bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Enlightenment
Authors: Tarantino Giovanni
Published: November 2021

This entry on the Enlightenment explores European thought on philosophy, religion, and theology during the eighteenth century. It surveys recent debates on the “reified opposition” between Enlightenment and religion and suggests that the Enlightenment needs to be defined more broadly than was once thought.
Epicurus and Epicureanism
Authors: Purinton Jeffrey
Published: November 2021

Epicurus (341–270bce), despite his atomist ontology, was an avowed polytheist. He is most famous for his negative theology: the gods are not providential. His positive theology is a matter of controversy, with “realists” insisting that he believed in real live gods and “idealists” insisting that he saw the gods as mere idealized thought‐constructs. This entry defends a dualist version of idealism: the gods have two natures, one that is observer‐dependent and one that is not, and only as the former are they real live blessed immortal beings.
Erasmus, Desiderius
Authors: MacPhail Eric
Published: November 2021

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1460s–1536) of Rotterdam was an editor, translator, and commentator of the Christian Bible, the Church Fathers, and the poets, philosophers, and historians of classical antiquity. In all his scholarship and correspondence, he was an earnest and principled advocate of peace and concord within the Christian church. He did not prevail in all his conflicts with conservative theologians and intransigent reformers, but he did leave an enduring monument in his new translation, edition, and commentary of the New Testament.
Eschatology
Authors: Taliaferro Charles
Published: November 2021

“Eschatology” refers principally to the endpoint of human history on a cosmic scale, but it also addresses questions of life after death for individual persons. This entry addresses the significance of eschatology for ethics and the problem of evil, death and personal identity, the ontology of space, and the philosophy of nature.
Eternity and Timelessness of God
Authors: Hasker William
Published: November 2021

This entry compares the two main views of eternity: eternity as timelessness, and eternity as everlasting time, pointing out advantages and disadvantages of each. There is also a discussion of four‐dimensionalism as a theory of time, and its relation to divine timelessness.
Ethics and Civil Society
Authors: Langerak Edward
Published: November 2021

This entry first discusses morality and ethics, especially as they are expressed in a pluralistic society, and considers different approaches to the possibility of consensus on basic morality and human rights. Second, it discusses civil society and how it relates to state coercion and market pressures, distinguishing different concepts of civil society, including civil society as associational life, as the public sphere, and as social civility. Finally, it discusses the social and political issues that arise when moral commitments, especially those integrated with distinctive religious or ideological outlooks, motivate discussions and actions in a pluralistic civil society. The latter issues include whether citizens in the public sphere should restrain themselves from using controversial moral and religious beliefs when advocating for legislation or political candidates, as well as how a civil society accommodates those who have conscientious objections to majority legislation.
Ethics of Belief
Authors: Jenkin Zoe , Mandelbaum Eric
Published: November 2021

The ethics of belief concerns the norms that govern beliefs, believers, and belief‐forming capacities. Although the question is a broad epistemological one that marries topics of practical and theoretical rationality, in practice much of the debate has concerned the philosophy of religion, and whether we ought to believe in God. Key issues in the debate include whether it is ever permissible to form beliefs that don't perfectly match one's evidence, whether one's pragmatic reasons ought to influence one's beliefs, and how much control we have over our belief‐forming processes.
Eudaemonist Ethics
Authors: Lauinger William
Published: November 2021

The label “eudaemonist ethics” can be reasonably applied to any ethical theory wherein the Greek concept of
eudaimonia
plays a central role. This entry very briefly discusses some of the different substantive accounts of
eudaimonia
that were advanced by ancient philosophers. Then it homes in on Aristotelian ethical theories, paying attention both to the task of making informative claims about
eudaimonia
(i.e. “the good”) and to the task of making informative claims about practically rational action (i.e. “the right”). Aristotle's own ethical views are discussed, and so too are some of the views of contemporary Aristotelian philosophers such as Rosalind Hursthouse, Julia Annas, Richard Kraut, and Alasdair MacIntyre.
Euthyphro's Dilemma
Authors: Benn Piers
Published: November 2021

Euthyphro's Dilemma is that of whether God commands what is morally right because it is right, or whether it is morally right because God commands it. The first horn seems to make God's commands irrelevant to moral rightness. The second horn seems to make God's commands arbitrary. This entry explores how theists might rescue themselves from the implications of the dilemma, especially with reference to a modified version of the divine command theory. It suggests that if moral requirements are necessary and not contingent, a good God cannot fail to command what is right. However, this leaves open the question: in virtue of what is God good?
Evil and Suffering
Authors: Bishop John
Published: November 2021

