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44Pantheism, Ethics and EcologyEnvironmental Values 3 (2). 1994.Pantheism is a metaphysical and religious position. Broadly defined it is the view that (1) "God is everything and everything is God ... the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature" (H.P. Owen). Similarly, it is the view that (2) everything that exists constitutes a 'unity' and this all-inclusive unity is in some sense divine (A. MacIntyre). I begin with an account of what the pantheist's ethical position is formally likely to be (e.g. objectivist etc.).…Read more
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25Museums and the Nostalgic SelfRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 79 77-94. 2016.The first part of this essay asks: What is the function, purpose and value of a museum? Has any museologist or philosopher given a credible account of philosophical problems associated with museums? Is there any set of properties shared by the diverse entities called museums? Overgeneralization is the principal problem here. The essay then examines a central kind of museum experience; one that invokes and relies upon nostalgia. I argue that the attraction of museums are varied but are best expla…Read more
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16If There Is a God, Any Experience Which Seems to Be of God, Will Be GenuineReligious Studies 26 (2). 1990.
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21Can There be Self-Authenticating Experiences of God?: MICHAEL P. LEVINEReligious Studies 19 (2): 229-234. 1983.Let us follow Robert Oakes in describing a self-authenticating experience of God as one that ‘would have the epistemic uniqueness of guaranteeing –all by itself – its veridicality to the person who had it.’ The idea that there could be self-authenticating experiences of God has been criticized often in recent years. It seems that the only experiences that could be self-authenticating are those about one's own current psychological states. Nevertheless, the individual who claims to have such an e…Read more
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36No‐self, real self, ignorance and self‐deception: Does self‐deception require a self?Asian Philosophy 8 (2). 1998.In this paper I dispute Eliot Deutsch's claim [See Deutsch, Eliot (1996) Self-deception: a comparative study, in: Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake (Eds) Self and Deception: a cross-cultural enquiry (Albany, State University of New York Press), pp. 315-326] that examining self-deception from the perspective of non-Western traditions (i.e. how it is understood in those cultures) can help us to better understand the nature of the phenomenon in one's own culture. Although the claim appears to be …Read more
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22Intellectualist and symbolist accounts of religious belief and practicePhilosophy of the Social Sciences 27 (4): 526-544. 1997.An account of the relation between belief and practice is inseparable from a general theory of religion and religious discourse. Rejection of the one time popular, but now more or less defunct, nonrealist position of people such as D. Z. Phillips, Don Cupitt, and indeed Wittgenstein leaves contemporary theo rists in anthropology and the "history of religions" with basically the vastly different "literalist" and "symbolist" analyses of religion from which to choose. This article critically apprai…Read more
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29Why the Incarnation is a Superfluous Detail for Kierkegaard: MICHAEL P. LEVINEReligious Studies 18 (2): 171-175. 1982.Why does the paradox play such a crucial role in Kierkegaard's notion of truth as subjectivity? Richard Schacht explains it as follows: Eternal happiness is possible for a man only if it is possible for him to relate himself to God. A man, however, is a being who exists in time; and it would not be possible for such a being to enter into a ‘God-relationship’ if God had not also at some point existed in time. Through the ‘leap of faith’ in which one affirms the proposition that God did exist in t…Read more
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91Contemporary Christian analytic philosophy of religion: Biblical fundamentalism, terrible solutions to a horrible problem, and hearing God (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 48 (2): 89-119. 2000.
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39‘If there is a God, any Experience which seems to be of God, will be Genuine’1: MICHAEL P. LEVINEReligious Studies 26 (2): 207-217. 1990.In The Existence of God Richard Swinburne argues that ‘if there is a God, any experience which seems to be of God, will be genuine – will be of God.’ On the face of it this claim of the essential veridicality of any religious experience, given the existence of God, is incredible. Consider what is being claimed by looking at a particularly dramatic example – but one that is well within the purview of Swinburne's claim. The ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ who murdered at least thirteen women, claimed to hear v…Read more
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3Feeling for Buffy: the girl next doorIn James South (ed.), Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, Open Court. 2003.
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75Can the concept of enlightenment evolve?Asian Philosophy 13 (2 & 3). 2003.Those who claim the concept of enlightenment (nibānna) has not evolved must rest their claim on a strong distinction between changing and variant interpretations of the concept on the one hand, and what the term really means or refers to on the other. This paper examines whether all evolution of the concept of enlightenment is best seen as interpretive variation rather than as embodying real notional change - a change in the reference of the term. It is implausible to suppose that the enlightenm…Read more
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77The Problem of EvilThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 4 127-146. 1999.The shift from the logical to the empirical argument from evil against the existence of God has been seen as a victory by analytic philosophers of religion who now seek to establish that the existence of evil fails to make the existence of God improbable. I examine several arguments in an effort to establish the following: (i) Their victory is pyrrhic. They distort the historical, philosophical and religious nature of the problem of evil. (ii) In attempting to refute the empirical argument they …Read more
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66War, politics and race: Reflections on violence in the 'war on terror'Theoria 53 (110): 23-49. 2006.The authors argue that the 'war on terror' marks the ultimate convergence of war with politics, and the virtual collapse of any meaningful distinction between them. Not only does it signify the breakdown of international relations norms but also the militarization of internal life and political discourse. They explore the 'genealogy' of this situation firstly through the notion of the 'state of exception'—in which sovereign violence becomes indistinct from the law that is supposed to curtail it—…Read more
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100Pantheism, theism and the problem of evilInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 35 (3). 1994.
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31Mystical Experience and Non–Basically Justified Belief: MICHAEL P. LEVINEReligious Studies 25 (3): 335-345. 1989.Two theses are central to foundationalism. First, the foundationalist claims that there is a class of propositions, a class of empirical contingent beliefs, that are ‘immediately justified’. Alternatively, one can describe these beliefs as ‘self–evident’, ‘non–inferentially justified’, or ‘self–warranted’, though these are not always regarded as entailing one another. The justification or epistemic warrant for these beliefs is not derived from other justified beliefs through inductive evidential…Read more
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20Kierkegaardian dogma: Inwardness and objective uncertainty (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (3). 1983.
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Areas of Interest
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