THE QUESTION OF NATURE AND GRACE IN KARL BARTH: HUMANITY AS CREATURE AND AS COVENANT‐PARTNER1

This article describes and responds to criticisms of Karl Barth recently offered by John R. Betz and John Milbank concerning this set of issues in Barth's theology: nature and grace, analogy, and a natural desire for the supernatural. It attempts to defuse these complaints by giving attention to Barth's twofold determination of humanity as both creature and covenant‐partner. Within this material, it is argued, Barth employs doctrines such as election, Christology and analogy in order to orient nature towards grace in such a way that something like a natural desire for the supernatural is present in his theology.     

THE INFORMATIONAL BASIS OF MOTION COHERENCE

Abstract— Observers judged the motion coherence of random-dot cinematograms. Theoretical models were developed for coherence matches between cinematograms constructed from different angle distributions. Evidence is presented that coherence matches are made on the basis of the Shannon-Wiener information entropy. We show how the formal structure of information theory may be used to predict perceived pattern goodness when the underlying distributions of pattern alternatives are implicit in the judgment task.     

THE QUESTION OF BLACK PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy Born of Struggle is an ambitious undertaking. It is explicitly conceived, the editor explains, as "a guide to the ideas of modern Afro-American philosophers," and "a historical resource directory for their works."¹ An anthology of texts with bibliographical apparatus, the volume has an implicit hortatory purpose as well. In representing Afro-American philosophy as a "unidimensional text of divergent components"—concerned with the meaning of democracy and the human costs of "capitalism, colonial domination, and ontological designation by race"—the editor dignifies Afro-American philosophy conceptually, as a subject in its own right, calling in effect for its sustained historical treatment as such.²     

PSYCHOLOGY AND LITERATURE: THE QUESTION OF READING OTHERWISE

By making literature the partner of a dialogue with psychology, with the aim of better understanding the psyche, psychoanalysis has truly altered our way of understanding the literary phenomenon. Thus, Freud resorted to literature in an attempt to validate his theories. At the same time, though, in striving for "natural" scientific status, he shifted the emphasis away from any possible deep comprehension of the literature. However, psychoanalysis, trying to delve deeper into literature, has elaborated a whole theory regarding the literary meaning that is still prevalent today. In this paper, the author examines the Freudian conception of literature that points beyond the intrapsychic and moves towards intersubjectivity.     

COHERENCE: THE PRICE IS RIGHT

This article is a response to Elijah Millgram's argument that my characterization of coherence as constraint satisfaction is inadequate for philosophical purposes because it provides no guarantee that the most coherent theory available will be true. I argue that the constraint satisfaction account of coherence satisfies the philosophical, computational, and psychological prerequisites for the development of epistemological and ethical theories.     

HUMANE PHILOSOPHY AND THE QUESTION OF PROGRESS

According to some recent critics, philosophy has not progressed over the course of its history because it has not exhibited any substantial increase in the stock of human wisdom. I reject this pessimistic conclusion by arguing that such criticisms employ a conception of progress drawn from the sciences which is inapplicable to a humanistic discipline such as philosophy. Philosophy should not be understood as the accumulation of epistemic goods in a manner analogous to the natural sciences. I argue that the progressiveness of philosophy consists, if anything, in its capacity to provoke and sustain critical reflections upon the ideas and practices which shape and guide human life.     

THE QUESTION OF A RELIGIOUS REALITY: COMMENTARY ON THE POLANYI PAPERS

Abstract. Two aspects of the problem of interpreting Michael Polanyi's outlook on religion are discussed. First, various ways of relating to reality beyond the objective perception of factuality must be considered, including the shift from I-It to I-Thou relations, and the self-giving mode of surrender to a symbolized reality. Second, the active use of the imagination in perception involves a commitment that the image is of something real, transcending the person. I believe that Polanyi understands both religious rituals and works of art to point to realities that can be met again in new ways. After this discussion reasons for Polanyi's reticence to speak about his own religion are suggested and, finally, some known facts about his personal religion are given.     

ON THE COHERENCE OF HIGHER‐ORDER BELIEFS

Let us by ‘first‐order beliefs’ mean beliefs about the world, such as the belief that it will rain tomorrow, and by ‘second‐order beliefs’ let us mean beliefs about the reliability of first‐order, belief‐forming processes. In formal epistemology, coherence has been studied, with much ingenuity and precision, for sets of first‐order beliefs. However, to the best of our knowledge, sets including second‐order beliefs have not yet received serious attention in that literature. In informal epistemology, by contrast, sets of the latter kind play an important role in some respectable coherence theories of knowledge and justification. In this paper, we extend the formal treatment of coherence to second‐order beliefs. Our main conclusion is that while extending the framework to second‐order beliefs sheds doubt on the generality of the notorious impossibility results for coherentism, another problem crops up that might be no less damaging to the coherentist project: facts of coherence turn out to be epistemically accessible only to agents who have a good deal of insight into matters external to their own belief states.