This book introduces Robert Corrington’s “ecstatic naturalism,” a new perspective in understanding “sacred” nature and naturalism, and explores what can be done with this philosophical thought. This is an excellent resource for scholars of Continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and American pragmatism.

Proposals for how health care ought to be allocated and delivered in the United States have been debated for at least the last 80 years. The last major effort at expanding health-care coverage in the US was the Affordable Care Act, which went into law in 2010. The ACA increased the number of Americans who have medical insurance, but it has nonetheless fallen short of providing universal coverage, and as of 2017, 8.8% of Americans, or 28.5 million, were uninsured. So (...) far, Republican efforts to fully repeal the ACA have failed, but Republican lawmakers have whittled away at crucial elements of the Act (including, importantly, the individual mandate that compels individuals to obtain insurance or... (shrink)

Background: Current practice relies on patient-designated and next-of-kin surrogates, in consultation with clinicians, to make treatment decisions for patients who lose the ability to make their own decisions. Yet there is a paucity of data on whether this approach is consistent with patients' preferences regarding who they want to make treatment decisions for them in the event of decisional incapacity. Methods: Self-administered survey of patients at a tertiary care center. Results: Overall, 1169 respondents completed the survey (response rate = 59.8%). (...) Of the 229 respondents who had previously designated a surrogate, 78.2% wanted their surrogate to make treatment decisions in the event of decisional incapacity, whereas 21.8% wanted their doctors to make treatment decisions. Of the 822 respondents who had not designated a surrogate, 66.1% wanted their family to make treatment decisions, whereas 33.9% wanted their doctors to make treatment decisions. The most common explanation provided for why respondents wanted their surrogate or family to make treatment decisions for them in the event of decisional incapacity was the belief that loved ones knew the patient's treatment preferences. Conclusions: Contrary to current practice, 33.9% of respondents who had not designated a surrogate and 21.8% of those who had designated a surrogate indicated that they wanted their doctors to make treatment decisions for them in the event of decisional incapacity. Moreover, many of those who wanted their surrogates or family members to make treatment decisions explained this preference by citing a belief that loved ones knew the patient's treatment preferences. This belief is undermined by prior research that suggests that surrogates and family members frequently are unable to predict which treatments their charges would want. Future research should assess these two concerns with current practice and, where necessary, identify approaches to address them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Four Majestic Philosophical Thoroughbreds and a Deranged DonkeyWesley J. Wildman (bio)I. IntroductionFor me, this special issue is miraculous fun. I'm so grateful in an undirected way that the universe affords such possibilities. To think, the human project might have ended already had any one of a litany of disasters occurred, from asteroid collisions to our dalliance with self-destructive technologies. No more friends. No more wonderful and silly philosophical arguments. (...) But the human project hasn't ended, not this week anyway, and here we are, celebrating the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, and enjoying a vigorous exchange of ideas.I'm also grateful in a directed way to specific people—to LeRon Shults and Robert Neville for editing the book that inspired this discussion, Religion in Multidisciplinary Perspective,1 to LeRon for editing this special issue, and additionally to Lisa Landoe Hedrick, Bin Song, Demian Wheeler, Bob, and LeRon for their contributions. These five friends have done me a great honor.It is fascinating—as well as a rare privilege—to witness how one's writings land in the minds and lives of diverse readers. What I hope that means is that there is more to say and write, more insights to wring from the drenched, raggedy fabric of reality, more reason to joyfully embrace the inassimilable density of value that confronts us. That is cause for celebration. Surely this is one reason we dabble in philosophy, dancing atop the brooding axiological depths, telling stories about what lies beneath, and occasionally fighting with one another about what matters most in those stories. To me, making that vision of the depth dimension of reality count for the wellbeing of others is what matters most. But I'm up for quibbling over stories, too; it's a welcome diversion from the daily labors of practical, prosocial philosophy.A word about the peculiar title of this essay is in order. Aren't philosophical theologians supposed to be more serious than that? In fact, the title refers to a memorable experience I shared with my old friend Larry Martin when we worked together in Piedmont, California. One weekend we trekked into [End Page 83] the California mountains to go white-water rafting. It was my first time to experience this particular form of joyful intensity, and I was glad for Larry's company.We were two and the rafts were large, so we were teamed with a crew of Pentecostal church leaders for whom the rafting day was a bonding adventure. Between them and Larry and me, we took up several rafts. We set off through class-four rapids, which I later found out was a rather extreme introduction to white-water rafting. Fortunately, nothing terrible happened to me, apart from a bruised knee when the base of the raft slammed onto a rock right where I was perched. One raft flipped but it wasn't ours and everyone survived.We were exhausted but strangely energized when we pulled into a clearing for lunch. There we found a great pile of sandwiches wrapped in foil, just begging to be eaten by famished rafters. Unwisely, I reached for one, only to discover that this group of Pentecostal church leaders wanted to pray over their meal first. Suitably humbled, and simultaneously impressed with their ability to delay gratification, I listened as they prayed—all of them speaking in tongues—for a seemingly endless period of time.After a minute, I noticed movement in the corner of my vision, my eyes remaining inappropriately open during this act of prayer. I turned to see a donkey walk out of the woods and come to rest in a corner of the clearing. It began braying, expressing a bizarre kind of sympathy with the tongues-talkers, I supposed. As the outburst of glossolalia wound down, the donkey turned and walked back into the forest.To say that I was astonished is a gross understatement. Was that a corporate Saint Francis of Assisi moment? A coincidence to end all coincidences? A practical joke played by two people from the rafting company in an extremely realistic donkey suit? The full measure of my astonishment lies in my... (shrink)

