RECENT BOOKS IN…PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY

Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue, Nancy Sherman
Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modem and Postmodem Philosophy Set the Theological Agenda, Nancey Murphy
Christianity and Civil Society: The Contemporary Debate, Robert Wuthnow
Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time: A Reader, Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde (eds)
Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, Jean Grondin
Verstehen and Humane Understanding, Anthony OHear (ed)
Philosophy and Pluralism, David Archard (ed)
Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion, Van A. Harvey
Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss: German Emigrks and American Political Thought after World War II, Peter Graf Kielmansegg (ed, with others)
Immanuel Kant: Lectures on Metaphysics, Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon (eds)     

ON ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND CAVELL'S UNACKNOWLEDGED THEOLOGICAL VOICE

This article argues that Cavell's key concept of acknowledgement is of great theological significance. Acknowledgement is meant as a particular interpretation of knowledge, which emphasises the personal responsiveness and responsibility to the human other and to the world. As Cavell himself indicates, acknowledgement also overlaps with faith. However, what such acknowledgement of God amounts to, is not yet satisfactorily understood in the growing literature on Cavell. This article argues that Cavell's treatment of confessions (Augustine, Wittgenstein) and acceptance of promise (Luther) provides important clues to a more elaborate understanding of acknowledgement in general, and of acknowledging God in particular.     

A HEURISTIC SCIENCE‐BASED NATURALISM AS A PARTNER FOR THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE NATURAL WORLD

After a few general observations on scientific activity, the author briefly comments on different versions of naturalism. Subsequently, he suggests that the birth of evolutionary biology and its successive developments may show how the natural world comes to be differently conceived as scientific advancements are accomplished. Then the main thesis is outlined by introducing the principles of a heuristic science‐based naturalism not conclusively defining the real and the knowable. From the epistemological perspective, heuristic naturalism is meant to be framed in critical realism, whereas from the ontological standpoint it may be framed in emergent monism, given that the latter can also underpin recent trends in investigation addressing human specificity. Finally, attention is turned to some implications of heuristically guided scientific activity with regard to the issues of divine action and of imago Dei.