What, if anything remains of religion after the demise of traditional theism and the theologies based upon it? What are the consequences of so-called Post-theism for the modern scholarly study of religion (in Religionswissenschaft and philosophical theology or church dogmatics, in the philosophy of religion as well as in the more recent phenomenon of comparitive religious studies)? This volume collects some thirty articles written in honor of Professor Hendrik Johan Adriaanse whose intellectual trajectory, recounted here in extensive personal (...) reflections, has lead to an incisive inquiry into the possibilities of thinking and experiencing "After Theism" (the title of a fundamental article reprinted here). Post-theism : Refraiming the Judeo-Christian Tradition raises this question from three different perspectives : first, by spelling out the historical and intellectual backgrounds that have led to the supposed end of theism as it had been known through the ages; secondly, by discussing the systematic relationship between the disciplines of theology and competing concepts of rationality; and, thirdly, by sketching out the contours of a philosophical thought that ventures beyond the most tenacious classical and modern presuppositions of theism. Along the way, the contributors explore a variety of ways in which the concepts and arguments, imagery and rhetoric of the Judeo-Christian traditions are in need and in the process of being constantly displaced. Henri Krop, Arie L. Molendijk and Hent de Vries teach Philosophy, the history of Christianity, and Metaphysics, respectively, at the Erasmus University, The University of Groningen, and the University of Amsterdam. (shrink)

This contribution is a review article on the three most important books by F. Gerrit Immink in practical theology. His approach to this discipline is studying faith praxis of the Protestantse Kerk in Nederland which is a church in the Reformed tradition. In his first book he explained his approach to practical theology in a discussion with the action theory and hermeneutical-communucative approaches. His choice for the study of faith praxis opens the way for a more theological approach to him (...) in which communication between God and people is an important aspect. His second book forms the central part of this article. He uses the concept performance in the liturgy which is adopted from the theater world. In the performance by means of the execution of the liturgy by the congregation they all get involved in the message from the Bible of that Sunday, they are touched by it, it has an effect on them, and they get a new perspective on the problems of everyday life. This is possible through the work of the Holy Spirit. The epiclese prayers in the liturgy are prayers for the enlightening and work by the Spirit. He discusses singing, praying, preaching, baptism and Holy Communion in detail. The main idea is that the performance in the liturgy does something to you, it has an effect on you, something happens to you. To my mind there is no need to choose between the ritual approach and the approach he is putting on the table. The approaches can enrich each other. (shrink)

The search for a good method to analyse sermon content has been prevailing since the past decades to evaluate current practice so as to construct better theories for practice. I think that we have found it in the methodology of inductive, qualitative research of the Grounded Theory methodology. In this article, I am going to use the Grounded Theory approach to describe the phases of qualitative empirical research, namely, literature study, sampling, open coding of the data, selective coding of additional (...) new data and theoretical coding to be able to construct an emerging theory of praxis using the concepts developed for this specific action in our discipline. There are critical comments for this methodology. I will try to address these critical views and argue that the Grounded Theory is in line with the science of research. (shrink)

The present volume contains the lectures and papers given at the 1994 international conference on hermeneutics in Halle (Germany). The conference aimed at a state of the art in the light of recent developments in science and humanities. The place in which the conference was held is renowned for its centuries-old tradition in hermeneutics and among the lectures there are indeed some devoted to this history. For the most part, however, the papers concentrate on present-day problems in fields as different (...) as comparative literature, religious studies, bible exegesis, esthetics, social sciences, intercultural dialogue. The theme of the conference, "strangeness and familiarity", reflects the tension in which any interpretation process is situated and that any theory of interpretation has to account for. The contributions to the volume are in German and French. (shrink)