Robert Nozick’s tracking account of knowledge is defended against Colin McGinn’s criticisms bydrawing on David Deutsch’s ’multiverse’ conception of possible worlds. Knowledge on the trackingaccount requires a ’method’ or ’way’ of believing. Exploiting this feature undercuts the apparent force of McGinn’s counter-examples.

When Robert Cummings Neville retired from Boston University in May, 2018, an era ended. Not a career—certainly not; the publications keep pouring forth from the windowed, garden-surrounded office that has been the generative home for most of Bob's books and articles. Not a pattern of influence—obviously not; the many people Bob has influenced, including me, continue to give evidence of that influence in their writing and teaching, as well as more privately in their thinking and warm recollections of a (...) model scholar and colleague. Rather, what ended was an era of institutional formation and commitment that crystalized, promoted, and protected rigorous yet generous philosophical reflection on every aspect of... (shrink)

Robert S. Corrington has misgivings about the use of the word "naturalism" to describe his view of reality; in fact, more recently he has been using "deep pantheism" and variants.1 Nevertheless, "naturalism" remains an apt word, conjuring the creative depths of the world around us, and we should continue to use it to describe Corrington's philosophical-theological system—without unduly apologizing for its inevitably circular semantic content, and despite the risk that his view might be known by its name instead of (...) its content. The variant of naturalism for which Corrington is so well known is called (by him) ecstatic naturalism, and he has shown it to be an important version of religiously and axiologically .. (shrink)

This essay continues Kafka’s tale of a human being who metamorphoses into a beetle. The tale is developed in the light of some recent theory about personal identity and rational choice, particularly Robert Nozick’s Closest-Continuer theory and Mark Johnston’s Relativism about the self. These are potentially complementary conceptions of relativity about the self, Nozick’s focusing on the individual’s ‘metric’ as a criterion of personal continuity, Johnston’s on social standards. When the individually authentic determination about ‘closeness’ coincides with the community’s (...) standards for continuity, the two accounts are complementary. The tale concludes with reference to applying the concept of personal identity for branching selves in the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Application of the concept of personal identity in an MWI context implies that there is a bad end in store for us all, as David Lewis argued in his last essay. (shrink)

