The Neo‐Barthian Critique of Reinhold Niebuhr

The author notes an unclarity in David Novak's defense of Reinhold Niebuhr against Stanley Hauerwas's critique and identifies some issues left unsettled in the exchange between Novak and Hauerwas over Niebuhr's ethics. Specifically, the author proposes that the Barthian‐Hauerwasian communitarian rejection of Niebuhrian natural theology and natural law ignores the historical abuse of biblical theology in the German Christian response to the Nazis, fails to account for the fact of general moral revulsion against Nazism, and flirts itself with a conventionalist form of nihilism.     

I WALK THE LINE: COMMENT ON MIKAEL LEIDENHAG ON THEISTIC EVOLUTION AND INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Is theistic evolution (TE) a philosophically tenable position? Leidenhag argues in his article “The Blurred Line between Theistic Evolution and Intelligent Design” that it is not, since it, Leidenhag claims, espouses a view of divine action that he labels “natural divine causation” (NDC), which makes God explanatory redundant. That is, in so far as TE does not invoke God as an additional cause alongside natural causes, it is untenable. Theistic evolutionists should therefore “reject NDC and affirm a more robust notion of divine agency.” However, this will, Leidenhag claims, have the effect that theistic evolutionists “will move their position significantly closer to Intelligent Design,” and so the line between TE and intelligent design is (or ought to be?) blurred. If successful, the criticism by Leidenhag would be bad news for theists who want to take science seriously and good news for those scientistic atheists according to whom there simply is no scientifically respectable way of combining theism and modern natural science in an overarching worldview. So, is TE stuck between a rock (of redundancy) and a hard place (of pseudo-science)? No, at least not due to the criticism offered by Leidenhag—but maybe religious naturalism is?     

BUDDHISM,NATURALISM, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Owen Flanagan's important book The Bodhisattva's Brain presents a naturalized interpretation of Buddhist philosophy. Although the overall approach of the book is very promising, certain aspects of its presentation could benefit from further reflection. Traditional teachings about reincarnation do not contradict the doctrine of no self, as Flanagan seems to suggest; however, they are empirically rather implausible. Flanagan's proposed “tame” interpretation of karma is too thin; we can do better at fitting karma into a scientific worldview. The relationship between eudaimonist and utilitarian strands in Buddhist ethics is more complex than the book suggests. Flanagan is right to criticize incautious and imprecise claims that Buddhism will make practitioners happy. We can make progress by distinguishing between happiness in the sense of a Buddhist version of eudaimonia, and happiness in the sense of attitudinal pleasure. Doing so might result in an interpretation of Buddhist views about happiness that was simultaneously philosophically interesting, historically credible, and psychologically testable.     

自然主义：道家生命伦理的核心价值论证

自然主义是道家哲学最基本的立场,也是道家生命伦理的核心价值基础。它以自然理念为导向,以生死观、技术观、养生观和自由观为基本内容,提供了一套有关生命价值的系统性理论学说。对自然主义和人性自然观展开了充分的阐释和论证,充分挖掘了道家如何看待生命的独特生死自然观,并在此基础上对儒家和道家的生命伦理思想进行了对比分析。认为儒家的价值取向是人文,核心主题是社会伦理道德;而道家的价值取向是自然,核心主题是个体生命。这构成了道家区别于其他哲学流派的标志性特征。

     

Phenomenology and naturalism: a hybrid and heretical proposal

Abstract

In this paper I aim to develop a largely non-empirical case for the compatibility of phenomenology and naturalism. To do so, I will criticise what I take to be the standard construal of the relationship between transcendental phenomenology and naturalism, and defend a ‘minimal’ version of phenomenology that is compatible with liberal naturalism in the ontological register (but incompatible with scientific naturalism) and with weak forms of methodological naturalism, the latter of which is understood as advocating ‘results continuity’, over the long haul, with the relevant empirical sciences. Far from such a trajectory amounting to a Faustian pact in which phenomenology sacrifices its soul, I contend that insofar as phenomenologists care about reigning in the excesses of reductive versions of naturalism, the only viable way for this to be done is via the impure and hybrid account of phenomenology I outline here.     

