A CRITIQUE OF EMERGENT THEOLOGIES

This article is an analysis and critique of emergent theologies, focusing on areas of Christology and pneumatology. An increasing number of Christian theologians are integrating (strong) emergence theory into their work. I argue that, despite the range of theological commitments and methodological approaches represented by these scholars, each faces similar problematic tendencies when their Christian doctrines are combined with (strong) emergence theory. It is concluded that the basic logic of emergence theory, whereby matter is seen to precede mind, makes it difficult for emergent theologies to offer an account of salvation, avoid significant issues regarding God's involvement with evil, and maintain divine transcendence. It is concluded, therefore, that Christian theology should look elsewhere for a complementary metaphysical framework with which to bridge scientific and theological discourse.     

A CRITIQUE OF BOROWITZ'S POSTMODERN JEWISH THEOLOGY

Abstract. Borowitz's book is primarily a systematic response by a liberal Jewish theologian to his perceived challenges from rationalism on one hand and postmodernism on the other. It is within this context that Borowitz discusses issues of the relationship between modern science and Judaism. The first part of this essay is a summary of Borowitz's book. Here I locate Borowitz's place in the general discipline of Jewish philosophy and theology. The second part of the paper is a critique of Borowitz's discussion of postmodernism and liberalism. It is in this concluding section that the issues raised by contemporary science for Jewish religious thought are discussed.     

A CRITIQUE OF FREGE ON COMMON NOUNS

Frege analyzed the grammatical subject‐term ‘S’ in quantified subject‐predicate sentences, ‘q S are P’, as being logically predicative. This is in contrast to Aristotelian Logic, according to which it is a logical subject‐term, like the proper name ‘a’ in ‘a is P’– albeit a plural one, designating many particulars. I show that Frege’s arguments for his analysis are unsound, and explain how he was misled to his position by the mathematical concept of function. If common nouns in this grammatical subject position are indeed logical subject‐terms, this should require a thorough reevaluation of the adequacy of Frege’s predicate calculus as a tool for the analysis of the logic and semantics of natural language.     

WITTGENSTEIN'S CRITIQUE OF FRAZER

This paper provides a systematic exposition of what Wittgenstein took to be the fundamental error committed by James George Frazer, author of the classic anthropological work The Golden Bough, in his account of ritual practices. By construing those rituals in scientific or rationalistic terms, as aimed at the production of certain effects, Frazer ignores, according to Wittgenstein, their expressive and symbolic dimension. It is, moreover, an error to try to explain the powerful emotions evoked even today by traditions such as fire festivals (which may once have involved human sacrifice) by searching for their causal origins in history or prehistory; the disquieting nature of such practices needs to be understood by attending to the inner meaning they already have in our human lives. Certain important general lessons are drawn about the necessarily limited power of scientific and causal explanations when it comes to alleviating many of our fundamental perplexities not just in the area of anthropology but in philosophy as well. ¹ 1 Originally published in French as ‘Wittgenstein, Critique de Frazer’, Agone 23 (2000), pp. 33–54. Translated into English (with minor editorial corrections and additional bibliographical references and abstract) specially for the present issue of Ratio by John Cottingham, by kind permission of Jacques Bouveresse and Editions Agone, Marseilles. English version © John Cottingham. The translator is grateful to Severin Schroeder and Christopher Wingfield for helpful corrections to an earlier draft.
     

A CRITIQUE OF ISLAMIC ARGUMENTS ON HUMAN CLONING

Sunnism constitutes eighty percent of the Islamic world. The most academic and renowned religious seminary in the Sunni world is Al-Azhar University in Egypt, and it is from here that most verdicts on novel issues such as human cloning are decreed and disseminated throughout the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds. The perspective of this seminary and of other significant Sunni jurisprudential councils and figures are alluded to throughout this essay. I lay out the method of legal derivation employed by the Sunni clergy and scholars and then illustrate how they have arrived at their prohibition on human cloning. I demonstrate weaknesses of methodology employed by the major Sunni Muftis within the domain of jurisprudence.     

A PRAGMATIC CRITIQUE OF PLURALISM IN TEXT INTERPRETATION

Abstract: I take a pragmatic approach to what interpreters do when they interpret and argue that critical pluralists have focused almost exclusively on one aspect of interpretation: the fact that it is an event taking place in a historical and cultural milieu that influences the many ways interpreters approach a given text. However, there is also in interpretation a pragmatic aspect: the fact that it is an act performed by individuals who, through the utterance of their statements, implicitly make claims, for example, regarding the truth of their interpretation. In the first part I explain what critical pluralists overlook and the consequences of such oversight. In the second part I indicate how the validity of interpretation can be assessed.     

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT OF WORK STRESS: A CRITIQUE

There has been considerable growth in the number of studies focused on the relationship between stress at work and a variety of physiological symptoms, especially cardiovascular irregularities, abnormal levels of biochemicals in the blood and urine, and gastrointestinal disorders. Many of these studies, however, have used inadequate procedures for measuring such symptoms. Consequently, the results and conclusions of these studies are often invalid or, at best, questionable. The purpose of this paper is to critique the prevailing procedures used in the measurement of physiological symptoms in work stress research and to suggest needed improvements.     

A (SELLARSIAN) KANTIAN CRITIQUE OF HUME'S THEORY OF CONCEPTS

Abstract:   In A Treatise of Human Nature , Hume attempts to explain all human cognition in terms of impressions, ideas, and their qualities, behaviors, and relations. This explanation includes a complicated attempted reduction of beliefs , or judgments, to single ideas. This paper attempts to demonstrate one of the inadequacies of this approach, and any of its kind (any attempted reduction of judgments to their constituent parts, single or multiple) via an argument concerning the logical forms of judgment found implicitly in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason , and more explicitly in the works of Wilfrid Sellars.     

SCHOLARSHIP AND THE CRITIQUE OF TRADITION

This review essay of Wolfson’s recent Heidegger and Kabbalah both praises Wolfson for departing from the historicism of his earliest writings on the kabbalistic tradition, and also critiques him for being unable to ground adequately his critique of the kabbalistic tradition’s ethnocentrism. Resolving the tension in this authorial position, stretched between commitment to a particular tradition and the liberalism of much of contemporary academia, entails acknowledging the limitations of scholarship in religious ethics.