Jürgen Habermas's recent challenge to secular citizens calling for greater inclusivity of religious justifications in the public sphere opens new epistemological debates that could benefit from the rich insights of feminist epistemologists. Despite certain theoretical tensions, there is some common ground between Habermas and recent work in feminist epistemology. Specifically, this article explores the shared interests between Habermas and one feminist theorist in particular, Miranda Fricker. I choose Fricker because her formulation of the epistemological and ethical hybrid virtues of testimonial (...) justice and hermeneutical justice provide efficacious theoretical and practical tools capable of deepening the epistemological basis of Habermas's challenge to secular citizens. After a detailed analysis of Habermas's and Fricker's respective epistemological positions, I argue that Fricker's analysis provides a rich framework for thinking through questions of power, identity, and credibility with respect to religious justifications in the public sphere. In conclusion, this article emphasizes the importance of fostering more robust and just epistemic communities capable of countering the social, political, and ethical injustices of epistemic disauthorization and marginalization. (shrink)

A number of important religious views entail that the ontological and epistemic relations between religion and morality are tighter than most secular thinkers suppose. We will focus on three theistic metaethical accounts of moral phenomena and moral knowledge: natural law theories, divine command theories, and divine will theories. These three types of accounts are among the most dominant in the philosophical literature on theistic ethics in contemporary anglophone philosophy, perhaps owing to their connection to major Western religions such as (...) Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It is important to note, however, that they hardly exhaust the conceptual space. Intellectual traditions of other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, traditional Chinese religions, and African religions raise distinct philosophical questions about and offer a host of alternative views on the relationship between religion and morality (Jeffrey 2019). We close by offering a few such examples, though it is outside the scope of this chapter to provide a comprehensive survey of available views. (shrink)

Sayyid Qutb and Fethullah Gülen are two of the most important Muslim leaders and intellectuals of the twentieth century: the two are similar not only for their focus on the relationship between Islam and politics, but also for their lifelong commitments to education. For both Qutb and Gülen, schools were a means through which society itself could be made more just and, ultimately, more Islamic, and for both, their philosophy of education and broader political projects were at once pragmatic and (...) implicitly and explicitly for Qutb contrasted with American pragmatism. Their differing pedagogies are illustrative of their larger visions: for Qutb, Muslim education must be a “total world” in which Islam is protected from secular contagion, while for Gülen, Muslim education can move more slowly through largely secular means. For Gülen, Islam can work outside of and within a secular system; for Qutb, the system must be changed. (shrink)

A fascinating study of moral languages and their discontents, Ethics after Babel explains the links that connect contemporary moral philosophy, religious ethics, and political thought in clear, cogent, even conversational prose. Princeton's paperback edition of this award-winning book includes a new postscript by the author that responds to the book's noted critics, Stanley Hauerwas and the late Alan Donagan. In answering his critics, Jeffrey Stout clarifies the book's arguments and offers fresh reasons for resisting despair over the prospects (...) of democratic discourse. (shrink)

In 1994 the "Ramsey Colloquium," under the leadership of Richard John Neuhaus, posed a challenge to what it called the "homosexual movement" within the Christian Church. The challenge was to prove that it had reasons distinguishable from secular liberalism--reasons consistent with orthodox Christian theology--in favor of same-sex coupling. Eugene Rogers's book, "Sexuality and the Christian Body: Their Way into the Triune God, can be read as a response to this challenge. The book is important not only for the content of (...) its arguments, which are imaginative and theologically rigorous, but also for the exemplary way in which Rogers exhibits charity in his account of his conservative opponents. Rogers's recent anthology, "Theology and Sexuality", provides additional evidence that a new, more promising debate is arising within the Church, a debate that has some hope of transcending the rhetoric of the culture wars. (shrink)

This paper is a rejoinder to papers by Sabina Lovibond, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Sumner B. Twiss, G. Scott Davis, M. Cathleen Kaveny, and John Kelsay on the author's recent book "Democracy and Tradition". The argument covers a host of topics, ranging from epistemology and methodology to human rights, the common law, and Islamic ethics.

This essay assesses Robert Merrihew Adams' contribution to the religion-morality debate in light of questions in philosophical semantics and metaphilosophy, questions Adams raises without addressing directly. It sketches a holistic theory of the use of language in thought in the hope of providing a context for determining the value and philosophical relevance of Adams' semantic claims. It concludes by suggesting that descriptive metaethics should give way to explicitly historical studies, and by maintaining that historians of ethics need not postulate "meanings" (...) in order to make sense of what they do. (shrink)

This article concerns central theological commitments in Cornel West's prophetic social criticism. West is best interpreted as someone proposing a politics of charism, in which human arrangements need constantly to make room for and conform themselves to the divine gifts of inspired speech, music, knowledge, and love. The church, for West, is a fallible, earthen vessel into which God's charismatic treasures are poured. The church's prophetic mission must receive prophetic criticism; it should disconnect itself from empire, capital, racism, sexism, and (...) homophobia. What West's Christology might be is, however, less certain. (shrink)

Morality's relation to religion stands among the broad cultural issues that pull people towards philosophy and religious studies. We hope for insight, but what we find when we get there is another matter – a debate on ‘is’ and ‘ought’ with all the marks of a dead end. While the intellectual goals and strategies that led in this direction have elicited little scholarly attention to date, the time and the tools for an effective critique may now be at hand.

