bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pippin on Hegel
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: August 2016

Ever since Plato coined the metaphor, it has been tempting to treat the history of philosophy as a series of battles between Gods and Giants, as a ‘clash of argument’ between idealists and materialists, rationalists and naturalists, and idealists and realists. Many commentators, provoked by Hegel's combative remarks, have been led to see the Kant-Hegel relation in this way; and yet it has not always been easy to determine either what the issue between these two antagonists really is, or indeed which of them is the Giant and which the God. Robert Pippin, in his new book, Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, pp. xii + 327, hb £30.00, pb £10.95) casts new light on the nature of the struggle, and makes clear what was at stake: a non-rationalist, non-metaphysical answer to the sceptic, and with it absolute knowledge.

Pippin's densely written but engrossing book provides the focus of discussion for this issue of the Bulletin. The contributions by H.S. Harris and Terry Pinkard offer critical comments on Pippin's approach to Hegel, and they are followed with a response by Pippin himself. These pieces were originally presented as a meeting of the Western APA, and assume an acquaintance with Pippin's argument, which I will try to outline in what follows.

Like many recent commentators, Pippin begins by insisting that we take seriously Hegel's claim to have ‘completed’ Kant, and so rejects any metaphysical, rationalist readng of Hegel. On the other hand, Pippin wants to understand Hegel's claim to have found a form of idealism that answers Kant's transcendental scepticism regarding the ‘thing-in-itself’, without collapsing back into rationalism.
Hegel's Idealism: Prospects
Authors: Pippin Robert B.
Published: August 2016

First of all, I am very grateful to both commentators for the attention they have devoted to Hegel's Idealism; I am heartened by the kind words and humbled by the magnitude of the problems introduced by their criticisms. These criticisms both rightly refer to what is the heart of my interpretation, the Kant-Hegel relation, and, interestingly enough, raise objections from roughly opposite directions. Professor Pinkard, in effect, charges that I have made too much of that relation and thereby confused transcendental and speculative concerns. He argues here, as he does at greater length in his recent book (Hegel's Dialectic: The Explanation of Possibility), that the philosophically valuable core of Hegel is a ‘category theory’ limited to an ‘explanation’ of the conceptual ‘possibility’ of various judgments, practices, institutions, etc. Professor Harris charges, on the other hand (and with some irony), that I have made too little of the Kant-Hegel relation, or have construed it too narrowly, that the interpretation of Hegel's idealism which I provide thus either unfairly neglects, or does not have the resources to deal with, Hegel's full theory of the ‘whole’, or of Absolute Spirit, his account of the modern community's reconciliation with itself in time. I am thus alleged to have provided an interpretation that is at once too ambitious, and not ambitious enough, and I hope that such responses, at least for the Aristotelians in the audience, count as prima facie evidence that I must have said just the right thing.

My claim in Hegel's Idealism is that the well-known Hegel Renaissance, in post-war Western Europe especially, has still failed to produce a contemporary reconstruction of Hegel's fundamental position, his ‘identity theory’, his identifying the ‘self-actualization’ of the Notion with ‘actuality’, or his theory of the reality of the Absolute Idea.
Hegel in Analysis: Slavoj Zizek's Lacanian Dialectics
Authors: Dews Peter
Published: August 2016

In the following paper I shall be developing a critical discussion of the contemporary interpretation of Hegel proposed by a Yugoslavian, and more specifically Slovenian, philosopher named Slavoj Zizek, whose principal theoretical allegiance is to the thought of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The very existence of this body of work raises many intriguing questions about the theoretical, cultural, and political context from which it has arisen. Why, for example, should the notoriously obscure and difficult thought of a Parisian psychoanalyst be of such interest not just to Zizek, but indeed to a whole circle of Slovenian intellectuals? Furthermore, why should a Lacanian approach be considered the most promising way to unlock the ‘secret of Hegel’? And why should Zizek and his fellow thinkers insist on the convergence of the thought of Hegel and Lacan, even in defiance of many of Lacan's own pronouncements on the matter?

In a sense, the answer to the first of these questions already provides the answers to the other two. It is necessary to bear in mind that, for the most part, Yugoslavian philosophical life since the Revolution has been dominated not by the creaking orthodoxies of Soviet-style dialectical materialism, but by the far more plausible and congenial positions of what has come to be known as the Praxis School. The Marxism of the Praxis School, whose tradition still lives on, in the form of the journal Praxis International, is much closer, indeed can be seen as part of the philosophical current known in the other half of Europe as ‘Western Marxism’.
Naturalized Historicism and Hegelian Ethics
Authors: Pinkard Terry
Published: August 2016

Allen Wood's treatment of Hegel's ethics is one of the deeper, more informed and thorough treatments of the subject to come along in any language. Wood treats Hegel as offering something like an ethical theory in the sense in which ethical theory is done in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. Different themes - happiness, freedom, self-actualization - are treated in terms of how they fit into Hegel's own view and how they compare with alternative accounts (particularly, Kantian and utilitarian accounts). The usual treatment of Hegel's thought is almost always the opposite, following Hegel's own exposition of his ideas.

