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75Postmodernism, Derrida, and Différance: A CritiqueInternational Philosophical Quarterly 39 (1): 5-18. 1999.This article provides, through a discussion of the work of Jacques Derrida, an examination of the philosophical basis of postmodernism. The first section identifies and explains the positive claims of postmodernism, including the key claim that all identities, presences, etc. depend for their existence on something which is absent and different from themselves. The second section further illustrates the positive claims through an analysis of Derrida's "deconstructionist" reading of Plato. The fi…Read more
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56Commitment, Justification, and the Rejection of Natural TheologyAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 77 (3): 417-436. 2003.This paper considers two related claims in the work of D. Z. Phillips: that commitment to God precludes a distinction between the commitment and the grounds for the commitment, and that belief and understanding are the same in religion. Both these claims motivate Phillips’s rejection of natural theology. I examine these claims by analyzing the notion of commitment, discussing what is involved in making a commitment to a worldview, why commitment is necessary at all in religion, levels of commitm…Read more
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51Marcel on God and Religious Experience, and the Critique of Alston and HickAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 80 (3): 407-420. 2006.This article examines Gabriel Marcel’s unique approach to the existence of God, and its implications for traditional philosophy of religion. After some preliminary remarks about the realm of “problems” (which would include the “rational”), and about the question of whether Marcel thinks God’s existence admits of a rational argument, Part I explains his account of how the individual subject can arrive at an affirmation of God through experiences of fidelity and promise-making. Part II proposes a …Read more
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48This book illustrates the profound implications of Gabriel Marcel's unique existentialist approach to epistemology not only for traditional themes in his work concerning ethics and the transcendent, but also for epistemological issues, concerning the objectivity of knowledge, the problem of skepticism, and the nature of non-conceptual knowledge, among others. There are also chapters of dialogue with philosophers, Jacques Maritain and Martin Buber. In focusing on these themes, the book makes a di…Read more
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44Contemporary perspectives on religious epistemology (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1992.This unique textbook--the first to offer balanced, comprehensive coverage of all major perspectives on the rational justification of religious belief--includes twenty-four key papers by some of the world's leading philosophers of religion. Arranged in six sections, each representing a major approach to religious epistemology, the book begins with papers by noted atheists, setting the stage for the main theistic responses--Wittgensteinian Fideism, Reformed epistemology, natural theology, prudenti…Read more
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42A Feminist Philosophy of Religion (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 39 (3): 363-365. 1999.
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40Four Common Confusions about Religion and EvolutionThe National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 3 (3): 479-485. 2003.
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39Pennock, Robert T., ed. Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives (review)The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 3 (3): 640-642. 2003.
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37Daniel C. Dennett and Alvin Plantinga , Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 32 (5): 370-372. 2012.
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37The Dispute between McMullin and Plantinga over EvolutionAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (2): 343-354. 2012.The discussion between Ernan McMullin and Alvin Plantinga concerning evolution and religion, which first appeared in Christian Scholar’s Review in September 1991, is an enlightening airing of many of the issues that arise with regard to this complex, controversial topic. Overall, Plantinga favors a confrontational view of the relationship between religion and evolution, while McMullin favors a dialogue model. The two thinkers disagree about the evidence for evolution, about what Plantinga calls …Read more
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36Charles Taliaferro and Elsa J. Marty, eds. , A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion . Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 33 (4): 329-330. 2013.
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35Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity (review)Review of Metaphysics 52 (2): 472-474. 1998.This collection of ten essays “by a team of leading philosophers, social scientists, intellectual historians and literary critics” aims to critically engage Jürgen Habermas’s critique of postmodernism in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Five of the essays have been previously published, and Habermas’s essay, “Modernity: An Unfinished Project,” is also reprinted here. The book also contains a very helpful introduction by Passerin d’Entrèves, and an index.
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35Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion out of Politics. By Mary Warnock (review)Philosophical Quarterly 63 (253): 846-848. 2013.© 2013 The Editors of The Philosophical QuarterlyMary Warnock's book is an attempt to address in a short space a large theme: ‘some aspects of the role of religion, and therefore the idea of God, in the twenty‐first century, as it relates to legislation and politics’. Along the way she raises many subsidiary themes, including the historical influence of religion on the law, the tension between religion and liberalism, the difficulty of providing a philosophical foundation for secularist ethics, …Read more
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32Thomasma, David C., Thomasine Kimbrough-Kushner, Gerrit K. Kimsma, and Chris Ciesielksi-Carlucci, eds. Asking to Die: Inside the Dutch Debate about Euthanasia (review)The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 1 (2): 280-282. 2001.
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32Gabriel Marcel and the Problem of KnowledgeBulletin de la Société Américaine de Philosophie de Langue Française 7 (1-2): 148-163. 1995.none.
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31Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science (review)Philosophical Quarterly 69 (276): 653-656. 2019.Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science. By Ruse Michael.
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31Why Politics Needs Religion: the place of religious arguments in the public squareInterVarsity Press. 2006.Presents a convincing argument as to why religion should be mixed with politics, ascertaining that certain religious beliefs should be made public and ...
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29Homo Viator: Introduction to the Metaphysic of Hope. By Gabriel Marcel. Translated by Emma Craufurd and Paul Seaton (review)American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (4): 737-741. 2012.
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29Haught, John F. Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution (review)The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 2 (2): 350-351. 2002.
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26The Failure of Modernism: the cartesian legacy and contemporary pluralism (edited book)Catholic University of America Press. 1999.Brings together a distinguished group of philosophers and theologians to critique several aspects of modernism.
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26Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (review)Review of Metaphysics 51 (1): 153-154. 1997.This work, translated from the German, is divided into nine chapters with a preface plus a very helpful introduction by the translator. There is also a postscript by Habermas, as well as a reprinting of two earlier papers on related topics. The book is intended as a contribution to contemporary political philosophy, and, as such, Habermas accepts certain assumptions in advance and does not attempt to argue for them at any length. The first is the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, the antirealist …Read more
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23Adorno’s Positive Dialectic (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 44 (3): 443-445. 2004.
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22Thaddeus J. Kozinski: The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can't Solve It (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2011 (1). 2011.
Brendan Sweetman
Rockhurst University
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Rockhurst UniversityProfessor
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Philosophy of Religion |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Normative Ethics |
Continental Philosophy |
History of Western Philosophy |
Business Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |