Abstract: In this article, I argue for a new theological conception of grace in which I examine the evolutionary roots of cognitive error, focusing on its relationship to prejudice. Contrary to traditional views, I articulate grace as neural plasticity, the possibility for profound neuronal changes within the brain. In this manner, grace is an immanent component of being evidenced by our cognitive capacities for moral reflection and behavioral adjustment. By defining original sin in relation to cognitive error and reimagining God as a collaborative metaphor for the interdependent processes in nature that produce and shape creation, I identify grace as both a new way of understanding the ontological reality of “sin” and a ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: This closely reasoned philosophical study develops two metaethical positions: (1) a pragmatist view of truth in ethics and (2) a pragmatist view of principles in moral inquiry. To reach these notions Heney gives a close reading of Peirce, James, Dewey, and C. I. Lewis. In the process she engages with current debates in ethical theory.Heney makes a strong case for the importance of metaethics, the inquiry into the meaning of and justification (or lack thereof) for ethical terms and propositions. She focuses on the primacy of practice, which implies consideration of how groups and individuals deal with moral discourse, moral disagreement, and value-laden experience.I will first elucidate her constructive position in ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: David Macarthur has assembled not only a fascinating collection of essays from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam that spans two decades but also a collection that makes a compelling series of arguments about what pragmatism has been, is, and may yet become. This is all the more impressive since it weaves together the voices of two scholars who shared both an intellectual commitment and a life. As a longtime admirer of Hilary Putnam’s work, I was excited to take a deep dive into the thought of Ruth Anna Putnam, and, truth be told, her essays in this volume deliver the stronger notes. Not only do readers gain a glimpse into the fascinating conversations that took place between these two philosophers over the years ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: The aim of Brandon Daniel-Hughes’s book is to explore the following provocative hypothesis: religious communities are communities of inquiry. As suggested by the title, the writings of C. S. Peirce (1839–1914) provide the primary resources and rationale for this claim; his ideas on belief, habit, community, continuity, pragmatism, semiotics, and inquiry are deeply constitutive of the project. And for the most part, Daniel-Hughes’s integration produces a compelling read; however, that is not always the case, especially concerning the notion of religious inquiry’s “primary referent” (xiv). Nonetheless, Daniel-Hughes brings forth a fascinating and fecund interpretation of religious practice that will be valuable to ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: This issue is my first as editor of this journal. Lisa Landoe Hedrick, the journal’s incoming reviews editor, and I are participating in a tradition that includes Michael Hogue, Michael Raposa, and Jennifer Jesse, to name only our most immediate predecessors, and extends ultimately back to W. Creighton Peden, the journal’s founder. We are aware of the gravity of this inheritance. As the chief publication of the Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought (IARPT), the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy has long hosted critical and creative scholarship in such traditions as pragmatism, process thought, liberal theology, and various forms of naturalism and empiricism. Important figures like ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Realistic theologies are keyed to what is said to be actual, reading knowledge of God and the aims of ethical action from the given. Idealistic theologies are keyed to claims about truths transcending actuality. I am opposed to lifting realistic actuality above idealistic discontent, even as I acknowledge that idealism poses the greater danger. A wholly realistic theology would be a monstrosity, a sanctification of mediocrity, inertia, oppression, domination, exclusion, and moral indifference. Christianity is inherently idealistic in describing the being or movement of spirit as the ultimate reality and in holding to transcendent moral truths. But an idealistic theology lacking a sense of tragedy, real-world ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: For naturalism, fed on recent cosmological speculations, mankind is in a position similar to that of a set of people living on a frozen lake, surrounded by cliffs over which there is no escape, yet knowing that little by little the ice is melting, and the inevitable day drawing near when the last film of it will disappear, and to be drowned ignominiously will be the human creature’s portion. The merrier the skating, the warmer and more sparkling the sun by day, and the ruddier the bonfires at night, the more poignant the sadness with which one must take in the meaning of the total situation.Baron Kelvin, in an 1852 paper called “On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy,” said that ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: William James once suggested that the underlying difference between empiricists and rationalists is that empiricists explain wholes in terms of parts, while rationalists explain parts in relation to wholes.1 Whatever the merits of this description, it is fair to say that modern thought has predominantly followed the empiricist habit of emphasizing parts and particularity rather than wholes and totality. This essay explores the views of three philosophers who have challenged this dominant trend. In various ways, John Dewey, Thomas Nagel, and Franklin Gamwell have argued that the meaning and value of human life are only properly understood in relation to the whole of reality. To be sure, Dewey embraced the empiricist ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Gary Dorrien teaches at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. His many books include Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit (Blackwell, 2012), which won the Association of American Publishers’ PROSE Award in 2013, and The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel (Yale, 2015), which won the Grawemeyer Award in 2017. His next book, forthcoming in 2020, is titled In a Post-Hegelian Spirit: Philosophical Theology as Idealistic Discontent.William J. Meyer is professor of philosophy and the Ralph W. Beeson Professor of Religion at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee. His research interests focus on metaphysics, philosophy and religion, philosophy and science, and ethics. He is the ... Read More PubDate: 2020-08-06T00:00:00-05:00
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