It is not due to accident, failure of nerve or slavish devotion to the text that most commentators closely follow Hegel's own exposition. In Hegel's case, this has a definite logic to it, since Hegel claims the really significant body of what we would call his “arguments” for his position are supposed to be found in his serial dialectical exposition of his ideas. Each new development is supposed to follow dialectically from the preceding one. Thus, if Hegel is right about what he says, then one should not be able to find any arguments on his part for his views outside of his dialectical exposition of them. To expound Hegel's reasons for holding his views quite naturally leads to the idea that we must expound them in the order he gave them.
Hegel in Poland
Authors: Panasiuk Ryszard
Published: August 2016

Hegel's thought reached Poland at the end of the 1830s and by the first half of the 1840s became the chief subject of discussion and controversy in Polish philosophy. It was a sign of an intellectual revival and proof of the importance of philosophical problems in the intellectual culture of the time. The reception of Hegelianism contributed a new element to the Romantic thought which had developed after the defeat of the November 1830 Uprising. Polish writers – and there was almost no philosopher who did not make a reference to Hegel – sought support in his theoretical schemas to resolve the important problems of the epoch. These were, first, the search for the cause of the fall of the nobles' republic in the 18th century and the failure of the 1830 revolutionary upsurge and, secondly, attempts to show ways of liberating the nation from alien rule and to determine its historical place among the nations of Europe. The predominant interest was in the philosophy of history since, with the help of the constructions of the historical process inspired by Hegel, one could justify the claim of the Poles to a place among the nations of Europe. Hence the Polish followers of Hegel, having different aims from the Master, necessarily modified his historlco-philosophical (or ‘historiosophic”) schemes in an essential way: while Hegel had seen the realization of the ideal in the present, his Polish followers emphasized the importance of the future for the fulfilment of mankind's mission.
Hegelianism in the United States
Authors: Watson David
Published: August 2016

The career of American Hegelianism, as might be expected, reveals almost as much about the distinctive features of the native cultural and intellectual tradition as it does of the theoretical contribution of Hegel to professional philosophy in the English-speaking world during the last century and a half. In this brief essay I have divided the story of American Hegelianism into four periods, on the understanding that these are thematically suggestive rather than chronologically exact. Each marks a changed estimate of Hegel's importance within the United States, and each includes some discussion of an influential or ‘modal’ figure with loyalties to Hegel or to derivative absolute idealist doctrine. The intention is to provide an historical ‘map’ with bibliographical and biographical landmarks, which may prove to be of use or interest to students of Hegelianism at other times and in other places.

For several reasons, independent of his own estimate of America as ‘the land of the future’, the United States should have proved receptive to Hegel's ideas. American philosophy, in a remarkably continuous tradition from dissent within Puritanism to contemporary logicians, has consistently returned to the tenets of idealism and voluntarism; stressing the. essential spirituality of the material and social world and the decisive role of the will in the forming of that world. Hegel and later absolute idealists assisted significantly in maintaining these preoccupations, but theirs was not the most persuasive voice. In several senses American idealism, as measured by the origins and development of the most important indigenous doctrine – the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce and his successors – has remained more consistently Kantian than Hegelian, more epistemological than metaphysical, more concerned with the individual human conscience than the grand formal and historical design.
Is Hegel's Phenomenology Relevant to Contemporary Epistemology?
Authors: Westphal Kenneth R.
Published: August 2016

Hegel has been widely, though erroneously, supposed to have rejected epistemology in favor of unbridled metaphysical speculation. Reputation notwithstanding, Hegel was a very sophisticated epistemologist, whose views have gone unrecognized because they are so innovative, indeed prescient. Hence I shall boldly state: Hegel's epistemology is of great contemporary importance. In part, this is because many problems now current in epistemology are problems Hegel addressed. In part, this is because of the unexpected effectiveness of Russell's 1922 exhortation, “I should take ‘back to the 18th century’ as a battle-cry, if I could entertain any hope that others would rally to it.” I shall elaborate on these thematic connections between Hegel's views and our problems below (§3), after summarizing the main features of Hegel's epistemology (§2). Thereafter I consider Hegel's views in relation to 20th-century empiricism (§4), Dretske's information theory (§5), and the on-going debate between realists and historicist relativists (§6). Sections 2–4 will be summary in character, for I have discussed these issues in detail elsewhere. Sections 5 and 6 shall consider more closely some important social aspects of Hegel's epistemology. Two themes of my remarks are that Hegel anticipated by 150 years the recent rejections in epistemology of concept-empiricism and of individualism, and more importantly, Hegel showed how rejecting these positions does not require rejecting commonsense realism about the objects of empirical knowledge. In part, this is because Hegel rejected “internalism” about mental content. The recent wave of anti-Cartesianism in epistemology and philosophy of mind has much to learn from Hegel. Benefiting from Hegel' insights and analyses, however, requires understanding just what were Hegel's aims, methods, and arguments in epistemology. These, however, have eluded most commentators, whether critical or sympathetic. So I begin by reviewing the main points of Hegel's epistemology.
Time for Hegel
Authors: Houlgate Stephen
Published: August 2016