This book is a collection of new essays on Aquinas and Wittgenstein written by some of the leading theologians and philosophers of religion in the English-speaking world. It is inspired by ' and dedicated to the memory of - Victor Preller, whose powerful interpretations of these figures did much to prepare the ground for recent discussions of religious language, knowledge of God, the role of grace in human life, and the ethical significance of virtue. Grammar and Grace frees Aquinas from (...) the trappings of traditional Thomism, just as it liberates Wittgenstein from the relativism of the Wittgensteinian fideists. But the book is no mere exercise in scholarly revisionism, for its main purpose is to advance our understanding of the issues on which texts like the Summa Theologiae and the Philosophical Investigations have a bearing. This book will be essential reading for all those interested in the interpretation of Aquinas and Wittgenstein, the interface of religion and ethics, and the dialogue between philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Were it not for Richard Rorty, pragmatism might no longer be a topic on which intellectuals feel obliged to have an informed view. What is it, though, that he endorsed and revived? The movement he championed has various representatives and vague boundaries. The claims he associated with it are numerous and the connections among them are loose, puzzling, and contested. Teasing apart some of the things he referred to as pragmatism permits us to clarify the merits, import, and influence of (...) each. This chapter highlights the concerns that have led some of his closest associates to pit some of Rorty’s pragmatisms against others. (shrink)

In Democracy and Tradition, Jeffrey Stout asks Christian political theologians if they can discern God's activity in modern democratic cultures. In so doing they might "acknowledge the sovereignty of God while transcending both resentment of, and absorption into, the secular." As Stout recognizes, the question of sovereignty is relevant not only to Christian, but also Jewish and Islamic thought. However, interreligious comparisons remain undeveloped in his work. In response, the following essay coordinates Stout’s pragmatism with developments (...) in comparative theology. It then evaluates both the Jewish messianism of Gershom Scholem alongside Islamic sovereignty (hakimayyah) in the thought of Sayyid Qutb. While their viewpoints differ in considerable respects, they nonetheless provide key test cases for Stout’s questions concerning divine sovereignty. In sum, the paper opens new avenues for religious deliberations in democratic traditions. (shrink)

Jeffrey Stout addresses two of the main criticisms of liberal democracy by its contemporary neotraditionalist Christian critics: that liberal democracy is destructive of social tradition, and thereby of virtue in the citizenry, and that liberal democracy is inherently secular, committed to expunging religious voices from the public arena. I judge that Stout effectively answers these charges: liberal democracy has its own tradition, it cultivates the virtues relevant to that, and it is not inherently hostile to piety. What (...) Stout does not do, I suggest, is take the next step of showing, positively, that Christianity can and should affirm the substance of liberal democratic society. This is due, in good measure, to the fact that Stout never tells us, except in off-hand comments, what he takes the substance of liberal democracy to be. And this, in turn, is due to his way of employing pragmatism: he uses pragmatism to give an account of human society generally, not of liberal democratic society. I raise some questions about the general account that pragmatism gives of human society, and thus about the account that it would give of liberal democracy. (shrink)

This paper discusses Jeffrey Stout's thesis that modern societies are "secular," not in the sense that religion has disappeared from them, but in a procedural sense having to do with what can properly be assumed by participants in moral or political discussion. I endorse this thesis, but argue that Stout employs a notion of justification (with regard to moral belief), which leans too far toward descriptivism or relativism. As an alternative account of the status of religion within (...) "the hypercontext, modernity," I commend Kant's view of the religious attitude as a fundamentally ethical one, destined eventually to dispense with any "historical vehicle" in the form of revealed doctrine or supernaturalism. Stout's discussion is weakened by its retreat from commitment to the unity of practical reason, though it does pay illuminating tribute to the democratic values of civility and attentiveness. (shrink)

Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that "the people reign over the American political world like God over the universe," unwittingly casting democracy as the political instantiation of the death of God. According to Jeffrey W. Robbins, Tocqueville's assessment remains an apt observation of modern democratic power, which does not rest with a sovereign authority but operates as a diffuse social force. By linking radical democratic theory to a contemporary fascination with political theology, Robbins envisions the modern experience of democracy (...) as a social, cultural, and political force transforming the nature of sovereign power and political authority. Robbins joins his work with Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's radical conception of "network power," as well as Sheldon Wolin's notion of "fugitive democracy," to fashion a political theology that captures modern democracy's social and cultural torment. This approach has profound implications not only for the nature of contemporary religious belief and practice but also for the reconceptualization of the proper relationship between religion and politics. Challenging the modern, liberal, and secular assumption of a neutral public space, Robbins conceives of a postsecular politics for contemporary society that inextricably links religion to the political. While effectively recasting the tradition of radical theology as a political theology, this book also develops a comprehensive critique of the political theology bequeathed by Carl Schmitt. It marks an original and visionary achievement by the scholar the _Journal of the American Academy of Religion_ hailed "one of the best commentators on religion and postmodernism.". (shrink)

Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that "the people reign over the American political world like God over the universe," unwittingly casting democracy as the political instantiation of the death of God. According to Jeffrey W. Robbins, Tocqueville's assessment remains an apt observation of modern democratic power, which does not rest with a sovereign authority but operates as a diffuse social force. By linking radical democratic theory to a contemporary fascination with political theology, Robbins envisions the modern experience of democracy (...) as a social, cultural, and political force transforming the nature of sovereign power and political authority. Robbins joins his work with Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's radical conception of "network power," as well as Sheldon Wolin's notion of "fugitive democracy," to fashion a political theology that captures modern democracy's social and cultural torment. This approach has profound implications not only for the nature of contemporary religious belief and practice but also for the reconceptualization of the proper relationship between religion and politics. Challenging the modern, liberal, and secular assumption of a neutral public space, Robbins conceives of a postsecular politics for contemporary society that inextricably links religion to the political. While effectively recasting the tradition of radical theology as a political theology, this book also develops a comprehensive critique of the political theology bequeathed by Carl Schmitt. It marks an original and visionary achievement by the scholar the _Journal of the American Academy of Religion_ hailed "one of the best commentators on religion and postmodernism.". (shrink)

Beginning with Emerson's turn from his pulpit, many argue that American philosophy has rigorously held forth against supernaturalism and metaphysics. While most read self-reliance as a call for individualism, I argue that self-reliance is the application of the moral sentiment to the source of existence Emerson calls the Over-soul. Figures like George Kateb, Stanley Cavell, and Jeffrey Stout have presented a very different picture of American pragmatism. Stout, in particular, is responsible for building up what I call (...) "the myth of the Emersonian democrat." We find that a few philosophical positions generally constitute this myth. The Emersonian democrat is secular, sceptical, relativist, anti-realist, and anti-metaphysical. In fact, on my reading of the strand of pragmatism running from Emerson through James to Dewey, the pluralism of the Emersonian democrat depends on certain metaphysical commitments. The traditional reading of Emerson as anti-religion, and by extension, anti-religious, impedes a better understanding of self-reliance and obfuscates some of the Emersonian inheritances in James and Dewey. (shrink)

What is secularity? Might it yield or define a distinctive form of reasoning? If so, would that form of reasoning belong essentially to our modern age, or would it instead have a considerably older lineage? And what might be the relation of that form of reasoning, whatever its lineage, to the Christian thinking that is often said to oppose it? In the present volume, these and related questions are addressed by a distinguished group of scholars working primarily within the Roman (...) Catholic theological tradition and from the perspectives of Continental philosophy. As a whole, the volume constitutes a conversation among thinkers who agree in their concerns but not necessarily their conclusions. Taken individually, each essay concentrates on a range of historical developments with close attention to their intellectual and sometimes pedagogical implications. Secular reason, they argue, is neither the antipode of Christian thought nor a stable and well-resolved component of it. Christian thinking may engage with secular reason as the site of profound difficulties, but on occasion will also learn from it as a source of new insight. _Christianity and Secular Reason_ contributes to the contemporary discussion of secularity prompted especially by Charles Taylor’s book _A Secular Age_. Unlike Taylor's work, however, this collection concentrates specifically on secular _reason_ and explicitly on its relation to Christianity. In this sense, it is closer to Michael J. Buckley’s _At the Origins of Modern Atheism_ or, to a lesser degree, Louis Dupré’s _Passage to Modernity_, which concern themselves with broad cultural developments. "This volume offers a variety of perspectives, some historical, some normative/constructive, on the questions of the relations between politics/culture/religion and the relations between selfhood/humanity/world. The essays are, without exception, of high quality in both scholarly-exegetical terms, and constructive-normative ones. The writers are learned, sometimes witty, and often interesting." —_Paul Griffiths, Duke Divinity School _ "This is no other volume I know of that covers just this ground. There is a substantial literature on, for example, the Habermas/Ratzinger exhange, and on Kant's view of the relation between philosophy and religion, and on the twelfth century background for thirteenth century reflection on this relation. The merit of _Christianity and Secular Reason_ is that it holds these threads together, and others besides, in a new and fruitful way." —_John E. Hare, Yale University_. (shrink)

