The Battle For Jerusalem: Marcel Dubois' Challenge To Roman Catholics, Israeli Jews, And Christian Zionists, Curtis Hutt

International Dialogue

For several decades, the face of Christian Zionism in Jerusalem was not the International Christian Embassy or John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel but a French/Israeli Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University—the Dominican priest, Fr. Marcel-Jacques Dubois. In this paper, Dubois’ once influential form of Christian Zionism is discussed. While few today outside of Israel and Rome are familiar with his brand of non-premillenial dispensationalist Christian Zionism, I will lay out the persuasive relevance and challenge of his work for those making claims on Jerusalem today.

Islamism And Islam, Dale Stover

International Dialogue

This book offers a concerted effort to provide a comprehensive and unmistakable definition for Islamism, whereas the other term in the title, Islam, is simply what is traditional or classical or taken for granted since little attention is given to defining it. The author lays out six features he considers to be characteristic elements of those contemporary Muslim movements associated with extremist beliefs and behaviors. A separate chapter is devoted to each of these six features of Islamism. They are described by the author in the preface as “its deeply reactionary vision of the world political order, its embrace of …

Meaningful And More Meaningful: A Modest Measure, Peter Baumann

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Ua68/11/1 Philosophy & Religion News, Vol. 7, No. 3, Wku Philosophy & Religion

WKU Administration Documents

WKU Philosophy & Religion newsletter regarding activities of faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Modal Logic And Ontological Arguments, Alex Yousif

Masters Theses

In this thesis I will evaluate various modal ontological arguments for the existence of God. I will evaluate Kurt Gödel’s modal ontological argument (as preserved by his student Dana Scott), and Anthony Anderson’s emendation of it. I will conclude that both Gödel’s argument and Anderson’s emendation fail. I then propose a revised version of C’Zar Bernstein’s ontological argument. I conclude that while this argument is not rationally compelling, it is more plausibly sound than not. Finally, I will demonstrate that some extant general objections to modal ontological arguments are unconvincing.

The Theology And Agency Of Love As The Substance Of Kingian Non-Violent Philosophy And Activism., Matthew Quainoo

Senior Honors Projects

The theology of Love focuses on King’s understanding of God as love:

A Research Abstract (Project Summary)

Problem: Almost 50 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., controversy continues to swirl around the motivational forces that inspired the nonviolence approach employed by King in his fight for equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. Some scholars argue that Kings was inspired by such advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha Shakyamuni. Others believe that Dr. King’s philosophy of nonviolence was an expression of the Christian theology of God …

Jesus And Tiberius: An Examination Of Source Reliability, Timothy B. Chrisman

Liberty Theological Review

Since the introduction to the critical method of studying the Old and New Testament in the nineteenth century, doubt has been thrown on the historical reliability of the biblical narrative accounts, especially the four Gospels. Yet, far less scrutiny and denigration have been applied to historical sources written during the time of the Roman Empire. A comparison, then, is proposed. It would be beneficial to compare the sources that detailed the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, namely, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the four sources which chronicled the life of Tiberius, emperor of the Roman Empire during …

The Logical Problem Of Evil And The Limited God Defense, Darren Hibbs

Quadrivium: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship

Formulated theories on the Logical Problem of Evil, the Evidential Problem of Evil and the Limited God Defense.

Non-Duality: Not One, Not Two, But Many (Editor's Introduction), Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

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Ua68/11/1 Potter College Of Arts & Letters Philosophy & Religion Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Publications created by and about the department of Philosophy & Religion.

Monotheism, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

James McGrath's contribution to the forthcoming edition, Vocabulary for the Study of Religion.

Military Genomic Testing: Proportionality, Expected Benefits, And The Connection Between Genotypes And Phenotypes, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

Mehlman and Li offer a framework for approaching the bioethical issues raised by the military use of genomics that is compellingly grounded in both the contemporary civilian and military ethics of medical research, arguing that military commanders must be bound by the two principles of paternalism and proportionality. I agree fully. But I argue here that this is a much higher bar than we may fully realize. Just as the principle of proportionality relies upon a thorough assessment of harms caused and military advantage gained, the use of genomic research, on Mehlman and Li's view, will require an accurate understanding …

Is Organismic Fitness At The Basis Of Evolutionary Theory?, Charles H. Pence, Grant Ramsey

Faculty Publications

Fitness is a central theoretical concept in evolutionary theory. Despite its importance, much debate has occurred over how to conceptualize and formalize fitness. One point of debate concerns the roles of organismic and trait fitness. In a recent addition to this debate, Elliott Sober argues that trait fitness is the central fitness concept, and that organismic fitness is of little value. In this paper, by contrast, we argue that it is organismic fitness that lies at the bases of both the conceptual role of fitness and its role as a measure of evolutionary dynamics.