In section 82 of Being and Time Heidegger calls Hegel's account of time ‘the most radical way in which the ordinary [or vulgar] understanding of time has been given form conceptually’ (BT 480). For Heidegger, in the vulgar conception ‘the basic phenomenon of time is seen in the “now”; by contrast, Dasein's own “ecstatico-horizonal temporality temporalizes itself primarily in terms of the future (BT 479). Hegel's problem, it seems, is that he has no time for the future.

As Heidegger explains in his 1924 lecture on the concept of time, Dasein is futural because it is essentially possibility — ‘the possibility of its certain yet indeterminate past (CT 12). That future pastness is, of course, Dasein's death. Dasein is thus oriented towards the future because it is being-towards-death — the death that is certain to come, one knows not when.

The vulgar interpretation of time represents a flight both from Dasein's death and from its futural temporality, since it places the present at the centre of concern. Time, for the vulgar understanding, is simply ‘a sequence of “nows” which are constantly “present-at-hand”, simultaneously passing away and coming along’ (BT 474). The past and future are thus understood to be no more than the now that is no longer or is not yet. The future in particular is hereby distorted: for it is not thought to be the certain though indeterminate possibility in relation to which our present existence is first constituted, but is conceived as present existence that is yet to come.
G.R.G. Mure: 1893–1979
Authors: Trend Burke
Published: August 2016

The following two articles commemorate the distinguished British Hegelian philosopher and scholar, who died last year. The first is the text of the Address given on 6 October 1979 at the Memorial Service for G.R.G. Mure in the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford (the College where he was first Tutor in Philosophy and Fellow, and then Warden). The author, Lord Trend, was a pupil of Mure at Merton and ended a distinguished career in the civil service as the Secretary to the British Cabinet. He is now Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.

The second article was specially written for the Bulletin by W.H. Walsh, who succeeded Mure as Tutor in Philosophy at Merton. W.H. Walsh has kindly agreed to prepare a bibliography of Mure's writings for the Autumn/Winter issue of the Bulletin.

I had left Oxford a good many years before Geoffrey Mure became the Warden of Merton; and he had retired before I returned to the University. During his Wardenship I was able to see much less of him, and of the College, than I would have wished; and I am far less qualified than many others to speak of the debt which Merton owes him for the sixteen years in which he presided over its fortunes. I know that the debt was very great, no less great than the pride which he himself felt in discharging the Warden's office; but I must leave it to others, at other times and in other ways, to bear witness in detail to the nature, and the scope, of the many services which he, and his wife Molly, rendered this House. I want now simply to try to pay a tribute, of love, admiration and gratitude, to the man himself, a man to whom I, in common with so many others, owe so much, a man from whom I learned, genuinely learned, as from nobody else in my life. Inevitably, this must be largely a matter of personal recollection. But everybody will have brought his own memories of Geoffrey to this memorial service; and, if my words help to quicken those memories into fresh life, perhaps the picture which we shall construct between us will be the memorial which he himself would have most wished to have.
Feminist Criticisms and Reinterpretations of Hegel
Authors: Stone Alison
Published: August 2016

In 1970, the Italian feminist Carla Lonzi published her now-classic polemic urging women to “spit on Hegel”. Disregarding her advice, many subsequent feminist theorists and philosophers have engaged substantially with Hegel's thought, and a wide variety of feminist readings of Hegel have sprung up. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of these different feminist criticisms and interpretations of Hegel. In introducing these various interpretations, I will show how they reflect a range of divergent feminist approaches to the history of philosophy as a whole. My aim is not only to describe but also to evaluate these approaches, with respect to their capacity to generate insightful and productive readings of Hegel's philosophy. I shall argue that what I will call the “essentialist” feminist approach to Hegel is the most fruitful, doing most to illuminate the contours of his thought and to open up new and creative ways of reading his works.

