Philosophy of religion Books

Book SynopsisAre humans naturally predisposed to religion and supernatural beliefs? If so, does this naturalness provide a moral foundation for religious freedom? This volume offers a cross-disciplinary approach to these questions, engaging in a range of contemporary debates at the intersection of religion, cognitive science, sociology, anthropology, political science, epistemology, and moral philosophy. The contributors to this original and important volume present individual, sometimes opposing points of view on the naturalness of religion thesis and its implications for religious freedom. Topics include the epistemological foundations of religion, the relationship between religion and health, and a discussion of the philosophical foundations of religious freedom as a natural, universal right, drawing implications for the normative role of religion in public life. By challenging dominant intellectual paradigms, such as the secularization thesis and the Enlightenment view of religion, the volume oTrade Review'The contributors to this superb, inter-disciplinary collection are leaders in their respective fields. They illuminate a subject that should be of concern to everyone.' Roger Trigg, Ian Ramsey Centre, University of Oxford'In recent years, academic and policy debates over religious freedom have had the unexpected but welcome effect of encouraging researchers to revisit several long-neglected questions: just what we mean by 'religion', whether religion is universal, and the implications of religion's presence in societies for our understanding of human nature. Although these questions are being posed anew in many circles, Timothy Samuel Shah and Jack Friedman's Homo Religiosus? is the first book to bring together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to address the issues in a philosophically sophisticated and comparative manner. The result is a pathbreaking book. The exercise is also bracing: even as its contributors speak in varied voices, their shared effort highlights the most critical epistemological and ethical shifts underway today in the comparative study of religion and human freedom.' Robert W. Hefner, The Pardee School of Global Affairs, Boston UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction Jack Friedman and Timothy Samuel Shah; 1. Are human beings naturally religious? Christian Smith; 2. Are human beings naturally religious? A response to Christian Smith Phil Zuckerman; 3. On the naturalness of religion and religious freedom Justin L. Barrett; 4. Sacred versus secular values: cognitive and evolutionary sciences of religion and their implications for religious freedom Richard Sosis and Jordan Kiper; 5. Theism, naturalism and rationality Alvin Plantinga; 6. Alvin Plantinga on theism, naturalism and rationality Ernest Sosa; 7. Research on religion and health: time to be born again? Linda K. George; 8. Religion, health and happiness: an epidemiologist's perspective Jeff Levin; 9. Why there is a natural right to religious freedom Nicholas Wolterstorff; 10. Religious liberty, human dignity, and human goods Christopher Tollefsen; 11. Human rights, public reason, and American democracy: a response to Nicholas Wolterstorff Stephen Macedo.

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Book SynopsisSince at least the time of Plato, religious explanations of the metaphysical foundations of morality have typically fallen into one of two camps: natural law theory, according to which morality is fundamentally explained by facts about human nature—facts that God is responsible for—and divine command theory, which holds that moral obligations arise directly from God’s commands or some other prescriptive act of the divine will. J. Caleb Clanton and Kraig Martin offer an accessible analysis of these traditional views, reconstruct the various arguments for and against them, and offer an extended consideration of the historical emergence of the divide between these positions within the Christian tradition. Nature and Command goes on to develop and defend a theory that combines these two views—a metaethical approach that has not yet received the scholarly attention it deserves.Along the way, the authors make use of underexplored theological resources drawn from the Stone-Campbell movement, a nineteenth-century restoration movement that culminated in one of the largest Protestant groups in America by the dawn of the twentieth century. Nature and Command summons the resources of this particular Christian heritage—its first principles, call for unity, and ecumenism—to solve one of the great dilemmas of moral philosophy and theology dating back to Plato’s Euthyphro. This historically aware, argumentatively rigorous, and highly readable volume will serve as a valuable resource for moral philosophy and ethics, as well as for mining the Stone-Campbell Restoration tradition for historical and theological insights.

