36 found
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  1. Philosophy of religion, fictionalism, and religious diversity.Victoria S. Harrison - 2010 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 68 (1-3):43-58.
    Until recently philosophy of religion has been almost exclusively focused upon the analysis of western religious ideas. The central concern of the discipline has been the concept God , as that concept has been understood within Judaeo-Christianity. However, this narrow remit threatens to render philosophy of religion irrelevant today. To avoid this philosophy of religion should become a genuinely multicultural discipline. But how, if at all, can philosophy of religion rise to this challenge? The paper considers fictionalism about religious discourse (...)
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  2.  32
    The pragmatics of defining religion in a multi-cultural world.Victoria S. Harrison - 2006 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 59 (3):133-152.
    Few seem to have difficulty in distinguishing between religious and secular institutions, yet there is widespread disagreement regarding what "religion" actually means. Indeed, some go so far as to question whether there is anything at all distinctive about religions. Hence, formulating a definition of "religion" that can command wide assent has proven to be an extremely difficult task. In this article I consider the most prominent of the many rival definitions that have been proposed, the majority falling within three basic (...)
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  3.  22
    Eastern philosophy of religion.Victoria S. Harrison - 2022 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    This book selectively examines a range of ideas and arguments drawn from the philosophical traditions of South and East Asia, focusing on those that are especially relevant to the philosophy of religion. The book introduces key debates about the self and the nature of reality that unite the otherwise highly diverse philosophies of Indian and Chinese Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. The emphasis of the book is analytical rather than historical. Key issues are explained in a clear, precise, accessible manner, and (...)
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  4. Internal realism and the problem of religious diversity.Victoria S. Harrison - 2006 - Philosophia 34 (3):287-301.
    This article applies Hilary Putnam’s theory of internal realism to the issue of religious plurality. The result of this application – ‘internalist pluralism’ – constitutes a paradigm shift within the Philosophy of Religion. Moreover, internalist pluralism succeeds in avoiding the major difficulties faced by John Hick’s famous theory of religious pluralism, which views God, or ‘the Real,’ as the noumenon lying behind diverse religious phenomena. In side-stepping the difficulties besetting Hick’s revolutionary Kantian approach, without succumbing to William Alston’s critique of (...)
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  5. The Oneness Hypothesis: Beyond the Boundary of Self.Philip J. Ivanhoe, Owen Flanagan, Victoria S. Harrison, Hagop Sarkissian & Eric Schwitzgebel (eds.) - 2017 - New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press.
    The idea that the self is inextricably intertwined with the rest of the world—the “oneness hypothesis”—can be found in many of the world’s philosophical and religious traditions. Oneness provides ways to imagine and achieve a more expansive conception of the self as fundamentally connected with other people, creatures, and things. Such views present profound challenges to Western hyperindividualism and its excessive concern with self-interest and tendency toward self-centered behavior. This anthology presents a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary exploration of the nature and implications (...)
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  6. An Internalist Pluralist Solution to the Problem of Religious and Ethical Diversity.Victoria S. Harrison - 2012 - Sophia 51 (1):71-86.
    In our increasingly multicultural society there is an urgent need for a theory that is capable of making sense of the various philosophical difficulties presented by ethical and religious diversity—difficulties that, at first sight, seem to be remarkably similar. Given this similarity, a theory that successfully accounted for the difficulties raised by one form of plurality might also be of help in addressing those raised by the other, especially as ethical belief systems are often inextricably linked with religious belief systems. (...)
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  7.  84
    Probability in the Philosophy of Religion.Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison (eds.) - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Probability theory promises to deliver an exact and unified foundation for inquiry in epistemology and philosophy of science. But philosophy of religion is also fertile ground for the application of probabilistic thinking. This volume presents original contributions from twelve contemporary researchers, both established and emerging, to offer a representative sample of the work currently being carried out in this potentially rich field of inquiry. Grouped into five parts, the chapters span a broad range of traditional issues in religious epistemology. The (...)
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  8. Internal realism, religious pluralism and ontology.Victoria S. Harrison - 2008 - Philosophia 36 (1):97-110.
    Internalist pluralism is an attractive and elegant theory. However, there are two apparently powerful objections to this approach that prevent its widespread adoption. According to the first objection, the resulting analysis of religious belief systems is intrinsically atheistic; while according to the second objection, the analysis is unsatisfactory because it allows religious objects simply to be defined into existence. In this article, I demonstrate that an adherent of internalist pluralism can deflect both of these objections, and in the course of (...)
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  9.  40
    The Routledge Companion to Theism.Charles Taliaferro, Victoria S. Harrison & Stewart Goetz (eds.) - 2012 - Routledge.