“Evil” in a generic sense is logically opposite to “good.” In the context of salvific religion, evil is more specifically whatever
opposes
the good, where the good is what categorically ought to be – namely, the fulfilment of the “end” (
telos
) of human existence and reality as a whole. Suffering is evil only when it displaces, or obstructs the potential for realizing, the good‐that‐ought‐to‐be. To meet existential problems of evil and suffering, a salvific religious worldview seeks to justify hopeful persisting commitment to the pursuit of its high ethical ideals. It is a challenge to understand how, given the facts about evil, the beliefs that sustain that justification – such as beliefs about evil's status in creation and the nature of divine saving action – can possibly be true. A central contribution to resolving this intellectual challenge is made by the traditional theist doctrine that evil is always “privation” of the good.
Evil as a Problem in Nontheistic Contexts
Authors: Perkins Franklin
Published: November 2021

Across almost all world religions, one finds the belief that our values are part of the structure of the world and that they ultimately determine our fate, so that good people end up rewarded and bad people are punished. Such a claim has no intrinsic connection to theism, and the fact that bad things sometimes happen to good people or some bad people end up with flourishing lives threatens any of these views. This entry tracks responses to this basic problem across a number of traditions, showing the broader religious significance of the problem of evil.
Faith
Authors: McKaughan Daniel J. , Howard‐Snyder Daniel
Published: November 2021

We examine what faith is, its potential value, and when it is rational. From among the many uses of “faith,” we identify three core phenomena of theoretical interest. We then discuss the relation of faith to belief, doubt, and other cognitive states and sketch an account of faith before considering when faith can be rational and when an understanding of faith can make a practical difference to a life well lived.
Feuerbach, Ludwig
Authors: Deranty Jean‐Philippe
Published: November 2021

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) is one of the most influential thinkers in the Western tradition of the philosophy of religion. He is particularly well known for having developed the first modern “projection‐theory” of religious belief. This theory is complex and contains several psychological and cultural layers. It directly anticipates later famous diagnostic criticisms of religion, such as those by Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud.
Fideism
Authors: Aho Karl , Evans C. Stephen
Published: November 2021

Fideism is the view that religious faith should not be completely determined by reason. The ways in which fideists relate faith to reason are essential for understanding their views. Some fideists are irrationalists, who claim that religious beliefs should be exempt from rational scrutiny and the need to account for evidence. After recounting this position, we consider fideists who recognize a legitimate role for reason, a position we call responsible fideism. We distinguish three ways responsible fideists relate faith to reason: as independent of reason, above reason, or “against” reason, where “reason” is taken in a perspectival manner to refer to dominant human patterns of thinking that conflict with faith.
Freud, Sigmund
Authors: Thornton Stephen
Published: November 2021

This entry deals with Sigmund Freud's (1856–1939) attempts to provide a naturalistic account of religion enhanced by insights and theoretical constructs derived from the discipline of psychoanalysis which he had pioneered. It charts the trajectory of his thought from
Totem and Taboo
(in
Imago
1913; in book form 1919), through
The Future of an Illusion
(1927) and
Civilization and Its Discontents
(1930) to
Moses and Monotheism
(1939), focusing in particular on the parallels drawn by Freud between religious belief and neurosis and on his attempts to extend the psychoanalytical account of the father complex from individual infantile development to the social order.
Gilbert of Poitiers
Authors: Valente Luisa
Published: November 2021

Gilbert of Poitiers (Gilbertus Pictavensis, Porreta, Porretanus; after 1085–1154) was a master of arts and theology at Chartres and Paris. He was a profound and original thinker, famous in his time for the complexity and boldness of his philosophical theology. His most important work is a Commentary on the
Opuscula sacra
of Boethius. He provoked both violent disapproval and great enthusiasm. Brought to trial for heresy in Reims in 1148, he came out of it without being condemned. Through his followers, the Porretans, he exercised a significant influence on the theology of the second half of the twelfth century.
Gnosticism
Authors: Taliaferro Charles
Published: November 2021

Gnosticism emerged in the late first century
ce
, reflecting a host of religious and philosophical influences from Plato and Neoplatonism to Hellenized Judaism. While “Gnosticism” encompasses a wide scope of teachings, a common theme is the evil or wickedness of the material cosmos, which is the creation of a lesser god or demiurge. There is a transcendent God beyond this world.
Pneumatics
or spiritual people can come to an emancipated relationship, being liberated from the forces governing the material world, by being united or aligned with the superior God (or the One) through an interior illumination or
gnosis
. Gnosticism challenged the early Christian church, as theologians sought to affirm, against the Gnostics, the goodness of creation and the reality and goodness of the incarnation of God as Jesus of Nazareth.
Great Perfection (Tibetan Buddhism and Bon)
Authors: Klein Anne Carolyn
Published: November 2021

Dzokchen (Great Perfection or Great Completeness) is a Tibetan complex of esoteric meditations drawn from a large body of poetry, philosophy, and compiled oral instructions. Called “complete” partly because all other practices are included in its purview, some form of Dzokchen is present in Tibet beginning perhaps as early as the late eighth century, and grows more systematized during the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. Both Nyingma Buddhists and the Bon traditions regard Dzokchen as the pinnacle of their teachings.