Religion in Multidisciplinary Perspective provides the first comprehensive treatment of the work of Wesley J. Wildman, one of the most inventive thinkers in the field of religious studies. Scholars with expertise in philosophical, theological, and scientific approaches to the study of religion offer critical and constructive engagements with Wildman's astonishingly creative and integrative oeuvre. The essays address themes that will be of interest to those concerned with the current state of scholarship on religion from a variety of disciplines, including (...) philosophy, theology, ethics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and others. The volume concludes with a response by Wildman"-- Back ocover. (shrink)

We set out a variety of material from Nozick’s work after -Anarchy, State, and Utopia- that tends to show that, despite his protestations of fidelity to libertarianism in-Invariances- and interviews before his death, his thought took directions inconsistent with the version of libertarianism in that book, in which only negative rights can be coercively enforced by the State. We explore one interpretive possibility, taking a second look at a footnote in ASU that acknowledges a moral permission to violate the ethic (...) of respect under circumstances of ‘catastrophic moral horror.’. (shrink)

I explore a connection between Robert Nozick's account of decision value/symbolic utility in The Nature of Rationality and F. P. Ramsey's discussion of ethically neutral propositions in his 1926 essay , a discussion that Brian Skyrms in Choice and Chance credits with disclosing deeper foundations for expected utility than the celebrated Theory of Games and Economic Behavior of von Neumann and Morgenstern. Ramsey's recognition of ethically non-neutral propositions is essential to his foundational work, and the similarity of these propositions (...) to symbolic utility helps make the case that the latter belongs to the apparatus that constructs expected utility, rather than being reducible to it or being part of a proposal that can be cheerfully ignored. I conclude that decision value replaces expected utility as the central idea in (normative) decision theory. Expected utility becomes an approximation that is good enough when symbolic utility is not at stake. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Where Philosophy Has ArrivedRobert Cummings Neville (bio)The title here is ambiguous. It might mean where philosophy has arrived at this point. Or it might mean where philosophy has arrived and is passing through this point. I mean the second, where philosophy is passing through. The title is also ambiguous with regard to whose philosophy is under discussion. Wesley J. Wildman's is the topic I was invited to address, (...) but I would not take the time to write this if I were not to talk about my philosophy too. So, this philosophy is my philosophy addressing his philosophy, relative to a much larger whole.The first topic here is our general agreement that our feelings of the world are genuine feelings of the world in certain respects, not feelings of our consciousness, or anything like that. Wildman and I are pretty much in agreement here with the possible exception of his agreement, or disagreement, with my claim that value is exclusively laid on interpretations that come from the world. We share this ambiguity of agreement with regard to interpretation, which explains how we think that all lines of interpretation come from the world even when some lines of interpretation are in fact located with the body and brain we would adopt.Value is subject to my metaphysical theory in ways it is not for Wildman. I argue that value has a place in any determinate thing. It is part of the form of a determinate thing. This entails, of course, that every determinate things has value by virtue of having form. Values have hierarchical forms, with higher levels incorporating components through varieties of changes. The components of any determination are of two sorts, essential and conditional. The essential components give the determinate thing its own being, and the conditional components relate it to other determinate things. Thus every determinate thing is related to some other determinate things, and the whole of determinate things are all related directly or indirectly, with much difference constituted by time. Does Wildman have a metaphysical theory of time?Whether or not he does, we both have theories of how things are experienced by human beings. My theory says that distant things are experienced through lines of interpretation connecting those things with us where the connections end in the organs of human perception. Sights, sounds, touches, and kinesthetic senses are most prominent, although many other senses might be functional too below some level of consciousness. The distant thing might have many lines of [End Page 69] interpretation that do not enter our experience. The components of the distant thing hang together in its own harmony. The lines of interpretation that do enter of our experience come from an aspect of the distant thing, which is an experienceable thing, given the vast numbers of changes. This allows me to have my metaphysical values as well as the experience of only aspects of them. How does Wildman acknowledge this, if