Diseases, Patients And The Epistemology Of Practice: Mapping The Borders Of Health, Medicine And Care, Michael Loughlin, Robyn Bluhm, Jonathan Fuller, Stephen Buetow, Kirstin Borgerson, Benjamin R. Lewis, Brent M. Kious

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy at the bedside'? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions - about what we should do in any given situation - are embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case (metaphysics), what it …

Dividing Nature By The Joints, Chad Wiener

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Most scholars of Aristotle’s biology have accepted the view of D. M. Balme and Pierre Pellegrin that the History of Animals is devoid of any systematic classification of animals. I challenge this reading. I show that Aristotle can produce a taxonomy of animals kinds that are found in the essences of atomic species, or, to borrow from Plato, divide nature by the joints. I start from Aristotle’s positive views of division stated in APo. II.13–14 and how they imply a taxonomic order of a genus. I then develop my interpretation of how Aristotle can divide nature by the joints in …

Mullā Ṣadrā On The Efficacy Of Prayer, Sayeh Meisami

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This article presents the manner in which Mullā Ṣadrā explains the influence of prayer (duʿā) on the world, drawing as he does on Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas against the backdrop of his own dynamic metaphysical psychology. Mullā Ṣadrā eventually distances himself from Ibn Sīnā’s position on the passive nature of prayer, and instead opts for Ibn ʿArabī’s reading of the intimate divine–human interplay in prayer itself. In doing so, Mullā Ṣadrā provides a formulation of prayer in which the supplicant plays an active role in eliciting the divine response to her prayer. For Mullā Ṣadrā, prayer therefore fashions the …

Recent Publications

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Multi-Cultural Model Of Relational Personhood And Implementing Philosophy For Children (P4c): A Refusal Of The Illusion Of Individualism In America, Aron J. Burnett

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to influence a re-evaluation of self conceptions in America in order to influence an alternative relational understanding of one’s self and others. This thesis begins based on the premise that individualism is a prominent aspect of American societies meaning its member’s understandings of their selves are self-centered, often non-empathetic, and in general more concerned with their own lives than that of others. The first half of this thesis is dedicated analyzing the American situation through an analysis of the sources of individualism and proving that individualism is actually an illusion that individuals falsely believe …

Quasi-Subjectivity And Ethics In Non-Modernity, Justin T. Simpson

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The inspiration behind this philosophical endeavor is an ethical one: interested in what it means to flourish as a human being – how to live well and authentically. Similar to medicine and how the ability to prescribe the appropriate treatment depends on first making a diagnosis, the focus of this work will to be understand the human condition and the ways in which subjectivity, one’s sense of self, is constituted. Given the general dissatisfaction with the modern metaphysical picture of the world, which analyzes the world in terms of the mutually exclusive and completely separate categories of nature/objects and society/subjects, …

Humorous Developments: Ridicule, Recognition, And The Development Of Agency, Kevin Andrew Afflerbach

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I examine various theories of humor to establish an account of the functional roles of humor in social interaction and agentive development. These roles are integrated into a view of agency developed by G.H. Mead, and further refined by the recognition theory of Axel Honneth. The core thesis is: Humor is under-examined as an aspect of human interaction, because it plays such an integral role in individual agency and social development. Understanding how humor works helps to explain how agents are formed through the internalization of the expectations of others via processes of recognition, either positively or …

The Difference Principle In Rawls: Pragmatic Or Infertile?, Farzaneh Esmaeili

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis attempts to provide a coherent view of the idea of ‘justice as fairness’ and, in particular, the ‘difference principle’ expressed by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. The main focus of the thesis is the difference principle and its limits. Rawls’s conception of ‘justice as fairness’ is based on the thought experiment of the ‘original position’ in which people, considered as free and equal, deliberate under an imagined ‘veil of ignorance,’ i.e. not knowing which social roles or status they would occupy in their society. Rawls then argues that in the original position people come up with …

Moore's Paradox In Speech: A Critical Survey, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is raining but you don't believe that it is raining. Imagine accepting this claim. Then you are committed to saying ‘It is raining but I don't believe that it is raining’. This would be an ‘absurd’ thing to claim or assert, yet what you say might be true. It might be raining, while at the same time, you are completely ignorant of the state of the weather. But how can it be absurd of you to assert something about yourself that might be true of you? This is Moore's paradox as it occurs in speech. What is the source …