There is an inconsistency in the ways that doctors make clinical decisions regarding the treatment of babies born extremely prematurely. Many experts now recommend that clinical decisions about the treatment of such babies be individualized and consider many different factors. Nevertheless, many policies and practices throughout Europe and North America still appear to base decisions on gestational age alone or on gestational age as the primary factor that determines whether doctors recommend or even offer life-sustaining neonatal intensive care treatment. These (...) policies are well intentioned. They aim to guide doctors and parents to make decisions that are best for the baby. That is an ethically appropriate goal. But in relying so heavily on gestational age, such policies may actually do the babies a disservice by denying some babies treatment that might be beneficial and lead to intact survival. In this paper, we argue that such policies are unjust to premature babies and ought to be abolished. In their place, we propose individualized treatment decisions for premature babies. This would treat premature babies as we treat all other patients, with clinical decisions based on an individualized estimation of likelihood that treatment would be beneficial. (shrink)

This article critically discusses the necessity for theology to transform. Taking as a point of departure church historian Andrew Walls' remark: 'Christian faith must go on being translated, must continuously enter into the vernacular culture and interact with it, or it withers and fades', examples from ministry are discussed, specifically from the Dutch Reformed Church. These examples reveal the inability or ability of faith communities to enter vernacular culture and to interact with it. Historical cycles of church growth and decline (...) as outlined by Phyllis Tickle are used to explain the concepts of entering and interacting vernacular culture, and consequently, what it means to 'do theology as life goes on'. The latter refers to more than a rationally controlled process as it is also intimately connected with issues of identity, understanding of the missio Dei and a way of life and discernment that flows from being actively involved in life. (shrink)

This book explores the dynamics of the commentary and textbook traditions in Aristotelian natural philosophy under the headings of doctrine, method, and scientific and social status. It enquires what the evolution of the Aristotelian commentary tradition can tell us about the character of natural philosophy as a pedagogical tool, as a scientific enterprise, and as a background to modern scientific thought. In a unique attempt to cut old-fashioned historiographic divisions, it brings together scholars of ancient, medieval, Renaissance and seventeenth-century philosophy. (...) The book covers a remarkably broad range of topics: it starts with the first Greek commentators and ends with Leibniz. (shrink)

Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.

This volume contains a selection of papers from the International Conference on Argumentation by prominent international scholars of argumentation theory. It provides an insightful cross-section of the current state of affairs in argumentation research. It will be of interest to all those working in the field of argumentation theory and to all scholars who are interested in recent developments in this field.

This chapter explores the opportunities and limitations of the ideal of transparency in responsible innovation, by consulting the virtual case of "The Circle", a company which appears in Dave Eggers' novel The Circle. The Circle is a high-tech company with the main purpose of being responsive to societal needs. They want to eradicate unethical behaviour in society, enhance public health and make a positive impact on the environment. The ultimate goal of The Circle is to reach 100% full transparency in (...) the world, which is impossible without any societal desirability. In first instance, it is free choice of people to accept and embrace the products and services of The Circle, who invest resources in keeping customers happy and in raising awareness about the dangers of privacy. The chapter concludes that The Circle meets the requirements regarding the outcomes of responsible innovation, at least to a certain extent, while at the same time, one feels unease about certain activities they undertake. (shrink)

Agency without Actors? New Approaches to collective Action is rethinking a key issue in social theory and research: the question of agency. The history of sociological thought is deeply intertwined with the discourse of human agency as an effect of social relations. In most recent discussions the role of non-humans gains a substantial impact. Consequently the book asks: Are nonhumans active, do they have agency? And if so: how and in what different ways? The volume offers a critical state-of-the-art debate (...) of internationally and nationally leading scholars within Sociology, Social Anthropology and STS on agency (Latour, Law, Michael, Rammert etc.). It fosters the productive exchange of empirical settings and theoretical views by outlining a wide range of novel accounts that link human and non-human agency. It tries to understand social-technical, political and environmental networks as different forms of agency that produce discrete and identifiable entities like humans, animals, technical artifacts. It also asks how different types of (often conflicting) agency and agents actors are distinguished in practice, how they are maintained and how they interfere with each other. (shrink)

Dutch allows for variation as to whether the first position in the sentence is occupied by the subject or by some other constituent, such as the direct object. In particular situations, however, this commonly observed variation in word order is ‘frozen’ and only the subject appears in first position. We hypothesize that this partial freezing of word order in Dutch can be explained from the dependence of the speaker’s choice of word order on the hearer’s interpretation of this word order. (...) A formal model of this interaction between the speaker’s perspective and the hearer’s perspective is presented in terms of bidirectional Optimality Theory. Empirical predictions of this model regarding the interaction between word order and definiteness are confirmed by a quantitative corpus study. (shrink)

Brieven van de Nederlandse filosoof (1898-1955) uit de periode 1917-1927 aan een vriend.

