Brian Lightbody

In Romans 7:14-25, Paul declares, "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want, is what I do" (KJV). St. Paul's statement is a universal truth for all human beings; humans--whether Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or atheists--are prone to committing free actions that are not "good." Furthermore, and irrespective of how we might construe the notion of "good" (whether as acting in accordance with some religious or spiritual precept or simply doing what is in one's best interest), we often knowingly and freely choose actions that may, or in fact do, harm us. There is a name given to such actions. We call them "weak-willed." "Weakness of will," or akrasia, has perplexed philosophers, theologians, and laypersons alike for centuries. This book reveals why the idea has caused so much bafflement and consternation for so many. The main thrust of the work, however, is to illuminate and inspire: Lightbody seeks to demonstrate, concretely, how and why we are weak-willed. By extracting an "alchemical touchstone" from Plato's middle period philosophy, Lightbody, in addition, reveals how we may transmute harmful appetites into life-edifying passions.

The essay “Archaeology and Humanism: An Incongruent Foucault”argues, among other things, that Foucault “endorses a kind of humanism.” Moreover, Calvert-Minor attempts to show that withoutsuch an endorsement then the curative aspects regarding Foucault’s genealogy of subjectivity would be nonsensical. To be sure, the author seems to demonstrate that there is a clear tension in Foucault’s oeuvre regarding the Frenchman’s changing stance towards, and at times unconscious embracement of, philosophical humanism. Such a claim, if true, would certainly be damaging to Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical projects as he stridently rejected humanism in all of its myriad forms.

In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre boldly asserts that: “To be dead is to be a prey for theliving.”1 In the following paper, I argue that Sartre’s rather pessimistic understanding of death isunwarranted. In fact, Herbert Marcuse forcefully suggests that Sartre is one of the “betrayers of Utopia”because Sartre’s notion of death stifles efforts towards true liberation. By returning to Eros andCivilization, I explain and further substantiate Marcuse’s critique of Sartrean freedom as originallypresented in Marcuse’s essay, “Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul Sartre’s L’Etre et le Neant.”

With his Logic of Incarnation, James K. A. Smith has provided a compelling critique of the universalizing tendencies in some strands of postmodern philosophy of religion. A truly postmodern account of religion must take seriously the preference for particularity first evidenced in the Christian account of the incarnation of God. Moving beyond the urge to universalize, which characterizes modern thought, Smith argues that it is only by taking seriously particular differences--historical, religious, and doctrinal--that we can be authentically religious and authentically postmodern. Smith remains hugely influential in both academic discourse and church movements. This book is the first organized attempt to bring both of these aspects of Smith's work into conversation with each other and with him. With articles from an internationally respected group of philosophers, theologians, pastors, and laypeople, the entire range of Smith's considerable influence is represented here. Discussing questions of embodiment, eschatology, inter-religious dialogue, dogma, and difference, this book opens all the most relevant issues in postmodern religious life to a unique and penetrating critique.

In this paper, I wish to show how new technologies come to alter one’s initial enjoyment and comportment towards a hobby. What I show is that new technologies serve to transform leisurely activities into a technique, in the Ellulian sense of the term. I begin from the outside in, as it were, by first articulating what I take a hobby to be. Secondly, I then examine the time-honoured pastime of fishing to show that new technologies, if utilized, either cause the hobby to take on aspects of traditional work or in other cases, causes the hobbyist to quit the activity because the hobby is now deemed undesirable; the technological advancement makes the hobby too easy. Thirdly and finally, I turn my attention to another kind of hobby or leisurely activity, which some have called “Facebooking.” Looking at Facebook through an Ellulian lens, there are, to be sure, some rather unsettling aspects of the activity, but despite this, all is not lost; Facebook may be used as a tool to practice the Ellulian virtue of non-selectivity.