Full-Blooded religion is not acceptable in mainstream bioethics. This article excavates the cultural history that led to the suppression of religion in bioethics. Bioethicists typically fall into one of the following camps. 1) The irreligious, who advocate for suppressing religion, as do Timothy F. Murphy, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins. This irreligious camp assumes American Fundamentalist Protestantism is the real substance of all religions. 2) Religious bioethicists, who defend religion by emphasizing its functions and diminishing its metaphysical commitments. Religious defenders (...) empty religion of its theology to present its feel-good functions in a way that is acceptable to the irreligious. However, religion reduced to its functions dissolves into a counter-culture that may counteract materialism but lacks the power to motivate much more. This article criticizes both camps, as both presume Enlightenment myths and consequently neuter religion. Both irreligious and religious bioethicists commonly presume Enlightenment myths about secularity and religion. Secularity is presumed neutral and rational. Religion is presumed divisive and irrational. This myth provides built-in value-judgements; we have already judged secularity as good and religion as bad. Much of the debate over religion in bioethics is arguing over false stereotypes of religion. Consequently, mainstream bioethics neuters religion, while the irreligious are gifted political power to define the field. (shrink)

It has long been assumed that the more modern we become, the less religious we will be. Yet a recent resurrection in faith has challenged the certainty of this belief. In these original essays and interviews, leading hermeneutical philosophers and postmodern theorists John D. Caputo and Gianni Vattimo engage with each other's past and present work on the subject and reflect on our transition from secularism to postsecularism. As two of the figures who have contributed the most to the (...) theoretical reflections on the contemporary philosophical turn to religion, Caputo and Vattimo explore the changes, distortions, and reforms that are a part of our postmodern faith and the forces shaping the religious imagination today. Incisively and imaginatively connecting their argument to issues ranging from terrorism to fanaticism and from politics to media and culture, these thinkers continue to reinvent the field of hermeneutic philosophy with wit, grace, and passion. (shrink)

It has long been assumed that the more modern we become, the less religious we will be. Yet a recent resurrection in faith has challenged the certainty of this belief. In these original essays and interviews, leading hermeneutical philosophers and postmodern theorists John D. Caputo and Gianni Vattimo engage with each other's past and present work on the subject and reflect on our transition from secularism to postsecularism. As two of the figures who have contributed the most to the (...) theoretical reflections on the contemporary philosophical turn to religion, Caputo and Vattimo explore the changes, distortions, and reforms that are a part of our postmodern faith and the forces shaping the religious imagination today. Incisively and imaginatively connecting their argument to issues ranging from terrorism to fanaticism and from politics to media and culture, these thinkers continue to reinvent the field of hermeneutic philosophy with wit, grace, and passion. (shrink)

WHAT COULD BE WRONG WITH SEEKING TO RESHAPE OURSELVES IN WAYS that we genuinely value? Jewish textual and cultural perspectives may add clarity and substance to the wider secular discussion of using genetic technologies for human enhancement. Judaism does not share the naturalism of Anglo-American bioethics; instead, it emphasizes covenantal responsibility for co-creation and stewardship of the body. Judaism tends to be more permissive about social uses of technology but more restrictive about personal aspirations and behavior. Enhancement technologies threaten the (...) moral universals of humility, personal responsibility, and social solidarity, which are embodied in Jewish tradition as duties to God, self, and others. The tradition demands that we seek self-perfection while humbly and cautiously acknowledging that we can never arrive at it nor even know exactly what we seek. (shrink)

Although the primary meaning of Max Weber’s concept of disenchantment is as a sociological condition (the retreat of magic and myth from social life through processes of secularization and rationalization), as Weber himself makes clear in his address, “Science as a Vocation,” disenchantment can also be a philosophical act: an unusual form of moral discourse that derives new ethical direction out of the very untenability of a previously robust moral tradition. The philosophical variant of disenchantment is significant both because it (...) contradicts numerous elements of the sociological version and because it suggests there are forms of cognition unique to moral philosophy (insofar as the derivation of a moral teaching from the very absence of one is foreign to both a religious and ascientific mindset). (shrink)

