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889Transcendental Arguments for Personal Identity in Kant’s Transcendental DeductionPhilo 14 (2): 109-136. 2011.One of the principle aims of the B version of Kant’s transcendental deduction is to show how it is possible that the same “I think” can accompany all of my representations, which is a transcendental condition of the possibility of judgment. Contra interpreters such as A. Brook, I show that this “I think” is an a priori (reflected) self-consciousness; contra P. Keller, I show that this a priori self-consciousness is first and foremost a consciousness of one’s personal identity from a first person…Read more
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Moral Hope: Kant and the Problem of Rational ReligionDissertation, Yale University. 1993.This is a fairly detailed philosophical and theological attempt to defend Kant's position that faith must be interpreted through pure practical reason if it is to remain a free and moral one. One of its primary aims is to demonstrate the intrinsic connections existing between Kant's critical ethics and his philosophy of religion. The main texts analyzed are the Foundations, the second Critique, and the Religion. ;The first and second chapters of the dissertation are intended to show that if an i…Read more
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512Aristotle as A-Theorist: Overcoming the Myth of PassageJournal of the History of Philosophy 39 (2): 169-192. 2001.Debate about the nature of time has been dominated by discussion of two issues: the reality of absolute time and the reality of A-series. We argue that Aristotle adopts a form of the A-theory entailing a denial of the reality of absolute time. Furthermore, Aristotle's denial of absolute time is linked to a denial of the reality of pure temporal becoming, namely, the idea that the now moves through a fixed continuum along which events are arranged in chronological order. We show that the puzzles …Read more
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338All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism by Paul W. Franks (review)Zeitschrift für Neuere Theologiegeschichte/Journal for the History of Modern Theology 14 (1): 145-149. 2007.
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369The Role of Limits in Aristotle's Concept of PlaceSouthern Journal of Philosophy 31 (2): 205-216. 2010.
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73Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (review)Teaching Philosophy 21 (3): 289-293. 1998.
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2126Kant’s Derivation of the Formula of the Categorical Imperative: How to Get it RightKant Studien 89 (2): 167-178. 1998.This paper explores the charge by Bruce Aune and Allen Wood that a gap exists in Kant's derivation of the Categorical Imperative. I show that properly understood, no such gap exists, and that the deduction of the Categorical Imperative is successful as it stands.
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4150Friedrich Schleiermacher and Rudolf OttoIn John Corrigan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion, Oxford University Press. 2008.Two names often grouped together in the study of religion are Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1884) and Rudolf Otto (1869–1937). Central to their understanding of religion is the idea that religious experience, characterized in terms of feeling, lies at the heart of all genuine religion. In his book On Religion, Schleiermacher speaks of religion as a “sense and taste for the Infinite.” In The Christian Faith, Schleiermacher grounds religion in the immediate self-consciousness and the “feeling of …Read more
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548HolinessIn Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper & Phil Quinn (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, Wiley-blackwell. 2010.This essay analyzes the category of “the holy” as developed by Rudolf Otto, examining his division of the holy into rational and non-rational elements. While rational elements of the holy are closely tied to ethics, another aspect of the holy can only be apprehended through sui generis feelings irreducible to other mental states. But how do non-rational elements relate to rational, ethical categories? I trace the distinction between rational and non-rational elements in Otto’s analysis to Kant…Read more
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455Transformation and Personal Identity In KantFaith and Philosophy 17 (4): 479-497. 2000.In this paper I explore how Kant’s development of the idea of the disposition in the Religion copes with problems implied by Kant’s idea of transcendental freedom. Since transcendental freedom implies the power of absolutely beginning a state, and therefore of absolutely beginning a series of the consequences of that state, a transcendentally free act is divorced from the preceding state of an agent, and would thus seem to be divorced from the agent’s character as well. The paper is divided into…Read more
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3239Making Sense of Kant’s Highest GoodKant Studien 91 (3): 329-355. 2000.This paper explores Kant's concept of the highest good and the postulate of the existence of God arising from it. Kant has two concepts of the highest good standing in tension with one another, an immanent and a transcendent one. I provide a systematic exposition of the constituents of both variants and show how Kant’s arguments are prone to confusion through a conflation of both concepts. I argue that once these confusions are sorted out Kant’s claim regarding the need to postulate God’s existe…Read more
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156IntroductionIn Jacqueline Mariña (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher, Cambridge University Press. 2005.This is my introduction as editor to The Cambridge Companion to Schleiermacher.
