THE SOCIOLOGY AND THEOLOGY OF CREATIONIST OBJECTIONS TO EVOLUTION: HOW BLOOD MARKS THE BOUNDS OF THE CHRISTIAN BODY

The staying power of creationist objections to evolution needs explanation. It depends on the use of “blood” language. Both William Jennings Bryan and, a century later, Ken Ham connect evolution with the blood of predation and the blood of apes, and both also connect evolution with the blood of atonement. Drawing on Mary Douglas and Bettina Bildhauer, I suggest that blood becomes important to societies that image the social body on the human body. Blood reveals the body as porous and vulnerable and therefore needing social work to be constructed as whole and bounded. Blood is the place where society conducts this work. I conclude that blood language is ineliminable from Christian discourse and indeed from discourses that model the social on the individual body. The solution, I suggest, is not to avoid the language of blood, but to continue to use it in ways that broaden its focus from human sin to human and animal suffering.     

William J. Morgan’s ‘conventionalist internalism’ approach. Furthering internalism? A critical hermeneutical response

Several authors, such as William J. Morgan, John S. Russell and R. Scott Kretchmar, have claimed that the limits between the diverse normative theories of sport need to be revisited. Most of these works are philosophically grounded in Anglo-American philosophical approaches. For instance, William J. Morgan’s proposal is mainly based on Richard Rorty’s philosophy. But he also discusses with some European philosophers like Jürgen Habermas. However, Habermas’ central ideas are rejected by Morgan. The purpose of this paper is to analyse Morgan’s rejection of Habermas’ thought and show that a more appropriate normative of sport that explains better our current sporting world can be achieved by drawing on the German philosopher’s ideas. The plan of this paper is the following. It shall analyse the limits of the distinction between broad internalism and externalism by taking Morgan’s work as its starting point. To do so, firstly, the conventionalist way in which Morgan criticises the limits of interpretivism shall be explained (§2). Secondly, the relationship between Morgan’s proposals and the hermeneutical theories which are at the roots of his proposal shall be brought to light. Thirdly, since Morgan takes Habermas’ hermeneutical ethics to be an example of externalism, the relationship between his theory and Habermas’ ethical account shall be clearly defined. Moreover, Morgan’s proposal shall be criticised in the light of Habermas’ discourse ethics (§3). To conclude, a Habermasian approach in sport ethics shall be described (§4).     

The Construction,Preliminary Validation,and Correlates of a Dream‐Specific Scale for Mystical Experience

This study aimed to create and test a dream‐specific version of Hood's Mysticism (M) Scale for the purpose of studying dreaming mystical experience. Factor analysis of the Spiritual Dreams Scale (SDS), based on data collected from 289 adults affiliated with an American evangelical Christian school, clearly resulted in three factors in accordance with prior studies of the M Scale. However, the factor composition of the SDS did not identically resemble the findings of previous studies of the M Scale. Instead, the three‐factor solution suggested a Jamesian interpretation according to which the factors were labeled mystical psychology (passivity), perceived alternate reality (ineffability), and noesis. Scores on the SDS shared significant positive correlations with scores for absorption, dream beliefs, dream recall, and kataphatic prayer. A scale for apophatic prayer failed to share a significant correlation with the SDS.     

Intimate distances: William James’ introspection, Buddhist mindfulness, and experiential inquiry

The recent and growing interest in ‘mindfulness’ and ‘mindfulness meditation’ across disciplines in the West presents us with a unique opportunity to reconsider whether Buddhism has anything to offer our contemporary psychological investigations. I argue that the Buddhist-inspired practice of mindfulness has potentially profound implications for the ways in which we conduct our investigations as psychologists, and that, as a style of experiential inquiry, it has at least one Western antecedent in the early introspectionist method of William James. Both are practices of becoming aware of experience; and paradoxically becoming intimately distant with our experience. I present a non-dualistic approach in which introspection and mindfulness are seen not only as psychological but also as social practices, operating simultaneously at the boundary of the individual/inner and social/outer, collapsing such distinctions in practice, and radically undermining the distinction between self and other. While there are similarities between James’ practice of introspection and mindfulness, there are also differences, and I suggest that they should not be easily conflated. Clarifying their relationship should be helpful, not only in distinguishing them from one another, but also in pointing to how mindfulness might allow a broader application than James’ introspection once did.     

