Valentin Teodorescu

In this essay will be firstly offered various reasons for advocating a classical approach to Kierkegaard’s authorship, according to which this “is religious from first to last”. In this sense one should consider his purported stages of existence as being ranked. Secondly it will be argued for the rationality of the transition between these competing interpretations of existence. A challenge (offered by Alasdair MacIntyre) against this classical view on transition will be firstly presented – according to whom we should understand Kierkegaard’s intention (from Either-Or) as that of presenting the reader with an ultimate choice between an aesthetical and an ethical stage of existence: in this respect the Danish thinker did not commend one option over the other. It will then be shown Marilyn Piety’s and Gordon Marino’s replies to this assertion: for Piety the aforementioned “ultimate choice” interpretation is possible only when a person has a dispassionate stance toward her existence; however, she offers evidence that for the Dane in reality “passion” permeates one’s reason in such cases. For Marino, Kierkegaard’s rationality of transition is in similar terms understood to those of the “theory choice” model of scientific rationality. MacIntyre’s response to these rebuttals will also be shown: in his view, although some passions are for the Dane essential in transition, the ones suggested by both authors are not continuous between the stages. Against this idea Stephen Evans’ reply will be imported, which states that there are – according to Kierkegaard – some ethical leanings which are present even in the aesthetic stage and that the ethicist’s problem is not firstly one of ignorance, but rather one of the unwillingness to commit himself to what he already knows. Moreover, Evans argues that Kierkegaard can be considered an externalist epistemologist, for whom knowledge is a matter of being rightly related to the external world; for the Dane our ability for so relating partly depends on the qualities we possess as human beings. It will finally be argued that such a view is similar to that proposed by Michael Polanyi in his philosophy of science.

In many respects, modernity had a dehumanizing effect on human beings, by its individualist or collectivist societies, by its reductionist way of conceiving reality in terms of mathematical forms and organic structures, or by its tendency—at least in certain theological circles—to understand God in terms of an Absolute Subject. In this article, we intend to suggest a way in which Christianity could offer a solution to this situation, by providing a communal model of defining the authentic human being. According to this model, to be a real human means to be a person who lives in real communion with other human beings. Therefore, one of the goals of this essay is to understand the concepts of person and communion. In order to do that, an important step would be that of discovering, by following the nietzschean example, the genealogy of the concept of person. The French personalist philosopher Denis de Rougemont suggested that this concept has its origin in the fourth century AD, being a consequence of the creedal formulations of the Ecumenical Councils. In this sense, he stated that: If Europe is to survive, it needs to return to the roots of its spirituality, stated for the first time at the Councils of Niceea and Chalcedon (De Rougemont, 1957, 40) The present essay intends to develop this argument, showing the ways in which various thinkers, more or less contemporary with us, illustrated and deepened De Rougemont’s thesis.

There are some arguments supporting the pessimistic meta-induction, coming from the direction of quantum theory (A. Kukla and J. Walmsley), from the direction of Laudan’s list with successful but false theories, and from the specific direction of the phlogiston theory (whom Kukla Walmsley, and S. Psillos consider to be false). Against these arguments we believe we can successfully oppose, in the first case the interactive quantum realism of I. Niiniluoto, in the second case the realism of the theoretical theoretical constituents responsible for the empirical success of the theories of S. Psillos, and in the third case the analysis of the phlogiston theory done by V. Verronen, R. Vihalemm and E. McMullin (who suggested that this theory was simultaneously insufficiently mature and approximately true). Our conclusion does not necessary prove that the perspective of the scientific realism is true, but rather that the pessimistic meta-induction attack against it proves to be unconvincing.

This study intends to show that the question whether faith can be justified without proofs can be resolved by importing ideas from Kierkegaard’s and Plantinga’s affirmative take on the matter. There is a deep similarity between the way they understand belief in God and belief in Christianity: for both the first is considered universal human knowledge and the second seen as a gift from God. Against the charge that such an understanding is irrational Plantinga offers an externalist epistemological model which allows those beliefs to be warranted. The authors also share the modern idea that there is an objective truth, combining it with the postmodern stance that no method exists which would guarantee access to it. A specific contribution on Kierkegaard’s part to the understanding of the rationality of transitions toward a Christian stage of existence is to show in detail the way in which such transitions are mediated through inwardnes - a perspective akin to Michael Polanyi’s scientific epistemology. One can see in both authors not only a deep commonality of ideas, but also a remarkable way in which their understandings augment each other. Whereas Plantinga’s inquiry contributes to the rational plausibility of a “Justified Faith without Reasons” project, Kierkegaard’s venture balances such a logical-analytic effort with a deep existential inquiry.

In this article we intend to present Alvin Plantinga’s epistemology by showing the way in which its central concepts: the Reidian foundationalism, the partial critique of evidentialism, warrant, proper function, reliability and externalism - are logically interrelated. A section of this article is reserved to the critiques of his account of warrant brought by Peter Klein and Richard Feldman and to the way in which Plantinga answered them, by developing the concepts of cognitive maxi- and mini-environment. In the end we will see the way in which Plantinga’s epistemology relates to both modernism and postmodernism.