Richard Rorty is famous, maybe even infamous, for his philosophical nonchalance. His groundbreaking work not only rejects all theories of truth but also dismisses modern epistemology and its preoccupation with knowledge and representation. At the same time, the celebrated pragmatist believed there could be no universally valid answers to moral questions, which led him to a complex view of religion rarely expressed in his writings. In this posthumous publication, Rorty, a strict secularist, finds in the pragmatic thought of John Dewey, (...) John Stuart Mill, William James, and George Santayana, among others, a political imagination shared by religious traditions. His intent is not to promote belief over nonbelief or to blur the distinction between religious and public domains. Rorty seeks only to locate patterns of similarity and difference so an ethics of decency and a politics of solidarity can rise. He particularly responds to Pope Benedict XVI and his campaign against the relativist vision. Whether holding theologians, metaphysicians, or political ideologues to account, Rorty remains steadfast in his opposition to absolute uniformity and its exploitation of political strength. (shrink)

Much attention in philosophy of religion has been devoted to the question of whether faith is epistemically rational. But is it morally and practically permissible? This paper explores a response to a family of arguments that Christian faith is morally impermissible or practically irrational, even if epistemically justified. After articulating the arguments, I consider how they would fare if they took seriously the traditional notion that genuine faith is always accompanied by Christian hope. I show how the norms of hope (...) regulate Christian faith in such a way that it does not involve, and certainly does not entail, the morally and practically problematic attitudes and behaviors with which it is associated. (shrink)

More than three centuries after Baruch Spinoza's excommunication from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, his legacy remains contentious. Born in 1632, Spinoza is one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment and arguably the paradigm of the secular Jew, having left Orthodoxy without converting to another faith. One of the most provocative critiques of Spinoza comes from an unexpected source, the influential twentieth-century political philosopher, Leo Strauss. Though Strauss was not an Orthodox Jew, in a well-known essay that prefaced (...) his study of Spinoza, he critically examines modern philosophy's challenge to traditional religion. There he argues that while the Enlightenment had failed to decisively refute Orthodoxy, at the same time, Orthodoxy could only claim to believe its core tenets were true but could not claim to know they were true. Strauss leaves the question at an impasse; both the Enlightenment and Orthodoxy rest on axioms that neither side can fully prove or fully refute. Curiously, Strauss never asks Orthodox Jewish thinkers if his approach to defending Judaism against the claims of the Enlightenment is the same as theirs. This volume poses the question to a group of serious Orthodox Jewish thinkers in an attempt to find out if Orthodoxy has a better answer to the questions raised by Strauss than the one Strauss advanced on its behalf. The seventeen essays in this volume use a variety of approaches, drawing on traditional primary Jewish sources like Scripture, Talmud, and Midrash; medieval rationalists like Maimonides; Enlightenment-era Orthodox sources; Jewish mystical writings like Kabbalah and Chasidut; modern philosophical movements including postmodernism and analytic philosophy; and contemporary Jewish Bible interpretation. While the answers differ, what unites these essays is the willingness to take Strauss' question seriously and to provide "inside" answers, that is, answers given by Orthodox Jews. Much of modern thought tries to square the circle of how to live in a world without belief. The better question is whether it is possible to recover authentic religious belief in the modern world. This volume is an Orthodox Jewish attempt to answer that question, one that no serious person can approach with indifference. (shrink)

Many people do not know or believe there is a God, and many experience a sense of divine absence. Are these (and other) “divine hiddenness” facts evidence against the existence of God? Using Bayesian tools, we investigate *evidential arguments from divine hiddenness*, and respond to two objections to such arguments. The first objection says that the problem of hiddenness is just a special case of the problem of evil, and so if one has responded to the problem of evil then (...) hiddenness has no additional bite. The second objection says that, while hiddenness may be evidence against generic theism, it is not evidence against more specific conceptions of God, and thus hiddenness poses no epistemic challenge to a theist who holds one of these more specific conceptions. Our investigation leaves open just how strong the evidence from hiddenness really is, but we aim to clear away some important reasons for thinking hiddenness is of no evidential significance at all. (shrink)

Under the general tutelage of Kant, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) introduced American pragmatism to yet another philosophical dialectic: between a neglected transcendental instinct and earthly authorities. The dialectic became Peirce’s response to various evolutionary schemes in the 19th century. Guided by the recollected voices of Socrates, Jesus, St. John, Anselm, and Kant, as well as his own brand of pragmatism, Peirce eventually developed a “Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” a century ago, in 1908. Here, Peirce endorsed a more (...) adventurous god than ecclesiastical or theological authorities could imagine, a god of love (agapism) and chance (tychism), but still rife with fallibility. (shrink)

Although the primary meaning of Max Weber’s concept of disenchantment is as a sociological condition (the retreat of magic and myth from social life through processes of secularization and rationalization), as Weber himself makes clear in his address, “Science as a Vocation,” disenchantment can also be a philosophical act: an unusual form of moral discourse that derives new ethical direction out of the very untenability of a previously robust moral tradition. The philosophical variant of disenchantment is significant both because it (...) contradicts numerous elements of the sociological version and because it suggests there are forms of cognition unique to moral philosophy (insofar as the derivation of a moral teaching from the very absence of one is foreign to both a religious and ascientific mindset). (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Pascal's Wager Other Prominent Pragmatic Arguments Pragmatic Arguments and the Ethics of Belief Works cited.