Ockham and Buridan on the Ampliation of Modal Propositions

This paper explores a currently unnoticed argument used by John Buridan to defend his analysis of modal propositions and to reject the analysis of modal propositions of necessity put forward by William of Ockham. First, I explore this argument and, by considering possible responses of Ockham to Buridan, show some of the ways in which Ockham seems to be keeping closer to Aristotle's remarks about modal propositions in Prior Analytics, 18.     

Spinoza's Concept of Substance and Attribute: A Reading of the Short Treatise

ABSTRACT

In the recent secondary literature on Ockham’s philosophy of mind, it has been debated whether Ockham proposed an externalist or an internalist view of the intentional contents of intuitive cognitions. It has also been debated whether Ockham only attributes intentional content to intuitive cognitions, or rather two different properties, i.e. a likeness and an intentional content. Intuitive cognitions can be roughly understood as perceptions. In this article I propose a different perspective for analysing both debates, that is, the perspective that concerns Ockham’s theory of reflexivity. Ockham defended the idea that one can reflexively cognize two different features of intuitive cognitions; namely, their similarity or likeness, and their intentional content. Ockham proposed different degrees and modes of reflexive cognition regarding these features.     

The Architectural Expression of Primitive Christianity: William Beveridge and the Temple of Solomon

Abstract

On the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a resurgent religious identity in church and state was informed by identifying the English nation with the biblical Israel, and the worship and buildings of the Church of England with those of the Temple in Jerusalem. The dedication of the Church of St Peter, Cornhill (rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666 and designed by Christopher Wren) in 1681 by the Revd William Beveridge was an expression of the Church of England's confidence in its identity with the ‘primitive Church,’ and as the Church of a chosen and favoured people.     

Preface to Opicinus de Canistris: concluding lecture by C.G. Jung,Eranos, Ascona, 1943 and Further studies on Jung's Eranos seminar on Opicinus de Canistris

In 1943, Jung held a seminar at Eranos for a limited number of students dedicated to ‘solar myths’, which were exemplified specifically in the cartographic art of Opicinus de Canistris (c. 1296–1352). This seminar has stayed out of print until a few years ago. Notes taken during the seminar by one of Jung's students, Alwine von Keller (1878–1965), were discovered in the Eranos archives and published. Now, for the first time ever, the notes of another of his students, Rivkah Schärf Kluger, taken during the same seminar, are being published. This second series of notes are more extensive. They complete the first series by adding many features and so allow us to put together a more complete picture of Jung's seminar. James Hillman, who received these notes from William McGuire in 1976, firmly believed that they were important enough to be published. Now, seventy years after this seminar, thanks to the support of the Stiftung der Werke von C. G. Jung, the Eranos Foundation and the Journal of Analytical Psychology, these notes are finally being published.     

The Darwin–Gray Exchange

After the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, the controversy over the issues of design, teleology and divine intervention in nature were renewed. This paper looks at Darwin's correspondence with Harvard botanist Asa Gray from 1860–1863 and investigates how Darwin rejected notions of design due to his immersion in William Paley's categories. Gray, in contrast, was able to move past Paley's influence and find consistency in affirming both evolutionary theory and natural theology.     

God,Truth and Mathematics in Nineteenth-century England

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke created a special epistemological category for mathematical and religious knowing. This category of knowledge was quickly brushed to the side in the French Enlightenment, but the English preserved it well into the nineteenth century. This article considers the ways that the neo-Lockian joining of mathematics and theology fundamentally affected both mathematical and theological thinking in the first half of the English nineteenth century. It argues that these developments set the stage for the post-Darwinian conflicts between science—including mathematics—and religion.