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15Interpretation: a critical primerEquinox Publishing. 2023.This volume examines the nature of interpretation, strategies within interpretation, and negotiations about the adequacy of an interpretation, with special attention paid to possible roles interpretation plays in the academic study of religions. Each chapter of this book refines a conceptual element that combines with others into a theory of interpretation useful for the classroom and in scholarship on hermeneutics.
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17Cooling Interventions Among Agricultural Workers: Qualitative Field-Based StudyHispanic Health Care International 1 (online first): 1-12. 2021.Introduction: Agricultural workers perform intense labor outside in direct sunlight and in humid environmental conditions exposing them to a high risk of heat-related illness (HRI). To implement effective cooling interventions in occupational settings, it is important to consider workers’ perceptions. To date, an analysis of agricultural workers’ experience and perception of cooling devices used in the field while working has not been published. Methods: Qualitatively data from 61 agricultural w…Read more
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3The Hermeneutic Priority of Which Question?Informal Logic 43 (1): 485-508. 2021.An axiom of philosophical hermeneutics is that questioning has hermeneutic priority. Yet there are many different kinds of questions. Which sort has priority in understanding complete thoughts and for bringing about a fusion of horizons? Speech act theory is one resource for specifying which kind. I first develop the broad notion of questioning in philosophical hermeneutics. Second, I examine aspects of question taxonomies in pedagogy as well as their shortcomings. Third, I turn to the Speech Ac…Read more
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3I want to know whether Chan masters and students depicted in classical Chan transmission literature can be interpreted as asking open (or what I will call “genuine”) questions. My task is significant because asking genuine questions appears to be a decisive factor in ascertaining whether these figures represent models for dialogue—the kind of dialogue championed in democratic society and valued by promoters of interreligious exchange. My study also contributes to a more comprehensive understandi…Read more
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6Nursing is never neutral: Political determinants of health and systemic marginalizationNursing Inquiry 28 (4). 2021.The nursing community in the United States polarized in September 2020 between Dawn Wooten's whistleblowing about forced hysterectomies at an immigration center in Georgia and the American Nurses Association's refusal to endorse a presidential candidate despite the Trump administration's mounting failures to address the public health crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This reveals a need for more attention to political aspects of health outcome inequities. As advocates for health equity, nur…Read more
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16Buddhas, gods, prophets and oracles are often depicted as asking questions. But what are we to understand when Jesus asks “Who do you say that I am?”, or Mazu, the Classical Zen master asks, “Why do you seek outside?" Is their questioning a power or weakness? Is it something human beings are only capable of due to our finitude? Is there any kind of question that is a power? Focusing on three case studies of questions in divine discourse on the level of story - the god depicted in the Jewish Bibl…Read more
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11Radical responsibility beyond empathy: Interreligious resources against liberal distortions of nursing careNursing Philosophy 23 (1). 2022.In this paper, I bring together Jewish and Buddhist philosophical resources to develop a notion of radical responsibility that can confront a complicity within nursing and health care between empathy and (neo)liberal white supremacist hegemony. My inspiration comes from Angela Davis's call for building coalitions to advance struggles for peace and justice. I proceed as follows. First, I note ways phenomenology clarifies empathy's seeming foundational role in nursing care, and how such a formulat…Read more
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293Dialogue or Narrative? Exploring Tensions between Interpretations of Genesis 38Religions 11 (12): 947. 2021.We examine dialectical tensions between “dialogue” and “narrative” as these discourses supplant one another as the fundamental discourse of intelligibility, through juxtaposing two interpretations of Genesis 38 rooted in changing interpretative paradigms. Is dialogue properly understood as a narrative genre, or is narrative the content about which people are in dialogue? Is the divine–human relationship a narrative drama or is it a dialogue between a god and human beings? We work within paramete…Read more
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8Radical responsibility beyond empathy: Interreligious resources against liberal distortions of nursing careNursing Philosophy 1 (1 Online first). 2021.In this paper, I bring together Jewish and Buddhist philosophical resources to develop a notion of radical responsibility that can confront a complicity within nursing and health care between empathy and (neo)liberal white supremacist hegemony. My inspiration comes from Angela Davis's call for building coalitions to advance struggles for peace and justice. I proceed as follows. First, I note ways phenomenology clarifies empathy's seeming foundational role in nursing care, and how such a formulat…Read more
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12The Hermeneutic Priority of Which Question?Informal Logic 42 (4): 485-508. 2021.An axiom of philosophical hermeneutics is that questioning has hermeneutic priority. Yet there are many different kinds of questions. Which sort has priority in understanding complete thoughts and for bringing about a fusion of horizons? Speech act theory is one resource for specifying which kind. I first develop the broad notion of questioning in philosophical hermeneutics. Second, I examine aspects of question taxonomies in pedagogy as well as their shortcomings. Third, I turn to the Speech Ac…Read more