To anticipate, in surveying the various feminist interpretations of Hegel, I will classify them as reflecting four different types of feminist approach to the history of philosophy. The first, “extensionist” approach draws upon the history of philosophy for conceptual resources to understand and explain women's social situation. The second approach is more critical, tracing the pervasiveness of “masculinist” assumptions and biases in the history of philosophy. To call views “masculinist” is to say that they uphold systematic and hierarchical contrasts between masculinity and femininity, contrasts which need not be explicit but may be sustained through contrasts between other ostensibly neutral concepts which actually have tacit gender connotations. This critical approach generates an overwhelmingly negative picture of the philosophical tradition. The third, “essentialist” approach complicates this picture, recovering and highlighting the strands within historical texts which revalorise concepts or items that are given feminine connotations. These often overlooked strands oppose the dominant masculinist tendencies in texts by assigning equal importance and value to “symbolically feminine” concepts. However, proponents of the fourth, “deconstructive” approach object that essentialist readings of philosophical texts accept and reinforce patterns of gender symbolism which feminists ought to challenge. Deconstructive feminists seek to expose and exacerbate the instability within these patterns of gender symbolism by tracing how philosophical texts continuously undermine the gender contrasts present within them.
Conjectures of a Disenchanted Reader
Authors: Weaver Mary Jo
Published: August 2016

Twenty-five years ago I happily compared Thomas Merton to Flannery O'Connor, finding in each of them an “urgency of vision,” and although I have not changed my mind about Merton's importance, I have had to fight my way through a substantially diminished admiration. Reading him a quarter of a century later was disturbing because, bluntly put, I did not like him as much as I did when I was younger. He seemed neurotic, over-published, and extraordinarily self-centered. Had I outgrown him? The arrogance of that question paralyzed me for a month even when I could find colleagues who agreed with me, but I decided to pursue it and began by making a list of things about Merton that bothered me now in ways I never even thought of a quarter of a century ago.
Resymbolizing Life: Religion on Population and Environment
Authors: Gudorf Christine E.
Published: August 2016

The environmental crisis has transformed the debate over the appropriate size of the human population, presenting humans with a choice of reducing population, redistributing resource use, and restraining consumption or inflicting severe, perhaps fatal, damage to the earth's capacity to sustain life. Having surveyed gross evidence supporting this choice, this article argues that Christianity must reinterpret its tradition, resymbolizing respect for life from an exclusive focus on birth and fertility toward the sustaining of life and life's habitat, earth.
The Reinterpretation of Gaudium et Spes in Veritatis Splendor
Authors: Elsbernd Mary
Published: August 2016

Commentators have concluded that frequent reference in Veritatis splendor to Gaudium et spes demonstrates a continuity of thought with the pastoral constitution, characteristic of a reiterative model of the use of prior magisterial teaching, one continuous teaching applied to additional issues. Recent centuries have shown that the encyclical teachings are often a vehicle for papal reinterpretation or recontextualization of previous teachings. This paper contends that the use of Gaudium et spes in Veritatis splendor follows this second model. The study demonstrates: first, that the theological anthropology of Gaudium et spes is recast in a dualist, individualist concept in Veritatis splendor, and second, that Veritatis splendor has re-contextualized quotations from Gaudium et spes on change, conscience, human autonomy, and human anthropology into teachings on law and precept. Thirdly, reliance on selective wording from Gaudium et spes enables Veritatis splendor to transform the role of the moral theologian into that of exclusively a disseminator of magisterial teaching.
Dominus Iesus and Asian Theologies
Authors: Chia Edmund
Published: August 2016

The document Dominus Iesus, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on September 5, 2000, was perhaps the most talked-about document in recent church history, both within and without the Catholic Church. Some of the reactions to it, which came from all quarters, were profound, and provided both a field day for the mass media and much data for theological reflections. Significantly missing from theological journals in the West, however, is the response of the Asian church and its implications for Asian theologies. This is a serious omission since Dominus Iesus, seems to have been written because of and for the Asian church in general and its theologians in particular. The present essay, therefore, looks at this Asian factor, especially in the context of the renewal inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council.
Theology as Biography
Authors: Malits Elena
Published: August 2016

“Theology as Biography” is a course jointly offered by the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College, team taught by Elena Malits, C.S.C., David Burrell, C.S.C., and Stanley Hauerwas. It is one of a collection of course descriptions and essays on teaching, Teaching Religion to Undergraduates: Some Approaches and Ideas from Teachers to Teachers (ed. Luke Johnson, available for $2.50 from the Society for Religion in Higher Education, 363 St. Ronan St., New Haven, Conn. 06511). It offers an example of the kind of sharing of specific course ideas Horizons will attempt to feature in each issue. Please send along to us ideas on approaches to courses that you would like to share. By the way, all these course ideas need not be unusual. A really well-conceived approach to a basic undergraduate course could be quite valuable. – B.P.P. and R.V.A.
A Select English Annotated Bibliography on the Christian-Marxist Dialogue
Authors: Mojzes Paul
Published: August 2016

For nearly two decades an unusual phenomenon has been taking place. Christians and Marxists, traditionally regarded as bitter opponents, generated among their adherents a small, but influential number who engaged in dialogue. The dialogue emerged, in some instances with surprising vigor and spontaneity, only to be practically suppressed or greatly hindered in most locations. Yet interest, academic and existential, persists. And there is some evidence that, while one stage of the dialogue has ended, new impulses toward dialogue will insure its continuation.

