Philosophy Commons^™

Between The Bounds Of Experience And Divine Intuition: Kant’S Epistemic Limits And Hegel’S Ambitions, James Kreines

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

Hegel seeks to overturn Kant's conclusion that our knowledge is restricted, or that we cannot have knowledge of things as they are in themselves. Understanding this Hegelian ambition requires distinguishing two Kantian characterizations of our epistemic limits: First, we can have knowledge only within the “bounds of experience”. Second, we cannot have knowledge of objects that would be accessible only to a divine intellectual intuition, even though the faculty of reason requires us to conceive of such objects. Hegel aims to drive a wedge between these two characterizations, showing that we can have knowledge beyond Kant's bounds of experience, yet …

Review: Shepherds After My Own Heart: Pastoral Traditions And Leadership In The Bible, Donald L. Fowler

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Vico’S New Science Of Interpretation: Beyond Philosophical Hermeneutics And The Hermeneutics Of Suspicion, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The article situates Vico's hermeneutical science of history between a hermeneutics of suspicion (Ricoeur, Habermas, Freud) and a redemptive hermeneutics (Gadamer, Benjamin). It discusses Vico's early writings and his ambivalent trajectory from Cartesian rationalism to counter-enlightenment historicist and critic of natural law reasoning. The complexity of Vico's thinking belies some of the popular treatments of his thought developed by Isaiah Berlin and others.

The Powers Of Silence: Cistercian Monasticism As A Radical Critique Of Information Age Epistemology, Brad Rubin

Undergraduate Review

No abstract provided.

“Once More Into The Breech…”, Dewey I. Dykstra

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Towards A Diagnostic Framework For Understanding Complex Situations, José J. Padilla, Andres Sousa-Poza, Arturo Tejada, Samuel Kovacic

VMASC Publications

This paper presents a theoretical framework for the concept of understanding and how it can be used for assessing complex situations. Understanding is presented as a cognitive process on how an individual perceives and represents a complex domain based on his/her own predispositions, and how he/she selects knowledge or what may not be knowledge based on the same predispositions towards finding a set of solutions for the situation. Predispositions, in this case, are based on his/her epistemological, ontological and teleological biases while the domain is represented by irreducible and transient conditions. The final outcome is the match or mismatch of …

On The Reliability Of Moral And Intellectual Virtues, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Review: Biblical Faith And Other Religions: An Evangelical Assessment, Michael S. Jones

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Review Of Lonergan's Quest: A Student Of Desire In The Authoring Of "Insight" By William A. Mathews, Richard Liddy

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.

Epistemology And The Wikipedia, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that is written and edited entirely by visitors to its website. I argue that we are misled when we think of it in the same epistemic category with traditional general encyclopedias. An empirical assessment of its reliability reveals that it varies widely from topic to topic. So any particular claim found in it cannot be relied on based on its source. I survey some methods that we use in assessing specific claims and argue that the structure of the Wikipedia frustrates them

The Impact Of The Reformation On The Fine Arts, John D. Wilsey

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Memorials 2006, James A. Borland

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Interiority And Authenticity: A Glossed Medieval History About Music And The Taste For Apples, Eyolf Østrem

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The article is an attempt at balancing between historical relativism and a fact-based historiography, with a point of departure in a theoretical discussion of the relationship between history and experience, and the author's personal experience of the Middle Ages, in search of an answer to the question: "Does it matter what the music of the Middle Ages sounded like when it was made?"

Exteriority And Authenticity: A Trope On Østrem’S “Interiority And Authenticity”: Author As Scholar & Artist, Nils Holger Petersen

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Østrem establishes an intimate connection between personal, individual experience - and memory - and the wider scope of a historical narrative basing his account among other things on Hayden White's thought. I will take my point of departure in the two following well-known statements from White's Tropics of Discourse:

• Many historians continue to treat their "facts" as though they were "given" and refuse to recognize, unlike most scientists, that they are not so much found as constructed by the kinds of questions which the investigator asks of the phenomena before him. It is the same notion of objectivity that …

In Defense Of The Objective Epistemic Approach To Argumentation, John Biro, Harvey Siegel

