A Review of “A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion”

ABSTRACT

HOLMAN OLD TESTAMENT COMMENTARY: EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS. Glen S. Martin. Nashville, TN: Broadman &; Holman Publishers, 2002, 387 pp., $19.99. Reviewed by Gregg Watson.

THE WESTMINSTER DICTIONARY OF NEW TESTAMENT AND EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AND RHETORIC. David E. Aune. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003, xii, 595 pp., ISBN: 0-664-21917-9, $49.95. Reviewed by Iren L. Snavely, Jr.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND WAR, Routledge Encyclopedias of Religion and Society Series. Edited by Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez. New York &; London: Routledge, 2004, 512 pp., 33 b/w illustrations, ISBN: 0-415-94246-2, $125.00. Reviewed by Al Vara.

READING IS BELIEVING: THE CHRISTIAN FAITH THROUGH LITERATURE AND FILM. David S. Cunningham. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2002, 237 pp., $18.99. Reviewed by Robert F. Darden III.

UNDERSTANDING THE HADITH: THE SACRED TRADITIONS OF ISLAM. Ram Swarup. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002, 258 pp., $22.00. Reviewed by Jeannie Colson.

AN INDEX TO ENGLISH PERIODICAL LITERATURE ON THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, Vol. VIII, ATLA Bibliography Series, 21. Compiled and edited by William G. Hupper. Lanham, MD and London: The American Theological Library Association, and The Scarecrow Press, 1999, 483 pp., $70.00. Reviewed by John Dickason.

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF EVANGELICALS. Editor: Timothy Larsen; Consulting Editors: David Bebbington and Mark Noll. Leicester, England and Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003, 816 pp., $45.00. Reviewed by J. Michael Garrett.

LOGOS BIBLE SOFTWARE SERIES X-SCHOLAR'S LIBRARY (QB). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, 2004, $599.95, CDROM or DVD. Reviewed by Jason D. Baker.     

A teleological interpretation of Bonhoeffer's concept of “A World Come of Age”

This paper explores Dietrich Bonhoeffer's concept of “the nonreligious interpretation of biblical terms in a world come of age,” best known from his Letters and Papers from Prison (LPP). As a case study of its possibilities, we will survey South African thinkers who have explored the concept in rapidly changing contexts. Our leading question is whether academic theology can develop a teleological narrative for a nation that has “come of age.” When a nation or culture becomes so secular that it “outgrows” a traditional use of biblical terms, can those terms be reinterpreted to provide a teleological narrative for the nation? Bonhoeffer can be a resource for academic theologians to address issues in public theology, especially the suffering and oppression of communities still in pain despite a democratic system.     

Memory Errors From A Change of Standard: A Lack of Awareness or of Understanding?

Memory errors occur when the context standard that is used when judging target behaviors is different from the category norm standard that is available later when the behaviors are recalled. Is insufficient awareness the reason for this change-of-standard effect? Two kinds of awareness were maximized in each of two studies: (a) awareness of the relation between the judgment and the context - telling subjects to be sure to use the non-target persons for comparison when judging the target person (salience); and (b) awareness at recall of the earlier judgmental context - asking subjects to recall the non-target persons before recalling the target person (reinstatement). Context reinstatement reduced memory errors. But when context reinstatement and salience were combined, the memory errors reappeared. In Study 2, an attempt at debiasing failed. The change-of-standard effect is explained in terms of a "natural" tendency to use the current categorical meaning of a judgment to reconstruct the referent of its past contextualized meaning.     

A Dao of Technology?

Scholars have detected hostility to technology in Daoist thought. But is this a problem with any machine or only some applications of some machines by some people? I show that the problem is not with machines per se but with the people who introduce them, or more exactly with their knowledge. It is not knowledge as such that causes the disorder Laozi and Zhuangzi associate with machines; it is confused, disordered knowledge—superficial, inadequate, unsubtle, and artless. In other words the problem is not with machines but with the ethics of engineering and the government of technology. The Daoist argument does not devalue machines or knowledge of them; instead, it sets a new goal, defining an alternative ideal—alternative to techniques held hostage to despotic ideas about efficiency and profit.     

Replacement—A theory of stereotypy: A review

Three forms of stereotypy are described and an outline given of previous theories of simple stereotypy in the retarded and autistic. An alternative theory is put forward in which stereotypy is characterized as a replacement of unpalleatable stimuli and/or responses that are overloading the system in a way with which the individual cannot cope. Although the theory derives from cognitive psychology, it can also be expressed behaviorally or experientially without loss of impact. The manner in which replacement theory applies to the three types of stereotypy is described. Testable hypotheses are derived, predictions made, and implications considered. Finally, the more general ramifications of the theory are explored.     

A Review of “At the Edges of Vision: A Phenomenological Aesthetics of Contemporary Spectatorship”

ABSTRACT

Although studies in a variety of settings suggest that participant reactions to the research context can threaten the validity and generalizability of study findings, there have been almost no investigations of participant reactivity in museums. In this experimental study, the authors compared the behaviors and learning outcomes of visitors at two versions of an interactive mathematics exhibit who had either been actively recruited by a data collector or passively recruited using posted signage. They assessed the amount of time visitors spent at the exhibit, the number of mathematical exhibit behaviors they engaged in, and the level at which they described the mathematical relationships in the exhibit after the interaction. The results indicate that actively recruiting visitors was associated with increased engagement times and the number of mathematical exhibit behaviors, and that recruitment method moderated the relation between exhibit version and learning outcomes. These findings emphasize the importance of carefully considering recruitment decisions in museum research and evaluation.     

