How might we transform a folk category - in this case religion - into a analytical category suitable for cross-cultural research? In this volume, the author addresses that question. He critically explores various approaches to the problem of conceptualizing religion, particularly with respect to certain disciplinary interests of anthropologists. He argues that the concept of family resemblances, as that concept has been refined and extended in prototype theory in the contemporary cognitive sciences, is the most plausible analytical strategy for resolving the central problem of the book. In the solution proposed, religion is conceptualized as an affair of "more or less" rather than a matter of "yes or no," and no sharp line is drawn between religion and non-religion.

What does it mean to be human? Is there something that makes us distinct from computers, other great apes, Martians, gods? Is there philosophical, ethical, or political value in continuing to think in terms of a common human nature? Or should we rather throw this concept into the dustbin of history? A paradox of the concept of "human nature" is that it holds both the promise of universal equality-insofar as it takes us all to share a common nature-while all too often rationalizing exploitation, oppression, and even violence against other individuals and other species. Most appallingly, differences in skin color and other physiological traits have been viewed as signs of a "lesser" humanity, or of outright inhumanity, and used to justify great harms. The volume asks: is the concept of human nature separable from the racist, sexist, and speciest abuse that has been made of it? And is it even possible-or desirable-to articulate a notion of human nature unaffected by race or gender or class, as if it were possible to observe humanity in a pure form? This volume traces the history of the concept "human" by examining the history of claims about distinctively human properties and capacities, and the ethical and political repercussions of such accounts. Spanning the history of philosophy, political science, religion, medical ethics, the history of art and science fiction, it illuminates how our self-understanding as "human" evolved across time and place-from ancient Greek, classical Chinese, and medieval Arabic accounts of human nature to contemporary evolutionary theory and the transhumanist movement. It examines problems ranging from the intelligibility of Incarnation (a relationship between divine and human beings) to problems posed by genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Short pieces, or Reflections, are interspersed among the chapters, which take up topics ranging from Frankenstein to Marx's concept of human nature.

Described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas, the Swiss pastor and theologian, Karl Barth, continues to be a major influence on students, scholars and preachers today. Barth's theology found its expression mainly through his closely reasoned fourteen-part magnum opus, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik. Having taken over 30 years to write, the Church Dogmatics is regarded as one of the most important theological works of all time, and represents the pinnacle of Barth's achievement as a theologian.

In this book, Thomas M. Osborne, Jr., covers an important, but often neglected, aspect of medieval ethics, namely the controversy over whether or not it is possible to love God more than oneself through natural powers alone. In debating this topic, thirteenth-century philosophers and theologians introduced a high level of sophistication to the study of how one's own good is achieved through virtuous action. The central issue for medieval scholars was how to adapt Aristotle's philosophical insights to a Christian framework. For Christians, loving God above all else was their central ethical duty. Most ancient and medieval Christians were also committed to eudaimonism, or the view that one's good is always maximized through virtuous action. The tension between these two aspects of Christian ethics reached its highest point in philosophical discussions about whether God can be naturally loved more than oneself. Osborne provides a history of these debates, based on a close analysis of primary texts, clarifies the concepts that are most important for understanding eudaimonism, and argues that the central difference between the ethical theories of such great thinkers as Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus is not about morality and self-interest, but rather about the relationship between ethics and natural inclination. The arguments raised by the thirteenth-century philosophers and texts discussed in this book have important implications for natural law theories and virtue ethics and are essential for understanding the shift to modern moral theories. Love of Self and Love of God in Thirteenth-Century Ethics will be invaluable to philosophers and theologians, particularly those concerned with medieval philosophy, moral psychology, the history of ideas, and ethics.

This book presents two essays by Nishida Kitaro, translated into English for the first time by John Krummel and Shigenori Nagatomo. Nishida is widely regarded as one of the father figures of modern Japanese philosophy and as the founder of the first distinctly Japanese school of philosophy, the Kyoto school, known for its synthesis of western philosophy, Christian theology, and Buddhist thought. The two essays included here are ''Basho'' from 1926/27 and ''Logic and Life'' from 1936/37. Each essay is divided into several sections and each section is preceded by a synopsis added by the translators. The first essay represents the first systematic articulation of Nishida's philosophy of basho, literally meaning ''place, '' a system of thought that came to be known as ''Nishida philosophy.'' In the second essay, Nishida inquires after the pre-logical origin of what we call logic, which he suggests is to be found within the dialectical unfoldings of world-history and human society. A substantial introduction by John Krummel considers the significance of Nishida as a thinker, discusses the key components of Nishida's philosophy as a whole and its development throughout his life, and contextualizes the translated essays within his oeuvre. The Introduction also places Nishida and his work within the historical context of his time, and highlights the relevance of his ideas to the global circumstances of our day. The publication of these two essays by Nishida, a major figure in world philosophy and the most important philosopher of twentieth-century Japan, will be of significant value to the fields not only of Asian philosophy and East-West comparative philosophy but also of philosophy in general as well as of theology and religious studies