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3Schleiermacher's Christology Revisited: A Reply to his CriticsScottish Journal of Theology 49 (2): 177-200. 1996.This article refutes Barth's criticisms of Schleiermacher's Christology/
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548The Role of Limits in Aristotle’s Concept of PlaceSouthern Journal of Philosophy 31 (2): 205-216. 1993.This paper examines Aristotle's attempt to describe space in terms of place in the Physics, and shows why Aristotle rejected both Platonic and Atomistic understandings of space.
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281Review: Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (2). 2007.My Review of this book.
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1789Kant on grace: A reply to his criticsReligious Studies 33 (4): 379-400. 1997.Against those who dismiss Kant's project in the "Religion" because it provides a Pelagian understanding of salvation, this paper offers an analysis of the deep structure of Kant's views on divine justice and grace showing them not to conflict with an authentically Christian understanding of these concepts. The first part of the paper argues that Kant's analysis of these concepts helps us to understand the necessary conditions of the Christian understanding of grace: unfolding them uncovers intri…Read more
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The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2005.Known as the 'Father of modern theology' Friedrich Schleiermacher is without a doubt one of the most important theologians in the history of Christianity. Not only relevant to theology, he also made significant contributions in areas of philosophy such as hermeneutics, ethics, philosophy of religion, and the study of Plato, and he was ahead of his time in espousing a kind of pro to-feminism. Divided into three parts, this Companion deals first with elements of Schleiermacher's philosophy, such …Read more
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119Kant and the Problem of God, Gordon E. Michalson (review)Modern Theology 17 (3): 395-397. 2001.This is a review of Gordon Michalson's book on Kant and religion.
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188Terry Godlove, Kant and the Meaning of Religion: The Critical Philosophy and Modern Religious Thought London: I. B. Tauris, 2014 Pp. 256 ISBN 9781848855298 £18.99 (review)Kantian Review 21 (1): 138-141. 2016.Review of Godlove's book Kant and the Meaning of Religion in Kantian Review
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546On Some Presumed Gaps in Kant's Refutation of IdealismIn Udo Rameil (ed.), Metaphysik und Kritik, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 153-166. 2004.Kant’s aim in the Refutation of Idealism is to show that the temporal determination of inner experience presupposes outer experience. Commentators have rightly noted the extraordinarily compressed character of Kant's argument, and numerous gaps in the argument have been pointed out. In this paper I focus on two of these gaps and provide a reconstruction of Kant's argument that closes them.
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389Is God a Delusion? A Reply to Religion’s Cultured Despisers (review)Faith and Philosophy 28 (4): 464-468. 2011.Review of Eric Reitan's Is God a Delusion
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895Schleiermacher on the Philosopher’s Stone: the Shaping of Schleiermacher’s Early Ethics by the Kantian LegacyJournal of Religion 79 (2): 193-215. 1999.This article explores the early Schleiermacher's attempts to deal with difficult philosophical problems arising from Kant's ethics, specifically Kant's notion of transcendental freedom. How do we connect a transcendentally free act with the nature of the subject? Insofar as the act is transcendentally free, it cannot be understood in terms of causes, and this means that it cannot be connected with the previous state of the individual before he or she engaged in the act. I work through Schleier…Read more
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1057The Religious Significance of Kant’s EthicsAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 75 (2): 179-200. 2001.This paper provides analysis of Kant's Categorical Imperative and its relevance to religion. I discuss what the concept of a categorical imperative implies about self-transcendence, and what this understanding of self-transcendence indicates about the self's relation to God and others.
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206Schleirmacher and OttoIn John Corrigan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion, Oup Usa. 2009.The essay discusses F. Schleiermacher and Rudolf Otto on the centrality of religious experience.
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284Kants Vorsehungskonzept auf dem Hintergrund der Deutschen Schulphilosophie und-theologie (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, vol. 149). By Ulrich LehnerHeythrop Journal 52 (1): 148-149. 2011.Review of Ulrich Lehner's Kant's Vorsehungskonzept auk diem Hintergrund der Deutschen Schulphilosophie und Theologie
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507Theism in 19th and 20th Century Intellectual LifeIn Charles Taliaferro, Victoria Harrison & Stewart Goetz (eds.), Routledge Companion to Theism, Routledge. 2012.This chapter traces how theism was developed by leading 19th and 20th century figures (Schleiermacher, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rahner, and Tillich) responding to Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy. Part one deals with the ontological nature of subjectivity itself and what it reveals about the conditions of the possibility of a subject’s relation to the Absolute. Part two explores the role of subjectivity and interiority in the individual’s relation to God, and part three takes …Read more
APA Central Division
West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
19th Century Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Continental Philosophy |
European Philosophy |