Dzokchen emphasizes the primordial and ubiquitous presence of primordial wisdom which is simply there of its own accord (
rang byung ye shes
), an irreducible and knowing presence (
rig pa
), variously described as the ground (
gzhi
), true nature (
gnas lugs
), and stainless source (
dbyings
) of everything. Gaining direct experience of this through its unique meditation practices is core to Dzokchen. Finally, everything is recognized as an unbounded wholeness (
nyag gcig
), the intimate play of the three Buddha dimensions (
kāya
).
Hadot, Pierre
Authors: Cremonesi Laura
Published: November 2021

Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) was a French philologist and a historian of ancient philosophy. He researched widely on Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic philosophy and on Latin Patristics, and he also developed an original philosophical mode of thought which puts contemporary and ancient philosophy into dialogue with each other. At the core of his philosophy is the concept of spiritual exercises, which allows Hadot to gain a better understanding of ancient philosophical texts and to interpret ancient philosophy as a way of life. For Hadot, this definition of philosophy still has a relevance and, via a number of figures (Montaigne, Goethe, Nietzsche, Bergson, Thoreau) it has traveled from antiquity to the present day.
Hartshorne, Charles
Authors: Dombrowski Daniel
Published: November 2021

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) was similar to medieval philosophers in that he developed a philosophy of religion that was theocentric in character. This is despite the fact that he is famous (or infamous) for criticizing the metaphysics of substance found in medieval thinkers. He defended the rationality of theism from the 1920s until his death early in the twenty‐first century. He was almost alone in doing so among philosophers in the English‐speaking world for much of this period. Hartshorne is also well known for being largely responsible for the rediscovery of St. Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God. It can be argued, however, that his theory regarding the
actuality
of God (i.e.
how
God exists) is his greatest contribution to philosophy of religion, rather than his detailed arguments for the
existence
of God. In classical theism, God is seen as supreme, unchanging being. By way of partial contrast, in Hartshorne's neoclassical, process theism, God is supreme becoming in which there is a factor of continuity that constitutes God's being. God
always changes
and both words are needed. Many contemporary philosophers and theologians understand God as changing as a result of Hartshorne's philosophy of religion.
Hermeneutics and Interpretation
Authors: Casey Patrick J.
Published: November 2021

Hermeneutics means interpretation. While originally hermeneutics was concerned with the interpretation of texts, it has since broadened into a philosophical analysis of interpretation conceived as the art of understanding in all its forms. Contemporary hermeneutics is best thought of as a family of related philosophical themes. Accordingly, six such themes are characterized: the suspicion of the dichotomy between self and world; the belief that all inquiry is interpretive; the prominence given to the historical nature of human beings; the emphasis on the importance of dialogue and conversation; the conviction that access to truth is not limited to method; and the notion that understanding involves self‐understanding. Next, the origin of these themes is discussed by way of a historical overview of the development of hermeneutics. Finally, major objections to contemporary hermeneutics are presented along with brief rejoinders.
Hobbes, Thomas
Authors: Lloyd S.A.
Published: November 2021

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) argued that the stability of Christian commonwealths depends essentially on subjects' holding correct views about their religious duties. Erroneous views about the authority of private conscience or about the locus of religious interpretive authority create obstacles to political stability that no amount of coercive force can overcome.
Holiness
Authors: MacSwain Robert
Published: November 2021

Holiness is a central concept in the religious traditions of the world, as well as in academic theology and religious studies, but it is surprisingly absent from standard discussions in philosophy of religion. This entry presents the religious roots of holiness, surveys the philosophical discussion from Kant to Otto, considers more recent contributions from phenomenological and analytic philosophers, and concludes with the idea of human holiness as evidence for God. While the emphasis is on Judaism and Christianity, given their influence on Western philosophy of religion, the general cross‐religious significance of holiness is considered as well.
Idealism, British
Authors: Taliaferro Charles
Published: November 2021

British Idealism flourished in Great Britain from the last third of the nineteenth century to the first third of the twentieth. This entry sketches some of their common positions about ultimate reality and value. There is a brief overview of four British idealists: Thomas Hill Green, Francis Herbert Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet, and J.M.E. McTaggart. One of their legacies is the importance of community over against narrow individualism and the abiding value to be found in caring for other persons.
Incarnation
Authors: Yang Eric
Published: November 2021

The doctrine of the incarnation maintains that God the Son became human, having both divine and human attributes. This seems to yield a logical problem that God the Son possesses pairs of incompatible properties. This entry focuses on several recent attempts to show that the doctrine of the incarnation is not logically inconsistent while remaining orthodox. There is also the issue of whether there is any reason to accept that the incarnation actually happened, and one argument will be presented along with some criticism.
Islam
Authors: Farimani Mohammad Motahari
Published: November 2021