    There are deep and pervasive disagreements today in universities and colleges, and popular culture in general, over the credibility and value of belief in God. This has given rise to an urgent need for a balanced, comprehensive, accessible resource book that can inform the public and scholarly debate over theism. While scholars with as diverse interests as Daniel Dennett, Terry Eagleton, Richard Dawkins, Jürgen Habermas, and Rowan Williams have recently contributed books to this debate, "theism" as a concept remains poorly (...)
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  10. Metaphor, religious language, and religious experience.Victoria S. Harrison - 2007 - Sophia 46 (2):127-145.
    Is it possible to talk about God without either misrepresentation or failing to assert anything of significance? The article begins by reviewing how, in attempting to answer this question, traditional theories of religious language have failed to sidestep both potential pitfalls adequately. After arguing that recently developed theories of metaphor seem better able to shed light on the nature of religious language, it considers the claim that huge areas of our language and, consequently, of our experience are shaped by metaphors. (...)
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  11. Ch. 1.Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison - 2012 - In Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison (eds.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
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  12.  34
    Realigning Philosophy and Wisdom in the 21st Century.Victoria S. Harrison - 2020 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 112 (3):325-340.
    Securing a future for philosophy and wisdom in the professionalized and specialized context of twenty-first century academia is the challenge taken up by this article. If the conception of philosophy as the love of wisdom expects too much of philosophers, the construal of philosophy as the study of wisdom expects too little. To attempt to rehabilitate the relationship between philosophy and wisdom by claiming that philosophy is the study of wisdom unreasonably limits the scope of the current vibrant and expansive (...)
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  13. Eastern philosophy: the basics.Victoria S. Harrison - 2013 - New York: Routledge.
    Eastern Philosophy: The Basics is an essential introduction to major Indian and Chinese philosophies, both past and present. Exploring familiar metaphysical and ethical questions from the perspectives of different Eastern philosophies, including Confucianism, Daoism, and strands of Buddhism and Hinduism, this book covers key figures, issues, methods and concepts. Questions discussed include: What is the ‘self’? Is human nature inherently good or bad? How is the mind related to the world? How can you live an authentic life? What is the (...)
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  14.  86
    Kierkegaard's philosophical fragments: A clarification.Victoria S. Harrison - 1997 - Religious Studies 33 (4):455-472.
    The article proposes that the hypothetical framework of Kierkegaard's "Philosophical Fragments" is determined by the question 'How is it possible for one to become a disciple?' An account of this framework is provided by employing an original interpretation of the concept 'the Moment'. This enables an understanding of 'the condition' by means of a contrast between 'Universalist' and 'Particularist' perspectives. Moreover, it is only when the insights offered by both perspectives are combined that the answer to the determining question of (...)
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  15. Self-transformation and Spiritual Exemplars.Victoria S. Harrison & Rhett Gayle - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (4):9-26.
    This paper focuses on the process of self-transformation through which a person comes to embody the ideal of her religion’s vision of the divine, as far as that ideal is expressible in a human life. The paper is concerned with the self as the subject of religious commitments, traits, religious aspirations and religiously inspired ideals. The self-transformative journey that people are invited to undertake poses a number of philosophical and practical difficulties; the paper explores some of these difficulties, concentrating on (...)
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  16. What if the Dead Are Never Really Dead?Victoria S. Harrison - 2021 - The Monist 104 (3):337-351.
    This paper argues for the value of the ‘strange’ as a hermeneutical tool to open fresh perspectives on an issue of widespread human concern, specifically how to deal with and relate to the dead. Traditional Chinese folk religion and the animistic ghost culture found within it is introduced and the role of gods, ancestors, and ghosts explained. The view that death is not the end of life but the transition to a new relationship with the living raises questions about our (...)
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  17.  43
    Feminist philosophy of religion and the problem of epistemic privilege.Victoria S. Harrison - 2007 - Heythrop Journal 48 (5):685-696.
    There have been a number of developments within religious epistemology in recent years. Currently, the dominant view within mainstream philosophy of religion is, arguably, reformed epistemology. What is less well known is that feminist epistemologists have also been active recently within the philosophy of religion, advancing new perspectives from which to view the link between knowledge and religious experience. In this article I examine the claim by certain feminist religious epistemologists that women are both epistemically oppressed and epistemically privileged, and (...)
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  18.  24
    Atheisms.Victoria S. Harrison & Harriet A. Harris - 2018 - London: Routledge.
    Questions about how to negotiate belief and non-belief in social and public spheres are attracting an increasing amount of attention from academics in a range of disciplines, and from concerned members of the public. This volume addresses the emergence of ‘new atheism’ and the developing ‘spiritual but not religious’ phenomenon. Avoiding simplistic accounts of atheism, and of religious belief, it provides readers with insight into a wide range of nuances within theism and a-theism, as well as spiritual practice and faith. (...)