The last few decades have seen an unprecedented surge of empirical and philosophical research into the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, the origins of the mind/brain, and human culture. This research and its popular interpretations have sparked heated debates about the nature of human beings and how knowledge about humans from the sciences and humanities should be properly understood. The goal of Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature is to engage these themes and present current debates, discussions, and discourse for a range of readers. The contributors bring the discussion to life with key experts outlining major concepts paired with cross-disciplinary commentaries in order to create a novel approach to thinking about, and with, human natures. The intent of the contributors to this volume is not to enter into or adjudicate complex philosophical issues of an epistemological or metaphysical nature. Instead, their common concern is to set aside the rigid distinctions between biology and culture that have made such discussions problematic. First, informing their approach is an acknowledgment of the widespread disagreement about such basic metaphysical and epistemological questions as the existence of God, the nature of scientific knowledge, and the existence of essences, among other topics. Second, they try to identify and explicate the assumptions that enter into their conceptualizations of human nature. Throughout, they emphasize the importance of seeking a convergence in our views on human nature, despite metaphysical disagreements. They caution that if convergence eludes us and a common ground cannot be found, this is itself a relevant result: it would reveal to us how deeply our questions about ourselves are connected to our basic metaphysical assumptions. Instead, their focus is on how the interdisciplinary and possibly transdisciplinary conversation can be enhanced in order to identify and develop a common ground on what constitutes human nature.

Despite being a pillar of belief in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the idea of revelation was deeply discredited over the course of the Enlightenment. The post-Enlightenment restoration of revelation among German religious thinkers is a fascinating yet underappreciated moment in modern efforts to navigate between reason and faith. The Rebirth of Revelation compares Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish reflections on revelation from 1750 to 1850 and asserts that a strategic transformation in the term's meaning secured its relevance for the modern age. Tuska Benes argues that "propositional" revelation, understood as the infallible dispensation of doctrine, gave way to revelation as a subjective process of inner transformation or the historical disclosure of divine being in the world. By comparatively approaching the unconventional ways in which Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism have rehabilitated the concept of revelation, The Rebirth of Revelation restores theology to a central place in modern European intellectual history.

John Locke's 1695 enquiry into the foundations of Christian belief is here presented for the first time in a critical edition. Locke maintains that the essentials of the faith, few and simple, can be found by anyone for themselves in the Scripture, and that this provides a basis for tolerant agreeement among Christians. An authoritative text is accompanied by abundant information conducive to an understanding of Locke's religious thought.

This book constitutes the first treatment of C. S. Peirce's unique concept of habit. Habit animated the pragmatists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, who picked up the baton from classical scholars, principally Aristotle. Most prominent among the pragmatists thereafter is Charles Sanders Peirce. In our vernacular, habit connotes a pattern of conduct. Nonetheless, Peirce's concept transcends application to mere regularity or to human conduct; it extends into natural and social phenomena, making cohesive inner and outer worlds. Chapters in this anthology define and amplify Peircean habit; as such, they highlight the dialectic between doubt and belief. Doubt destabilizes habit, leaving open the possibility for new beliefs in the form of habit-change; and without habit-change, the regularity would fall short of habit - conforming to automatic/mechanistic systems. This treatment of habit showcases how, through human agency, innovative regularities of behavior and thought advance the process of making the unconscious conscious. The latter materializes when affordances (invariant habits of physical phenomena) form the basis for modifications in action schemas and modes of reasoning. Further, the book charts how indexical signs in language and action are pivotal in establishing attentional patterns; and how these habits accommodate novel orientations within event templates. It is intended for those interested in Peirce's metaphysic or semiotic, including both senior scholars and students of philosophy and religion, psychology, sociology and anthropology, as well as mathematics, and the natural sciences.

This book offers an in-depth introduction to the philosophy and practice of Zen Buddhism. Bret Davis explores the philosophical implications of Zen teachings and koans, comparing and contrasting these with other Asian as well as Western religions and philosophies. He relates traditional Zen teachings and practices to our twenty-first century lives. In addition to being a scholarly and philosophical introduction to Zen, the book provides concrete instructions for beginning a practice of Zen meditation. Its twenty-four chapters treat such philosophical topics as the self, nature, art, morality, and language, as well as basic Buddhist teachings such as the middle way and karma. Davis introduces the Zen based philosophies of the Kyoto School and also engages in interreligious dialogue with Christianity and other religions, as well as with other schools of Buddhism. The concluding chapter reviews the path of Zen practice and enlightenment by way of commenting on the beloved Zen classic, The Ten Oxherding Pictures. The book can be read in its entirety as a coherently organized introduction to the philosophy and practice of Zen, or chapters can be read independently according to the reader's specific interests.

In Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy, Anais N. Spitzer shows that philosophy cannot separate itself from myth since myth is an inevitable condition of the possibility of philosophy. Bombarded by narratives that terrorize and repress, we may often consider myth to be constrictive dogma or, at best, something to be readily disregarded as unphilosophical and irrelevant. However, such dismissals miss a crucial aspect of myth. Harnessing the insights of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction and Mark C. Taylor's philosophical reading of complexity theory, Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy provocatively reframes the pivotal relation of myth to thinking and to philosophy, demonstrating that myth's inherent ambiguity engenders vital and inescapable deconstructive propensities. Exploring myth's disruptive presence, Spitzer shows that philosophy cannot separate itself from myth. Instead, myth is an inevitable condition of the possibility of philosophy. This study provides a nuanced account of myth in the postmodern era, not only laying out the deconstructive underpinnings of myth in philosophy and religion, but establishing the very necessity of myth in the study of ideas.

