A SCIENTIFIC BUDDHISM?

This essay endorses the argument of Donald Lopez's Buddhism and Science and shows how the general thesis of the book is consonant with other historical work on the “discovery” of Buddhism and on the emergence of Western conceptions of religion. It asks whether one of the key claims of Buddhism and Science—that Buddhism pays a price for its flirtation with the modern sciences—might be applicable to science‐and‐religion discussions more generally.     

ISLAM AND SCIENCE: THE PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS FOR A GENUINE DEBATE

What does it take for Islam and science to engage in a genuine conversation with each other? This essay is an attempt to answer this question by clarifying the conditions which make having such a conversation possible and plausible. I will first distinguish between three notions of conversation: the trivial conversation (which requires sharing a common language and the meaning of its ordinary expressions), superficial conversation (in which although the language is shared, the communicators fail to share the meaning of their theoretical terms), and genuine conversation (which implies sharing the language and the meaning of ordinary as well as theoretical terms). I will then argue that our real concern with regard to the exchange between Islam and science is to be to specify the conditions under which their proponents can engage in a genuine conversation with each other and that such a conversation to take place essentially requires sharing a common ontology. Following Quine, I will argue that Muslims, like the followers of any religion, would have no other choice but to work from within science. Doing so, however, would not prevent Muslims from having a genuine conversation with the proponents of other worldviews because when the shared ontology fails to offer any potentially testable answer to our remaining questions about the world, the Islamic viewpoint can appear as a genuine alternative among other underdetermined ones, deciding between which would be a matter of pragmatic criteria.     

TRUE SPIRITUALITY IN THE LIGHT OF THE SCIENCES

Abstract. Spirituality emerges in the function of culture to reinforce and yet redirect our genetic heritage. Our genes urge us to be concerned only for our own welfare, which can turn us to evil behaviors. Our religious traditions urge us to engage in behaviors of transkin altruism. These religious traditions have been selected for in the processes of natural selection. The challenge to spirituality is to discern the fundamental dynamics of the evolutionary processes, both genetic and cultural, that have created us and to direct our behaviors in ways that can be beneficial to the entire natural system. Reason is not enough; we must also cultivate spiritual discernment in order to perceive the true nature of our situation and the best responses that are called for. The religious communities have the major responsibility for cultivating the spirituality that can achieve the most adequate discernment.     

A Davidsonian Reconciliation of Internalism, Objectivity, and the Belief-desire Theory

This paper argues that Donald Davidson's account ofassertions of evaluative judgments contains ahere-to-fore unappreciated strategy forreconciling the meta-ethical ``inconsistenttriad.' The inconsistency is thought to resultbecause within the framework of thebelief-desire theory assertions of moraljudgments must have conceptual connections withboth desires and beliefs. The connection withdesires is necessary to account for theinternal connection between such judgments andmotivation to act, while the connection withbeliefs is necessary to account for theapparent objectivity of such judgments.Arguments abound that no class of utterancescan coherently be understood as having suchconceptual connections to attitudes of bothsorts, hence that an inconsistency results. Buton Davidson's account assertions of evaluativejudgments have just such connections to boththe relevant desire and a belief concerning anevaluative matter of fact. I argue that thisaccount has the resources to respond tostandard objections, and at least meritsconsideration as one among other plausiblealternatives.     

Social mirrors. Tove Jansson’s Invisible Child and the importance of being seen

This article examines the experience of being seen and analyzes its central role in the formation of a coherent sense of self. Tove Jansson’s short story from 1962, ‘The Invisible Child’, serves as the red thread of the article, and the story is analyzed in the light of Donald Winnicott’s work on social mirroring. The analysis is enriched by the psychoanalytic insights of Veikko Tähkä and Heinz Kohut, and complemented by Axel Honneth’s philosophical elaborations as well as by recent developmental findings as presented by Vasudevi Reddy. The article is divided into an introduction and three sections. After summarizing Jansson’s story in the introduction, the first section elaborates and examines different senses of social invisibility. The second section assesses developmental factors that promote social invisibility and highlights the importance of being seen. The third and final section interprets Jansson’s story as an analogy to an intensive therapeutic process, while pinpointing those elements that facilitate the restructuring of a disturbed sense of self. As a whole, the article thus discusses an issue that is often simply taken for granted in discussions of empathy and interpersonal experience: social visibility.     

John Prine’s Images of God and Male Melancholia: Terror,Forgiveness, and the Persistence of Desire

Examines the God-representations of the country-folk singer John Prine in the light of psychological theory about male melancholia, drawing from Donald Capps and Erik H. Erikson. Describes the manner in which songwriting serves as a therapeutic enterprise to express and interpret melancholia in Prine's lyrics, especially in the songs "Saddle in the Rain" and "Fish and Whistle." At times these images evoke terror and at other times they humorously erase the authority divide between the divine and the human, suggesting that God may even need to be forgiven. Describing how melancholia is rooted in the man's experience with mother, this article interprets Prine's image of God in light of the need for sustenance, acknowledgement, and care.

The Nature of Physical Reality

This account of the dynamical theory of chaos leads to a metaphysical picture of a world with an open future, in which the laws of physics are emergent-downward approximations to a more subtle and supple reality and in which there is downward causation through information input as well as upward causation through energy input. Such a metaphysical picture can accommodate both human and divine agency.     

Christ and the Homosexual: An Early Manifesto for an Affirming Christian Ministry to Homosexuals

In his book Christ and the Homosexual (1960), Rev. Robert Wood presented American Christians with a view of homosexuality that was revolutionary: in short, he argued that homosexuals held a rightful place in church and society and that they should abandon neither Christianity nor the church. More specifically, the author called for the advancement of civil rights for homosexuals; the construction of pro-homosexual theologies; the education, ordination, and career placement of “out” homosexuals; and marriage equality for same-sex couples. This article situates these topics within Wood’s lifelong (and ongoing) ministry of promoting the full acceptance of homosexuals in American society and in The United Church of Christ, his own denomination. The following sources from the Robert Wood Archive at The Congregational Library in Boston, MA, USA, have been used in this article: the author’s notes and early drafts of Christ and the Homosexual; his voluminous correspondence from the 1940s through the 1990s; and an unpublished biography of Wood. In addition, this article’s author draws upon an oral history interview conducted with Robert Wood in July 2012.     

Actions and accidents

In acting intentionally, it is no accident that one is doing what one intends to do. In this paper, I ask how to account for this non-accidentality requirement on intentional action. I argue that, for systematic reasons, the currently prevailing view of intentional action – the Causal Theory of Action – is ill-equipped to account for it. I end by proposing an alternative account, according to which an intention is a special kind of cause, one to which it is essential that it represents its effect.