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Book SynopsisSimone Kotva is a research fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where she teaches philosophical theology. She has published articles on French spiritualism, the philosophy of attention, and metaphysics.Trade ReviewEffort and Grace is a captivating book that guides us through a tradition of French philosophical thought rarely discussed outside of France ... [It] is an important book for anyone who shares an interest in the critical and constructive potential of the notion of grace for contemporary approaches that want to resist the reduction of spirituality to a modern project wholly centred on the volitional effort of the ego. * The Heythrop Journal *Simone Kotva’s Effort and Grace makes several contributions, not the least of which is a critique of Hadot’s work by drawing on the French spiritualist tradition which Hadot himself was indebted to. Kotva’s book should be read by anyone who claims inspiration from Hadot or the growing literature around spiritual exercises. * Metaphilosophy *Kotva’s Effort and Grace is both a brilliant intervention in the contemporary debate over philosophy as spiritual practice and a compelling argument for the importance of Simone Weil to this discussion. Kotva’s book is also the most powerful and erudite treatment of the philosophy of French Spiritualism I am aware of in English. A significant work that is also a delight to read. * Jacob Sherman, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, California Institute for Integral Studies, USA *Increasingly it is seen that there are not two schools of modern philosophy: Analytic and Continental but three: English Empiricism, German Idealism and French Spiritualism. This books serves as a truly excellent and absorbing English introduction to this 'third way', with its extraordinary combination of introspection and realism, humanism and naturalism, mysticism and speculation, that render it so fitted to our new Twenty-First Century concerns and crises. * John Milbank, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Politics and Ethics, University of Nottingham, UK *In this pioneering monograph, Kotva shows how philosophy as spiritual exercise plays a crucial part in one current of modern, as well as all of ancient philosophy. As a result, Simone Weil is elevated to a position of central importance: her Christian hesitation between revived ancient schools demonstrates how the philosophical question of correct attention to reality is an integrally existential as well as conceptual matter. This book brilliantly demonstrates how Weil’s life and her thought continue to resonate with the deepest issues of our times. * Catherine Pickstock, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK *Table of ContentsPreface 1 The spiritual exercise of philosophy: two ideals 2 The spiritual life: Maine de Biran 3 Grace: Félix Ravaisson 4 Effort: Henri Bergson and Alain (Émile Chartier) 5 The paradox of attention: Simone Weil 6 Epilogue: Reclaiming attention Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIntroductory Remarks PART I: EPISTEMOLOGY 1. Disagreement, Opinion and Expertise 2. Belief, Faith and Evidence 3. Debate, Reason and Argument PART II: METAPHYSICS 4. Science, Nature and Transcendence 5. Mind, Body and Spirit 6. Cause, Freedom and Responsibility PART III: ETHICS 7. Flourishing, Virtue and Happiness 8. Trust, Violence and Power 9. Meaning, Understanding, and Narrative Postscript References and Further Reading IndexTable of ContentsIntroductory Remarks PART I: EPISTEMOLOGY 1. Disagreement, Opinion and Expertise 2. Belief, Faith and Evidence 3. Debate, Reason and Argument PART II: METAPHYSICS 4. Science, Nature and Transcendence 5. Mind, Body and Spirit 6. Cause, Freedom and Responsibility PART III: ETHICS 7. Flourishing, Virtue and Happiness 8. Trust, Violence and Power 9. Meaning, Understanding, and Narrative Postscript References and Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisThe aim of this book is to acquire a better understanding of the question 'who am I?' By means of the concepts of self-knowledge and self-deception questions about the self are studied. The light in which its topic is seen is the light of love, the light in which other people really become visible and so oneself in one's relation to them.Trade Review“Self-Knowledge and Self-Deception, while well written and engaging, is a scholarly work filled with references … . the author is quite good at guiding the reader by being very explicit about what he aims at, noting how he differs from Socrates, and so forth. … Students who have a certain level of mastery of philosophy and its concepts will enjoy this book, as will other philosophers who are grappling with similar topics.” (Finn Janning, Metapyschology, metapsychology.mentalhelp.net, April, 2016)Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Know Thyself! 2. What Kind Of Self-Knowledge? 3. The Concept Of Self-Deception As Morally Central 4. Self-Deception 5. The True Self 6. The Individual And Society 7. Kant ' 's Political Philosophy 8. The Freedom Of The Will 9. The World As Resistance 10. The Will 11. The Good

