This book brings together the study of two great disciplines of the Islamic world: law and philosophy. In both sunni and shiite Islam, it became the norm for scholars to acquire a high level of expertise in the legal tradition. Thus some of the greatest names in the history of Aristotelianism were trained jurists, like Averroes, or commented on the status and nature of law, like al-Farabi. While such authors sought to put law in its place relative to the philosophical disciplines, others criticized philosophy from a legal viewpoint, like al-Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyya. But this collection of papers does not only explore the relative standing of law and philosophy. It also looks at how philosophers, theologians, and jurists answered philosophical questions that arise from jurisprudence itself. What is the logical structure of a well-formed legal argument? What standard of certainty needs to be attained in passing down judgments, and how is that standard reached? What are the sources of valid legal judgment and what makes these sources authoritative? May a believer be excused on grounds of ignorance? Together the contributions provide an unprecedented demonstration of the close connections between philosophy and law in Islamic society, while also highlighting the philosophical interest of texts normally studied only by legal historians.

This book is an attempt to make sense of the tension in Nietzsche's work between the unashamedly egocentric and the apparently mystical. While scholars have tended to downplay one or other of these aspects, it is the author's contention that the two are not only compatible but mutually illuminating. This book demonstrates Nietzsche's sustained interest in mysticism from the time of The Birth of Tragedy right through to the end of his productive life. This book argues against situating Nietzsche's religious thought in the context of Buddhist or Christian mystical traditions, demonstrating the inadequacy of attempts to mediate between Nietzsche and Meister Eckhart and the Bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. Rather, it is argued that Nietzsche's egoism and mysticism are best understood in the intellectual context which he himself avowed, according to which his "ancestors" were Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, and Goethe.

This volume offers innovative approaches to the study of religion. It brings together junior and senior scholars from the Global North and South. The contributors also explore the context-specific formations of religion and religious knowledge production in an increasingly instable and incalculable, globalized world. In the spirit of the challenging slogan, "Religion in Motion. Rethinking Religion, Knowledge and Discourse in a Globalizing World," the book bundles voices from a great variety of cultural and academic backgrounds. It offers readers a cross-continental exchange of innovative approaches in the study of religion. Coverage intersects religion, gender, economics, and politics. In addition, it de-centers European perspectives and brings in perspectives from the Global South. Chapters examine such topics as feminine power and agency in the Ile Axe Oxum Abalo , queering the Trinity, and faith and professionalism in humanitarian encounters in post-earthquake Haiti. Coverage also explores notions of development in African initiated churches and their implications for development policy, the study of religion as the study of discourse construction, rethinking the religion/secularism binary in world politics, and more. This book will appeal to students and researchers with an interest in Religion and Society, Philosophy and Religion, and Religion and Gender.

Have you ever pondered the problem of being as "we know it"? Our knowledge is extremely limited, and what is unknown at one moment in history may become known in the next, causing the body of knowledge to be constantly changing along the path of human development.

While we are all on a brief journey that begins at birth and ends in death, this current state of being does not preclude the possibility of another state of being presently unknown. "The Pathway Beyond" addresses the issues surrounding this question, bringing together the scientific and the spiritual.

The study of philosophy and religion has been part of human activity for thousands of years. Even so, our society seems not to have reaped the full benefit of the positive values set forth by our philosophers and spiritual leaders. Instead, the growth of science in solving immediate practical problems has consumed our interest. Now, however, scientists are developing an interest in topics that have traditionally been solely within the boundaries of philosophy and religion, such as human consciousness. The subject of ontology, or the science of being, seems to be expanding its influence within human thought.

Aimed at laypeople as well as academics, "The Pathway Beyond" explores ideas from Eastern and Western spiritual leaders to illustrate the connections between science and religion.

