【Philosophy】African philosophy cannot be a thing
This essay unpacks several arguments about the metaphilosophic nature of African philosophy and charts a way through the problems these arguments enco... [more]
【Philosophy】Fusion Philosophy and Epistemic Injustice
I use the concept of epistemic injustice to think through the practice and methodology of comparative, or fusion, philosophy. I make two related claim... [more]
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Why do theologians need to be scientists?
The postmodern situation has given rise to a quest for new understandings of the relationship between theology and science. Drawing illustrative material from an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, I look at three paradigmatic answers to the question posed in
Naturalizing ethics: The biology and psychology of moral agency
Moral agency is a central feature of both religious and secular conceptions of human beings. In this paper I outline a scientific naturalistic model of moral agency making use of current findings and theories in sociobiology, developmental psychology, and
Can a Darwinian be a Christian? Sociobiological issues
This essay looks at the Darwinian sociobiological account of morality, arguing that in major respects this philosophy should prove congenial to the Christian. It is shown how modern-day Darwinism, starting from a selfish gene perspective, nevertheless arg
Whose evolution? Which theology?
The importance of scientific conflicts for theology and philosophy is difficult ro judge. In many disputes of significance, prominent scientists can be found on both sides. Profound philosophical and religious implications are sometimes said to be implied
Topology change and the unity of space
Must space be a unity? This question, which exercised Aristotle, Descartes and Kant, is a specific instance of a more general one; namely, can the topology of physical space change with time? In this paper we show how the discussion of the unity of space
The coordinate-independent 2-component spinor formalism and the conventionality of simultaneity
In recent articles, Zangari (1994) and Karakostas (1997) observe that while an E-extended version of the proper orthochronous Lorentz group O-+(up arrow) (1,3) exists for values of epsilon not equal to zero, no similar E-extended version of its double cov
Energy conservation in GTR
The topics of gravitational field energy and energy-momentum conservation in General Relativity theory have been unjustly neglected by philosophers. If the gravitational held in space free of ordinary matter, as represented by the metric g(ab) itself, can
Spacetime models for the world
In this paper I take a sceptical view of the standard cosmological model and its variants, mainly on the following grounds: (i) The method of mathematical modelling that characterises modern natural philosophy-as opposed to Aristotle's-goes well with the
'Nature is the realisation of the simplest conceivable mathematical ideas': Einstein and t
Einstein proclaimed that we could discover true laws of nature by seeking those with the simplest mathematical formulation. He came to this viewpoint later in his life. In his early years and work he was quite hostile to this idea. Einstein did not develo
On feature spreading and the representation of place of articulation
Since Clements (1985) introduced feature geometry, four major innovations have been proposed: Unified Feature Theory, Vowel-Place Theory, Strict Locality, and Partial Spreading. We set out the problems that each innovation encounters and propose a new mod
Recovering the pastness of the past - A response to the focus on eighteenth-century ethics
In its dominantly ahistorical character, the Journal of Religious Ethics has much in common with its counterparts among philosophical journals, showing as clearly as they do the widespread antihistorical bias of twentieth-century analytical philosophy. Mo
Reading the silences, questioning the terms - A response to the focus on eighteenth-century ethics
It is striking that most of the essays in this focus do not explore the specifically religious aspects of Enlightenment ethical thought. a principled reason for this may be found in a conception of religion that makes it hard for Enlightenment thinkers to
Sieges, shipwrecks, and sensible knaves - Justice and utility in Butler and Hume
By examining the theories of justice developed by Joseph Butler and David Hume, the author discloses the conceptual limits of their moral naturalism. Butler was unable to accommodate the possibility that justice is, at least to some extent, a social conve
Redeeming love - Rousseau and eighteenth-century moral philosophy
This essay employs Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) as a vehicle to explore love in eighteenth-century French moral philosophy and theological ethics. The relation between love of self and love of God was understood variously and produced contrasting mod
Orientalism and antivoluntarism in the history of ethics -: On Christian!Wolff's 'Oratio d
Christian Wolff's 1721 Discourse on the Practical Philosophy of the Chinese is generally read as championing the autonomy of ethics from religion. This is too simple: Wolff's ethics was an antivoluntarist religious ethics. The example of the Chinese con