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18History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (edited book)Springer. 2014.This two volume works provides a comprehensive history of philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. Volume one provides a chronological history, with one chapter devoted to the early years in which idealism dominated Australasian philosophy, and then chapters that cover each of the decades from the second world war. Volume two provides a thematic history, with treatment of most of the major areas to which Australasian philosophers have made significant contributions.
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46Love and Marriage, Yesterday and TodayCultura 14 (2): 7-36. 2017.Taking as its starting-point Eva Illouz's sociological study Why Love Hurts, this paper develops a philosophical framework for understanding love and marriage, particularly in their contemporary manifestations. To begin with, premodern practices in love and marriage during the ancient Greek and Byzantine eras are outlined and contrasted with modern forms of love, whose overriding features are suffering and disappointment. To cast some light upon this great transformation in the fortunes of love …Read more
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60Absolute idealism and the problem of evilInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 82 (1): 47-69. 2017.The problem of evil is regularly regarded as posing a serious threat to theistic belief. However, contemporary philosophers of religion have overlooked the ways in which this problem has been, or could be, handled by theists committed to the metaphysics of idealism. In seeking to redress this lacuna, I turn to the systems of the British idealists, popular in the late nineteenth century though now out of favour, and in particular the work of F.H. Bradley, while also drawing parallels with the Adv…Read more
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35Philosophy and Religious CommitmentSophia 56 (4): 605-630. 2017.An aspect of the question of the relationship between reason and faith concerns the compatibility between philosophy and religious commitment. I begin by considering some attempts that have been made in both the analytic and Continental traditions to divorce philosophy from the life of religious faith as far as possible: in particular, I discuss Martin Heidegger’s critique of the very idea of a ‘Christian philosophy’ and Bertrand Russell’s criticism of Aquinas for not living up to the Socratic i…Read more
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21Slow PhilosophyHeythrop Journal 59 (2): 221-239. 2018.Metaphilosophy is typically concerned with such questions as the goals of philosophy, the relations between philosophy and the arts and sciences, the methods of argumentation and tools of analysis employed by philosophers, major trends and schools of thought, the prospects for progress and future directions. But one topic that has been consistently overlooked in these discussions is that of the temporality, or pace and tempo, of philosophy. Initially this may seem a relatively insignificant topi…Read more
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13A Genealogy Of Marion's Philosophy Of Religion: Apparent Darkness (review)Heythrop Journal 55 (4): 752-753. 2014.
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19What No Eye Has Seen: The Skeptical Theist Response to Rowe’s Evidential Argument from EvilPhilo 6 (2): 263-279. 2003.This paper examines the evidential argument from evil put forward by William Rowe during his early and middle periods. Having delineated some of the important features of Rowe’s argument, it is then assessed in the light of “the skeptical theist critique.” According to skeptical theists, Rowe’s crucial inference from inscrutable evil to pointless evil can be exposed as unwarranted, particularly by appealing to the disparity between our cognitive abilities and the infinite wisdom of God. However,…Read more
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24The Philosophy of Michel Henry : A French Christian Phenomenology of Life (review)Heythrop Journal 55 (4): 747-749. 2014.
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11The New Phenomenology and Analytic Philosophy of ReligionHeythrop Journal 55 (4): 670-690. 2014.
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26What’s Love Got to Do with It?Roczniki Filozoficzne 63 (3): 43-54. 2015.This paper contests an important assumption guiding Alexander Pruss’ One Body, that marriage is intimately connected with love, including romantic love. This assumption, I argue, is the product in part of a distinctively modern understanding of marriage. To show this, Pruss’ position is set against the premodern, and in particular the Byzantine Christian, view and practice of marriage, where marriage was not grounded to any significant extent on love. Finally, some indication is provided as to w…Read more
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38Truth, or the futures of philosophy of religionInternational Journal of Philosophy and Theology 74 (5): 366-390. 2013.Philosophy of religion, in both its analytic and Continental streams, has been undergoing a renewal for some time now, and I seek to explore this transformation in the fortunes of the discipline by looking at how truth – and religious truth in particular – is conceptualised in both strands of philosophy. I begin with an overview of the way in which truth has been commonly understood across nearly all groups within the analytic tradition, and I will underscore the difficulties and shortcomings of…Read more
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28AntitheodicyIn Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard-Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil, Wiley. 2014.A theodicy is the attempt to discern God's reasons for permitting evil, whereas the antitheodicy view rejects all such attempts outright. This chapter explores two sets of arguments that could be offered in support of antitheodicy. The first group of arguments concerns the morality of theodicy, and seeks to show that theodicy‐making conflicts with or undermines central aspects of morality – for example, the motivation to fight against gratuitous evil. The second group of arguments point out nonm…Read more
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43Timothy D. Knepper: The ends of philosophy of religion: Terminus and telos: Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, 2013, xiv and 206 pp, $90.00International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 75 (3): 255-258. 2014.Timothy Knepper’s book is divided into two parts, the first and more critical of which seeks to uncover the limits and weaknesses of analytic and continental philosophy of religion, while the second and more constructive section seeks to develop an alternative and more fruitful way of practising philosophy of religion, “one that is historically grounded and religiously diverse” (p. xiii). Much of the impetus behind the book derives from feelings of dismay and dissatisfaction, familiar especially…Read more
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52Review Essay: Emmanuel Falque, The Metamorphosis of Finitude: An Essay on Birth and ResurrectionJournal of French and Francophone Philosophy 21 (2): 163-166. 2013.A review of Emmanuel Falque, The Metamorphosis of Finitude: An Essay on Birth and Resurrection, trans. George Hughes ( New York: Fordham University Press, 2012)
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45Deus Loci: The Place of God and the God of Place in Philosophy and Theology (review)Sophia 52 (2): 315-333. 2013.