In the first full-length analysis of Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, Brian R. Clack presents a fresh and innovative interpretation of Wittgenstein's conception of religion. While previous commentators have tended to sideline the Remarks on Frazer, Clack shows how the key to Wittgenstein's thought on religion lies in these remarks on primitive magico-religious observances. This book shows that Wittgenstein neither embraces expressivism, as it is generally assumed, nor straightforwardly denies instrumentalism. Focusing instead on Wittgenstein's suggestion that magic is somehow akin to metaphysics, a view of ritual as the spontaneous expression of human beings (conceived as "ceremonial animals") is presented.

Suppose there is something going on in the universe which is to ordinary, everyday reality as our unconcious is to our daily lives? Softly, but unmistakably guiding it. Most of the time, we are unaware of it. Yet, every now and then, on account of some fluke, we are startled by the results of its presence. We realize we have been part of something with neither consciousness nor consent. It is so sweet and then it is gone. You say, But I don t believe in God. And I ask, What makes you think it matters to God?" from

Lawrence Kushner, whose previous books have opened up new spiritual possibilities, now tells us stories in a new literary form.

Through his everyday encounters with family, friends, colleagues and strangers, Kushner takes us deeply into our lives, finding flashes of spiritual insight in the process. Such otherwise ordinary moments as fighting with his children, shopping for bargain basement clothes, or just watching a movie are revealed to be touchstones for the sacred.

This is a book where literature meets spirituality, where the sacred meets the ordinary, and, above all, where people of all faiths, all backgrounds can meet one another and themselves. Kushner ties together the stories of our lives into a roadmap showing how everything ordinary is supercharged with meaning if we can just see it.

Does God exist? What about evil and suffering? How does faith relate to science? Is there life after death? These questions fascinate everyone and lie at the heart of philosophy of religion. Chad Meister offers an up-to-date introduction to the field, focussing not only on traditional debates but also on contemporary concepts such as the intelligent creator. Key topics, such as divine reality and the self and religious experience, are discussed in relation to different faiths. Introducing Philosophy of Religion: * offers a lucid overview of contemporary philosophy of religion * introduces the key figures in the history of philosophy of religion * explores the impact of religious diversity and pluralism * examines the main arguments for and against the existence of God and the nature of the divine * looks at science and issues of faith and reason * explores how the different religions approach the concept of life after death. The wealth of textbook features, including tables of essential information, questions for reflection, summaries, glossary and recommendations for further reading make the book ideal for student use. Along with its accompanying Reader, this is the perfect introductory package for undergraduate philosophy of religion courses. Visit the book's companion website at www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415403276. Features include: an interactive glossary a timeline powerpoint slides on all the chapters chapter outlines lists of objectives for study.

In his widely praised book, award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt examines the world's philosophical wisdom through the lens of psychological science, showing how a deeper understanding of enduring maxims-like Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, or What doesn't kill you makes you stronger-can enrich and even transform our lives.

Dr Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists, working at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God. How does he reconcile the seemingly unreconcilable? In THE LANGUAGE OF GOD he explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes the reader on a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry and biology -- indeed, reason itself -- are not incompatible with belief. His book is essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of all: why are we here? How did we get here? And what does life mean?

Value and Vulnerability brings together scholars of many religions-including Catholicism, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Islam, and Humanism-to identify and examine conceptions and interpretations of dignity within different religious and philosophical perspectives and their applications to contemporary issues of conflict, such as gendered, religious, and racial violence, immigration, ecology, and religious peacemaking. Value and Vulnerability also includes response chapters that clarify and refine these interpretations from interfaith perspectives. Through this volume, Matthew R. Petrusek and Jonathan Rothchild offer recommendations for advancing the conversation about dignity within and among traditions and for addressing urgent global issues and threats to dignity. Together, Petrusek, Rothchild, and the contributors create a comparative framework constituted by seven questions: What sources justify dignity's existence, nature, and purpose? What is the relationship between the divine and human dignity? What is the relationship between dignity and the human body? Is dignity vulnerable or invulnerable to moral harm? Is dignity inherent or attained? Is dignity universal and equal? Is dignity practical? Through its systematic, comparative, interdisciplinary, and practical dimensions, Value and Vulnerability fills in the gaps in contemporary theological, philosophical, and ethical discourses on dignity. Contributors: Matthew R. Petrusek, Jonathan Rothchild, Darlene Fozard Weaver, Kristin Scheible, Karen B. Enriquez, Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel Nevins, Christopher Key Chapple, David P. Gushee, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Zeki Saritoprak, William Schweiker, Hille Haker, Nicholas Denysenko, Terrence L. Johnson, William O'Neill, Victor Carmona, Dawn Nothwehr, OSF, and Ellen Ott Marshall.