A philosophical inquiry into the strengths and weaknesses of theism and naturalism in accounting for the emergence of consciousness, the visual imagination and aesthetic values. The authors begin by offering an account of modern scientific practice which gives a central place to the visual imagination and aesthetic values. They then move to test the explanatory power of naturalism and theism in accounting for consciousness and the very visual imagination and aesthetic values that lie behind and define modern science. Taliaferro and Evans argue that evolutionary biology alone is insufficient to account for consciousness, the visual imagination and aesthetic values. Insofar as naturalism is compelled to go beyond evolutionary biology, it does not fare as well as theism in terms of explanatory power.

The late Bishop John A T Robinson wrote this book early on in his life but it was never published. This book is considered to be of such scholarly importance and so key to an understanding of Robinson's theology that it is now published in full. In 1960, Eric Mascall the Oxford Theologian published a book called "He Who Is", a neo-Thomist approach to the existence of God. This ran against all that Robinson believed most deeply about belief in God - influenced as he was by the new wave of German theologians. Bultmann, Buber but above all Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This book was his response to Mascall and hence the title. This book is about the notion of personality and it's relation to Christian theology, with particular reference to the contemporary "I-Thou Philosophy" of Martin Buber and it's relation to the doctrine of "The Trinity" and "The Person of Christ." This book was unquestionably the foundation of John A T Robinson theological work. Barth, Brunner, Berdayev, Kierkegaard, Heim and Mc Murray all had an influence on this book (as the reader will quickly observe). But at the heart of Robinson's thinking was Buber's small but seminal volume "I and Thou". More than anyone else, Robinson integrated the insights of Buber philosophy with the biblical doctrines of God and man. It was in this way that Robinson in this book explored both the history and implications of this tradition of thought of how one could speak of personality in God rather than God as a person. In this book Robinson began to work as a theologian as he meant to go on: questioning accepted doctrine, stripping away, getting to the heart, re-interpreting. He was in Karl Barth's great phrase taking rational trouble over the mystery.

Sren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is simultaneously one of the most obscure philosophers of the Western world and one of the most influential. His writings have influenced atheists and faithful alike. Yet despite his now pervasive influence, there is still widespread disagreement on many of the most important aspects of his thought. Kierkegaard was deliberately obscure in his philosophical writings, forcing his reader to interpret and reflect. But at the same time that Kierkegaard produced his esoteric, pseudonymous philosophical writings, he was also producing simpler, direct religious writings. Since his death the connections between these two sets of writings have been debated, ignored or denied by commentators. Here W. Glenn Kirkconnell undertakes a thorough examination of the two halves of Kierkegaard's authorship, demonstrating their ethical and religious relationship and the unifying themes of the signed and pseudonymous works. In particular the book examines Kierkegaard's understanding of the fall of the self and its recovery and the implications of his entire corpus for the life of the individual.

The work of the later Schelling (in and after 1809) seems antithetical to that of Nietzsche: one a Romantic, idealist and Christian, the other Dionysian, anti-idealist and anti-Christian. Still, there is a very meaningful and educative dialogue to be found between Schelling and Nietzsche on the topics of reason, freedom and religion. Both of them start their philosophy with a similar critique of the Western tradition, which to them is overly dualist, rationalist and anti-organic (metaphysically, ethically, religiously, politically). In response, they hope to inculcate a more lively view of reality in which a new understanding of freedom takes center stage. This freedom can be revealed and strengthened through a proper approach to religion, one that neither disconnects from nor subordinates religion to reason. Religion is the dialogical other to reason, one that refreshes and animates our attempts to navigate the world autonomously. In doing so, Schelling and Nietzsche open up new avenues of thinking about (the relationship between) freedom, reason and religion.

The present geopolitical rise of India and China evokes much interest in the comparative study of these two ancient Asian cultures. There are various studies comparing Western and Indian philosophies and religions, and there are similar works comparing Chinese and Western philosophy and religion. However, so far there is no systemic comparative study of Chinese and Indian philosophies and religions. Therefore there is a need to fill this gap. As such, Brahman and Dao: Comparative Studies of Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion is a pioneering volume in that it highlights possible bridges between these two great cultures and complex systems of thought, with seventeen chapters on various Indo-Chinese comparative topics. The book focuses on four themes: metaphysics and soteriology; ethics; body, health and spirituality; and language and culture.