Is it Possible and Desirable for Theologians to Speculate after Barth?

This essay asks what Karl Barth meant by ‘speculation’ in volume two of the Church Dogmatics. Rather than equating speculative theology with metaphysical theology in general, Barth views speculation not as a monolithic act but as a conglomeration of modes of theological speech that undermine God's revelation in Jesus Christ. This essay argues that Barth's views of speculation, rather than undercutting the use of metaphysics in theology, pave the way for a responsible Christian use of metaphysics by tying one's use of categories and concepts in theology closely to the text of Scripture.     

Is it Safe to Disagree?

This paper offers a new account of the epistemic significance of disagreement which is grounded in two assumptions; (i) that knowledge is the norm of belief and, (ii) that the safety condition is a necessary condition for knowledge. These assumptions motivate a modal definition of epistemic peerhood, which is much easier to operate on than the more traditional definitions of epistemic peerhood. The modal account of the epistemic significance of disagreement yields plausible results regarding cases of disagreement. Furthermore, it is able to tap into the intuitions that have motivated the conformist and the nonconformist positions and it locates a fruitful middle‐ground between these two conflicting positions. It will be shown that the conformist is correct in that cases of real peer disagreement force us to suspend our judgment. The reason for this is that in cases of real peer disagreement our beliefs fail to be safe. The nonconformist, on the other hand, is right in that disagreement in itself does not have any epistemic power. It is only by the grace of nature that we gain knowledge. The fact that someone disagrees with you does not mean that you do not have knowledge.     

Is moral ambiguity all we have to offer?

Theology risks marginalization in the debate about ethical medicine, if theologians merely surrender to ambiguity. We live in a pluralistic society, C. Ben Mitchell points out, but Christians must not accept pluralism as an ideology. In light of our own tradition, we must speak out on ethical issues as we see them. Since "the public" is sympathetic to religious values, public policy should not be dictated by anti-religious points of view.     

Is an Apophatic Trinitarianism Possible?

A good deal of recent theology has been characterized by a robust, self‐confident trinitarianism. Is it possible, by contrast, to develop something like an apophatic trinitarianism? This article attempts to sketch what such a thing might look like and defend it against some obvious objections.     

Is a Tenseless Language Possible?

Whether it takes the form of a translation or of giving truth-conditions, any putative reduction of tensed language to tenseless language will be undermined if it can be shown that there could be no genuinely tenseless language. A similar problem faced traditional phenomenalism: it was far from clear that there could be a 'language of sense-data'. Either the imagined language was no language at all, or it was dependent upon object-language, not the other way around. A parallel dilemma faces tenseless reductionism. In spelling out what a tenseless language would be like, one either ends up with something that no creature could have as a language, or with something that is parasitic upon tensed language - not the other way around.     

Is Synthesis of World Religions Possible?

Introduction

All major religions appear to follow a pattern of social contract with an additional feature of ‘termination of the contract’ and its ‘aftermath’, for the soul. This way, religion is known as ‘dissolution mechanism’ (DM). It contains both social and metaphysical terms, where the former is subsidiary to the latter. The metaphysical term is represented by the mokṣa. A given DM not only explicates the state of soul after the termination of contract, but also it endeavours to point out the nature of the ultimate reality it conceives.

Method

DM provides a geometrical/mathematical picture of the universe to locate the ultimate reality and the individual souls in it; three views of the universe—destruction, creation and sustenance—are obtained for three basic religions or thoughts. Buddhist ‘Nothingness’ forms the psychological background for these views of universe. Architectural designs of worship places, yantras or manḍalas, etc., show both the nature of universe and the location of the ultimate in it. Understanding these figures is the key method to be employed for arriving at synthesis.

Conclusion

Synthesis consists in noting the identical common metaphysical generic essence as running through all the religions, and identifying the unique specific root-essence on such a generic essence. Specific root-essence of a given DM consists in the way the unification of cognitions of the universe is carried out. When the unification of all the specific root-essences on the generic essence is carried out with a further psychological background of Buddhism, we get a specimen of metaphysical synthesis of world religions. Thus, synthesis is a distinct and sure possibility.

     

Can expressivism have it all?

Philosophical Studies - Quasi-realist expressivists (or simply “expressivists”) set themselves the task of developing a metaethical theory that at once captures what they call the...     

Is it always fallacious to derive values from facts?

Since the time of David Hume, many philosophers have held that there is a logical Is/Ought gap. According to the doctrine of the Is/Ought gap, there are no valid (i.e., non-fallacious) arguments from purely factual premises about whatis the case to moral or normative conclusions about whatought to be. Occasionally, this doctrine has been challenged, but frequently it has been accepted without argumentation. Charles Pigden has recently argued for a logical Is/Ought gap on the grounds of the conservativeness of logic. I offer a counter-example which shows that Pigden's argument is unsound and that there need be no logical gap between Is-premises and an Ought-conclusion. My counter-example is an argument which is logically valid, has only Is-premises and an Ought-conclusion, and does not purport to violate the conservativeness of logic. Moreover, my argument does not rely, as other alleged counter-examples do, on controversial assumptions from Aristotelian biology about natures or ends, or about institutions such as promise-making.     

Is a kantian Musical Formalism Possible?

In this article, I consider whether a suitably stripped‐down version of Kant's aesthetic theory could nevertheless provide philosophical foundations for musical formalism. I begin by distinguishing between formalism as a view about the nature of music and formalism as an approach to music criticism, arguing that Kant's aesthetics only rules out the former. Then, using an example from the work of musicologist and composer Edward T. Cone, I isolate the characteristics of formalist music criticism. With this characterization in mind, I conclude by showing that even if Kant's aesthetic theory is reduced to its most fundamental claims, the logic of formalist music criticism precludes its practice within even a kantian perspective.     

Do the upright eyes have it?

Eye contact is crucial for social communication. A perceived direct gaze facilitates detection, whereas face inversion diminishes this facilitative effect (Senju, Hasegawa, & Tojo, 2005). In the present study, we adopted a visual search paradigm to investigate why a direct gaze facilitates detection in an upright face, but not in an upside-down face. Upright eyes were found to facilitate detection even when other parts of the face were inverted or absent, whereas inverted eyes had no effect on search performance. A critical role for the morphological information of upright eyes, which can be distorted by “eye inversion,” in direct gaze processing is suggested.     

Patents and ethics: Is it possible to be balanced?

In this presentation, principles of ethics are confronted with the desire of the inventor to make a profit. To this end the presentation is focused on patent protection. Patents should guarantee the return of an inventor’s investment and profit and, on the other side, ensure availability — by patent disclosure — of the invention for the society when the patent terminates. Recent patent applications made by inventors are infringing this principle and societies are paying an unexpected price for these practices. Patent claims are too broad and disclosures too poor. Extreme examples will be discussed. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “The Ethics of Intellectual Property Rights and Patents,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 23–24 April, 2004.