Speaking to Pictures

A review of Peter Steele’s Plenty, a book in which each poem is faced by a colour plate of the painting or object which sparked it off. Hollander’s ecphrasis and Krieger’s ekphrasis are held in – possibly unresolvable – dialectic by Steele’s poems. The only resolution which one can find is one of wit rather than of philosophy.

Public and Private Meaning in Hume: Comments on Ted Morris’ “Meaningfulness without Metaphysics: Another Look at Hume’s Meaning-Empiricism”

This paper raises questions concerning Ted Morris’ interpretation of Hume’s notion of meaning and investigates the private and public aspects of Hume’s notion of meaning.

Contradiction in Buddhist Argumentation

Certain Buddhist texts contain statements that are prima facie contradictions. The scholarly consensus has been that such statements are meant to serve a rhetorical function that depends on the apparent contradictions being resolvable. But recently it has been claimed that such statements are meant to be taken literally: their authors assert as true statements that are of the form ‘p and not p’. This claim has ramifications for our understanding of the role played by the principle of non-contradiction in Buddhist argumentation. I argue that these make the claim less plausible.

A Further Reply to Beyer on Omniscience

I provide a further response to Jason A. Beyer’s objections to the alleged inconsistency between God’s omniscience and His other attributes.

Blair on Rodin: Rejoinder

The article is a brief response to Jacob Blair’s critique of David Rodin’s argument in War and Self-Defense that there are circumstances in which war conceivably could be justified not as self-defence, but as law enforcement or punishment. It argues that while Rodin’s position potentially is less dilemmatic than Blair suggests, Blair nevertheless usefully highlights tensions within it. Blair’s own argument in favour of ar as law-enforcement is suggestive, but in no way conclusive.

Remarks on Grandi’s Comments

This note is a reply to some of Giovanni Grandi’s comments on my paper “Berkeley’s Contingent Necessities.”

Arguments by Parallels in the Epistemological Works of Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge

The works of the Tibetan logician Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge (1109–1169) make abundant use of a particular type of argument that I term ‘argument by parallels’. Their main characteristic is that the instigator of the argument, addressing a thesis in a domain A, introduces a parallel thesis in an unrelated domain B. And in the ensuing dialogue, each of the instigator’s statements consists in replicating his interlocutor’s previous assertion, mutatis mutandis, in the other domain (A or B). I show that such a dialogue involves two parallel arguments that develop in an intersecting zigzag pattern, and discuss the principles involved in the establishment of the conclusion from the perspective of parity of reasoning and analogical argument. I examine the overall rhetorical strategy directing the use of arguments by parallels and the pedagogical and explanatory functions they can serve. I also evaluate the plausibility of their use in Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge’s works mirroring a contemporary practice of oral debate, and reflect on the status of such arguments in the framework of Indo-Tibetan logic.

Developmental Levels of Conceptions of Compassion in the Ethical Decision-Making of Western Buddhist Practitioners

This study used Rawls’ social contract theory of right to examine the conceptions of compassion of Western Buddhist practitioners as they made ethical decisions. The study, which used a construction sample of 140 subjects in order to study the developmental levels of thinking among the Buddhist practitioners, identified five structural-developmental levels of conceptions of compassion along with a level of pre-compassionate thinking. Only a sparse amount of thinking at the level of ethical principles of compassion was found among the Buddhist practitioners. Buddhist practitioners gave priority to issues of karma over issues of rights in ethical decisions involving dilemmas related to life and death decisions. Scoring manuals were constructed for assessing ethical reasoning and justice-reasoning based on Rawls’ meta-ethical theory of justice and right. Different dilemmas seem to elicit different levels of conceptions of compassion, which supports the view of compassion as “levels of conceptions” rather than a singular state.

‘Repentant’ artists in Egypt: debating gender, performing arts and religion

This article explores the emergent public sphere in Egypt in the early 1990s by analysing the debates about the ‘repentant’ artists. Many artists, mostly women but also a few men, stepped down from art for religious reasons. Some of them even started to preach against art because they considered their former profession haram. The ‘repentance’ of so many famous performers led to fierce contestations in the media. Art became an issue par excellence for debating notions of the ‘common good’ and the ‘good Muslim.’ Media were intensively used by secularists, conservative Muslims, Islamists, the regime and repentant artists to publicise their version of Islam. The different voices in the debate are analysed to investigate whether they constitute a counterpublic.

The Subject of Pastoral Care: A Discussion Based on the Theology of Henning Luther

In this article the author discusses the differences between pastoral care and psycho-social therapy. She clarifies the specific identity of pastoral care on the basis of Henning Luther’s theology. He distinguishes different anthropological presuppositions in pastoral care and psycho-social therapy. Consequently, she demonstrates the relevancy of Luther’s theology for today’s Practical Theology.