This essay interprets and responds to Richard Kearney's metaphysics of possibility and hermeneutics of religion against the background of Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God and the theodicy problem. Kearney's work is thus read as an interesting but ultimately problematic attempt to preserve or perhaps reinstate religious thought after the modern critique of idols. In addition, his positions are compared and contrasted with some of authors with whom he seems to be in limited agreement (for example, Plotinus, Hillesum) as (...) well as some with whom he clearly breaks (for example, Girard, Sölle). (shrink)

In relating philosophy to intercultural understanding, one of the key problems that arises is that of the relationship between tolerance and religious belief.This paper challenges the common understanding of tolerance in contemporary debates over religious diversity. It argues that tolerance is overused and over-applied in these debates, and has wrongfully come to refer to tactlessness, harshness of condemnation, and even exclusivity of belief. In seeking to clarify the concept and ensure its appropriate usage, it proposes that religious tolerance should only (...) be applied to beliefs and actions following from those beliefs. It offers a framework in which tolerance about epistemic matters and tolerance about metaphysical matters is differentiated, and proposes that rejecting a certain element of metaphysical tolerance, namely the coexistence of incompatible content, is not a legitimate condition for intolerance. These clarifications enable a more consistent way of understanding tolerance and religious diversity. (shrink)

In relating philosophy to intercultural understanding, one of the key problems that arises is that of the relationship between tolerance and religious belief.This paper challenges the common understanding of tolerance in contemporary debates over religious diversity. It argues that tolerance is overused and over-applied in these debates, and has wrongfully come to refer to tactlessness, harshness of condemnation, and even exclusivity of belief. In seeking to clarify the concept and ensure its appropriate usage, it proposes that religious tolerance should only (...) be applied to beliefs and actions following from those beliefs. It offers a framework in which tolerance about epistemic matters and tolerance about metaphysical matters is differentiated, and proposes that rejecting a certain element of metaphysical tolerance, namely the coexistence of incompatible content, is not a legitimate condition for intolerance. These clarifications enable a more consistent way of understanding tolerance and religious diversity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rhetorical Investigations: Studies in Ordinary Language CriticismJeffrey WalkerRhetorical Investigations: Studies in Ordinary Language Criticism. Walter Jost. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004. Pp. xiii + 346. $55.00, hardcover.As the sixth-century BCE poet Theognis once wrote, "Hearken to me, child, and discipline your wits; I'll tell / a tale not unpersuasive nor uncharming to your heart; / but set your mind to gather what I say; there's no necessity (...) / to do what's not according to your will" (Theognidea 1235–38; my translation). While this poem ostensibly is a pederastic proposition, it is also and more fundamentally (as I have argued elsewhere) a poem about poetry as a rhetorical transaction. Poetry is the poet's act of heart-charming persuasion or seduction; the duty of the audience, the object of the poet's seduction, is to "discipline your wits," that is, to exercise hermeneutic and critical judgment on the way to understanding fully and being persuaded or unpersuaded to think or do as the poet asks (for seduction is not compulsion). Finally, and as Theognis's poetry elsewhere suggests, the audience's act of being-persuaded or unpersuaded ultimately is an enactment of, a rehearsal of, an ethical or intellectual position (stance, schêma) that is on its way (with further, repeated rehearsals) to becoming part of the audience's ethical-intellectual performative repertoire, or in other words its êthos, or what Kenneth Burke would call its identity.This richly researched, densely argued, excellent book by Walter Jost could well be understood as a modern (or postmodern) instantiation of a "Theognidean" rhetorical poetics. At one point early on, for example, Jost invokes Angus Fletcher to sum up the activities of an ordinary-language approach to poetry as "thinking the poem": "taking the poem as an occasion for thought; thinking through the poem; being aware of one's thoughts as one reads the poem; looking for some logic in the poem; allowing the poem to trigger certain lines of thought," and so forth (Fletcher, Colors of the Mind, 111–12; Jost 9–10). This is "disciplining one's wits" to "gather what the poet says" and to follow out its implications on the way to judging what Jost calls "the meaning and quality... of an experienced artifact or event or performance" (10). As Jost develops his theoretical frame, which draws most heavily from Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanely Cavell, and Kenneth Burke—as well as a host of others in a basically pragmatist tradition—this becomes an explicitly rhetorical approach to poetry, and specifically to Robert Frost's poetry, understood as an epideictic "showing forth" of thought that invites its audience, like Theognis's addressee, to "think [End Page 178] the poem" through and to form a relationship (whether identificational or contestatory) with the system of topoi that underwrites its judgments.Rhetorical Investigations is divided into two main parts. "Book I," titled "Rhetoric: An Advanced Primer," consists of four chapters that attempt to lay out the conceptual framework for, and to philosophically justify, Jost's rhetorical-hermeneutic approach to poetry, while also setting up Robert Frost as a distinctive exemplar of a "low modernist" practice that demonstrates the central themes of ordinary-language and pragmatist philosophy, essentially by dramatizing them, and that stands as a significant (if under-appreciated) alternative to the "high modernist" mode of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and their successors. Frost, in other words (though Jost does not say this explicitly) takes the less-traveled modernist path that Kenneth Burke embarked on in Counter-Statement and pursued for the rest of his career. The key topoi for the framework laid out in these four chapters are: dialectic/dialogue as the medium for an ordinary-language philosophical practice (chap. 1); rhetorical invention as what is missing from "high modernism's" sense of epistemological crisis and anomie (chap. 2); "grammar" as the system of topoi, or commonplaces, that underwrite ordinary language-use and are instantiated by it, and that provide the grounds (what speakers "acknowledge") for deliberation and judgment in practical thought and action (chap. 3); and logic as the implicatures of ordinary-language thought that enable epideictic argument in poetry and that make it something... (shrink)