A Review of: “A Guide to the Books of James Hollis”

This article provides a small, personal glimpse of what occurs in a barroom subculture, both negative and positive (e.g., the camaraderie of my Friday night “family members”). I look at life in a barroom from different angles and perspectives, ultimately discovering a great deal of sadness as I try to connect barroom life to my own personal background.     

A discussion of Kretchmar’s elements of competition

Recently Kretchmar attempted to apply and to explore Husserl’s transcendental phenomenological method in relation to clarifying, in the context of sport particularly, the main features of competition. He concludes with the strong claim that competition is unintelligible unless understood in relation to the four elements of plurality, comparison, normativity, and disputation. Roughly, the idea is that competition needs to be understood as a context in which more than one competitor is involved; where competitors are compared; that comparisons are evaluations of their performance/entry in the competition; and that the expected result of the latter is a matter of dispute between or among contestants. In investigating these points some refinement of this basic outline is attempted against occasional reference to others who in the past made similar claims about the conditions of competition. I conclude that Kretchmar’s claims are mistaken.     

A repair of Frege’s theory of thoughts

Frege’s writings contain arguments for the thesis (i) that a thought expressed by a sentence S is a structured object whose composition pictures the composition of S, and for the thesis (ii) that a thought is an unstructured object. I will argue that Frege’s reasons for both (i) and (ii) are strong. Frege’s explanation of the difference in sense between logically equivalent sentences rests on assumption (i), while Frege’s claim that the same thought can be decomposed differently makes (ii) plausible. Thoughts are supposed to do work that requires that they be structured and work that requires that they be unstructured. But this cannot be! While the standard response to this problem is to reject either (i) or (ii), I propose a charitable repair in the spirit of Frege’s theory that accepts both. The key idea can be found in Frege’s Basic Laws of Arithmetic(BL, GGA). Frege argues that the thought expressed by a sentence is determined by the truth-conditions that can be derived from the semantic axioms for the sentence constituents. The fact that the same axiomatic truth-condition can be derived in different ways from different semantic axioms suggests a Fregean solution of the dilemma: A thought is a type that is instantiated by all sequences of senses (decomposed thoughts) that have the same axiomatic truth-conditions. This allows for multiple decomposability of the same thought (for different decomposed thoughts can have the same axiomatic truth-conditions) and for a notion of containment (the decomposed thought contains those senses whose semantic axioms are needed in the derivation of the truth-conditions). My proposal combines the virtues of (i) and (ii) without inheriting their vices.     

A Third Method of Ethics?

In recent decades, the idea has become common that so‐called virtue ethics constitutes a third option in ethics in addition to consequentialism and deontology. This paper argues that, if we understand ethical theories as accounts of right and wrong action, this is not so. Virtue ethics turns out to be a form of deontology (that is, non‐consequentialism). The paper then moves to consider the Aristotelian distinction between right or virtuous action on the one hand, and acting rightly or virtuously on the other. It is claimed that virtue might play an important role in an explanation of acting virtuously (as it does in Aristotle’s ethics), but that such explanations can be charged with ‘double‐counting’ the moral value of the virtues. The paper concludes that, if we focus on the question of the value of virtue, rather than on the notion of right action, there is room for a self‐standing and important view which could be described as virtue ethics.     

A patchwork epistemology of disagreement?

Philosophical Studies - The epistemology of disagreement standardly divides conciliationist views from steadfast views. But both sorts of views are subject to counterexample—indeed, both...     

A critique of Confucius’ philosophy

Throughout the millennia since the composition of the Analects, orthodox scholars have maintained that Confucius faithfully passed down the thought of early eras, particularly those of Yao and Shun: ‘I transmit but do not create ideas.’ This paper shows that Confucius actually subverted the essence of orthodox thought represented mainly by Yao and Shun. His subversion of orthodox thought compels perforce the idea of ‘ren (humanity),’ which concerns itself with the human world, to stand out with the near exclusion of otherworldliness in his teaching. As a result of the misunderstanding of Confucius’ heritage, scholars in the past tended to equate Confucius’ idea of ‘ren’ with specific moral attributes. Again taking exception to the interpretations of bygone eras, this essay demonstrates that humanity in Confucius’ theory signifies a dynamic process rather than a specific attribute or a static rule, changing constantly with different people, different places, and different times.     

A Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Religion – or A Philosophy of Wittgensteinian Religion?

I evaluate the plausibility of how broadly 'Wittgensteinian' approaches to the philosophy of religion: looking in the first half of the essay at the account such approaches give of the meaning of religious utterances, and in the second half at the account given of the required justification for believing such utterances. As regards the meaning of religious utterances I distinguish weak and strong Wittgensteinian theses, supporting the former but refuting the latter. Turning to Wittgensteinian approaches to the justification of religious beliefs I argue that although some beliefs are 'groundless' in a way that makes them an unquestionable feature of our conceptual landscape, anything as interesting as a religious belief can not be 'groundless' in the relevant sense (of being invulnerable to attack). Finally I argue that only Wittgensteinian approaches can capture the meaning and justificatory requirements of religious beliefs for a minority of 'believers': but that this minority is important.     

“A Failure of Curiosity”

ABSTRACT

This essay discusses the clinician's defense against and resolution of the experience of boredom in the countertransference as an incident of projective identification in the treatment of a woman with dissociative identity disorder. The essay details the inner mind of the therapist as she discovers both her own feelings and judgements of those feelings. As the essay progresses, she begins to grasp the significance of her discomfort in informing the therapeutic process. We watch as this material is made use of to move forward a stalled therapy into new territory.