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Book SynopsisWhy Believe? sees John Cottingham, a philosopher of searing intellectual honesty, examine our society''s struggle with the concept of belief.Cottingham''s carefully reasoned yet impassioned account shows how the religious outlook connects with our deepest human longings, how it links up with our moral and aesthetic experience, how it is integrally involved in the quest for self understanding, and how it is not after all in conflict with a scientific understanding of the worldTrade ReviewReviewed in the Catholic Herald, 27th August ‘Wonderful crowd-dividing meditations'‘The virtues of Cottingham's own thinking - a gracious, open minded integrity, and an ability to combine spiritual insight with philosophical analysis - enrich his defence of Christian practise and belief.' -- Times Literary Supplement‘An important addition to the contemporary study of religion... Cottingham's book is a work of gentle persuasion towards belief and in practice towards belief in Christianity... There is thus in Cottingham's re-enchanting work as much to interest those who study religion as a phenomenon as there is for those who practise it or indeed reject it.' -- Journal of Contemporary Religion‘Rigorously argued yet maximally accessible...a new and exciting perspective on the conflict between secularism and spirituality.' -- Bulletin‘Why Believe? sees John Cottingham, a philosophy of searing intellectual honesty, examine our society's struggle with the concept of belief.' -- Bulletin‘John Cottingham's brief defence of religious faith, and especially Christian faith, is honest, clear-headed and occasionally compelling.' -- Religious Studies"This small volume should most emphatically make anyone's short list." Church Times, November 2009"For Professor Cottingham, the "characteristic framework" of behaviour that a theist brings to the task of living "finds room for some of our deepest and most valuable human impulses"." Christopher Howse, The Daily Telegraph, 28 November, 2009."He [Cottingham] always writes with grace and clarity...the best books on apologetics deepen our understanding with fresh insights into what it means to believe. This is one of those books." Paul Richardson, Church of England Newspaper, December 2009."A spirit of genuine enquiry." John Haldane, The Tablet, December 2009"Fascinating and accessible reading for anyone with an appetite for philosophy of religion." The Way, April 2010. "Himself a believing philosopher, Cottingham explains how he is able to meld his secular and religious inclinations. Sometimes, he warns, he gets a bit more rhetorical than is considered proper in an academic paper. He covers belief and its benefits; belief, reason, goodness; belief and the unknown; obstacles to belief; belief and meaning; learning to believe; and believing and living." -Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.mention in Bookseller Buyers Guide, 1 January 2008Mention in The Tablet, 30 May 2009Book Extract The Tablet, September 2009"A judicious and refreshing addition to a debate that is in danger of going a little stale." Good Book Guide, October 2009Table of ContentsOne: Belief and its Benefits; 1. How believing affects living; 2. How believing works. 3. Belief and human sensibilities; 4. Belief and integrity; Two: Belief, Reason, Goodness; 1. Yearnings and their objective correlative; 2. From benefits to reasons; 3. God as source; 4. The best explanation?; Three: Belief and the Unknown; 1. The unknown God?; 2. Hume's critique; 3. The problems of transcendence; 4. Revelation and the Incarnate Word; Four: Obstacles to Belief; 1. How difficult can it get?; 2. Supernatural intervention; 3. Back to fundamentalism?; 4. Revelation and cognition; Five: Belief and Meaning; 1. Truth and concealment; 2. Evidence and accessibility; 3. Vision and transformation; 4. Moral growth and spiritual conversion; Six: Learning to Believe; 1. The lessons of life; 2. Prevailing images of belief: exclusivism; 3. Ultimate responsibility; 4. Souls and the afterlife; Seven: Believing and living; 1. Providence and suffering; 2. Humility and hope; 3. Awe and thanksgiving; 4. 'Walk the believer's road!'.

