Brian Lightbody

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.

In the essay “What is Enlightenment?” , Foucault espouses a novel and emancipatory“philosophical ethos” which challenges individuals to undertake an ongoing, aesthetic project oftotal self-transformation . By advocating a view of the self---and moreaccurately the relationship one has to oneself --as a free creation on the part of thesubject, Foucault seems to be espousing a pluralistic ethical position. However, I argue that whilethis interpretation is not entirely false, it is not altogether accurate either. Quite simply, it is toobroad in scope. Instead, I argue that Foucault’s philosophical ethos is best described as a DeepEthical Pluralist position. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the two most common objectionsto Foucault’s new ethos for the contemporary subject in the secondary literature, namely theregressive and dandyist objections miss their mark precisely because they are successful onlyagainst ethical pluralism but not DEP

“Philosophical perspectivism” is surely one of Nietzsche's most important insights regarding the limits of human knowledge. However, the perspectivist thesis combined with a minimal realist metaphysical position produces what Brian Leiter calls the 'Received View': an epistemologically incoherent misinterpretation of Nietzsche which pervades the secondary literature. In order to salvage the thesis of perspectivism, Leiter argues that we must commit Nietzsche to an anti-realist metaphysical position. I argue that Leiter's proposed solution is (1) epistemically weak, and (2) inconsistent with much of Nietzsche's views on truth, knowledge and the psychological make-up of human beings. I argue that we need to abandon the scheme/content distinction on which both the Received View and Leiter's anti-realist construal of perspectivism are predicated and instead construe perspectives as environments of power

In Eros and Civilization, Marcuse claims that the two fundamental drives of civilization, namely, Eros and Thanatos, may eventually be reconciled. Such reconciliation, Marcuse contends, could potentially lead to new, utopian possibilities for humankind. However, Marcuse’s argument is deeply flawed: he equates time with death and therefore only defeats a straw man. Thus, it may be argued that Marcuse’s entire project in Eros and Civilization not only remains incomplete, but indeed fails. In the following paper, I demonstrate—by relying on Heidegger’s understanding of temporality in Being and Time—that it may still be possible to reconcile Eros and temporality after all. I conclude that Marcuse’s project may still be viable, but only by reconciling time with Eros, and not death

In the essay “What is Enlightenment?”, Foucault espouses a novel and emancipatory“philosophical ethos” which challenges individuals to undertake an ongoing, aesthetic project oftotal self-transformation. By advocating a view of the self---and moreaccurately the relationship one has to oneself --as a free creation on the part of thesubject, Foucault seems to be espousing a pluralistic ethical position. However, I argue that whilethis interpretation is not entirely false, it is not altogether accurate either. Quite simply, it is toobroad in scope. Instead, I argue that Foucault’s philosophical ethos is best described as a DeepEthical Pluralist position. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the two most common objectionsto Foucault’s new ethos for the contemporary subject in the secondary literature, namely theregressive and dandyist objections miss their mark precisely because they are successful onlyagainst ethical pluralism but not DEP.