Moore's Paradox In Thought: A Critical Survey, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is raining but you don't believe that it is raining. Imagine silently accepting this claim. Then you believe both that it is raining and that you don't believe that it is raining. This would be an ‘absurd’ thing to believe, yet what you believe might be true. It might be raining, while at the same time, you are completely ignorant of the state of the weather. But how can it be absurd of you to believe something about yourself that might be true of you? This is Moore's paradox as it occurs in thought. Solving the paradox consists in …

Contextual Evidence: A Collection Of Vignettes, Tess Pieragostini (Class Of 2016)

PTRS Undergraduate Publications

The perfect curve of a circle, gently overlapping the curve of another. Two primary shapes, intersecting to form an almond of sorts. Segregating. Separating the things that are just so dissimilar that they cannot share space. Good and bad, black and white, rich and poor: the dichotomies that fuel the human condition. These things seem absolute. It is one or the other. Yet sometimes, you get the almond. The commonalities. The proportionately smaller region of the diagram. Those rare spaces that illustrate two diverging concepts on common ground. Those grey, ambiguous areas that eclipse the two circles entirely.

Being Hindu In The American South: Hindu Nationalist Discourse In A Diaspora Community, Daniel J. Shouse

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

According to a recent Pew poll approximately 97% of all Hindus live in the countries of India and Nepal. However, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Hindus living in other parts of the world. Across the United States, Hindu temples are joining the religious landscape of the country. They are often greeted as signifiers of a “model minority” by the mainstream because of Asian American economic success. However, as religious and racial minorities, Indian immigrants and Indian Americans just as frequently face ignorance and discrimination. This rejection by mainstream society, combined with a desire to reconnect with …

Tradition And Change: Two Buddhisms In The Bible Belt Sharing Common Ground Through Adaptation, Jonathan Spence

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines how some American and Burmese forms of Buddhism in the Bible Belt today share common ground through a process of adaptation. Exploring tradition and change, I reveal how change often requires adaptation. Utilizing ethnographic research conducted in south central Kentucky and middle Tennessee, I argue that some Burmese and American forms of Buddhism in the Bible Belt experience change through three aspects of adaptation. These consist of reduction, syncretism, and preservation. I explore these three aspects through interviews and observations of immigrant Burmese Buddhist monks and American Buddhist meditation leaders. In doing so, I also examine the …

Americanized Catholicism? A Response To Thomas Schärtl, Dennis M. Doyle

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

I stand in fundamental agreement with what Thomas Schärtl has said in his article describing recent trends in US Catholicism. I am a lifelong Catholic and a lifelong Democrat. I felt personally distressed and discouraged by the support given to Mitt Romney and the Republicans by some leading US Catholic bishops. Most of this support may have technically passed the legal test of being nonpartisan, but undeniably it functioned in a partisan manner, as did the attacks launched on President Obama in the midst of a campaign to defend religious liberty. Schärtl’s analysis of these trends as reflecting marketing strategies …

Epistemological Realism And Onto-Relations, Max Lewis Edward Andrews

Liberty Theological Review

The traditional concept of knowledge is a justified true belief. The bulk of contemporary epistemology has focused primarily on that task of justification. Truth seems to be a quite obvious criterion—does the belief in question correspond to reality? My contention is that the aspect of ontology is far too separated from epistemology. This onto-relationship of between reality and beliefs require the epistemic method of epistemological realism. This is not to diminish the task of justification. I will then discuss the role of inference from the onto-relationships of free invention and discovery and whether it is best suited for a foundationalist …

Neo-Molinism: A Reappraisal And Defense, Elijah Hess

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the cogency of Gregory Boyd's so-called "neo-Molinist" account of the openness of the future. In particular, it is an investigation into whether Boyd's Square of Opposition for future contingents provides a model of reality for free-will theists that can preserve classical conceptions of (i) omniscience, (ii) logic, and (iii) morally significant freedom. In what follows, I argue that it can.

Jian Ghomeshi And Secular Sexualities, Justin Kh Tse

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The public conversation swirling around Jian Ghomeshi’s termination from the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) is a grand exercise in secular sexualities.It begins with his Facebook post. Explaining that he was fired because of his private BDSM consensual acts with an ex-girlfriend, he castigates the CBC for both acknowledging that his acts were consensual and then wrongfully pulling the plug on him because he would serve as a poor role model.