Contemporary naturalism is changing and scientific reductionism is under challenge from those who advocate a more comprehensive outlook. This special issue of Telos, based on the first Telos Australia Symposium held at Swinburne University in Melbourne in February 2014, introduces some of the key questions in the current debates. It also poses the question of whether more satisfactory political and social thought can be produced if scientific reductionism is replaced by a richer and more hermeneutical naturalism, one that takes more (...) account of philosophical anthropology, actual co-involvements of human beings and their environments, and the potential of more naturalistically grounded approaches to culture. (shrink)

The essays in this book engage with the broad range of Jürgen Habermas' work including politics and the public sphere, nature, aesthetics, the linguistic turn and the paradigm of intersubjectivity.

In this article, it is argued that a convergence between the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy is unlikely. Both traditions have fundamentally different approaches to questions concerning consciousness and subjectivity. They also differ in their conception of the role of philosophy, if we are to become autonomous and reflective humans beings.To illustrate this, a comparison is made between the work of the continental philosopher Dieter Henrich and the 'post- analytic ' philosopher Thomas Nagel, who is often seen as a (...) typical 'converger'. (shrink)

For centuries debates about reason and its Other have animated and informed philosophy, art, science, and politics throughout Western civilization but nowhere, arguably, as deeply and turbulently as in Germany. This book explores the myriad issues surrounding these debates.

A Dialogue between Kukai and John Scotus EriugenaThe Japanese philosopher and calligrapher Kukai (774–835), founder of esoteric Shingon Buddhism, talks to John Scotus Eriugena (800–877), an Irish philosopher and the author of The Division of Nature, who held that nature includes the things that are and the things that are not.

Summary This paper addresses the relation between the natural sciences and the humanities with reference to the work of Ian Hunter. It discusses the history of, role of philosophy in, and value of the humanities; the question of historicism; the issue of critique; and the role of theology in the humanities, all matters raised by Hunter's work. The paper suggests that a reinvented humanities might pay more attention to philosophy and the sciences, including theology. It asks how far such a (...) perspective is compatible with Ian Hunter's pioneering work on the humanities and intellectual history. The paper concludes that a middle position, one between Hunter's historicising and an emphasis on naturalistic constraints, may be possible. (shrink)

ExcerptThe humanities are currently under pressure from vocational studies and electronic technologies. The more education is mechanized and corporatized, the less room there is often thought to be for the Bildung that the modern humanities aimed to impart. At the same time, radical critiques of the neoliberal university have appeared, implicating it in colonial practices, racism, and the promotion of casteism, hierarchy, and inequality. Currently there are major schisms between defenders of the traditional humanities and advocates of technologically based higher (...) education, advocates of radically politicized higher education, and advocates of entirely vocational training, which dispenses with the humanities altogether. (shrink)

This paper discusses attempts to think historicity in the work of the theologian Rudolf Bultmann and the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg. It then draws on the work of the Jesuit theologian Robert Doran in order to suggest how an historical pragmatics without historicism might be relevant to a future theology with social import.