Timothy D. Knepper and Leah E. Kalmanson (eds.): Ineffability: an exercise in comparative philosophy of religion

Editorial preface

‘The question in each and every thing’: Nietzsche and Weil on affirmation Abstract This paper identifies and offers commentary upon a previously un-remarked consonance between Nietzsche and Weil when it comes to the idea of a universal love of the world (‘affirmation’ in Nietzsche’s terms, or ‘consent to necessity’ in Weil’s). The discussion focuses on five features of the Nietzschean account of affirmation, which are as follows: (1) that the possibility of affirmation has the form of a fundamental question at the heart of human life, which (2) has an all-or-nothing character (it is universal in scope and pervasive in influence); that (3) genuine affirmation is rare, difficult or traumatic in an existentially revealing way, primarily because (4) affirmation means facing up to the lack of finality in the world, and in particular the problem of meaningless suffering, which means that (5) affirmation is tied up with a fundamental revaluation. The first half of the paper outlines the parallels between Nietzschean affirmation and Weilian ‘consent to necessity’ in relation to the first three of these, which are also the most general. The second half of the paper explores the fourth and fifth, so as to suggest a way of reading the underlying similarity between these two projects: both are attempts to rediscover the possibility of an all-embracing affirmation of reality in the absence of any existential teleology, and when eschatology has been presumed to be impossible. In other words, both Nietzsche and Weil are compelled to find a way of achieving a transfigured perspective on ‘the whole’ in the absence of any transformation of ‘the whole’.

Everything is under control: Buber’s critique of Heidegger’s magic Abstract As part of a religiously-oriented analysis, Martin Buber associates Martin Heidegger’s later philosophy with magic. The present article is dedicated to explicating and evaluating this association. It does so, first, by fleshing out how Buber comes to depict Heidegger as an advocate of magic. Then, by examining other appearances of the category of magic in the wider context of Buber’s dialogical oeuvre, it demonstrates that what he has in mind when he invokes this category is a specific manner of human appeal to the divine marked by manipulation, utility and control. Finally, it evaluates the affiliation of Heidegger with magic: first, by comparing the metaphysical presuppositions undergirding the logic of magic—specifically the conceptions of, and interrelations between, ‘language’ and ‘being’—with Heidegger’s views, and second, by judging whether the claim that Heidegger promotes manipulative, utilitarian, and power-laden attitudes can be justified in light of his analysis of ‘technology’. The article ultimately argues that Buber misattributes magic to Heidegger, and that this misattribution better reflects the theoretical framework through which Buber justifies his dialogical position than an apt assessment of Heidegger’s thought.

Mikel Burley (ed.): Wittgenstein, religion, and ethics

The origin in traces: diversity and universality in Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion Abstract At the heart of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion one discovers a commitment to the diversity of religious expression. This commitment is grounded in his understanding of the linguistic and temporal conditions of religious phenomena. By exploring his contribution to the debate concerning the so-called ‘theological turn’ in French phenomenology in relation to his studies of translation, this essay explores Ricoeur’s understanding of religious phenomenality where meaning is experienced as the simultaneous advance and withdrawal of an originary event in the traces of its interpretations. With such an understanding of religious phenomenality, the way is opened for philosophy of religion to advance a more robust consideration of religious diversity and, therefore, to reconsider notions of universality better suited to the things themselves.

Methodological naturalism in the sciences Abstract Creationists have long argued that evolutionary science is committed to a dogmatic metaphysics of naturalism and materialism, which is based on faith or ideology rather than evidence. The standard response to this has been to insist that science is not committed to any such metaphysical doctrine, but only to a methodological version of naturalism, according to which science may only appeal to natural entities and processes. But this whole debate presupposes that there is a clear distinction between the natural and the supernatural, and thus that naturalism is a meaningful doctrine. I argue that this assumption is false. The concepts of the natural and the supernatural are in fact hopelessly obscure, such that the claim that science is committed to methodological naturalism cannot be made good. This is no victory for anti-naturalists however; explicitly supernaturalist theories, such as Creationism, can be ruled out of scientific consideration as a priori incoherent, given that they presuppose for their intelligibility that there is a meaningful natural-supernatural distinction. This is not the case for standard scientific theories however, as they are not explicitly naturalistic theories; they do not postulate natural or physical entities or processes as such.

Contra Tooley: divine foreknowledge is possible Abstract Michael Tooley’s latest argument against the possibility of divine foreknowledge trades on the idea that, whichever theory of time is true, the ontology of the future—or lack thereof—gives rise to special problems for God’s prescience. I argue that Tooley’s reasoning is predicated on two mischaracterizations and conclude that, on at least some theories of time, the possibility of divine foreknowledge appears secure.

Editorial preface

Graham Oppy, editor: Ontological arguments