This collection of essays by some of the leading scholars in religion in North America explores the complex relationship between the academic study of religion and personal religious experience. Each volume in this new series explores a central theme or topic that has informed the religious experiences of humanity throughout history. Each theme is discussed from a comparative perspective using a variety of methodological approaches.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ecological Footprints: An Essential Franciscan Guide for Faith and Sustainable Living by Dawn Nothwehr, and: The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity by Willis JenkinsJeffrey MorganEcological Footprints: An Essential Franciscan Guide for Faith and Sustainable Living Dawn Nothwehr Collegevile, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012. 368pp. $39.95The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity Willis Jenkins Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013. 304pp. $34.95Dawn M. (...) Nothwehr, OSF, and Willis Jenkins have written, so it seems, incommensurable books about the relation of religion to environmental problems. The central issue between them is whether or not it is possible to move from a theological tradition to fitting, ecologically responsible moral action. Nothwehr is quite confident that we can, and the first half of her Ecological Footprints: An Essential Franciscan Guide for Faith and Sustainable Living is, as the title suggests, a primer in Franciscan theology that moves toward a theology of sustainable living. After two opening chapters on scripture and the environment, the distinctly Franciscan quality of the guide really begins as Nothwehr surveys, over four chapters, the cornerstones of Franciscan theology: Clair, Francis, Bonaventure, and Scotus. Nothwehr’s main effort in these chapters is to draw out major themes in each figure’s work and to suggest how these themes might inform a contemporary ethics of sustainability. With heavy reliance on contemporary scholarship, Nothwehr covers significant ground: creation, the Trinity, Christology, sacramental theology, deification, panentheism, theological anthropology, and more. The effect is a bit dizzying, but a few focal lenses emerge. Across these major figures there is, Nothwehr contends, a profound commitment to the interrelatedness of all things, kinship throughout cosmos, [End Page 219] and the need for mutual respect among all creatures; all this is grounded in a vision of the Incarnation as the divine affirmation and deification of all things (121). That is, the Incarnation is the fullest revelation of the mutual love between the persons of the Trinity that shines forth throughout the creation and that summons each of us to treat all creatures as equals, as brothers and sisters united in one household (94). The ethical takeaway is straightforward: if we really held these (or similar) theological convictions, our ecological habits should follow suit (see, for example, 86).The difficulty is that environmental problems are complex and confuse our moral agency; furthermore, there is a general “spiritual malaise” that reinforces an entrenched apathy to do anything about those problems. The second half of the book takes up these complex problems, and it is there that Nothwehr hits her stride. Chapters 7 through 10 are all well-done exposés that guide the reader through the intricacies of subtle, systemic injustices that conspire to reinforce global warming (chapter 7), the global water crisis (chapter 8), problems of food access and security (chapter 9), and the crisis of peak oil and sustainable energy (chapter 10). The connection between these exposés and the earlier chapters on particular Franciscan theologians is loose but significant. While the earlier themes are not so much worked into the later chapters as they are very briefly referenced and invoked here and there, the point is that these themes from this tradition have the capacity to awaken us from our malaise and help us take responsibility for our world. In short, the Franciscan tradition, as a distinct theological worldview, can provide both motivation and a fair amount of practical guidance to help us confront the environmental problems facing us.Nothwehr’s book is the kind of book Willis Jenkins claims he initially set out to write: a book that helps us see how “theology matters to processes of cultural change” and provides “grammars of belief” sufficient to “generate satisfactory responses to representative problems of human power” (vii). But in setting out to write such a book, Jenkins found that such problems overwhelm the moral repertoires of religious traditions. Environmental problems, in particular, frustrate attempts simply to put ideas into practice. This is not to say religious traditions can only be found wanting before the contemporary slate of overwhelming problems; rather, such problems provide religious traditions with opportunities for constructive reevaluation and renewal of their... (shrink)

