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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > General > Philosophy of religion
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason has had, and continues to have, an
enormous impact on modern philosophy. In this short, stimulating
introduction, Michael Pendlebury explains Kant’s major claims in
the Critique, how they hang together, and how Kant supports them,
clarifying the way in which his reasoning unfolds over the course
of this groundbreaking work. Making Sense of Kant’s Critique of
Pure Reason concentrates on key parts of the Critique that are
essential to a basic understanding of Kant’s project and provides
a sympathetic account of Kant’s reasoning about perception,
space, time, judgment, substance, causation, objectivity, synthetic
a priori knowledge, and the illusions of transcendent metaphysics.
The guiding assumptions of the book are that Kant is a humanist;
that his reasoning in the Critique is driven by an interest in
human knowledge and the cognitive capacities that underlie it; and
that he is not a skeptic, but accepts that human beings have
objective knowledge and seeks to explain how this is possible.
Pendlebury provides an integrated and accessible account of
Kant’s explanation that will help those who are new to the
Critique make sense of it.
Matthias Smalbrugge compares modern images to plays without a
script: while they appear to refer to a deeper identity or reality,
it is ultimately the image itself that truly matters. He argues
that our modern society of images is the product of a destructive
tendency in the Christian notion of the image in general, and
Augustine of Hippo's in particular. This insight enables him to
decode our current 'scripts' of image. As we live in an
increasingly visual culture, we are constantly confronted with
images that seem to exist without a deeper identity or reality -
but did this referential character really get lost over time?
Smalbrugge first explores the roots of the modern image by
analysing imagery, what it represents, and its moral state within
the framework of Platonic philosophy. He then moves to the
Augustinian heritage, in particular the Soliloquies, the
Confessions and the Trinity, where he finds valuable insights into
images and memory. He explores within the trinitarian framework the
crossroads of a theology of grace and a theology based on
Neoplatonic views. Smalbrugge ultimately answers two questions:
what happened to the referential character of the image, and can it
be recovered?
Throughout history, humans have dreamed of knowing the reason for the existence of the universe. In The Mind of God, physicist Paul Davies explores whether modern science can provide the key that will unlock this last secret. In his quest for an ultimate explanation, Davies reexamines the great questions that have preoccupied humankind for millennia, and in the process explores, among other topics, the origin and evolution of the cosmos, the nature of life and consciousness, and the claim that our universe is a kind of gigantic computer. Charting the ways in which the theories of such scientists as Newton, Einstein, and more recently Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman have altered our conception of the physical universe. Davies puts these scientists' discoveries into context with the writings of philosophers such as Plato. Descartes, Hume, and Kant. His startling conclusion is that the universe is "no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here." By the means of science, we can truly see into the mind of God.
The idea that God, understood as the most perfect being, must
create the best possible world is often underacknowledged by
contemporary theologians and philosophers of religion. This book
clearly demonstrates the rationale for what Justin J. Daeley calls
Theistic Optimism and interacts with the existing literature in
order to highlight its limitations. While locating Theistic
Optimism in the thought of Gottfried Leibniz, Daeley argues that
Theistic Optimism is consistent with divine freedom, aseity,
gratitude, and our typical modal intuitions. By offering plausible
solutions to each of the criticisms levelled against Theistic
Optimism, he also provides a vigorous and original defence against
the charge that it deviates from the Christian tradition. Engaging
with both the Christian tradition and contemporary theologians and
philosophers, Why God Must Do What is Best positions the idea of
Theistic Optimism firmly within the language of contemporary
philosophy of religion.
This collection provides the first in-depth introduction to the
theory of the religious imagination put forward by renowned
philosopher Douglas Hedley, from his earliest essays to his
principal writings. Featuring Hedley's inaugural lecture delivered
at Cambridge University in 2018, the book sheds light on his robust
concept of religious imagination as the chief power of the soul's
knowledge of the Divine and reveals its importance in contemporary
metaphysics, ethics and politics. Chapters trace the development of
the religious imagination in Christian Platonism from Late
Antiquity to British Romanticism, drawing on Origen, Henry More and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, before providing a survey of alternative
contemporary versions of the concept as outlined by Karl Rahner,
Rene Girard and William P. Alston, as well as within Indian
philosophy. By bringing Christian Platonist thought into dialogue
with contemporary philosophy and theology, the volume
systematically reveals the relevance of Hedley's work to current
debates in religious epistemology and metaphysics. It offers a
comprehensive appraisal of the historical contribution of
imagination to religious understanding and, as such, will be of
great interest to philosophers, theologians and historians alike.
"My desire is that this book may help readers to know more fully
the God of biblical revelation and, as a result, to proclaim God as
the God of life". Who is God? Where is God? How are we to speak of
God? Gutierrez looks at these classic questions through a review of
the Bible, and his answers challenge all Christians to a deepening
of faith.
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Faith and Reason
(Hardcover)
Nigel Zimmermann, Sandra Lynch; Foreword by Anthony Fisher
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R1,047
R886
Discovery Miles 8 860
Save R161 (15%)
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