at all?The Ultimate is something on which Wildman and I agree at least 50 percent of the time. We agree that the Ultimate is infinite, that is, non-determinate. I say that the indeterminate Ultimate is empty in itself, and determinate only in what it creates. Wildman agrees with that half the time and the other half thinks the Ultimate is full, super-full, so that the determinate world is the overflow of the full Ultimate. I give the arguments for my account below. His argument is that my claim for the logic of my position supposes without warrant that there exists a logical floor. I agree that I appeal to a logical floor but think it is contingent on the existence of the Ultimate, which I claim is an ontological creative act. What would Wildman say to this?The last topic is how we respond to our conceptions of the Ultimate, which I call our "satisfaction." How are we satisfied in feeling the Ultimate? This question is very personal and so I leave it to Wildman to state what satisfaction he takes. My own satisfactions are two, an Ultimate satisfaction and a Pen-Ultimate one. I explain them below.I. FeelingsRomanticism's doctrine... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:32. BAYESIANISM AND ANALOGY IN HUME'S DIALOGUES Wesley Salmon has recently focussed attention on Hume's consideration of the argument from design for the existence of God in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, by construing it according to a Bayesian account of inductive inferences to causal hypotheses. Salmon argues that an interpretation of the argument from design, considered by Philo and Cleanthes in the Dialogues, as an appeal to (...) analogy is not a correct interpretation of Hume's argumentation. I would like here to argue that Salmon's account is too far afield of Hume's actual pattern of arguing to be taken as an accurate account of the discussion in the Dialogues. I would also like to characterize Hume's account of causal arguments in the Dialogues more closely, and to show how it is connected with his notion of resemblance. In doing so, I shall defend the thesis that an appeal to analogy is after all the fundamental form of argument that is considered in the Dialogues. I. Salmon argues that the discussion among the characters in the Dialogues, principally between Philo and Cleanthes, centers about the various probability terms entering into Bayes' s Theorem in the form: P(C/A&B).P(B/A) P(B/ASC) = ---------------------------------, P(C/ASB) -P(B/A) + PÍC/A&B) -P(B/A) where in the context of the Dialogues, "A" stands for any event of coming-into-being, "B" stands for any event that is a product of intelligence, and "C" stands for any event that 2 exhibits order or design. The various probabilities that enter into Bayes's Theorem can, then, be characterized in the present context more thoroughly. For example, P (B/A&C) is the probability that an event of coming-into-being which displays order is the product of intelligence. This 33. probability, if high, would tend to support the argument from design, and, if low, would tend to undermine it. In order to evaluate P(B/A&C) by using Bayes' s Theorem, we need to be in a position to find the following three probabilities: P(B/A): This is the probability that any event of coming-into-being is a product of intelligence. If we know its value, it is easy to calculate P(B/A), the probability that any event of coming-into-being is not a produce of intelligence. For P(B/A) = 1 - P(B/A). Both these probabilities are called the prior probabilities of the problem. P(C/A&B): This is the probability - which Salmon typically calls one of the two likelihoods of the problem - that an event of cominginto -being which is a produce of intelligence does exhibit order or design. P(C/A&B): This is the probability - which Salmon calls the other likelihood of the problem that an event of coming-into-being which is not a produce of intelligence exhibits order or design. Now Salmon is not merely arguing - though he is also arguing - that Bayes' s Theorem, with its constituent probabilities so understood, is relevant for evaluating the argument from design. He is arguing that Bayes' s Theorem is relevant for interpreting Hume's thoughts about the argument from design. Salmon admits that "Hume must have been unaware of Bayes" s Theorem." But he claims that Bayes' s Theorem is nevertheless relevant for interpreting Hume. He suggests a number of reasons for this. First, the argument considered by Philo and Cleanthes is weakened, he says, if it is 34. 4 represented as a mere appeal to analogy. Secondly, he says that the correct strategy for analyzing any causal hypothesis is Bayesian, and undoubtedly Philo and Cleanthes are debating about causal hypotheses. Thirdly, Philo and Cleanthes show by the end of the second dialogue that they are aware the argument is more complex than a simple appeal to analogy. Fourthly, with respect to the probabilities one needs to know in order to use Bayes' s Theorem in the relevant way, Hume's characters and especially Philo "devote considerable attention to each of the three types of probabilities in their discussion." Fifthly, Hume just does in fact recognize that the argument from design is "something deeper and more subtle than a simple appeal to D analogy." We can greatly... (shrink)

