragility of conditions for understanding both between cultures and within our own.

In a brilliant series of essays, the distinguished philosopher D. Z. Phillips explores the alternatives for faith after foundationalism. A significant exploration of post-foundationalist thought in its own right, Faith After Foundationalism is also an important evaluation and critique of the theological implications of the views of Alvin Plantinga, Richard Rorty, George Lindbeck, and Peter Berger.Phillips’s own position is that one must resist the philosopher’s tendency to turn religious mystery into epistemological mystery. To understand how religious concepts are (...) formed is to understand that to speak of God as “beyond mortal telling” is not to confess a failure of language. God’s hiddenness is part of our concept of him—a reflection of the mystery of human life as it is lived. Faith After Foundationalism will be essential reading for philosophers of religion and theologians, as well as for students of contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

This book is one philosopher's response to the poetry of R. S. Thomas. It examines the poet's struggle with the possibilities of sense in religion: R. S. Thomas has described his poetry as an obsession with the possibility of having 'conversations or linguistic confrontations with ultimate reality'. Some attempts at giving meaning to religious belief cannot withstand the assaults of criticism. In R. S. Thomas's verse, however, there emerges a hard-won celebration of the worship of a hidden God; a rare (...) achievement in contemporary poetry. In plotting the course of the development of the poetry, the book brings out its many similarities with the thrusts and counter-thrusts of argument in the philosophy of religion in the second half of the twentieth century. The book should be of interest not only to admirers of R. S. Thomas, but to philosophers, theologians, students of literature, and to anyone concerned with questions concerning the sense or senselessness of religious belief. (shrink)

Rush Rhees, a close friend of Wittgenstein and a major interpreter of his work, shows how Wittgenstein's _On Certainty_ concerns logic, language, and reality – topics that occupied Wittgenstein since early in his career. Authoritative interpretation of Wittgenstein's last great work, _On Certainty_, by one of his closest friends. Debunks misconceptions about Wittgenstein's _On Certainty_ and shows that it is an essay on logic. Exposes the continuity in Wittgenstein's thought, and the radical character of his conclusions. Contains a substantial and (...) illuminating afterword discussing current scholarship surrounding _On Certainty_, and its relationship to Rhees's work on this subject. (shrink)

Rush Rhees, a close friend of Wittgenstein and a major interpreter of his work, shows how Wittgenstein's _On Certainty_ concerns logic, language, and reality – topics that occupied Wittgenstein since early in his career. Authoritative interpretation of Wittgenstein's last great work, _On Certainty_, by one of his closest friends. Debunks misconceptions about Wittgenstein's _On Certainty_ and shows that it is an essay on logic. Exposes the continuity in Wittgenstein's thought, and the radical character of his conclusions. Contains a substantial and (...) illuminating afterword discussing current scholarship surrounding _On Certainty_, and its relationship to Rhees's work on this subject. (shrink)

Rush Rhees was a philosopher, and a pupil and close friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein. While some of Rhees's own published papers became classics, most of his work remained unpublished during his lifetime. After his death, his papers were found to comprise sixteen thousand pages of manuscript on every aspect of philosophy, from philosophical logic to Simone Weil. This collection of unpublished papers, edited by D. Z. Phillips, includes Rhees's outstanding work on philosophy and religion. Written over an academic lifetime, (...) some of the papers are sympathetic to religion while others are not. It is Rhees's ability to interweave the personal and philosophical, and his integrity and intellectual honesty, which make this one of the most impressive books in twentieth-century philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Whether one agrees with him or not, there is no avoiding the challenge of Hume for contemporary philosophy of religion. The symposia in this stimulating collection reveal why, whether the discussions concern Hume on metaphysics and religion, "true religion," religion and ethics, religion and superstition, or miracles. For some, Hume's criticisms of religion cannot withstand them, while others claim that Hume can be answered on his own terms. All responses to Hume determine the style and spirit in which one pursues (...) philosophy of religion today. (shrink)

There is a well-known remark in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations which even some philosophers sympathetic to his work have found very hard to accept. It reads:Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language;it can in the end only describe it.For it cannot give it any foundation either.It leaves everything as it is. Surely, it is said, that is carrying matters too far. Wittgenstein's hyperbole should be excused as a harmless stylistic flourish.

In approaching the topic, ‘Objectivity and Cultural Divergence’, there is little doubt that certain styles of philosophizing will conceive of the task confronting them as that of devising or at least calling attention to standards of rationality by which distinctions between objectivity and divergence are to be drawn. This mode of philosophizing is marked by the confidence it has in its own methods. It seldom occurs to it to question its own operations; to ask whether the heterogeneity of our culture (...) does not itself create difficulties for the practice of philosophy. It is to such questionings as these, however, that I want to direct attention in this lecture. (shrink)

In approaching the topic, ‘Objectivity and Cultural Divergence’, there is little doubt that certain styles of philosophizing will conceive of the task confronting them as that of devising or at least calling attention to standards of rationality by which distinctions between objectivity and divergence are to be drawn. This mode of philosophizing is marked by the confidence it has in its own methods. It seldom occurs to it to question its own operations; to ask whether the heterogeneity of our culture (...) does not itself create difficulties for the practice of philosophy. It is to such questionings as these, however, that I want to direct attention in this lecture. (shrink)

Reflection on religion inevitably involves consideration of its relation to morality. When great evil is done to human beings, we may feel that something absolute has been violated. Can that sense, which is related to gratitude for existence, be expressed without religious concepts? Can we express central religious concerns, such as losing the self, while abandoning any religious metaphysic? Is moral obligation itself dependent on divine commands if it is to be objective, or is morality not only independent of religion, (...) but its accuser if God is said to allow horrendous evils? In any case, what happens to the absolute claims of religion in what is, undeniably, a morally pluralistic world? These are the central questions discussed by philosophers of religion and moral philosophers in this collection. They do so in ways which bring new aspects to bear on these traditional issues. (shrink)

In this collection, distinguished theologians and philosophers of religion explore the relation of key Biblical concepts to our world. They examine a range of concepts, including authority, faith and history, the historical Jesus, the resurrection and miracles.