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  19. Buddhist Religious Epistemology.Victoria S. Harrison & John Zhao - 2023 - In John Greco, Tyler Dalton McNabb & Jonathan Fuqua (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
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  20.  35
    Conceptual Metaphors and the Goals of Philosophy.Victoria S. Harrison - 2016 - In Hans-Georg Moeller & Andrew Whitehead (eds.), Wisdom and Philosophy: Contemporary and Comparative Approaches. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 205-222.
    Conceptual metaphor theory provides a useful tool with which to think about different philosophical traditions, as it can reveal the deep structure of networks of ideas. Conceptual metaphors are not just linguistic devices, rather they organise whole networks of thought, experience and activity. Paying special attention to the role of the metaphor of sight in certain Indian traditions and that of Dao in Chinese traditions, I explore the idea that different philosophical traditions have developed and matured around particular conceptual metaphors, (...)
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  21.  33
    Fragmentary Selves and God-given Identity.Victoria S. Harrison - 2006 - Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion 11:139-153.
    This brief study employs Lacan's theory about the self and about the way that our self-image is constituted to highlight some crucial differences between one important Roman Catholic philosophical religious anthropology and one interpretation of the Theravāda Buddhist theory of anattā. It concludes that one persuaded of Lacanian theory would be likely to regard the Roman Catholic model of personal-identity as fostering a particularly tenacious and dangerous illusion, while being likely to view the Theravādan philosophy more favourably, regarding it as (...)
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  22.  54
    (1 other version)Human holiness as religious apologia.Victoria S. Harrison - 1999 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 46 (2):63-82.
    The article critically examines Hans Urs von Balthasar’s core intuition that human holiness has apologetic value for Christianity. It argues that von Balthasar’s claim relies on two notions of ‘proof’, and, in distinguishing between the two notions, it clarifies his position. This clarification is followed by a defense of von Balthasar’s view that it can be rational to accept Christian faith on the grounds of human holiness. However, by way of conclusion, the article proposes that von Balthasar’s intuition could, in (...)
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  23.  31
    Homo orans: Von balthasar's christocentric philosophical anthropology.Victoria S. Harrison - 1999 - Heythrop Journal 40 (3):280–300.
    Hans Urs von Balthasar's philosophical anthropology is the premise not only of his religious epistemology, but also of his whole theological enterprise. The importance of his anthropology to the rest of his theology is often overlooked, because its fundamentals are set out in an early work to which little critical attention has been given: Das Betrachtende Gebet– a work which emphasizes the “necessity of prayer”. According to von Balthasar, in praying, one encounters God, and it is through this encounter that (...)
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  24.  28
    Holiness, Theology and Philosophy.Victoria S. Harrison - 2000 - Philosophy and Theology 12 (1):53-78.
    Hans Urs von Balthasar calls for a revival of what he sees as the original relationship between human holiness and Christian theology. He suggests that modern theologians should imitate their patristic forebears to the extent that they combine holy living with an objective stance corresponding to the intellectual rigor proper to theology. The article summarizes von Balthasar’s analysis of the development and current state of what he portrays as the problem of separation between theology and human holiness, considers the role (...)
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  25.  33
    (1 other version)Introduction.Victoria S. Harrison, Anna Bergqvist & Gary Kemp - 2016 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 79:1-12.
    Museums have traditionally been understood as places where carefully selected objects are categorized and put on display so that they can be known through observation. So-called ‘world-museums’, such as the British Museum, were designed to provide the public with access to the wider world through the knowledge they could acquire simply by observing the objects put forward for their inspection. This understanding of what museums do has been increasingly called into question due to changing views of knowledge-acquisition. New understandings of (...)
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  26.  17
    Modern Women, Traditional Abrahamic Religions and Interpreting Sacred Texts.Victoria S. Harrison - 2007 - Feminist Theology 15 (2):145-159.
    This article surveys some of the ways in which certain representative feminists from each of the Abrahamic religions have argued that patriarchal religious traditions have systematically excluded women from contributing to traditionally accepted interpretations of their sacred texts. It shows how, in response to this exclusion, feminist theologians from each of these religions have observed a need to interpret the scriptures of their traditions from the standpoint provided by their own experience as women–thus offering new interpretations which they perceive to (...)
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  27.  47
    Philosophy and the Spiritual Life.Victoria S. Harrison & Tyler Dalton McNabb (eds.) - 2023 - London: Routledge.
    This book breaks new ground for the philosophy of religion by showcasing work that engages with the lived reality of the spiritual life. It demonstrates that philosophy’s relationship with spirituality is more than a historical curiosity and that, in the twenty-first century, it is still meaningful to think about philosophy in connection with spirituality. The chapters are organised around the following themes: spiritual practice and philosophical understanding; philosophical reflections on living a spiritual life; philosophical problems concerning the spiritual life. The (...)