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Book SynopsisDespisers of religion have poured scorn upon the idea of sacrifice as an index of the irrational and wicked in religious practice. One need only think of the appalling cult of sacrifice in numerous totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Yet sacrifice remains a part of our cultural 'imaginary'. This book explores the idea of sacrifice.Trade Review"Douglas Hedley calls on the resources of philosophy, theology, poetry, and art to look into the deep and difficult subject of sacrifice, suffering, and atonement. This is a remarkable, profound, and erudite new study, which no one who wants to think hard about these issues should ignore." --Timothy Chappell, Professor of Philosophy, The Open University, UK."In this impressively learned work Douglas Hedley has two related goals both of which challenge contemporary scholarship. The first and more important is to recover the role of sacrifice in the imagination, not as something purely negative but as a path towards human transformation. This he does in part through his second goal: re-establishing the significance of a largely forgotten figure, Joseph de Maistre. Hedley plausibly argues that, so far from being merely a reactionary thinker, de Maistre offers a profound critique of much Enlightenment and modern thought. Rich in insights, the work challenges numerous contemporary orthodoxies in both philosophy and theology, and at the same time succeeds in defending the continuing relevance of the Platonist tradition. " -- David Brown, FBA, Wardlaw Professor of Theology, Aesthetics and Culture, University of St Andrews, UK"Sacrifice has, in recent years, become once again the subject of an interdisciplinary, scholarly debate. Dr. Hedley's book will make an important contribution to this debate. Written from a perspective that is consciously theological and consciously Platonic, it argues for the abiding significance of sacrifice as a dimension of human culture. For Dr. Hedley, sacrifice ultimately is the work of human imagination and indispensable from an epistemic, metaphysical, ethical, and religious point of view. Given the tradition of radical critique of sacrifice in both Christian and post-Christian theories, this argument will inevitably be controversial. Yet even those readers who may not be fully persuaded by Dr. Hedley's thesis must be immensely grateful for the wealth of references to past and present thinkers and for the subtle analysis of their ideas that is here put at their disposal." -- Johannes Zachhuber, Reader in Theology, Trinity College, University of Oxford, UK "Anthropologists might want to read Sacrifice Imagined to learn about Christian thought and literature or to learn that Christian exegesis is alive and well."-- Anthropology Review Database -- Anthropology Review Database"Hedley's erudition and knowledge of literature dealing with sacrifice and religion is very apparent in his textual references, and extensive bibliography [...] the book is a marvel of scholarly work on a controversial topic [...] recommended to all college and university libraries with graduate programs in religious studies." -- Catholic Library WorldTable of ContentsPrologue; 1. The Sacrificial Imagination; 2. Sacrifice and Myth; 3. Sacrifice and the Tragic Imagination; 4. Ethics and Sacrifice; 5. Evil and sacrifice; 6. Responsibility, Atonement and Sacrifice; 7. Dionysus and the Crucified; 8. Sacrifice and the heavenly Banquet; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index of subjects; Index of names.

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Book SynopsisBrings St Thomas Aquinas and Martin Heidegger into dialogue and argues for the necessity of Christian philosophy. Through the confrontation of Heideggerian and Thomist thought, this title offers an original and comprehensive rethinking of the nature of temporality and the origins of metaphysical inquiry.Trade Review"I am unaware of any previous successful attempt to confront Heidegger's massive critique of metaphysics at such depth and range. Dr Smith-Gilson's conception of the four-fold intentional presupposition at the heart of metaphysics is an original conception of great merit and her work will be of immense interest to scholars of Heidegger, St Thomas, and well as to epistemologists and metaphysicians across a wide spectrum." (Prof. Juan Andres Mercado, Associate Professor of Modern Philosophy, The Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, Italy.) "This work gives a needed voice to the still-true and still misunderstood pre-modern understanding of man, world, being, and God. Where the earlier Thomistic revivals confronted modernity by employing scholastic terminology to restate its vision, Dr. Smith-Gilson's work of retrieval confronts, at the highest intellectual level, modernity and especially its phenomenological presentation, with the words of philosophy simpliciter. This work is an apologia for the Thomistic vision of man, God, and being which is not itself apologetic or defensive. This is a profound and difficult work, but one that richly rewards the reader who gives himself to its mediation." (Herb E. Hartmann, Professor of Philosophy, Southern Catholic College, GA, USA) "The confrontation between Classical and Heideggerian understanding of Being shows Smith Gilson's superb capacity to get into the mind of philosophers of different schools of thinking and mastering their philosophical language. With great balance, this book neither merges the two in some facile reconciliation, nor makes Heidegger a straw man with which to beat modernity in favor of a 13th century theology, but highlights the similarities and differences of their conceptual frameworks, without getting stuck in terminological equivocalness. The reader will find in these rich and dense pages a sound and substantial dialog between Heidegger's philosophical standpoint and medieval metaphysics." (Prof. Francisco Fernandez Labastida, Pontificia Universita della Santa Croce, Italy)"Table of ContentsIntroduction; Chapter I Parmenides, Plato & Aristotle - An Ontological Tracing Of Intentional Being-In-The-World; Tracing I How The Deity Entered Philosophy; Tracing II Plato's Parmenides; Tracing III Aristotle's De Anima; Chapter II St. Thomas Aquinas & Classical Intentionality; A. Introduction; B. Aristotle's Critique Of Earlier First Principles; C. An Account Of The Ananke Stenai; D. Concluding Remarks: An Overview Of Aristotle's Intentional Ground And Its Onto-Epistemological Method; Chapter III The Four-Fold Reversals: The Displacement Of Being-In-The-World; A. A Brief Discursus On Heidegger's Husserlian Influence; B. Heidegger's Commentary On The Critique Of Pure Reason; C. Finitude: Nullity Or No-Thing?; D. St. Thomas' Prima Via- A Brief Discursus On The Ananke Stenai; Chapter IV The Four-Fold Intensities; A. The Necessity Of The Causal Structure; B. The Wait And Christian Philosophy; C. Intentional Presence Qua Finitude; D. Summation Of Finitude: Revisiting The Wait; E. The Aeviternal Structure Of The Intentional Presence; F. Conclusion: The Plenitude Of The Ananke Stenai; Chapter V Tragedy In The Christian Philosophic Vision; Brief Conclusive Remarks; Bibliography - Primary Sources; Bibliography - Secondary Sources.