After discussing a prominent theme of many of the comments, the prejudice against prejudice, the points at issue in this dialogue are explicated by addressing six questions: Issue 1: Are we trying to make psychology into a theistic enterprise? Issue 2: Are we ultimately arguing for some kind of dualism? Issue 3: Does theism’s involvement make science impossible? Issue 4: Is psychology’s treatment of theism truly a form of prejudice? Issue 5: Are some approaches to inquiry basically unbiased and neutral? (...) Issue #6: Can theism produce a viable program of psychological research? These issues are then followed by a description of some agreements and practical implications. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Although the primary meaning of Max Weber’s concept of disenchantment is as a sociological condition (the retreat of magic and myth from social life through processes of secularization and rationalization), as Weber himself makes clear in his address, “Science as a Vocation,” disenchantment can also be a philosophical act: an unusual form of moral discourse that derives new ethical direction out of the very untenability of a previously robust moral tradition. The philosophical variant of disenchantment is significant both because it (...) contradicts numerous elements of the sociological version and because it suggests there are forms of cognition unique to moral philosophy (insofar as the derivation of a moral teaching from the very absence of one is foreign to both a religious and ascientific mindset). (shrink)

Hermeneutical injustices, according to Miranda Fricker, are injustices that occur “when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences” (Fricker 2007, 1). For Fricker, the relevant injustice in these cases is the very lack of knowledge and understanding experienced by the subject. In this way, hermeneutical injustices are instances of epistemic injustices, the kind of injustice that “wrongs someone in their capacity as a (...) subject of knowledge” (Fricker 2007, 5). In this paper, however, I identify different means by which our hermeneutic activities lead to social injustices, of both a practical and epistemic kind, and I identify different ways in which those injustices manifest themselves. Since Fricker’s use of the notion of “hermeneutical injustices” to denote a well-defined kind of injustice is rightfully well-established, I here refer to the more general kinds of injustices I have in mind as “hermeneutic injustices” instead. (shrink)

This paper is broadly concerned with the question of what epistemic decolonization might involve. It is divided into two parts. The first part begins by explaining the specifically epistemic problem to which calls for epistemic decolonization respond. I suggest that calls for decolonization are motivated by a perceived epistemic crisis consisting in the inadequacy of the dominant Eurocentric paradigm to properly theorize our modern world. I then discuss two general proposals, radical and moderate, for what (...) class='Hi'>epistemic decolonization might involve. In the second part, I argue that the inadequacy of Eurocentric epistemic resources constitutes a hermeneutical injustice caused by an irreducible form of epistemic oppression. I then argue that addressing this form of epistemic oppression requires thinking ‘outside’ of the Eurocentric paradigm because the paradigm might fail to reveal and address the epistemic oppression sustaining it. This lends further plausibility to the radical proposal that epistemic decolonization must involve thinking from ‘outside’ the Eurocentric paradigm, but also accommodates the moderate proposal that adopting critical perspectives on Eurocentric thought is an important part of epistemic decolonization. (shrink)

I distinguish between two senses in which feminists have argued that the knower is social: 1. situated or socially positioned and 2. interdependent. I argue that these two aspects of the knower work in cooperation with each other in a way that can produce willful hermeneutical ignorance, a type of epistemic injustice absent from Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice. Analyzing the limitations of Fricker's analysis of the trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with (...) attention to the way in which situatedness and interdependence work in tandem, I develop an understanding of willful hermeneutical ignorance, which occurs when dominantly situated knowers refuse to acknowledge epistemic tools developed from the experienced world of those situated marginally. Such refusals allow dominantly situated knowers to misunderstand, misinterpret, and/or ignore whole parts of the world. (shrink)

This chapter charts various ways that religious persons and groups can be perpetrators and victims of epistemic injustice. The practices of testifying and interpreting experiences take a range of distinctive forms in religious life, for instance, if the testimonial practices require a special sort of religious accomplishment, such as enlightenment, or if proper understanding of religious experiences is only available to those with authentic faith. But it is also clear that religious communities and traditions have been sources of (...) class='Hi'>epistemic injustice, for instance, by conjoining epistemic and spiritual credibility in ways disadvantageous to ‘deviant’ groups. I focus mainly on the major monotheistic religions, culturally dominant in the modern West. (shrink)