The neighbor and the infinite: Marion and Levinas on the encounter between self,human other,and God

In this article I examine Jean-Luc Marion's two-fold criticism of Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy of other and self, namely that Levinas remains unable to overcome ontological difference in Totality and Infinity and does so successfully only with the notion of the appeal in Otherwise than Being and that his account of alterity is ambiguous in failing to distinguish clearly between human and divine other. I outline Levinas’ response to this criticism and then critically examine Marion's own account of subjectivity that attempts to go beyond Levinas in its emphasis on a pure or anonymous appeal. I criticize this move as rather problematic and turn instead back to Levinas for a more convincing account of the relations between self, human other, and God. In this context, I also show that Levinas in fact draws quite careful distinctions between human and divine others.     

DIVINE ACTION: IS IT CREDIBLE?

Abstract. The concept of God's acting in the world has been seen to be problematic in light of the claims of scientific knowledge that the regularity of a law like universe rules out divine action. There are resources in both scientific knowledge and religion that can render meaningful and credible divine action. The new physics, chaos theory, cognitive psychology, and the concept of top-down causation are used to understand how God acts in the world. God's action is not an intervention, but is understood on the model of how the mind influences the brain in a downward causative manner. Suggestions for imagining God's actions are discussed.     

On the Argument for Divine Timelessness from the Incompleteness of Temporal Life

A promising argument for divine timelessness is that temporal life is possessed only moment by moment, which is incompatible with the existence of a perfect being.
Since the argument is based on the experience of time's passage, it cannot be circumvented by appeal to a tenseless theory of time.
Neither can the argument be subverted by appeals to a temporal deity's possession of a specious present of infinite duration.
Nonetheless, because the argument concerns one's experience of time's passage rather than the objective reality of temporal becoming itself, it is considerably weakened by the fact that an omniscient being possessing perfect memory and foreknowledge, need not find such experience to be an imperfection.     

GOD IN THE CAVE

When Finite and Infinite Goods was published in 1999, it took its place as one of the few major statements of a broadly Augustinian ethical philosophy of the past century. By “broadly Augustinian” I refer to the disposition to combine a Platonic emphasis on a transcendent source of value with a traditionally theistic emphasis on the value‐creating capacities of absolute will. In the form that this disposition takes with Robert Merrihew Adams, it is the resemblance between divine and a finite excellence that makes the finite excellence objectively of value, and it is the correspondence of an obligation to a divine command that makes the obligation objectively obligatory. I look closely at the complexity of this ethical division of labor—between the good and the right—mainly as it appears in the context of Finite and Infinite Goods, but also with attention to the broader corpus of Adams's writings, particularly his work on Leibniz and the essays of his that have been gathered together in The Virtue of Faith. I argue that there is a creative tension in his work between his desire to secure an objective basis for ethics and his affirmation of the value of grace, a love that is not proportioned to the excellence of its object. This tension, I further argue, ought to be resolved in the direction of grace.     

THE CONCEPT OF CONTINUOUS CREATION PART I: HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY USE

The concept of continuous creation is now widely used in the context of reflections on the dialogue between science and religion. The first part of this research work seeks to understand its meaning through a twofold elaboration: (1) the historical setting of the three philosophical trends in which this concept was developed: scholastic (conservation), Cartesian (conservation through repetition of the creative act at each instant), and dynamic (interpreting the emergence of radical and contingent novelty in nature as a sign of the continuity of creation); (2) a philosophical and theological critique of the concept of continuous creation regarding the question of the relationship between change and creation, in the light of its highly polymorphous contemporary use, and, in opposition, its absence within the Catholic Magisterium. This work opens the field a further step toward reflection on a renewed concept of continuous creation.     

Direct Perceptual Access to Other Minds

It is sometimes claimed that we perceive people’s mental states in their expressive features. This paper clarifies the claim by contrasting two possible readings, depending on whether expression is conceived relationally or non-relationally. A crucial difference between both readings is that only a non-relational conception of expression ensures direct access to other minds. The paper offers an argument for a non-relational conception of expression, and therefore for the view that we directly perceive people’s mental states in their expressive features.     

The Solubility of Salt: A Divine Action Account

In the burgeoning literature on dispositions, solubility is a standard example. In this paper we give a rigorous theistic divine action account of the simple mechanism of the dissolving of salt, NaCl, into the ions Na⁺ and Cl^?. We explore this reaction in terms of an alternative view of divine action, Divine Compositionalism, which holds that the functioning of every physical, chemical, and biological mechanism in the universe is a manifesting complex disposition, which is nothing other than ways God acts according to plan.     

Evidence for a role of the responding agent in the joint compatibility effect

The present study explored the role of the responding agent in a social context. To do so, we developed a compatibility task with socially relevant but task-irrelevant stimuli (own face, neutral face, and a friend's face). Participants were required to perform naming responses to coloured diamonds, while the faces were presented as irrelevant stimuli. We observed faster responses in face–name compatible than in incompatible conditions. When the task was distributed among two friends, we observed a compatibility effect in a joint go/no-go condition, in which both participants performed their go/no-go tasks together. In contrast, no compatibility effect was obtained in an individual go/no-go condition. Further, the experiment showed that this joint compatibility effect was based on the compatibility between the irrelevant face and the responding agent. This result demonstrates that features of the responding agent play a crucial role in the joint compatibility effect.     

How is the Other Approached and Conceptualized in Terms of Schutz's Constitutive Phenomenology of the Natural Attitude?<Superscript>1</Superscript>

The problem of the other was one of the central problems for the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He investigated the other as the alter ego intensively in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in which he introduced the conceptions of “analogical apperception' and “pairing' as fundamental forms of “passive synthesis.' Although it is no doubt Husserl who investigated the other most seriously and intensively, there is anaporiain his theory of the other. If the other is an object of ego's intentional consciousness, the other turns out to be no more than a modification of the ego. In the face of such anaporia, some phenomenologists embarked upon inquiry into the other. This paper focuses primarily on Alfred Schutz's discussion of the “other' in general and about the “stranger' in particular.     

Technological Other/Quasi Other: Reflection on Lived Experience

This reflection focuses on lived experience with the Technological Other (Quasi-Other) while pursuing creative video and film activities. In the last decade work in the video and film industries has been transformed through digital manipulation and enhancement brought about by increasingly sophisticated computer technologies. The rules of the craft have not changed but the relationship the artist/editor experiences with these new digital tools has brought about increasingly interesting existential experiences in the creative process. How might this new way of being with technology change the craft and the crafter? Through a phenomenological understanding of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Don Ihde, and their contributions to the human-technology conversation, this essay moves to reveal the lived experiences of artists/editors who use computers to create by means of film and digital video formats. Exploring notions of lived space, lived body, lived time, and lived relation through the computer interface allows for digging deeper into inhabiting technology and experiencing the Technological Other.