A fairly large number of books and articles, some of them of outstanding quality, have emerged. A small number of educators judged this dialogue to be worthy of close scrutiny and development. The interest has been sustained and increased. This bibliography is offered as a tool to those colleagues who wish to complement their course offerings or start new courses which would be devoted either partially or completely to the subject matter of the Christian-Marxist dialogue.

It is my guess that the vast majority of students taking such courses know too little about Marxism and, possibly, too little about Christianity. Therefore, they will need to be referred to a bibliography that includes works on the nature of Marxism and Christianity, on the Marxist analysis of religion, on the Christian attitudes toward Marxism, and so forth. Little of this is attempted here. The bibliography contains almost exclusively books dealing with the more narrow field of the theoretical or practical aspects of the actual dialogue. Some positive and constructive approaches to the background needs of students are presented by a few of the entries, usually not the most recent books.
Retooling College Theology for Justice Education
Authors: Reher Margaret Mary
Published: August 2016

Catholic colleges and universities are faced with the imperative to address the multifaceted aspects of justice education. Existing curricula offerings which do not specifically deal with these issues can be broadened or restructured to this end. A course entitled “Prison Spirituality” is discussed as an example of this approach.
Re-Visioning Religious Studies: A Call to Come Home
Authors: Heinz Donald
Published: August 2016

This is a look at the rise and development of religious studies in the United States, at the terms and implications of its “charter,” and then at current models and perennial phobias (theologizing being an example of the latter). There follows a plea for people working in religious studies to complete the hermeneutical circle, to return to the essence, to explore and act out the religious wager. The paper closes with a glimpse at two possible roles for such a revisioned venture: symbol repository for the university, seminary for an expanded and critical civil religion.
The Second Spring
Authors: Novak Michael
Published: August 2016

Assessing the position of the Catholic in the United States, a great Catholic assertion is predicted for the final years of this century, a “second spring.” Impediments to this are listed and differences of Catholic and Protestant style are noted. Suggestions are made for bringing the Catholic elite and Catholic people back together again.
Hellfire and Damnation: An Approach to Religion and Literature
Authors: Weaver Mary Jo
Published: August 2016

Teaching religion in a state university setting challenges one to find non-confessional ways to discuss theological problems. While “Theology” itself is not the proper concern of a “Religious Studies” department, one can raise some significant theological issues in courses like Religion and Literature. The purpose of this course was to examine the presuppositions about damnation brought to the course by the professor and the students. A “Damnation Game” and a variety of literary texts were used to test the range of ideas we had about damnation, and to draw us into an experiential approach to religion and literature.
The Prophetic Role of Feminist Bioethics
Authors: Giblin Marie J.
Published: August 2016

Feminist bioethics, in both its Christian and secular forms, can play a prophetic role by bringing a much-needed social ethics perspective to Christian health care ethics. Six characteristics of feminist bioethics are highlighted: focus on oppression of women and its concrete forms in the health care system; epistemological critique; call for a more diverse community of ethical reflection; critique of the standard principles of bioethics; criticism of liberal individualism in mainstream bioethics; and a critical perspective on the discipline's loyalties and social location. The author highlights two important tasks for feminist bioethics: analysis of the current metamorphosis of health care in the marketplace and the more explicit use of stories to ground ethical reflection in the concrete struggles of women in meeting health care challenges.
Creating the Human: Theological Foundations for a Christian Humanistic Education
Authors: Gelpi Donald L.
Published: August 2016

This article explores the contribution which a strictly normative theology of conversion might make to an understanding of Christian humanistic education. The first part of the article argues for the need for an ongoing, multidisciplinary discussion of the nature of the human in order to clarify the goals of humanistic education. Part two argues that the four secular forms of conversion—affective, intellectual, personal moral, and socio-political—set important goals for a balanced, humanistic education. Part three argues that the transvaluation of the secular forms of education effected by Christian conversion defines fundamental aims of Christian humanistic education.
Hope and the Catholic University
Authors: Connelly R. J.
Published: August 2016