Norms of judgement,naturalism, and normativism about content

David Papineau [1999. “Normativity and Judgement.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 73 (Sup. Vol.): 16–43.] argues that norms of judgement pose no special problem for naturalism, because all such norms of judgement are derived from moral or personal values. Papineau claims that this account of the normativity of judgement presupposes an account of content that places normativity outside the analysis of content, because in his view any accounts of content that place normativity inside the analysis of content cannot explain the normativity of judgement in the derivative way he proposes. Furthermore, he argues that normative accounts of content along those lines are independently problematic. In this paper I aim to respond to both objections, by arguing that normative accounts of content can be seen as naturalist accounts, even if they place normativity inside the analysis of content; and that normative accounts of content are compatible with a derivative account of norms of judgement of the sort Papineau advocates.     

Religion and rights: Is there still room for Christianity at the table?

Drawing on recent discussions about issues relating to sexual and reproductive rights in the Jamaican print and broadcast media, this article highlights the interplay between Christianity, activism and rights talk. This interplay is being framed in the local print media as a debate between two dominating hegemonic forces: on the one hand, between more ‘conservative’ and ‘fundamentalist’ Christian theological beliefs and, on the other hand, those who subscribe to what may be characterised as more ‘liberal secular fundamentalist’ viewpoints. This polarisation ignores some conciliatory scenarios that exist within other segments of Caribbean societies, theology included, that provide beneficial approaches to rights talk and work. The endeavours of some Jamaican church folks have converged with those of progressive right defenders, or, where such endeavours predate contemporary rights activism or have no direct contact with it, they might at least be viewed as benign by those who espouse such activism.     

A Naturalistic Look into Maddy's Naturalistic Philosophy of Mathematics

This paper discusses Penelope Maddy's (b.1950) naturalistic philosophy of mathematics,which is one of the most influential forms of post-Quinean naturalism in the philosophy of mathematics.Two defining features of Maddy's theory,namely the methodological autonomy of mathematics and the equivalence of Thin Realism and Arealism,are analyzed,and some criticisms of them are posed from within the naturalistic line of thought itself.In the course of this analysis and criticism,the paper will also consider Maddy's objections to the Quinean Indispensability Argument,which are the starting point of her own version of naturalism.     

Margolis as Columbia Naturalist

Is Joseph Margolis a member of the often neglected school of “Columbia naturalism”? Columbia naturalism promoted a distinctive non-reductive nationalism in mid-twentieth-century America. Inspired by pragmatism, and Dewey in particular, its members included Ernest Nagel, John Herman Randall, Joseph Blau, Herbert Schneider, and Justus Buchler. Margolis received his degree from Columbia in 1953. Neither his early work in aesthetics nor his mature attempt to justify pragmatic themes in an uncompromising dialogue with analytic and continental philosophy seems particularly “Columbian.” Neither does his radical endorsement of a kind of relativism. However, Margolis is after all some kind of naturalist. Furthermore, the Columbians shared a forgotten doctrine, called “objective relativism.” If the combination of naturalism and relativism is a Columbian fruit, Margolis may have has fallen closer to the tree than first appears.     

A Surfeit of Naturalism

Philosophers have nothing to lose, and much to gain, by paying close attention to developments in the natural sciences. This insight amounts to a case for a tempered, eclectic naturalism. But the case for naturalism is often overstated. We should not overestimate the heuristic benefits of close attention to scientists’ claims, nor should we give up on traditional “armchair” philosophical methods. We should not draw solely on the natural sciences (at the expense of the humanities) when seeking to enrich and discipline our philosophical theorising. Finally, philosophers should not shy away from criticising some scientists’ claims, at the same time as they learn from others.