George P. Fletcher, With Justice for Some: Victims? Rights in Criminal Trials Reading, MA: Addison?Wesley Publishing Co., 1995, xi + 304 pp.

_First Philosophy: Knowledge and Reality_ brings together classic and ground-breaking readings on epistemology and the philosophy of science. Andrew Bailey’s highly regarded introductory anthology has been revised and updated in this new edition. The comprehensive introductory material for each chapter and selection remains, and new sections on philosophical puzzles and paradoxes and philosophical terminology have been added. New readings include Edmund Gettier on justified true belief, Wesley Salmon on induction, and Helen Longino on feminist science.

In a recent article in Faith and Philosophy, Wesley Morriston argues that Plantinga’s Free Will Defense is incompatible with his version of the ontological argument because the former requires that God be free in a sense that precludes a requirement of the latter---that God be morally perfect in all possible worlds. God’s perfection, according to Morriston, includes moral goodness, which requires that God be free in the sense that entails that in some possible worlds God performs wrong actions. I (...) argue that Morriston’sintention is based upon a faulty conception of both God’s perfection and His freedom. God’s perfection does not entail that He has moral obligations which in some possible worlds He fails to discharge, and His freely performing an action does not entail that there are possible worlds in which He does not perform it. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that Jean Perrin argued for the reality of atoms in the early twentieth century by using what Wesley Salmon calls a “common cause” argument, also known as robustness reasoning. After citing some concerns with this interpretation of Perrin, I offer a different interpretation of Perrin’s work that more closely depicts the details of Perrin’s reasoning in his relevant published writings. I then offer a historical argument that supports this interpretation and discuss the philosophical merits of (...) Perrin’s style of reasoning as I have presented it. I close by showing how my interpretation is distinct from previous interpretations of Perrin’s work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Śaṅkara, Tillich, and Abhinavagupta’s Use of “God” as a Peircean Index to the Ground of Being and Depths of NatureGreylyn Robert Hydinger (bio)I. IntroductionThis article argues that the sign “God” can function as a Peircean index to, not an icon of, the ground of being or depth dimension of existence. The ground and any generic traits of existence that the ground grounds would be the content of the (...) symbol, the object to which the indexical symbol points. Paul Tillich argued that (good) theology employs the “method of correlation,” highlighting the “independence and interdependence of existential questions and theological answers.”1 This article presents an answer to two vitally important questions about religious naturalism posed by Dan Ott, LeRon Shults, and Demian Wheeler: (1) must theology be theistic, and (2) what content can the concept of “God” have in naturalism?2 Succinctly, the answers are, “no,” and the content meaning of the sign “God” in a religious naturalism should be the ground of being and the depths of nature.To support these answers, the article builds on a Peircean semiotic theory and compares the theologies of Adi Śaṅkara and Paul Tillich, with a strong appeal to Abhinavagupta; this comparison provides evidence that supports the hypothesis that a determinate symbol like “God” can be used and has been used to refer to an indeterminate, non-personal, naturalistic ground of being. Therefore, theology need not be iconically theistic. In Peircean terms, these philosophical theologians all claim that the sign “God” (Sanskrit: Īśvara, Nārāyaṇa, or Parameśvara; also, Kṛṣṇa or Śiva) stands, in one or perhaps several respects, for the object (“the Ground of Being” or “nirguṇa Brahman”) to an interpreter without implying that the object of interpretation is like the sign that points to it. All three of these philosophical theologies avoid the personal, agential being understanding of [End Page 60] “God” that is so frequently and justly the object of religious naturalist critique. The argument of the article is thus very simple on Peircean grounds, so long as the ground-of-being case studies do in fact illustrate the use of God as an index to the ontological ground of nature. The first part of the article, therefore, provides a semi-detailed discussion of Peirce’s semiotics; the second part demonstrates how Tillich, Śaṅkara, and Abhinavagupta have employed theistic symbols to engage the naturalistic ground of being.Two additional hypotheses undergird this inquiry as “premises.”3 First, naturalism can be a legitimate and important constraint on theological inquiry or a correction to theological hypotheses. Second, at least some ground-of-being theologies find compatibility with religious naturalisms, while iconic theisms do not. Each of these premises requires qualifications.First, as Robert Neville has pointed out, religious naturalism gets several things right as an ideology: (1) it rejects authoritarianism in favor of empirical and experiential inquiry, and (2) it rejects “literal supernaturalism [and supra-naturalism, cf. Tillich] as having explanatory or hermeneutical power.”4 In these respects, naturalism does provide appropriate constraints on theological inquiry. While literal, or iconic, supernaturalism, or theism, lacks explanatory power, part of the argument of this article is that theism can be used indexically to engage the depth dimension of nature, including its