Faith and love receive most of the attention in discussions about what makes the Catholic university unique. A theme of hope in a recent pastoral letter by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin on the Catholic health care ministry, if applied to education, may provide another perspective on what makes, or could make, the Catholic university distinctive. This article first summarizes Bernardin's thinking about hope in the context of Catholic health care. Second, reference is made to what seems unique about hope in the Catholic tradition, and what hope can mean for Catholics today. The next section applies this understanding of hope to what we mean by a Catholic university, with the focus on undergraduate education. The last section begins to explore some practical implications of affirming hope as part of what makes a Catholic university distinctive.
A Theological Framework for Multicultural Religious Education
Authors: Talvacchia Kathleen T.
Published: August 2016

In the practice of multicultural religious education a conflict arises between two competing understandings of the term multicultural. In one understanding multicultural religious education means the incorporation of racial and ethnic diversity into a Western, European paradigm of Christianity. In another understanding, multicultural religious education means the implementation of theological and educational procedures and rationales that would account for the reality of social structural differences within the diversity of society, allow those differences to shape the content and form of the Christian tradition, and, therefore, challenge the Western paradigm as the dominant expression of Christianity. This article expresses the conviction that the term multicultural is most appropriately understood as that which embraces the reality of diversity and social structural difference. Based on this conviction, the article makes the case that theologies of liberation provide an important theological framework for a multicultural religious education that embraces both diversity and difference.
Evil and Models of Christian Ethics
Authors: Rigali Norbert J.
Published: August 2016

To the “moderate consequentialism” that has emerged as new moral theology in recent years and is now represented by many moral theologians an alternative is proposed: relational moral theology or relationalism. In moral theology the consequentialist or means-end model cannot bear the weight of being the fundamental model of moral norm-making and decision-making; and a relational model, which is apt for this function, should replace it. Moreover, “moderate consequentialism” developed out of an insufficient reconsideration of the traditional ethical categories, moral and physical evils, which resulted only in slight modification of these philosophical categories. Still needed is the radical reconsideration of evil that introduces a theological understanding of it into moral theology. And once introduced, this theological understanding of evil itself calls for a relational model of moral norm- and decision-making in moral theology.
Newman, Foundationalism, and the Ethics of Belief
Authors: McCarthy Gerald
Published: August 2016

This essay examines the role that the theory of “first principles” plays in Newman's critique of Locke's cognitive-ethical norms. The first section examines in detail Newman's strategy against Locke and argues that there are, in fact, two distinguishable strategies, each with a different concept of the nature and epistemic function of “first principles.” The second section retails examples of what Newman considered to be “first principles” and discusses Newman's claim that our acceptance of these principles is “instinctive.” The final section raises the question of the justifiability of “first principles” and, by reintroducing the distinctions drawn in the first section, argues that Newman can distinguish between “first principles” and unwarranted prejudices and, simultaneously, maintain his criticisms of Locke.
Realistic Film Style and Theological Vision in Robert Bresson
Authors: Keegan John E.
Published: August 2016

Theological vision can be incorporated in a film's style. This is true, clearly, in the films of Robert Bresson. Understanding the Bresson style from within its tradition of cinematic conventions can illuminate its theological vision: his Realistic film style creates a representational form which renders tangible the human caught intrinsically in the embrace of the Divine.
Biblical Themes and Modern Literature
Authors: Nichols Francis W.
Published: August 2016

The following article describes an alternative undergraduate introduction to the Bible course which uses six biblical selections in tandem with six readings from modern literature. Besides being an introduction to various forms of literary criticism, this format makes the biblical ideas more obviously relevant and invites students to theologize personally. Eventually the course becomes a biblical anthropology.
Enfleshing Scripture through Literature
Authors: Maurer M. Sylvia
Published: August 2016

College students seldom have an adequate backdrop against which to view and evaluate their present experiences and, consequently, are hindered in their growth into responsible adulthood. Although scripture could be an enlightening and stabilizing touchstone for their experiences, students are not sufficiently familiar with this unique aspect of their heritage nor their basic claim to it. By means of a course developed at Saint Mary's College, Winona, basic scriptural themes and experiences were identified and then perceived through their expression in literature. As a result students were stimulated to insights which promoted personal understanding and acceptance; the human experience initially brought forth in scripture, recalled and interpreted through literature, tended to surface as their personal story.
Voegelin's Noetic Differentiation: Religious Implications
Authors: Carmody John
Published: August 2016

For the past sixty years Eric Voegelin has probed the foundations of order and history. After explaining how Voegelin understands “order” and where he places the historical leaps in being that best disclose it, we fix our sights on the noetic differentiation of consciousness—the clarification of human reason launched by classical Greek philosophy. In Part One we expose Voegelin's view of noetic differentiation, beginning with his version of the classical discoveries by Plato and Aristotle. Next we trace the decline that came with the stoics and religion. Finally we conclude with the reality of differentiated reason and what it opens upon. In Part Two we apply this exposition to religion, pursuing the implications of Voegelin's noetic differentiation. The application takes us first to the eros for the divine ground that Voegelin's noesis manifests and the various ways that this eros shows itself in the different religious traditions. Second, the application shows the relevance of noetic differentiation for liberation theology and the theology of revelation.
Christian Human Rights Thought: Can Marxism Contribute?
Authors: Bancroft Nancy
Published: August 2016