One of the most reliable ways to understand Islam is in light of the verses of the Qurʾān, which is the fundamental source in which all Islamic teachings are grounded. Accordingly, this entry briefly elaborates on the three main areas of Islamic teachings – doctrine, ethics, and law – and clarifies how they relate to the Islamic worldview. An elucidation of the integral role of the intellect, the heart, and justice in Islam, and their relation to the three aforementioned primary components of Islam follows. This paves the way for a discussion of the two types of responses put forth by Islamic scholars in the face of the challenges posed by modernity on various Islamic issues. Finally, a number of Qurʾānic verses that can help shed light on subjects that are of interest in the contemporary philosophy of religion brings this entry to an end.
Jaina Philosophy and Jainism
Authors: Gorisse Marie‐Hélène
Published: November 2021

Jainism, one of the main philosophico‐religious traditions of India, is a path of salvation in which ethical and metaphysical considerations go hand in hand. This entry presents first, Jain metaphysics, an atomist and dualist conception of the world in which the nature of the self, the nature of karmic matter, as well as their principles of association are taught; second, Jain ethics, which consists of practices focused on nonviolence, non‐absolutism, and non‐attachment, which aims to disentangle the self and karmic matter and which enables one to reach omniscience; third, the non‐onesidedness attitude at the core of Jain theory and meta theory of knowledge and its philosophical implications.
James, William
Authors: Bush Stephen S.
Published: November 2021

William James (1842–1910) is one of the most influential figures in the history of American religious thought. His defense of the rationality of religious belief and his attention to the experiential dimension of religion were enormously significant in his day and remain so in ours. Three features of James's philosophy of religion are especially noteworthy: his argument that religious belief is permissible, despite the absence of compelling evidence in support; his methodological focus on individuals and their religious experiences; and his account of the motivational importance of religion.
Japanese Philosophy of Religion
Authors: Carter Robert E.
Published: November 2021

Religion in Japan is multi‐faceted and draws from two primary sources: Shintō and Buddhism. Japan's early indigenous cults together with Buddhist sources became Shintō, and while it eschews theory and intellectualization, it serves as a major stream of culture and its practices. Buddhism already flourishing in China before coming to Japan became the other major cultural influence.

In addition to Shintō, the work of Nishida Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime of the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, Keiji Nishitani's Zen‐inspired religious philosophy, and the dramatic “spiritual atheism” of Hisamatsu Shin'ichi are considered in some detail. What emerges from all of these traditions is that they considered direct experience and not belief to be paramount. Religious experience and not theory or belief is the heart of religion in Japan.
Jaspers, Karl
Authors: Weidmann Bernd
Published: November 2021

Karl Jaspers's (1883–1969) philosophical thinking was challenged by revelation from the beginning. With his metaphysics he tried to articulate philosophical faith as an alternative to religious faith. But in the time of National Socialism, when he and his Jewish wife were driven into social isolation, Jaspers developed a more differentiated notion of revelation. This tension between metaphysics and revelation constitutes the enduring relevance of his thought.
Jayantabhaṭṭa
Authors: Graheli Alessandro
Published: November 2021

Jayantabhaṭṭa was a Kashmirian philosopher active in the ninth century. He belonged to the tradition of Nyāya (logic and epistemology) but also contributed on rational theology, extensively writing on the definition of the self and of God, on liberation, as well as on the epistemology of sacred scriptures. He was a versatile author, known for his eloquent and lucid Sanskrit style. His writings are of great historical and philosophical relevance, especially due to the accuracy with which he is known to present the ideas of his own tradition and of rival schools. Consequently, Jayantabhaṭṭa is among the most studied authors in present‐day South Asian studies.
Jewish Philosophy
Authors: Kavka Martin
Published: November 2021

This entry opens by going through the customary difficulties in giving an introduction to Jewish philosophy: the term is an academic category and not one native to Judaism, and its very phrasing unnecessarily casts “Jewish philosophy” as fraught between particularist and universalist leanings. It then turns away from these problems, and tells a story not about what Jewish philosophy is, but about the good that Jewish philosophy can do, by introducing Jewish philosophy as a discipline that inculcates in its readers the virtue of a self's being plastic or adaptable.
Jung, Carl Gustav
Authors: Griffith‐Dickson Gwen
Published: November 2021

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychoanalyst who had a considerable interest in religion. His contribution was not philosophical; he was unremarkably Kantian in his epistemological conviction that the existence of God would be unknowable as a thing‐in‐itself. After an early Freudian stance that religion was a projected father complex, he came to view religion as having an undeniable psychological truth. Religion's value lies in its power for psychic integration and psychotherapeutic healing.
Kant, Immanuel
Authors: Trullinger Joseph
Published: November 2021

This entry provides an overview of the compatibility, in Immanuel Kant's (1724–1804) view, between religion and reason. After an introductory section on the duality of Kant's view, the next section discusses the implications of Kant's epistemology for his stance on religion. The following section centers on how Kant takes morality to constitute the core of religion. The final section discusses Kant's ecclesiology and its importance for recent scholarship on Kant.
Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye
Authors: Hough Sheridan
Published: November 2021