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Book SynopsisThis open access book looks at Olympiodorus (AD c. 500570), possibly the last non-Christian teacher of philosophy in Alexandria, who delivered 28 lectures as an introduction to Plato. This volume translates lectures 1028, following from the first nine lectures and a biography of the philosopher published in translation in a companion volume, Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 19 (Bloomsbury, 2014).For us, these lectures can serve as an accessible introduction to late Neoplatonism. Olympiodorus locates the First Alcibiades at the start of the curriculum on Plato, because it is about self-knowledge. His pupils are beginners, able to approach the hierarchy of philosophical virtues, like the aristocratic playboy Alcibiades. Alcibiades needs to know himself, at least as an individual with particular actions, before he can reach the virtues of mere civic interaction. As Olympiodorus addresses mainly Christian students, he tells them that the differTrade Review“[Michael Griffin] has taken on the thankless task of the translator with commendable enthusiasm, thoroughness and accuracy; the resulting volume is, like its predecessor, a labor of love … G.’s translation, based on the second printing of Westerink’s (1956) Greek text and supplemented with only a few emendations by G. himself or earlier editors such as Creuzer, is of the highest quality. It presents a readable and accurate rendering of Olympiodorus’ Greek, while taking pains to approximate the lively, colloquial tone of Platonic dialogue wherever the Alcibiades is quoted in the commentary. * International Journal of the Platonic Tradition *Table of ContentsConventions Textual Emendations Introduction Translator's Note Translation Notes Select Bibliography English-Greek Glossary Greek-English Index Index of Names Subject Index

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Book SynopsisFor Thomas Aquinas (1224-74), the Book of Job is the authoritative teaching concerning divine providence. In his Literal Exposition on Job, Aquinas offers a line-by-line commentary on the scriptural text. He analyzes the text not only by way of cross-references within the Book of Job and to other parts of Scripture, but also by appeal to the writings of Aristotle, the Church Fathers, and other Christian Aristotelians. Anthony Damico''s translation is more literal than literary, preferring to render the Latin words wherever possible by their obvious English derivatives. Martin Yaffe provides an extensive interpretive essay, bibliography, and indexes of citations.

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Book SynopsisThis book attempts to reconcile the analytic philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein with those issues that consumed his personal life and which lay outside the confines of analytic philosophy: his "religious disposition," his ascetic lifestyle, and his concern with the mystical. Sontag reveals the influence of the mystical on Wittgenstein's life and philosophy, his respect for Augustine, Kierkegaard, and William James, and the profound effect of Tolstoy's religious writings on the development of his philosophy.

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