Marxist analyses can contribute to Christian human rights thought in four areas. First, Marx's anthropology emphasizes process and sociality over fixed or determining human qualities. The species-being concept counterbalances cynical forms of Christian “realism” and secular, genetic determinism. Second, Marx's analysis of rights under capitalism engenders the claim that human rights begin with the right to a non-exploitative social structure. The Marxist critique reinforces the biblical injunction against identification with an unjust status quo. Third, current Marxist analysis of the historical failure of socialism generates hope based on learning from the past. The analysis can help Christians to hope and work for earthly embodiment of human rights short of the Kingdom. Finally, Marxism and biblical thought converge in pointing to the oppressed as crucial for obtaining human rights. Christians and Marxists have common criteria for a human rights agenda.
Handing on the Tradition
Authors: Gaffney Kathleen McGovern
Published: August 2016

The undergraduate course described introduces the academic study of religion. It summarizes basic Christian teaching on God, Salvation, Jesus Christ, Trinity, Church and Sacraments, Eschatology; promotes objective intellectual reflection on basic Christian teachings and on the religious experience that inspired them; introduces the student to academic religious literature, promotes informed dialogue among students of various religious traditions.
Development, Conversion, and Religious Education
Authors: Crysdale Cynthia S. W.
Published: August 2016

In this article I address two intersecting and recurring debates that occur in discussions of religious education. The first issue has to do with the role of conversion in religious development. The second issue regards various educational philosophies and the priority they set on “content” or “process” in learning. After reviewing these debates I delineate the way in which I believe they intersect. By pointing out that development involves both “heritage” and “achievement” I clarify the relationship between conversion and development. Conversion involves both a transformation of the tradition one has inherited and the choosing of a direction for one's religious journey. Authentic religious education involves a healthy balance of tradition (content) and open-ended questioning (process). At the same time it must allow for the occurrence of conversion, a radical shift from inauthenticity, that may be startling and challenging to the educator, the educational system, and the tradition itself.
Teaching World Religions Through Their Scriptures
Authors: Biallas Leonard J.
Published: August 2016

Textbooks on world religions offer a vast amount of factual information that often overwhelms undergraduate students. Because they get lost in detail, the students find it difficult to appropriate the religious traditions into their own experience. Is there a different approach to the religions—one that does not get too bogged down in historical dates or various philosophical movements, yet still remains academically respectable—that might better help them to appreciate the religious traditions? I want to suggest that one possible method might be to study selected key passages from the scriptures of the various religions, in particular their stories (rather than other literary forms). Such stories, whether narratives or parables, exist in the scriptures of all the major world religions. Carefully selected for their transformative and paradigmatic power, these stories easily lead into discussions of doctrines, rituals, ethics, and the other phenomenological dimensions of religion. More importantly, certain basic themes in these stories—desire for the direct experience of God, forgiveness, martyrdom, duty, balance of self-nature-society, and self-forgetfulness, for example—transcend their formulation in any one specific world religion. Student awareness of these and other archetypal themes is a healthy step in appropriating the cultural and spiritual life of their own religious traditions.
Left-Handed Theology and Inclusiveness
Authors: Jensen Gordon
Published: August 2016

In the concern for inclusiveness, one area that has been largely neglected is the discrimination against left-handedness. This paper looks briefly at some of the scriptural and social stigmas and implications attached to left-handedness. Using Luther's theology of the cross as its basis, a left-handed theology is introduced. Arguing for the need for a theology which focuses on those who are marginalized, a left-handed theology offers a model whereby God's left hand offers to those who are in “minority” positions grace and solidarity. This is contrasted to the right hand of God, which portrays a God of power, strength, and triumphalism. The hand of God which one chooses to relate to determines, then, how one does theology, and how a theological inclusiveness is developed.
Teaching Feminist Theology: A Male Perspective
Authors: Gillis Chester
Published: August 2016

This article describes the experience of a man teaching feminist theology to an undergraduate class. It offers insights into the encounters between a male teacher and a class of students comprised mostly of females. It examines how the students react to the issues raised by feminist theology and what corrections, criticisms, and contributions they make toward the subject and the teacher. While the article indicates a number of the difficulties involved in teaching this area of theological inquiry in general, and in particular for a man, it argues that there are important pedagogical and theological reasons for men to teach the subject.
The Lyre of Orpheus: Affectivity in the Teaching/Learning Process
Authors: Dreyer Elizabeth
Published: August 2016

All of us have memories—good and bad—of learning experiences. Ridicule or a rap on the knuckles produced fear and intimidation. A knowledgeable and enthusiastic teacher may have opened the door to a life's work or even to a never-ending love for learning. One can be sure that affectivity was one key element in such experiences.