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855) created a vast and dazzling philosophical and religious authorship; many of these texts are attributed to pseudonyms distinct from Kierkegaard's own voice. Existential philosophers rightly claim him as their founding thinker; religionists and theologians focus on the heart of Kierkegaard's enterprise, the analysis of the Christian self. Kierkegaard is concerned about the meaning of a person's life, materially realized; that meaning is established when a person becomes a “self” by taking a stand, through “infinite passion,” on the contradictory dimensions that constitute a human being. Kierkegaard's authorship can be understood as depicting several attempts at becoming a self: the “aesthetic,” “ethical,” and “religious” stages (or “spheres of existence”) respectively put pleasure, choice, and a devotion to the eternal at the center of a person's life. Faith, an infinite passion for one's own unique vocation, becomes the existential solution to our temporal and finite human condition.
Knowledge and Faith
Authors: Long Todd R.
Published: November 2021

An enduring philosophical question is whether deliverances of religious or “sanctifying” faith, which is central to Christianity, can count as either propositional knowledge or acquaintance knowledge. The term “faith” is ambiguous, affording various theories, some of which emphasize
cognitivist
features such as belief or acceptance, whereas others emphasize
noncognitivist
features such as emotion, trust, commitment, or hope. Some belief‐centric accounts of sanctifying faith allow faith's deliverances to be candidates for propositional knowledge but are subject to defeaters. Some cognitivist and some noncognitivist accounts of faith do not allow for propositional knowledge, but some of them are immune to epistemic criticism. Complex, diachronic process accounts of sanctifying faith show the most promise not only for capturing the range and nuances of the Christian faith worth having, but also for explaining how someone could have both propositional knowledge of religious propositions and acquaintance knowledge of the divine.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
Authors: Strickland Lloyd
Published: November 2021

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was a polymath who claimed that, despite his achievements in fields such as law, mathematics, languages, and various areas of science, his chief concern was in fact theology. In an attempt to combat freethinking and atheism, he envisaged developing a robust natural theology which could support traditional religious belief against the objections of opponents and even win round nonbelievers by demonstrating the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. Arguably, Leibniz's most enduring contributions to philosophy of religion are his cosmological proof, which explains why the world exists at all, and his theodicy, which explains why the world is like it is. These are the focus of this entry.
Lewis, Clive Staples
Authors: Goetz Stewart
Published: November 2021

This entry contains a brief summary of Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis's life (1898–1963) and equally brief treatments of the central ideas in his philosophy of religion: naturalism, the argument from reason, mental‐to‐mental and mental‐to‐physical causation, miracles, death to self and the meaning of life, free will, the soul and its contingency as evidence for God's existence, the argument from desire, and the problem of evil.
Lombard, Peter
Authors: Inglis John
Published: November 2021

Peter the Lombard (c. 1095–1160), bishop of Paris, wrote a systematic presentation of theology, the
Sentences
(1156–1158), which became an influential textbook at emerging universities into the Reformation and shaped philosophical and theological reflection in the Latin West. Being clear about Peter's religious concerns helps to clarify the shape and purpose of philosophical discussions in the late Middle Ages.
Longchen Rabjampa
Authors: Kapstein Matthew T.
Published: November 2021

Longchen Rabjampa (1308–1363/4) is widely considered to have been the leading figure in the intellectual history of the Nyingmapa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. An adept of the Great Perfection (Dzokchen) system of meditation, he blended this source of spiritual inspiration with a remarkable command of both classical Buddhist philosophy and refined literary style. His many writings cover the entire range of Buddhist doctrine, with particular attention to Yogācāra and Madhyamaka thought, the question of Buddha‐nature, and the esoteric teachings of the Buddhist tantras.
Mackie, John Leslie
Authors: Philipse Herman
Published: November 2021

The Australian philosopher J.L. Mackie (1917–1981) made significant contributions to (meta‐)ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and the philosophy of religion. At least two of his six books,
Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
(1977) and
The Miracle of Theism
(1982), became classics in their field. This entry on Mackie is devoted to his last book, in which he develops a convincing case for atheism.
Madhyamaka
Authors: Oetke† Claus
Published: November 2021

The expression “Madhyamaka” designates a tradition of thought stemming from works (allegedly) written by a person called “Nāgārjuna” (fl. c. 200ce), who seized ideas associated with the so‐called Prajñāpāramitā‐literature that figured in the rise of Mahāyāna (“Great Vehicle”)‐Buddhism. In terms of content, Madhyamaka advocates a position succinctly expressed by the catchphrase “Everything is empty.” Under a suitable interpretation, this entails four characteristic propositions: (i) that Madhyamaka represents in some sense a “middle way”; (ii) that there is a distinction between a mundane, dissimulating truth (“conventional truth”), and a genuine, ultimate truth; (iii) that no existents are provided with an “essence” (svabhāva); (iv) that the notions of dependent origination, the middle way, and emptiness basically amount to the same.

After addressing some terminological issues and summarizing the history of Madhyamaka, this entry addresses content‐related matters, focusing mainly on: (i) problems of interpretation, treated in terms of general types of attested exegesis; (ii) textual data that ought to be accounted for by any interpretation; and (iii) the question of Madhyamaka's possible relevance for a philosophy of religion. The exposition abstains from a more detailed account of the highly divergent and contradicting exegeses advanced in the literature.
Marx, Karl
Authors: Boer Roland
Published: November 2021

This entry analyzes Karl Marx's (1818–1883) key contributions to the philosophy of religion, entailing his personal perspective, his explicit statements, and the transformation of the idea of the fetish in relation to his analysis of capitalism.
Medieval Philosophy, Jewish Contribution
Authors: De Souza Igor H.
Published: November 2021

Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages is the fruit of the interaction between various philosophical streams and the Jewish religious canon. A number of Jewish philosophers sought to harmonize philosophy and revelation, leading to a reconception of Judaism as a philosophical religion. Under this view, religious commandments are a form of training of one's matter, which is seen as negative. Others depart from this view, emphasizing the divine origin of the commandments and a positive view of matter. While most advocate a strong version of free will in relation to the commandments, there are also significant deterministic views. Religious language proved a matter of contention: Maimonides emphasizes the inadequacy of language to speak of God, and Gersonides takes an opposite view, allowing for limited positive knowledge of God. Jewish philosophy develops a singular view of religious texts as multi‐layered, containing both a surface meaning and a deeper philosophical meaning.
Mencius
Authors: King Richard
Published: November 2021

The
Mencius
is a text which, since the eleventh century
ce,
has counted in China among the four books of Confucianism, which then lasted until the abolition of the examination system for scholar officials at the beginning of the twentieth century: the text stems from Meng Ke (also known as Mengzi, Mencius), who traveled in present‐day northeastern China, around 320
bce
, when he was already well advanced in age. On the one hand, traditional religious practices form the background to his debates with rulers, and on the other hand he regards the business of ruling well, that is, in the interest of the ruled, and the enhancement of character, as service to the sky.
Mīr Dāmād
Authors: Rizvi Sajjad
Published: November 2021

Mīr Dāmād (Muḥammad Bāqir ibn Muḥammad, c. 1560–1631) was the most prominent Ibn Sīnāian philosopher of early modern Iran. He made major contributions in the study of philosophical theology and the semantics of being and metaphysics, as well as in political thought and in the study of the occult as a philosophical science. His lasting legacy was that he transformed the nature of Ibn Sīnāianism on the critical issue of the incipience of the cosmos and temporality in metaphysics.
Modern European Thought: 1600–1800
Authors: Kolb Brendan , Chignell Andrew
Published: November 2021

This entry focuses on responses to two key sets of questions as they developed in the religious‐philosophical context of early modern Europe. The first set of questions has to do with the relationship between God, the soul, and the body, and is broadly metaphysical. The other has to do with the sources of religion in reason and/or (special) revelation, and is more epistemological and at times political. Nine key figures are discussed: Descartes, Spinoza, Conway, Malebranche, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.
Montaigne, Michel de
Authors: Hoffmann George
Published: November 2021

Often regarded a forerunner of liberal open‐mindedness and religious toleration, Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) professed strict obedience to his Catholic faith. However, invoking the Catholic policy of “freedom of conscience,” a concession used to deny Protestants freedom of worship in France, he in fact pursued highly unorthodox religious speculations in hisEssais. These are meant as private opinion, irrelevant to his public allegiance which held religion central to constituting the social body. As such, his allegiance precluded two‐faith solutions to France's religious conflicts.
Moral Argument
Authors: Linville Mark D.
Published: November 2021

Moral arguments are among the traditional arguments for theistic belief and bear some similarities to other theistic arguments. Design arguments, for example, typically begin with some observed feature of the world and argue that the best explanation for that feature appeals to God – or something very much like God. Similarly, moral arguments typically begin with some feature of human moral experience and argue to the existence of God as the best – or, according to some versions, the only – explanation for that feature. Developed arguments will often involve extensive critiques of attempts at grounding morality within an atheistic or naturalistic worldview. Such arguments face critics on at least two separate fronts. On the one hand, some critics embrace moral objectivity but argue that this may be maintained without any appeal to God. And they might further argue that any claim that morality depends upon God can be shown to have implausible or even incoherent implications. On the other hand, a different set of critics may deny that morality is objective and thus go on to argue that there is nothing in need of explanation – or that whatever explanation is called for is provided by the resources available on naturalism alone.
More, Thomas
Authors: Koterski, SJ Joseph W.
Published: November 2021

This entry is an account of the life and main writings of Thomas More (1477–1535), with special reference to his defense of religious liberty and to the normativity of the principles of morality within public life. Special attention is given to More's
Utopia
as a humanist effort to work out important questions of political philosophy in dialogue form.
Muḥammad
Authors: Meisami Sayeh
Published: November 2021