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82Book Review: Tamsin Jones, A Genealogy of Marion's Philosophy of Religion: Apparent Darkness (review)Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 21 (1): 196-198. 2013.A review of Tamsin Jones, A Genealogy of Marion's Philosophy of Religion
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122Doing Philosophy in Style: A New Look at the Analytic/Continental DividePhilosophy Compass 7 (12): 919-942. 2012.Questions of style are often deemed of marginal importance in philosophy, as well as in metaphilosophical debates concerning the analytic/Continental divide. I take issue with this common tendency by showing how style – suitably conceived not merely as a way of writing, but as a form of expression intimately linked to a form of life – occupies a central role in philosophy. After providing an analysis of the concept of style, I take a fresh look at the analytic/Continental division by examining t…Read more
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32The New Phenomenology and Analytic Philosophy of ReligionHeythrop Journal 54 (2): 670-690. 2013.
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160Against theodicy: A response to Peter ForrestSophia 49 (1): 129-140. 2010.In responding to Peter Forrest’s defence of ‘tough-minded theodicy’, I point to some problematic features of theodicies of this sort, in particular their commitment to an anthropomorphic conception of God which tends to assimilate the Creator to the creaturely and so diminishes the otherness and mystery of God. This remains the case, I argue, even granted Forrest’s view that God may have a very different kind of morality from the one we mortals are subject to.
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49What No Eye Has SeenPhilo 6 (2): 263-279. 2003.This paper examines the evidential argument from evil put forward by William Rowe during his early and middle periods (1978-1995). Having delineated some of the important features of Rowe’s argument, it is then assessed in the light of “the skeptical theist critique.” According to skeptical theists, Rowe’s crucial (“noseeum”) inference from inscrutable evil to pointless evil can be exposed as unwarranted, particularly by appealing to the disparity between our cognitive abilities and the infinite…Read more
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28A third (meta-)critiqueSophia 45 (2): 139-142. 2006.I begin my third reply by answering some of the criticisms raised by Tierno against theodical attempts to account for the pervasiveness of moral evil. I then take the discussion to a meta-philosophical level, where I question the very way of thinking about God and evil implicit in Tierno’s critique and in much contemporary philosophy of religion.
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33Second thoughts on the alleged failure of free will theodiciesSophia 43 (2): 87-93. 2004.In this paper I further the discussion on the adequacy of free will theodicies initiated by Joel Tierno. Tierno’s principal claim is that free will theodicies fail to account for the wide distribution of moral evil. I attempt to show that, even if Tierno need not rely on a compatibilist conception of free will in order to substantiate the aforementioned claim, there remains good reason to think that free will theodicies are not explanatorily inadequate in the way suggested by Tierno.
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Presence and Absence: The Paintings of Andrew MusgraveLiterature & Aesthetics 18 (2): 189-207. 2008.
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487Meta-Philosophy of ReligionArs Disputandi 7 1-47. 2007.How is the philosophical study of religion best pursued? Responses to this meta-philosophical question tend to recapitulate the analytic-Continental divide in philosophy in general. My aim is to examine the nature of this divide, particularly as it has manifested itself in the philosophy of religion. I begin with a comparison of the stylistic differences in the language of the two traditions, taking the work of Alvin Plantinga and John Caputo as exemplars of the analytic and Continental schools …Read more
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44Does hard determinism render the problem of evil even harder?Ars Disputandi: The Online Journal for Philosophy of Religion 6 (6): 1-1. 2006.Hard determinism, in theological dress, holds that there is no human free will since God is the sufficient active cause of everything that happens in creation. It is surprising that, in the ever-growing literature on the problem of evil, very little attention has been paid to theodicies that adopt a hard determinist outlook. It is commonly assumed that without free will the theodical project is a non-starter. I challenge this long-held assumption by, firstly, developing a cumulative-style theodi…Read more
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70Skeptical theism and moral skepticism: a reply to Almeida and OppyArs Disputandi: The Online Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (4): 1-1. 2012.Skeptical theists purport to undermine evidential arguments from evil by appealing to the fact that our knowledge of goods, evils, and their interconnections is significantly limited. Michael J. Almeida and Graham Oppy have recently argued that skeptical theism is unacceptable because it results in a form of moral skepticism which rejects inferences that play an important role in our ordinary moral reasoning. In this reply to Almeida and Oppy’s argument we offer some reasons for thinking that sk…Read more
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Religion |
20th Century Philosophy |