George Pattison

This chapter sketches possibilities for thinking about God as a counter-movement to technology, that nevertheless accepts the reality of the technological society. One still remains free to think about God, even if it is uncertain that one’s thinking answers to anything ‘real’. Such thinking is allowed by the power to think beyond any provisional world-picture that fails to do justice to the wholeness of one’s experience of the world. In mysticism, there is a perennial emphasis on allowing ourselves to be led by the mind’s longing for God. Yet, rather than self-assertion, thinking about God would have to wait upon the self-revealing gift of its object.

This chapter explores the ethical issues raised by genetic engineering, and the prospect of a posthuman future, or as some commentators put it, a posthuman present in which everyone has become cyborgs. A variety of positive and negative responses to this situation are noted, with particular reference to Fukuyama and Habermas. It is argued that such questions mark a limit to any purely rational philosophical ethics. Religious perspectives are not only legitimate, but may be seen as an implicit background for ethical argumentation, although this does not require a return to religion’s heteronomous control of human morality.

Heidegger’s account of the impact of technologization on university life is borne out by recent developments. The background to Heidegger’s views in German debates about the nature of the university are explored, with reference to Schleiermacher’s contribution to the vision for Berlin University and Heidegger’s own involvement in the ‘co-ordination’ of Freiburg University with the Nazi state. The latter resembles the features of the contemporary management models being applied to universities, whilst the impact of inappropriate models of ‘science’ and research being imposed on the humanities, especially Religious Studies and Theology, is considered. Schleiermacher and Newman are used to sketch an alternative approach, emphasizing the complex space of university life with its multiple para-academic activities.

At the time when existentialism was a dominant intellectual and cultural force, a number of commentators observed that some of the language of existential philosophy, not least its interpretation of human existence in terms of nothingness, evoked the language of so-called mystical writers. This book takes on this observation and explores the evidence for the influence of mysticism on the philosophy of existentialism. It begins by delving into definitions of mysticism and existentialism and then traces the elements of mysticism present in German and French thought during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book goes on to make original contributions to the study of figures including Kierkegaard, Buber, Heidegger, Beauvoir, Sartre, Marcel, Camus, Weil, Bataille, Berdyaev, and Tillich, linking their existentialist philosophy back to some of the key concerns of the mystical tradition. Providing a unique insight into how these two areas have overlapped and interacted, this study is vital reading for any academic with an interest in twentieth-century philosophy, theology, and religious studies.

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Scots Philosophical Association and the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] God is a collection of papers reflecting a 2012 conference on the theology and philosophy of St Gregory Palamas. The collection is avowedly Orthodox in orientation and as such assumes the acceptance of certain normative theological principles relating both to fundamental theological positions and to the interpretation of Palamas. These show themselves both positively and negatively: positively with regard to the pious intention of the editor and many of the contributors, and negatively with regard to the critical position taken towards Western theology and culture. For the present reader, this is not in itself a problem and has the positive virtue of candour, but it can detract from the persuasiveness of a work that...

In ‘Defending the City’ George Pattison seeks to defend the modern city against the charge — made, for example, by Graham Ward — that it is a merely secular phenomenon. Instead, he argues that, in its essence, it is multi‐dimensional and pluralistic, representing a range of diverse possibilities, creative as well as destructive. Also, the modern city is shown to anticipate the essential features of the postmodern city. The argument is illustrated by references to Pugin's critique of architectural eclecticism, to Dostoevsky's invocation of the fantastical reality of St. Petersburg, to Kierkegaard and to Murnau's film Sunrise. It is claimed that the best Christian response to the city is to defend, not to subvert, its pluralism.

Deconstructive Subjectivities Edited by Simon Critchley and Peter Dews SUNY Press, 1996. Pp. 257. ISBN 0–7914–2724–2. £17.25. Modern Movements in European Philosophy, 2nd edn Manchester University Press, 1994. Pp. 367. ISBN 0–7190–434–0, 0–7190–428–9. £12.99 States of Mind: Dialogues with Contemporary Thinkers on the European Mind Manchester University Press, 1995. Pp. 311. ISBN 0–7190–4705–6, 0–7190–4262–3. £14.99 Poetics of Modernity: Toward a Hermeneutic Imagination Humanities Press, 1995. Pp. 251. ISBN 0–391–03798–6. £35.00 By Richard Kearney Selves in Discord and Resolve. Kierkegaard's Moral‐Religious Psychology from Either/or to Sickness unto Death By Edward F. Mooney Routledge. Pp. xvi + 140. ISBN 0–415–91370–5 £12.00. Ethics, Killing and War By Richard Norman Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. x + 256. ISBN 0–521–45553–7. $49.95. The Philosophy of Science Edited by David Papineau Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. vi + 339. ISBN 0–19–875164–8, 0–19–875165–6. £9.99. Foucault and the Political By Jon Simons Routledge 1995. Pp. viii +152. ISBN 0–415–10065–8, 0–415–10066–6. £40.00 £12.99 Lectures de l'ontologie fondamentale. Essais sur Heidegger, 2nd edn By Jacques Taminiaux Jérôme Millon, 1995. Pp. 299. ISBN 2–905614–24–2. 150 FF.

In the first part of Either/Or, Kierkegaard presents a collection of papers composed by an unidentified person (A) that sets out the elements of an aesthetic view of life. This is often seen in terms of a general lack of self-commitment and the pursuit of more or less sophisticated forms of pleasure. This paper argues that, in reality, A’s papers present the existential outworking of a consistent metaphysical nihilism. Amongst the features of a life lived in full consciousness of the ultimate meaninglessness of the world adduced by A are: (1) distraction, restlessness and a penchant for ‘the interesting’; (2) the absence of any basis for mutual respect in relations between persons; (3) an underlying orientation towards violence in human relationships; and (4) the role of art as the maximum form in which life can be justified. This paper concludes by indicating how the analysis of the aesthetic in Either/Or I might be seen to anticipate Kierkegaard’s later view of the essentially violent and persecutory nature of society.