This entry is an overview of the ontological and epistemological status of Muḥammad (d. 632), the Prophet of Islam, from a Sufi, Gnostic, and philosophical perspective. The entry shows that, in addition to his status as the messenger of God to his community, Muḥammad also has been presented in Islamic literature as a primordial reality and venue of creation. Moreover, his position as the recipient of divine revelation has given rise to philosophical accounts of the source of his knowledge and the mechanism of receiving it. These accounts are primarily shaped within the Neoplatonic framework where the ultimate source of knowledge is the active intellect of Aristotle'sDe anima.
Myth and Demythologization
Authors: Segal Robert A.
Published: November 2021

To demythologize myth is to read myth symbolically rather than literally. But there are many symbolic readings of myth. For Freud and Jung, for example, myth is not about the external, physical world but is about the human world – more precisely, about the human mind. For the demythologizers Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Jonas, and Albert Camus, myth is about the relationship of humans to the external, physical world. Literally, the myth of Noah (Genesis 6–9) is about the decision by God to destroy the physical world and then to recreate it. The myth demythologized describes what it is like to live in a world in which one can count on God to treat humans justly. For the atheistic existentialist Camus, the myth of Sisyphus is about what it is like to live in a world without any god, a world in which humans are at the mercy of the forces of nature.
Navya‐Nyāya
Authors: Guhe Eberhard
Published: November 2021

This entry provides a short introduction to Navya‐Nyāya, a school of classical Indian philosophy. As an example of religious matters discussed by Navya‐Naiyāyikas we refer briefly to their stance on the design inference as a means to prove the existence of God. Their greatest achievements are, however, related to logic, especially as regards the analysis of relational expressions. Navya‐Naiyāyikas created an ideal language, a kind of Leibnizian
characteristica universalis
based on a canonical form of Sanskrit, which serves to explicate the objective content of verbalized and unverbalized cognitions and to disambiguate sentences formulated in ordinary Sanskrit. The entry focuses on a fundamental concept involved in the Navya‐Naiyāyikas' analysis of relational expressions, namely the “describer” (
nirūpaka
). As an example of the close affinity of Navya‐Nyāya to modern logic we demonstrate in what way the describer functions as a tool to specify the order of the members of a pair of individuals instantiating a relation, a problem which Kuratowski solved by means of his well‐known set‐theoretical ordered pair‐definition.
Necessary Being
Authors: Goldschmidt Tyron
Published: November 2021

This entry first explains what is meant by a
necessary being
, presents prominent candidate necessary beings, and outlines historical trends in thinking about necessary beings. Next, it surveys arguments for and against the existence of necessary beings, and criticisms of these arguments. A concluding proposal recommends connecting the debate over necessary beings with the debate over ontological pluralism.
Neo‐Confucianism
Authors: Cheng Chung‐ying
Published: November 2021

In its broadest use, “Neo‐Confucianism” suggests a tradition of philosophical learning and thinking on fundamental issues of reality, life, and morality as based on Confucian Classics, which covers a long period of development in Chinese history from the early Song to the beginning of the Qing dynasty (roughly from the tenth century to the seventeenth century). It also covers its adapted forms in Korea and Japan since the sixteenth century. Neo‐Confucianism is a complex philosophical system or systems and a complex cultural phenomenon.
Newman, John Henry
Authors: Sherry Patrick
Published: November 2021

Although best known as a theologian, both as an Anglican and later as a Roman Catholic, John Henry Newman's (1801–1890) philosophy of religion also deserves some attention. This entry discusses mainly his early
University Sermons
(1826–1843) and his
Grammar of Assent
(1870), but also looks at his lifelong correspondence with a skeptic, William Froude, in which Newman anticipates some positions taken up by later philosophers.
Nishida, Kitarō
Authors: Kopf Gereon
Published: November 2021

Kitarō Nishida (1870–1945) is often considered the founder of the Kyoto school and the father of modern philosophy in Japan. Directly responding to neo‐Kantianism early in his career (1917–1927), he later (1938–1945) suggested that he inherited the paradigm that he formulated in the language of academic philosophy from Buddhism, or, more specifically, Chinese and Japanese Buddhist texts. He proposes philosophy of religion that engages Buddhist ideas and contributes to mystical as well as postmodern approaches.
Nishitani, Keiji
Authors: Davis Bret W.
Published: November 2021

Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990) was a twentieth‐century Japanese philosopher of religion associated with the Kyoto school. He is best known for his articulation of a philosophy of Zen Buddhism that aims to “overcome nihilism by way of passing through nihilism.” He writes of the need to move from the “field” of representational consciousness and reified being, back through the field of nihility, and then all the way down to the ultimate field of emptiness or
śūnyatā
, the field on which all beings exist as they truly are in mutually supporting and interpenetrating relations with one another.
Nondualism
Authors: Völker Fabian
Published: November 2021