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32Physical Distance, Ethical Proximity: Levinasian Dialogue as Pandemic Pedagogy in Faceless (Masked or Online) ClassroomsTeaching Philosophy 1 (Online First): 1-25. 2021.I develop Levinas’s analysis of “proximity” to explain how successful faceless class dialogues are possible despite physical social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. I first examine features of Levinas’s notion of proximity within his idiosyncratic approach to “ethics.” Second, I turn to Levinas’s examination of intentionality and questioning in relation to the hermeneutic priority of questioning. Third, I detail some successes and failures in attempts to embody Levinasian proximity in on…Read more
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37Nursing is never neutral: Political determinants of health and systemic marginalizationNursing Inquiry 1 (Online First e12408): 1-13. 2021.The nursing community in the United States polarized in September 2020 between Dawn Wooten's whistleblowing about forced hysterectomies at an immigration center in Georgia and the American Nurses Association's refusal to endorse a presidential candidate despite the Trump administration's mounting failures to address the public health crisis posed by the COVID‐19 pandemic. This reveals a need for more attention to political aspects of health outcome inequities. As advocates for health equity, nur…Read more
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24Cooling intervention studies among outdoor occupational groups: A review of the literatureAmerican Journal of Industrial Medicine 63 (11): 988-1007. 2020.Background The purpose of this systematic review is to examine cooling intervention research in outdoor occupations, evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions, and offer recommendations for future studies. This review focuses on outdoor occupational studies conducted at worksites or simulated occupational tasks in climatic chambers. Methods This systematic review was performed in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. PubMed…Read more
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23Should Religion-Affiliated Institutions Be Accredited? Ricoeur and the Problem of Religious InclusivityIn Daniel Boscaljon & Jeff Keuss (eds.), Paul Ricoeur and the Hope of Higher Education: The Just University, Rowman & Littlefield. 2020.How can religiously affiliated institutions that promote liberal arts maintain commitment both to their affiliation and to the ideal of religious inclusivity? What principles of accreditation should be used by agencies—such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges—in assessing religiously affiliated yet inclusive institutions? Many religiously affiliated institutions claim to value liberal arts learning and critical inquiry, to prepare students for a diverse world. Yet …Read more
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539A Hermeneutic for and from Reading Kierkegaard's For Self-ExaminationReligions 10 (11): 491. 2020.This essay provides a close reading of Kierkegaard’s later signed text, For Self-Examination. While many of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous texts often are selected for their philosophically explicit engagements with Hegelian philosophy, I use Hegel’s dialectic of lordship and bondage to draw out how Kierkegaard circumvents it in this one. I first provide historical context, noting how Kierkegaard turned to earnest works after his public humiliation in the Copenhagen newspaper, undermining his abilit…Read more
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65Using Questions to Think: How to Develop Skills in Critical Understanding and ReasoningBloomsbury Academic. 2021.Our ability to think, argue and reason is determined by our ability to question. Questions are a vital component of critical thinking, yet we underestimate the role they play. Using Questions to Think puts questioning back in the spotlight. Naming the parts of questions at the same time as we name parts of thought, this one-of-a-kind introduction allows us to see how questions relate to the definitions of propositions, premises, conclusions, and the validity of arguments. Why is this important? …Read more
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360I want to know whether Chan masters and students depicted in classical Chan transmission literature can be interpreted as asking open (or what I will call “genuine”) questions. My task is significant because asking genuine questions appears to be a decisive factor in ascertaining whether these figures represent models for dialogue—the kind of dialogue championed in democratic society and valued by promoters of interreligious exchange. My study also contributes to a more comprehensive understandi…Read more
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61Where, Not When, Did the Cosmos ‘Begin’?Sophia (1): 67-81. 2020.I examine a tension between temporal and spatial conceptualization of the genesis of the cosmos to show how chronological characterization of ‘beginnings’ occludes ontological interpretation of our existential orientations, to help my audience distinguish symbolic expressions of wonder that the cosmos exists from explanations for it. I bring together resources from multiple intellectual and religious traditions to perform a philosophy of religions that goes beyond the narrowness, intellectualism…Read more
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18Chronic Kidney Disease Among Workers: A Review of the Literature.Workplace, Health, and Safety 9 (67): 481-490. 2019.For the past two decades, agricultural workers in regions of Central America have reported an epidemic of chronic kidney disease of undetermined etiology (CKDu) that is not associated with established risk factors of chronic kidney disease. Several hypotheses have emerged, but the etiology of CKDu remains elusive and controversial. The aim of this literature review was to describe the potential risk factors of CKDu in Mesoamerica and implications for the U.S. agricultural worker population. PubM…Read more
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32Linguistically Mediated Liberation: Freedom and Limits of Understanding in Thich Nhat Hanh and Hans-Georg GadamerThe Humanistic Psychologist 3 (44). 2016.Many despair at trying to understand something’s meaning and express dissatisfaction with language wholesale. What if some things simply are not understandable? Thich Nhat Hanh coined interbeing to name the fundamental principle of interdependence defining Buddhist ontologies, and uses interbeing to dislodge despair resulting from rigid expectations of how things must be. Thich also criticized a standard view of language as generating those rigid expectations. Drawing upon classical humanist tra…Read more