ontological ground, which is nothing apart from the things grounded (see the later discussion of Abhinavagupta’s “ābhāsa-vāda” theory).5 This indexical theism provides a pragmatic approach to “effing the ineffable,” as Wesley Wildman would say.6 [End Page 61]However, naturalism also can be “so easily wrong.”7 Alfred North Whitehead argued that philosophy (or theology) has a vital role to play in relation to science: philosophy must both critique science’s abstractions (and reductions) and engage in speculative flights of the imagination.8 While science engages parts of reality with exceptional clarity, it is reductive to the categories of (primarily) mathematics. Moreover, as Neville and Donald Crosby argue, science almost always excludes value from its account of reality.9 Science is thus partially inadequate to experience and, ironically, less empirical than (good) philosophy in this respect. In this regard, philosophy or theology can also be an appropriate constraint... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:As Ground of Being, God Favors Good Over Bad Choices:Confucian Response to Wesley J. WildmanBin Song (bio)I. Historical/Historic LocationThroughout the history of Western exploration of worldviews and lifepaths, three figures prominently herald the overarching nature of Wildman's scholarship on science, philosophy, theology, and religion: Aristotle, Spinoza, and Tillich (along with his contemporary counterpart, Robert C. Neville). While the link between Tillich-Neville and Wildman is extensively articulated in (...) Wildman's own writings and the festschrift1 dedicated to him, I will center my discussion on Aristotle and Spinoza.The thoughts of all three aforementioned historical figures constitute a lineage towards merging science, philosophy, theology, and religion into an open inquiry process concerning the foundational conditions of human existence. This inquiry also has profound practical implications for humanity's pursuit of the ultimate meaning and power in life that are larger than any human self. Aristotle's architectonic philosophy, evident in the early currents of Western thought, reveals the organic links among all major disciplines practiced in the modern academy. For Aristotle, "theology,"2 focused on the ultimate cause of the world, is nested within "metaphysics." This discipline delves into the most fundamental natures of reality and is a subset of "theoretical philosophy." This broad category also encompasses sciences such as "mathematics," "physics," and the study of animals and plants—what we now term "biology." In the "practical philosophy," Aristotle crafted his renowned virtue "ethics," advocating for individuals to cultivate stable character traits through a liberal arts education and a well-informed democracy, all in the pursuit of a [End Page 50] eudaimonic, or fulfilling, life. This aspiration for the good life aims to emulate and perpetually approach the achievements of the ultimate reality, the eternally self-contemplating Nous, on a cosmic scale. This grants Aristotle's philosophy a deeply "religious" dimension.3The virtual confluence of "philosophy" and "science" involves mastering all requisite knowledge and tapping into multi-generational and multicultural intellectual assets to support and refine one's theological hypothesis about ultimate reality. Moreover, it entails understanding the practical and religious implications of such theological inquiry. These facets of Aristotle's thought align closely with Wildman's conception of "religious philosophy" or "philosophical theology."4 I contend that if the Western world had consistently embraced Aristotle's liberal arts educational model, without the extended influence of Christian theology on medieval universities, Wildman, as a teacher-scholar, would likely feel entirely at home within a modern branch of the Peripatetic school based in the Lyceum.The affinity between Wildman's religious philosophy and Spinoza's thought is more substantive than formal. The Spinozian notion that equates God with nature echoes Wildman's religious naturalism. Wildman's inclination towards the Plotinus model of ultimate reality as the ground of being, which envisions the emergence of distinct entities from the One akin to "breaking off pieces from an endless and paradoxically edgeless chocolate bar,"5 is reminiscent of Spinoza's distinction between God as "natura naturans" and the world as "natura naturata."6 Furthermore, the "dipolar monism" metaphysics7 Wildman employs to address the hard question in neuroscience and the philosophy of mind is clearly derivative of Spinoza's monistic parallelism between mind and body. [End Page 51]More crucially, by equating God with nature, Spinoza posits that revealed truths about God are merely particular instances of natural truth. The "prophets" described in the Hebrew Bible don't necessarily possess unique wisdom about this natural truth. Instead, they have vivid imaginations, enabling them to employ those particular instances of truth to appeal to the masses' senses, thereby cultivating morality and serving various institutional and political aims. When aligned with natural reason, religion, as thus understood, complements philosophy and science in fostering the humanistic ethics of the general populace. However, when rooted in superstition rather than natural reason, it becomes a source of political manipulation and societal unrest.8 Echoing Spinoza's views on religion, Wildman presents a compelling refutation of the distinction between revealed and natural theology, leaning in favor of the latter.9 Yet, Wildman is still open to retaining "God" as the term for ultimate reality to uphold the moral-guiding role of traditional... (shrink)

