This paper points out the way in which ‘educational’ and ‘communicative action’ are to be related. It is shown that earlier attempts to put Habermas’ ideas to use have led to a dead end because they do not realize clearly that the new basic notion introduced by Habermas, namely ‘communicative action’, is the expression of a ‘communicative turn’. It is argued that Habermas' concept expresses a radical new attempt to grasp the intersubjective character of social action. Next implications of this (...) communicative turn for the concept of education as a social praxis are indicated. Education can be conceived of as a praxis responding to the vulnerability of a communicative self. (shrink)

NIETZSCHE AND CHRISTIANITY The article presents connections between philosophy of Nietzsche and the Christian tradition. Author's considerations are not restricted to how Nietzsche assessed Christianity and what he thought of it, but rather: did he reason aptly, did he grasp it correctly. It is a fact that Nietzsche fights with Christianity, which does not prevent him from internalizing some Christian themes in spite of having a very superficial and incomplete picture of it. There are unquestionable differences in both doctrines such (...) as the relationship to the issues of truth, compassion, transcendence, mercy and eternity. Nevertheless they share a large number of common elements: praise for authenticity, creativity and freedom, the ethics of dignity, the postulate of selfformation, appreciation of suffering, rejection of revenge and everything that is small and false, and finally, discipline of the will craving repetition as a confirmation of self, faithfulness to self. (shrink)

. In Minding God Gregory Peterson takes a careful look at the kind of freedom that human persons have. He concludes that humans are constrained to be free and unpacks this into a version of compatibilism. That is, humans are not metaphysically free under current existence because of the causal determination inherent in their physical nature, but they can take credit for the origination of selfforming decisions because the causes occur inside of us. Peterson does advocate an eschatological hope looking (...) forward to the breaking of causal determination by God's own action. Thus, Minding God presents an eschatologically limited compatibilism. Compatibilism of any kind, however, presents serious challenges to most Christian theologies and to many religious traditions broadly considered. After I interpret Peterson's position I make the argument that compatibilism is neither desirable nor required for a theological anthropology intent on serious engagement of cognitive science. (shrink)