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  28.  63
    Personal identity and integration: Von balthasar's phenomenology of human holiness.Victoria S. Harrison - 1999 - Heythrop Journal 40 (4):424–437.
    In the view of Hans Urs von Balthasar, what is needed to bring a human life to fulfilment—to become ‘whole’—is the death of one's ‘personality’, and the acquisition of one's specific ‘personhood’, which is given to one, along with one's mission, by God. Moreover, according to von Balthasar, a human being becomes a ‘unique person’ when encountering God in contemplative prayer. And it is within contemplative prayer that one comes into contact with one's ‘Idea’, which is actualised when one' personal (...)
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  29.  37
    Putnam's internal realism and Von balthasar's religious epistemology.Victoria S. Harrison - 1998 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (2):67-92.
    This article is principally concerned with a possible defense of some of the epistemological presuppositions of von Balthasar’s theological philosophy. The article claims that, taken as a whole, von Balthasar’s writings provide a systematic critique of a widely held epistemological paradigm, thereby implying a novel conception of rationality and objectivity. In so doing, he anticipates the central concerns of Hilary Putnam, whose own more developed work on rationality and objectivity can be employed to supplement von Balthasar’s critique of these concepts (...)
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  30.  13
    Representing the Divine: Feminism and Religious Anthropology.Victoria S. Harrison - 2007 - Feminist Theology 16 (1):128-146.
    This article examines some of the problems androcentric religious anthropologies raise for Jewish, Christian and Muslim women-particularly, with respect to their demand to occupy leadership roles within their respective faith-communities-while also considering the failure of conservative thinkers adequately to respond to these problems. Focusing on the connection between religious anthropologies and the conception of God within the Abrahamic faiths reveals, what many religious feminists have described as, a symbiotic relationship between the conception of God employed in their tradition and an (...)
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  31.  28
    Scientific and religious worldviews: Antagonism, non‐antagonistic incommensurability and complementarity.Victoria S. Harrison - 2006 - Heythrop Journal 47 (3):349-366.
    This article reviews three basic ways in which the relationship between Abrahamic religion and science has been construed: as fundamentally antagonistic; as non-antagonistically incommensurable; and as complementary. Unfortunately, while each construal seems to offer benefits to the religious believer, none, as the article demonstrates, is without considerable cost.
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  32.  42
    The Metamorphosis of “The End of the World”.Victoria S. Harrison - 2005 - Philosophy and Theology 17 (1-2):33-50.
    This paper highlights certain features of the metamorphosis that the concept “the end of the world” has undergone from its origin in early Christian thought to the present day. This concept has, in recent decades, become increasingly prominent within Western European Lutheran and Roman Catholic theology. This paperdemonstrates that the notion of the end of the world popularized by Jürgen Moltmann and Karl Rahner, despite the traditional, biblical language in which it is couched, has more affinity with the philosophical concept (...)
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  33. Theorizing religious diversity in a multicultural world.Victoria S. Harrison - 2007 - ICFAI Journal of History and Culture 1 (1):25-43.
    This paper examines a variety of intellectual responses to the religious and philosophical issues raised by religious plurality. While the specific questions raised by religious plurality differ across traditions, the more general problem that faces all religious intellectuals is how to provide a compelling theoretical account of the relationship between the various religions of the world. The paper briefly reviews religious exclusivism and inclusivism, before focusing upon theories of religious pluralism. After clarifying the distinction between religious pluralism and relativism about (...)
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  34.  60
    Postmodern thought and religion: Open-traditionalism and radical orthodoxy on religious belief and experience.Victoria S. Harrison - 2010 - Heythrop Journal 51 (6):962-974.
    This paper considers some of the ways in which ‘postmodernism’ is construed, before turning to several important representative examples of religious postmodern thought. It highlights some common features possessed by prominent examples of religious postmodern thought within Judaism and Christianity. Much postmodern religious thought is characterised by the separation of religious belief from religious experience, and is marked by the tendency to emphasise the latter at the expense of the former. This paper argues that, despite this tendency, the work of (...)
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  35.  37
    (1 other version)Andrew Moore and Michael Scott (eds) realism and religion: Philosophical and theological perspectives . (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Pp. 163. £55.00 (hbk), £16.99 (pbk). Isbn 9780754652328. [REVIEW]Victoria S. Harrison - 2010 - Religious Studies 46 (1):125-130.
  36.  63
    The End of Philosophy of Religion. [REVIEW]Victoria S. Harrison - 2012 - Faith and Philosophy 29 (1):99-103.