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1. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 4
Charles W. Johnson

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Following a clarification of the nature of the “sightedness” and “blindness” which Wittgenstein associated with religious and mystical apprehenson, I argue that his account fails in both its visual and its religious senses. I close with an assessment of the extent to which descriptive language can be used to induce a religious perspective in someone who presently lacks it.
2. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 4
Garth L. Hallett

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The history of Wittgenstein’s failed attempt at pure phenomenology illumines his later thought, both globally and in detail, as well as its relation to Husserlian phenomenology.
3. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 4
Wendy Lee-Lampshire

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The aim of the following paper is, firstly, to provide the reader with a brief exposition of the critical response offered by some current french feminists of the largely American, compensatory approach to feminist historiography. Secondly, I wish to show why the french feminist alternative itself provides an inadequate methodology for the resolution of the problems that it raises in its critique. Lastly, I shall suggest that the Wittgensteinian concept of ‘family resemblance’ contains the seeds of a plausible alternative to either the compensatory or the french structuralist approach to feminist historiography. The upshot of this latter claim is that the historical subject may be most fruitfully conceived genealogically, that is, as the dynamic product of an inexhaustible complex of historical and contextual resemblances constructed on the behalf of a specific interpretational task.
4. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 4
D. Z. Phillips

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An examination is offered of the claim that the possibility of religious belief is related to the possibility of lusus naturae, in the special sense of that phrase which many philosophers have adopted, in terms of its implications for the notion of the limits of intelligibility. The exposition includes a critical assessment of arguments offered by Peter Winch, R. F. Holland, Norman Malcolm, and H. O. Mounce.
5. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 4
T. Michael McNulty

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6. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Richard M. Capobianco

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Despite the efforts of such notable thinkers as Sartre, Camus, and Ricoeur to affirm philosophically the being of evil, a systematic critique of the traditional metaphysical understanding of evil as privation of being has not yet been fully worked out. The task of this paper is to sketch out just such a critique and to suggest a more adequate philosophical reflection on the being of evil by turning to the thought of Heidegger. Part 1 examines Heidegger’s commentary on Aristotle’s remarks on steresis. Aristotle is our teacher, Heidegger argues, in learning “to hold on to the wonder” of the steresis-dimension of Being (physis), and, thus, to hold on to the wonder that “lack,” “loss,” “absence” - is. Part II considers Heidegger’s recognition that the k-not at the very heart of our existence is yet much more complex. He turns to the fragments of Parmenides and Heraclitus to bring to light a dissembling-dimension of Being.
7. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Laurent Bove

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More than a parallelism or a simple relation of influence, I emphasize a genuine spiritual filiation between the author of the Ethics and Vauvenargues, the young French moralist of the eighteenth century, by following trains of thought in both thinkers from the common principle of conatus to their theory of glory. By isolating (in their mutual notion of time) a shared inspiration which has its roots in ancient philosophy, and particularly in Stoicism, a stiII better understanding of this affinity emerges.
8. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Daniel Liderbach

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I argue that the late twentieth century relies more upon the symbolic than upon the causal power of events acknowledged as sacraments. Since this is the case with the Eucharist no less than with other sacraments, the symbolic meaning of the Eucharist must be refocused. This may be accomplished through the concept of the numinous dimension of the Lord’s Supper.
9. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Daryl J. Wennemann

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In this paper I explore Jacques Ellul’s sociology of religion in terms of Weber’s disenchantment thesis. In contrast to Mircea Eliade’s depiction of modern persons as nonreligious, owing to scientific and technological development, Ellul argues that traditional religions have merely been replaced by new ones. This has occurred, according to Ellul, because the desacralization of one realm of experience results in the resacralization of another realm of experience.
10. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Howard P. Kainz

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There are good historical reasons for emphasis on separation of church and state in a democracy, but the separation can be carried too far. Concerning the relationship of church and state, various Chrístian denominations divide up into separatists and unificationists, and each tendency can lead into extremes which could under certain conditions be inimical to democracy. Going beyond questions of constitutional separation, one may argue for a mutual utility and complementarity of church and democratic polity. Whether a strictly necessary relationship is entailed is a more complex problem.
11. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Steven G. Smith

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For perspicuous comparison and evaluation of moral positions on life-and-death issues, it is necessary to take into account the different meanings that killing and getting killed can bear in the two dimensions of dealing with persons (intention meeting intention) and handling them. A homicidal scenario in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight shows the possibility of courteous dealing coinciding with lethal handling. The extreme possibility of lovingly affirming persons while killing them, suggested by the Augustinian “kindly severity” ideal for state-sponsored punitive killing, requires the killers’ affirmation of a fleshliness and fallibility shared with their victims; but love can accept killing only provisionally, since it postulates freedom from the constraints that are felt to require killing.
12. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 3
Andrew Tallon

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13. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Frank Lucash

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Spinoza’s ideas on the eternity of the human mind have sparked much controversy. As opposed to most commentators, I argue that since substance is eternal, and the human mind can only be conceived in substance, the human mind must also be eternal. Only from a finite and partial view can the human mind be conceived of as having duration.
14. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Charles Taliaferro

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One argument that there cannot exist a being who creates all laws of nature was first outlined by J. L. Mackie, and further developed by Gilbert Fulmer. Fulmer’s version of the argument is examined, together with a recent neoCartesian counter-argument. The Menzel-Morris thesis holds that God’s power extends to creating his own nature. I argue that Fulmer’s argument is false, but that it can sustain counter-arguments of the type formulated by Menzel-Morris.
15. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Roland Teske

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Bernard Lonergan contrasts his account of judgment with that of the relativist. This paper points out how Lonergan’s characterization of the relativist account of judgment closely resembles the account of judgment that F. H. Bradley had given. Furthermore, the paper points to areas of commonality between Lonergan and Bradley with regard to human knowing. Despite their similarities, however, Lonergan’s account of judgment clearly distinguishes his theory of knowing from anything Iike Bradley’s idealism.
16. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Raja Bahlul

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In the 17th Discussion of his Tahafut al-Falasifah (“Incoherence of the Philosophers”), Ghazali presents two theories of causation which, he claims, accommodate belief in the possibility of miracles. The first of these, which is usually taken to represent Ghazali’s own position, is a form of occasionalism. In this paper I argue that Ghazali fails to prove that this theory is compatible with belief in the possibility of miracles.
17. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Anthony J. Beavers

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I argue that, despite their extensive disagreements at the level of first-order ethics, there are equally extensive agreements between Sartre and Kant at the metaethical level. Following a brief exposition of the principal metaethical similarities, I offer a defense of Sartre’s general moral theory against the more rigid first-order consequences which Kant claims to be able to assert.
18. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 2
Andrew Tallon

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19. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Peter H. Van Ness

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My initial task in this essay is to identify precisely the original philosophical import of philosophical renections about religion. Next I outline their changing natures and interrelations in the works of exemplary figures from the history of Western religious thought. Finally I argue that the relative desuetude of the traditional forms of apology and speculalion is emblemalic of the present faring of philosophy as a form of cultural discourse.
20. Philosophy and Theology: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
H. Odera Oruka

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This paper examines the notion of cultural universals and then seeks to identify what the author wishes to idenlify as “cultural fundamentals” in philosophy and philosophical debate. The paper then asses the extent to which such fundamentals are obstacles to the “birth” of potential philosophers. Lastly I suggest a solution to this problem.