This entry provides an introduction to the philosophical notion of nonduality, which originally derives from the Sanskrit term (
a
)
dvaita
. It is argued that the meaning of
dvaita
is inextricably intertwined with the meaning of “conceptual proliferation” (
prapañca
) just as
advaita
is with its negation (
niṣprapañca
). Nonduality, then, is what remains after
prapañca
has been destroyed by gnosis. The concept of nonduality is further specified by differentiating between
asymmetric
and
symmetric
forms of nonduality linking them with different kinds of mystical experiences. These two notions encompass a broad variety of metaphysical positions that are not limited to any specific cultural context or particular historical period. Thus, the universality of the notion of nonduality and its cross‐cultural applicability is emphasized.
Nondualistic Śaivism of Kashmir
Authors: Torella Raffaele
Published: November 2021

Nondualistic Śaivism of Kashmir, which represents the highest peak of spiritual experience and philosophical elaboration of Hindu Tantrism as a whole, is the result of diverse components merging into each other. Principal among them are Śaiva scriptures, their exegesis by some of the most brilliant minds of Indian culture (such as Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta), alert absorption of Buddhist epistemology, linguistic speculation, and aesthetics. An aesthetic flavor ends up imbuing the whole of religious experience, in which grace, subtle nonchalance, and dissimulation of effort are praised as specific “aristocratic” qualities vis‐à‐vis the heavy labor of the vulgar adept. The very critical treatment of traditional yoga is one of the most apparent outcomes of this attitude. Yoga, as seen by nondualistic Śaivism of Kashmir, emphasizes the role of feelings, passions, and emotions, seen not as hindrances but rather as fuel for the path towards liberation.
Ockham, William of
Authors: Klima Gyula
Published: November 2021

This entry presents a brief outline of William of Ockham's (c. 1287–1347) characteristically nominalist theology, arguing that his nominalism directly points the way to the modern separation of religious, theological and secular, philosophical and scientific discourse.
Ockham's Razor
Authors: Pelletier Jenny
Published: November 2021

Despite never advancing the principle of parsimony called “Ockham's razor,” which states that entities should not be multiplied without necessity, William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347) frequently appealed to four variants of a principle of parsimony intended to function as a general rule for adjudicating between different metaphysical claims on the basis of whether they assume superfluous entities. This entry discusses these four variants, how Ockham used them, and in which contexts he notably chose not to use them.
Omniscience in Indian Philosophy
Authors: Perrett Roy W.
Published: November 2021

Classical Indian philosophers discussed vigorously the possibility of omniscience (
sarvajñatva
). Some (like the atheistic Mīmāṃsā) denied outright the existence of any omniscient being. But even those who were advocates of omniscience often imposed various restrictions of scope on what an all‐knowing being could know. (Some Buddhists, for instance, understood the Buddha's omniscience to mean just that he knows everything that leads to liberation.) There was also lively disagreement about whether only divine beings can be omniscient. Unsurprisingly, various theists held that only God (
Īśvara
) was omniscient. But both the Buddhists and the Jainas held their great teachers Gautama Buddha and Mahāvīra to be (highly developed) human beings who became omniscient.
Paley, William
Authors: Schupbach Jonah N.
Published: November 2021

This entry provides a brief summary of the works of William Paley (1743–1805) that are of most interest and relevance to contemporary philosophy of religion.
Pascal's Wager
Authors: Garber Daniel
Published: November 2021

Pascal's Wager is a celebrated argument that uses practical reasoning borrowed from games of chance to establish that one should believe in a Christian God, formulated by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) in what was posthumously published as hisPensées(1670). Unlike most standard proofs for the existence of God, the argument establishes not that God exists, but that it is pragmatically better for us to believe than not. The entry explores the structure of the argument, how it works and what conclusion it draws, and some standard objections to the argument.
Perfect Being Theology
Authors: Almeida Michael J.
Published: November 2021

The provenance of perfect being theology is deep in the history of Western philosophy and theology. Certainly the most familiar source of perfect being theology is St. Anselm's
Proslogion
, but the tradition goes back to Greek and Roman philosophers and other early thinkers including Zeno, Cicero, Chrysippus, Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, and St. Augustine. In the first section of the entry there is a discussion of the perfect being argument as developed in St. Anselm and its roots in the philosophical tradition. A posteriori approaches are distinguished from a priori approaches to the perfect being argument in the second section and the productivity of perfect being arguments is addressed in the third section.
Philoponus, John
Authors: Papachristou Ioannis
Published: November 2021

Philoponus (c. 485/490–570/575), the Christian grammarian, philosopher, and theologian, was a major figure of the Platonic School of Alexandria in the sixth century. He was interested in grammar, arithmetic, and astronomy, and he produced philosophical commentaries on Plato's and Aristotle's works as well as polemical philosophical treatises on the creation of the world (arguing for the temporality of the world). He is known for his critique against Aristotelian physics within the framework of which he phrased the notorious impetus theory. The corpus of his theological work survives mainly in Syriac translations. In these texts Philoponus exploits his philosophical methodology (based on Aristotle) and contributes to the Christological debates of his era by supplying arguments in favor of miaphysitism and tritheism.