Philosophy Articles and Papers

In this paper we defend a particular version of the epistemic approach to argumentation. We advance some general considerations in favor of the approach and then examine the ways in which different versions of it play out with respect to the theory of fallacies, which we see as central to an understanding of argumentation. Epistemic theories divide into objective and subjective versions. We argue in favor of the objective version, showing that it provides a better account than its subjectivist rival of the central fallacy of begging the question. We suggest that the strengths of the objective epistemic theory of …

The Modal Gap: The Objective Problem Of Lessing's Ditch(Es) And Kierkegaard's Subjective Reply, Matthew A. Benton

SPU Works

This essay expands upon the suggestion that Lessing's infamous ‘ditch’ is actually three ditches: temporal, metaphysical, and existential gaps. It examines the complex problems these ditches raise, and then proposes that Kierkegaard's Fragments and Postscript exhibit a similar triadic organizational structure, which may signal a deliberate attempt to engage and respond to Lessing's three gaps. Viewing the Climacean project in this way offers an enhanced understanding of the intricacies of Lessing's rationalist approach to both religion and historical truth, and illuminates Climacus's subjective response to Lessing.

Review: The End Of Wisdom: A Reappraisal Of The Historical And Canonical Function Of Ecclesiastes, Donald L. Fowler

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

"Will A Man Rob God?" (Malachi 3:8): A Study Of Tithing In The Old And New Testaments, Andreas J. Kostenberger, David A. Croteau

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

Is tithing, that is, giving ten percent of one's income, obligatory for Christians? This first in a series of two articles investigates this question by studying all references to tithing in Scripture. The discussion commences with OT references to tithing prior to the giving of the Mosaic Law, then in the Mosaic Low, the historical, and the prophetic books. This is followed by a study of the three major NT passages on tithing. This article concludes that none of the OT or NT passages can legitimately be used to argue for the continuation of tithing in the new covenant period.

Review: Encountering The Divine: Theophany In Biblical Narrative, James A. Borland

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Problem Of Comparing Different Cultural Or Theoretical Frameworks: Davidson, Rorty, And The Nature Of Truth, Jeremy Barris

Humanities Faculty Research

In comparing very different cultural, theoretical, or methodological standpoints, the nature of truth itself becomes a problem. If the standpoints have different conceptions of truth, a comparative approach that respects both involves the contradiction of conflicting legitimate claims to truth. But if we reject this contradiction, we eliminate the possibility that standpoints can have legitimately different conceptions of truth. And with that we reject the sense of a genuine comparison in this respect, rather than a reading of one framework in the light of the other. Davidson and Rorty have mounted especially powerful arguments against the very sense of this …

Character, Reliability, And Virtue Epistemology, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

Standard characterizations of virtue epistemology divide the field into two camps: virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Virtue reliabilists think of intellectual virtues as reliable cognitive faculties or abilities, while virtue responsibilists conceive of them as good intellectual character traits. I argue that responsibilist character virtues sometimes satisfy the conditions of a reliabilist conception of intellectual virtue, and that consequently virtue reliabilists, and reliabilists in general, must pay closer attention to matters of intellectual character. This leads to several new questions and challenges for any reliabilist epistemology.

Review Of Duncan Pritchard, Epistemic Luck, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Review Of Michael Depaul & Linda Zagzebski, Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives From Ethics And Epistemology, Jason Baehr

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Pascal Was No Fideist, David J. Baggett

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Taking Facts Seriously–Again, William Twining

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Hormone Research As An Exemplar Of Underdetermination, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Debates about the underdetermination of theory by data often turn on specific examples. Many cases are invoked often enough that they become familiar, even well-worn. Here I consider one such commonplace: the connection between prenatal hormone levels and gender-linked childhood behavior. Since Helen Longino's original discussion of this case a decade-and-a-half ago, it has become become one of the stock examples of underdetermination. However, the case is not genuinely underdetermined. We can easily imagine a possible experiment to decide the question. The fact that we would not perform this experiment is a moral, rather than epistemic, point. Further, I argue …

Reports Relating To The Fifty-Sixth Annual Meeting Of The Society, James A. Borland

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Review: Systematic Theology: Prolegomena, James A. Borland

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Hints And Guesses: Discerning Value, Richard Liddy

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.

Cardinal Martini On Bernard Lonergan: Bernard Lonergan At The Service Of The Church, Richard Liddy

Department of Religion Publications

No abstract provided.