In a recent essay of the AJTP, Wesley Wildman takes his reader through a three-step program—indeed, a “user-friendly guide”—for apprehensive theologians who are looking for a means to deny the indeterminacy of God against Robert C. Neville’s systematic and elegant argument for it.1 The “path of resistance” isn’t one that Wildman himself takes seriously—to be sure, his tongue is firmly in cheek throughout the short essay—but he thinks it could have some therapeutic potential for the beleaguered theologian who (...) is struggling with Neville’s challenge. Upon completing the program, the theologian can rest easy that her preferred view of God can be sustained. Of course, if this is the final position of the theologian, she... (shrink)

Brouwer's views on the foundations of mathematics have inspired the study of intuitionistic logic, including the study of the intuitionistic propositional calculus and its extensions. The theory of these systems has become an independent branch of logic with connections to lattice theory, topology, modal logic and other areas. This paper aims to present a modern account of semantics for intuitionistic propositional systems. The guiding idea is that of a hierarchy of semantics, organized by increasing generality: from the least general Kripke (...) semantics on through Beth semantics, topological semantics, Dragalin semantics, and finally to the most general algebraic semantics. While the Kripke, topological, and algebraic semantics have been extensively studied, the Beth and Dragalin semantics have received less attention. We bring Beth and Dragalin semantics to the fore, relating them to the concept of a nucleus from pointfree topology, which provides a unifying perspective on the semantic hierarchy. (shrink)