Husserl on Analyticity and Beyond

Quine’s criticism of the notion of analyticity applies, at best, to Carnap’s notion, not to those of Frege or Husserl. The failure of logicism is also the failure of Frege’s definition of analyticity, but it does not even touch Husserl’s views, which are based on logical form. However, some relatively concrete number-theoretic statements do not admit such a formalization salva veritate. A new definition of analyticity based not on syntactical but on semantical logical form is proposed and argued for.

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Persisting problems for a quantificational theory of complex demonstratives

I criticized Jeffrey King’s theory of complex demonstratives in “Problems for a Quantificational Theory of Complex Demonstratives.” King replied in “Complex Demonstratives as Quantifiers: Objections and Replies.” I here comment on some of King’s replies.

Skeptical Theism and God’s Commands

According to Michael Almeida and Graham Oppy, adherents of skeptical theism will find their sense of moral obligation undermined in a potentially ‘appalling’ way. Michael Bergmann and Michael Rea disagree, claiming that God’s commands provide skeptical theists with a source of moral obligation that withstands the skepticism in skeptical theism. I argue that Bergmann and Rea are mistaken: skeptical theists cannot consistently rely on what they take to be God’s commands.

The fantasy of third-person science: Phenomenology, ontology and evidence

Dennett’s recent defense in this journal of the heterophenomenological method and its supposed advantages over Husserlian phenomenology is premised on his problematic account of the epistemological and ontological status of phenomenological states. By employing Husserl’s philosophy of science to clarify the relationship between phenomenology and evidence and the implications of this relationship for the empirical identification of ‘real’ conscious states, I argue that the naturalistic account of consciousness Dennett hopes for could be authoritative as a science only by virtue of the very phenomenological evidences Dennett’s method consigns to the realm of fiction. Thus heterophenomenology, qua scientific method, is incoherent.

Rawls and Ricoeur: Converging Notions of Empowerment to Justice

Empowerment is a key word in Catherine Audard’s new book on Rawls and a central characteristic of Rawls’ approach to justice. A very different “hermeneutic” approach to justice is presented by Paul Ricoeur, the French philosopher and theologian who, against the background of his own work, examined Rawls’ views in several publications. This essay compares the two views and defends the proposition that empowerment is the common denominator. The author suggests that Rawls would not have objected to including some of Ricoeur’s ideas in the past-principle stage of his Theory.

Knowledge as aptness

I raise several objections to Sosa’s account of knowledge as aptness. I argue that aptness is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. I also raise some objection to Sosa’s treatment of dreaming skepticism.

Kant and Wittgenstein: Common Sense,Therapy, and the Critical Philosophy

Kant’s reputation for making absolutist claims about universal and necessary conditions for the possibility of experience are put here in the broader context of his goals for the Critical philosophy. It is shown that within that context, Kant’s claims can be seen as considerably more innocuous than they are traditionally regarded, underscoring his deep respect for “common sense” and sharing surprisingly similar goals with Wittgenstein in terms of what philosophy can, and at least as importantly cannot, provide.

Efficacious Surroundings: Temple Space and Buddhist Well-being

This essay argues that the prospect of health and well-being from a Buddhist perspective must take into account an understanding of religiosity as a process of becoming, a culturally and contextually defined praxis of what and who it is we are and would like to become. It is in this process of becoming that a space of healing is made possible. It is not simply that Buddhist temple space is ‘good’ in some sort of clinical manner, but rather that it is active in its will to achieve a space of becoming healthy and whole.

Diabetes,Chronic Illness and the Bodily Roots of Ecstatic Temporality

This article studies the phenomenology of chronic illness in light of phenomenology’s insights into ecstatic temporality and freedom. It shows how a chronic illness can, in lived experience, manifest itself as a disturbance of our usual relation to ecstatic temporality and thence as a disturbance of freedom. This suggests that ecstatic temporality is related to another sort of time—“provisional time”—that is in turn rooted in the body. The article draws on Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception and Heidegger’s Being and Time, shedding light on the latter’s concept of ecstatic temporality. It also discusses implications for self-management of chronic illness, especially in children.

Concerning the Preservation of God’s Omnipotence

Numerous examples have been offered that purportedly show that God cannot be omnipotent. I argue that a common response to such examples (i.e., that failure to do the impossible does not indicate a lack of power) does not preserve God’s omnipotence in the face of some of these examples. I consider another possible strategy for preserving God’s omnipotence in the face of these examples and find it wanting.