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6Transcendence Un-Extra-Ordinaire: Bringing the Atheistic I Down to EarthReligions 4 (8). 2017.I examine challenges to images of a personal god definitive for normatively policed theism (often called “traditional theism”), questioning whether a subject can be conscious of a transcendent being. I examine the challenges to show that disappointment with such images calls for rethinking terms like “transcendence” in horizontal rather than vertical registers. Through this, I indicate an irony in yearning for transcendence, one in which there is movement toward—rather than beyond—the utterly or…Read more
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20Why do so many people believe only one religion can be right?In Aaron W. Hughes & Russell T. McCutcheon (eds.), Religion in 5 Minutes, Equinox Publishing. 2017.Have you noticed people who think only one religion can be right always think it’s their own? Wouldn’t it be strange to hear a Reformed Christian assert only one is right, but it’s Daoism? That only one’s right seems based on a logical principle: two contradictory claims can’t both be true in the same sense at the same time. But we can detect here an implicit alliance between politics and logic. Religious institutions are in the business of winning hearts and minds (and wallets!). If deploying “…Read more
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27What is the difference between religion and philosophy?In Aaron W. Hughes & Russell T. McCutcheon (eds.), Religion in 5 Minutes, Equinox Publishing. 2017.In forging a difference between philosophy and religion, contestable generalizations are unavoidable. A helpful question for resisting hasty ones is: Which? If someone asks, “What do Hindus do or believe?” Ask, “Which Hindus?” And if someone asks, “What do atheists believe?” It’s still, “Which atheists?” Distinguishing variations of people who practice a religion helps us get specific. We could ask, “Which religion, and which philosophy?” This might lead to a provocative difference, like Nietzsc…Read more
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19A Zhuangzian Tangle: Corroborating (Orientalism in?) Posthumanist Approaches to Subjectivities and FlourishingsReligions 10 (6): 382. 2019.Posthumanist critics such as Braidotti—informed by the antihumanisms of Foucault, Irigaray, and Deleuze—seek to respond to advanced capitalism by promoting what they take to be a radical transformation of what it means to be “human,” a way of conceiving being human that is thoroughly and consistently post-anthropocentric. Braidotti calls out advanced capitalism’s global economy as being inconsistently post-anthropocentric. In response, I first lay out ways through which posthumanists can find co…Read more
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25Feminisms and Challenges to Institutionalized Philosophy of ReligionReligions 9 (4): 113. 2018.For my invited contribution to this special issue of Religions on “Feminisms and the Study of ‘Religions,’” I focus on philosophy of religion and contestations over its relevance to the academic field of Religious Studies. I amplify some feminist philosophers’ voices—especially Pamela Sue Anderson—in corroboration with recent calls from Religious Studies scholars to diversify philosophy of religions in the direction of locating it properly within the current state of Religious Studies. I want to…Read more
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7Hermeneutic Priority and Phenomenological Indeterminacy of QuestioningIn Robert Henry Scott & Gregory S. Moss (eds.), The Significance of Indeterminacy Perspectives from Asian and Continental Philosophy, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Inc. pp. 228-246. 2018.The (dis)information age represses questioning and distorts what we take to be genuine questioning. Most studies construe questions as “epistemic imperatives,” and critics reject it as exploitative. In its defense, this chapter isolates the significance of indeterminacy in questioning. It develops a hermeneutic of questioning to show its priority in receiving meanings, and exposes that shared questioning makes the questioners too indeterminate to claim one is exploiting the other. It also develo…Read more
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23The North American Paul Tillich SocietyBulletin for the North American Paul Tillich Society 35 (3). 2009.
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80Anxiety and the face of the other: Tillich and Levinas on the origin of questioningSophia 48 (3): 267-279. 2009.With almost a century of historical distance between Heidegger’s retrieval of the question of being and contemporary concern about the Other, we have accrued invaluable experiences for critical leverage about what it is to ask one another questions. I offer a sketch aimed at adapting Tillich’s theological system grounded in existential questioning to today by juxtaposing him with Levinas’ philosophical ethics. Tillich and Levinas provide motive for reflection on the topic of questioning in parti…Read more
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18Call or Question: a Rehabilitation of Conscience as DialogicalSophia 57 (2): 275-294. 2018.It is by way of the call that one is enabled to wake up to responsibility. What is the illocutionary mood of the ‘call’ of conscience, though? Is this transcendental enabler of responsibility an imposing demand or an invitational question? Both Levinas and Heidegger emphasize the impositional character of the call in conscience. The call seems to be the very essence of imperatives. I develop an apology for questioning by way of appeal to crumbs scattered throughout Jewish traditions as well as t…Read more
Nathan Eric Dickman
University of The Ozarks
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University of The OzarksAssociate Professor
University of Iowa
PhD, 2009
APA Central Division
Areas of Specialization
2 more
Phenomenology |
Hermeneutics |
Continental Philosophy of Religion |
Chinese Buddhist Philosophy |
Hans-Georg Gadamer |
Luce Irigaray |
Paul Ricoeur |