Is faith that p compatible with disbelief that p? I argue that it is. After surveying some recent literature on the compatibility of propositional and non-propositional forms of faith with the lack of belief, I take the next step and offer several arguments for the thesis that both these forms of faith are also compatible, in certain cases, with outright disbelief. This is contrary to the views of some significant recent commentators on propositional faith, including Robert Audi and Daniel (...) Howard-Snyder. The primary argument revolves around the possibility of maintaining a single faith through drastic changes in cognitive attitude. I argue that once we allow that propositional faith is compatible with weaker cognitive attitudes than belief, such as acceptance or assent, there is prima facie reason to consider propositional faith as sometimes compatible with disbelief. I then consider objections and offer some final reflections on the significance of the thesis. (shrink)

How might advanced neuroscience—in which perfect neuro-predictions are possible—interact with ordinary judgments of free will? We propose that peoples' intuitive ideas about indeterminist free will are both imported into and intrude into their representation of neuroscientific scenarios and present six experiments demonstrating intrusion and importing effects in the context of scenarios depicting perfect neuro-prediction. In light of our findings, we suggest that the intuitive commitment to indeterminist free will may be resilient in the face of scientific evidence against such free (...) will. (shrink)

In celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Beauchamp and Childress’s Principles of Biomedical Ethics, a review is undertaken to compare the lists of principles in various bioethical theories to determine the extent to which the various lists can be reconciled. Included are the single principle theories of utilitarianism, libertarianism, Hippocratism, and the theories of Pellegrino, Engelhardt, The Belmont Report, Beauchamp and Childress, Ross, Veatch, and Gert. We find theories all offering lists of principles numbering from one to (...) ten. Many of the differences can be reconciled, but some critical differences remain. (shrink)

This article reports original research examining characteristics of the active followers of the American animal rights movement. Typical respondents were Caucasian, highly educated urban professional women approximately thirty years old with a median income of $33,000. Most activists think of themselves as Democrats or as Independents, and have moderate to liberal political views. They were often suspicious of science and made no distinctions between basic and applied science, or public versus private animal-based research. The research suggests that animal rights activism (...) is in part a symbolic manifestation of egalitarian social and political views concerning scientific and technological change. (shrink)

Attention to the role of phenomenology in Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks is fundamental to an appreciation of the book’s progressive structure. And it is through an appreciation of this structure that it becomes apparent that the book’s engagement with phenomenology amounts to an enrichment, not a critique, of existential phenomenology, although the latter might appear to be the case at first sight, given Fanon’s rejection of certain aspects of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Black Orpheus.” This is demonstrated through an examination (...) of Fanon’s references to Sartre, Günther Anders, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in the book’s final crucial pages on temporality. His largely neglected relation to Karl Jaspers and the concept of historicity is also explored. (shrink)

The 1920s and 30s were key decades for the history of American social science. The success of such quantitative disciplines as economics and psychology during World War I forced social scientists to reexamine their methods and practices and to consider recasting their field as a more objective science separated from its historical foundation in social reform. The debate that ensued, fiercely conducted in books, articles, correspondence, and even presidential addresses, made its way into every aspect of social science thought of (...) the period and is the subject of this book. Mark C. Smith first provides a historical overview of the controversy over the nature and future of the social sciences in early twentieth-century America and, then through a series of intellectual biographies, offers an intensive study of the work and lives of major figures who participated in this debate. Using an extensive range of materials, from published sources to manuscript collections, Smith examines "objectivists"--economist Wesley Mitchell and political scientist Charles Merriam--and the more "purposive thinkers"--historian Charles Beard, sociologist Robert Lynd, and political scientist and neo-Freudian Harold Lasswell. He shows how the debate over objectivity and social purpose was central to their professional and personal lives as well as to an understanding of American social science between the two world wars. These biographies bring to vivid life a contentious moment in American intellectual history and reveal its significance in the shaping of social science in this country. (shrink)