Bringing together specialists in various fields, this volume shows that the transformation from the scholastic to more empirical approaches to psychology was a gradual process.

Belgian physicians recently reported on organ donation after euthanasia. In patients suffering mainly from a neurodegenerative disorder, the organ donation procedure starts after cardiac death due to euthanasia. The Church condemns the act of euthanasia. The act of procuring organs after euthanasia cannot be approved either, since those who procure the organs must cooperate closely with those who perform the euthanasia. Although the act of organ donation itself can be an act of charity, participation in organ donation after euthanasia suggests (...) approval of euthanasia. A patient may, because of a difficult medical situation, choose to accept an organ obtained after euthanasia but should dissociate himself explicitly from the act of euthanasia itself. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.3 (Autumn 2012): 431–437. (shrink)

Systems biology is a vigorous and expanding discipline, in many ways a successor to genomics and perhaps unprecendented in its combination of biology with a ...

The shift from government to governance has become a starting point for many studies of contemporary policy-making and democracy. Practices of Freedom takes a different approach, calling into question this dominant narrative and taking the variety, hybridity and dispersion of social and political practices as its focus of analysis. Bringing together leading scholars in democratic theory and critical policy studies, it draws upon new understandings of radical democracy, practice and interpretative analysis to emphasise the productive role of actors and political (...) conflict in the formation and reproduction of contemporary forms of democratic governance. Integrating theoretical dialogues with detailed empirical studies, this book examines spaces for democratisation, institutional design, democratic criteria and learning, whilst mobilising the frameworks of agonistic and aversive democracy, informality and decentred legitimacy in cases from youth engagement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage rassemble les oeuvres philosophiques de François Hemsterhuis, l'un des représentants les plus importants du mouvement d'idées appelé le siècle des lumières. Ses écrits portent sur des sujets variés tels que l'esthétique, l'éthique, la métaphysique, etc. Ils sont accompagnés d'une préface de Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, autre figure marquante du mouvement. Cet ouvrage est un témoignage passionnant de la philosophie du XVIIIe siècle. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base (...) of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

What happens at the end of a clinical trial for an investigational neural implant? It may be surprising to learn how difficult it is to answer this question. While new trials are initiated with increasing regularity, relatively little consensus exists on how best to conduct them, and even less on how to ethically end them. The landscape of recent neural implant trials demonstrates wide variability of what happens to research participants after an neural implant trial ends. Some former research participants (...) continue to receive support for their devices (e.g., battery and component replacements, software updates, etc.). Others, when safe, have their neural implants removed through surgical explantation. Still others continue to live with a deactivated neural implant embedded in their body. In the United States, there are no uniform requirements to provide services, of any kind, after an neural implant study ends, and other nations are similarly facing this challenge. The existence of a post-trial gap in an expanding neural implant research ecosystem invites obvious questions: What is owed to neural implant research participants post-trial, and why has providing it been so difficult to accomplish in practice? To take a step forward on this difficult issue, we assembled one group of stakeholders – researchers funded for neuroethics grants by the National Institutes of Health – to explore possible starting points on one topic: ethical guidance for post-trial care of research participants in neural implant trials. Based on shared concerns discussed in the expert workshop the current paper is a call to action. It reports the key areas of convergence from the meeting and highlights important next steps towards developing much needed guidance. (shrink)

Translation:Hendrik Josephus POS, „Phénoménologie et linguistique.“ In: Keur uit de verspreide geschrift en van Dr. H. J. Pos. Vol. I. Assen: Van Loghum Slaterus 1957, p. 131–141.