When you think of the emotional, feeling aspects of learning experiences, what comes to mind? What is the setting? Who are the persons? What is the material? How would you describe the affective aspects of this experience? What elements were instrumental in eliciting strong feeling? What were the effects of this experience? Was it enjoyable? And finally, is this a common or rare type of experience in your life? With these questions in mind, let us reflect on several important aspects of the role of affectivity in the teaching/learning experience.

My interest in affectivity emerged when I was a campus minister at a large university. Years of conversations with faculty and students about their faith experience produced a persistent question. Why did the emotions seem so non-functional in this arena? I began to wonder how persons understood and talked about affectivity before the Western emphasis on reason and strict empiricism became so pronounced. I discovered that scholars had described the medieval period as a time of intense emotion and longing, fierce passion and ardent desire. The first phase of my search ended in the thirteenth century with an analysis of affective language in the spiritual writings of the Franciscan professor at the University of Paris, Bonaventure.
Two Authors and Their Two Books Writ Twice: James Tunstead Burtchaell and Rosemary Haughton, Twenty-Five and Thirty Years on
Authors: McDonough William
Published: August 2016

James Tunstead Burtchaell had been teaching Rosemary Haughton's 1967 book The Transformation of Man for a number of years when he published Philemon's Problem in 1973. Now, with both authors having reworked their books in the last two years, we are given an opportunity to compare and contrast the development of Burtchaell's and Haughton's thinking on how grace transforms human beings. The present essay sees an intellectual convergence between Haughton and Burtchaell; it sees much to be grateful for in both books by both authors; and it claims that Haughton's new book has developed her thinking on grace's communal character further than Burtchaell's new book has developed his thinking on the same topic.
Wittgensteinian Fideism and Theology
Authors: Ommen Thomas B.
Published: August 2016

An important critique of a “public” model of theological discourse has appeared in the work of a group of thinkers in the analytic tradition sometimes called “Wittgensteinian Fideists.” This paper explores the model of theology representative of the Wittgensteinian Fideists, particularly that found in the work of D. Z. Phillips and Paul Holmer. Three themes are examined: the relationship between theology and ordinary language, the role of faith in theology, and the justification of theological claims. Each theme is then summarized and critically assessed in an effort to show the limitations in the Wittgensteinian model of theology and some of the ways in which an understanding of theological method can be carried beyond the point where the Wittgensteinian Fideists leave it.
Becker's Anthropology: The Shape of Finitude
Authors: Kopas Jane
Published: August 2016

This article examines the anthropoloy of Ernest Becker through the medium of his notion of creatureliness which represents a dominant focus, especially in his later work. Two elements stand out in this consideration—self-esteem, which as a motivation disguises creaturehood and makes it bearable, and the fear of death, which is the final confirmation of creaturehood. After examining Becker's treatment of these elements, the article explores several dimensions of a religious view of creatureliness which have not been taken up in order to show that Becker is dealing with finitude rather than creatureliness. A fuller treatment of creatureliness would require an approach that does justice to these dimensions, and, if one wishes as Becker does to demonstrate a convergence between religion and the social sciences, it would require a more coherently developed method of correlation. The article concludes with an examination of the spirituality that emerges for Becker out of his perspective on the human.
Spiritual Discernment in The Dialogue of Saint Catherine of Siena
Authors: Schneiders Sandra M.
Published: August 2016

The article is divided into two parts. The first deals with the subject of spiritual discernment in Christian tradition: its nature, importance in the spiritual life, and the aspects of the spiritual life on which it bears. The second part deals with Catherine of Siena's particular approach to the subject of discernment: an explanation of the three images she uses to illuminate the meaning and operation of discernment and an exploration of the theological sources of her teaching on this subject.
Meaning, Morals and the Existence of God
Authors: McCarthy Gerald
Published: August 2016

This essay is divided into two sections. Part I analyzes and compares in detail the arguments of Schubert Ogden and Hans Küng for the existence of God. Essentially, both Küng and Ogden argue that certain characteristic human activities (especially moral choices) presuppose a confidence (Ogden) or a basic trust (Küng) that our lives and reality of which our lives are a part are meaningful. They continue to argue that this confidence or this basic trust are only justifiable on the condition of belief in God. Hence, they conclude that a belief in God is presupposed by our moral choices. Part II critically evaluates the above argument by drawing on distinctions made by analytic philosophers (Baier, Nielsen, Ayer) in their discussions of what conditions are necessary and sufficient to make a life (or life) meaningful. The discussion with analytic philosophy is important because neither Küng nor Ogden take any notice of the arguments raised there.