• Ch. 1
    In Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison (eds.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion, Oxford University Press. 2012.
  •  13
    Atheisms
    with Harriet A. Harris
    Routledge. 2018.
    Questions about how to negotiate belief and non-belief in social and public spheres are attracting an increasing amount of attention from academics in a range of disciplines, and from concerned members of the public. This volume addresses the emergence of ‘new atheism’ and the developing ‘spiritual but not religious’ phenomenon. Avoiding simplistic accounts of atheism, and of religious belief, it provides readers with insight into a wide range of nuances within theism and a-theism, as well as sp…Read more
  •  12
    Eastern philosophy of religion
    Cambridge University Press. 2022.
    This book selectively examines a range of ideas and arguments drawn from the philosophical traditions of South and East Asia, focusing on those that are especially relevant to the philosophy of religion. The book introduces key debates about the self and the nature of reality that unite the otherwise highly diverse philosophies of Indian and Chinese Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. The emphasis of the book is analytical rather than historical. Key issues are explained in a clear, precise, access…Read more
  •  29
    Philosophy and the Spiritual Life (edited book)
    with Tyler Dalton McNabb
    Routledge. 2023.
    This book breaks new ground for the philosophy of religion by showcasing work that engages with the lived reality of the spiritual life. It demonstrates that philosophy’s relationship with spirituality is more than a historical curiosity and that, in the twenty-first century, it is still meaningful to think about philosophy in connection with spirituality. The chapters are organised around the following themes: spiritual practice and philosophical understanding; philosophical reflections on livi…Read more
  •  247
    What if the Dead Are Never Really Dead?
    The Monist 104 (3): 337-351. 2021.
    This paper argues for the value of the ‘strange’ as a hermeneutical tool to open fresh perspectives on an issue of widespread human concern, specifically how to deal with and relate to the dead. Traditional Chinese folk religion and the animistic ghost culture found within it is introduced and the role of gods, ancestors, and ghosts explained. The view that death is not the end of life but the transition to a new relationship with the living raises questions about our potential obligations to th…Read more
  •  406
    Self-transformation and Spiritual Exemplars
    with Rhett Gayle
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (4): 9-26. 2020.
    This paper focuses on the process of self-transformation through which a person comes to embody the ideal of her religion’s vision of the divine, as far as that ideal is expressible in a human life. The paper is concerned with the self as the subject of religious commitments, traits, religious aspirations and religiously inspired ideals. The self-transformative journey that people are invited to undertake poses a number of philosophical and practical difficulties; the paper explores some of thes…Read more
  •  4
    Representing the Divine: Feminism and Religious Anthropology
    Feminist Theology 16 (1): 128-146. 2007.
    This article examines some of the problems androcentric religious anthropologies raise for Jewish, Christian and Muslim women-particularly, with respect to their demand to occupy leadership roles within their respective faith-communities-while also considering the failure of conservative thinkers adequately to respond to these problems. Focusing on the connection between religious anthropologies and the conception of God within the Abrahamic faiths reveals, what many religious feminists have des…Read more
  •  6
    This article surveys some of the ways in which certain representative feminists from each of the Abrahamic religions have argued that patriarchal religious traditions have systematically excluded women from contributing to traditionally accepted interpretations of their sacred texts. It shows how, in response to this exclusion, feminist theologians from each of these religions have observed a need to interpret the scriptures of their traditions from the standpoint provided by their own experienc…Read more
  •  19
    Realigning Philosophy and Wisdom in the 21st Century
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 112 (3): 325-340. 2020.
    Securing a future for philosophy and wisdom in the professionalized and specialized context of twenty-first century academia is the challenge taken up by this article. If the conception of philosophy as the love of wisdom expects too much of philosophers, the construal of philosophy as the study of wisdom expects too little. To attempt to rehabilitate the relationship between philosophy and wisdom by claiming that philosophy is the study of wisdom unreasonably limits the scope of the current vib…Read more
  •  10
    This paper examines the challenge that philosophers influenced by positivism posed to religion during the twentieth century, and considers how philosophers more sympathetic to theism responded to this challenge. By focusing upon the trajectory of the philosophical challenge to theismin the twentieth century, this paper seeks to highlight the various ways that the relationship between theistic faith and reason was conceived by those debating the credibility of religious belief. The paper conclude…Read more
  •  4
    Hermeneutics, religious langauge and the Qur'an
    Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 21 (3): 207-220. 2010.
    The question, ‘Are religious propositions meaningful?’, which dominated thought about religious language after the turn of the mid-twentieth century, was rapidly made redundant by the understanding of language promoted by thinkers associated with hermeneutical philosophy. Instead of arguing about whether or not religious language was meaningful, philosophers and theologians explored the various ways in which religious language is rendered meaningful by the creative interaction of readers and tex…Read more
  •  8
    Introduction
    with C. Taliaferro and S. Goetz
    In C. Taliaferro, V. S. Harrison & S. Goetz (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Theism, . pp. 1-7. 2013.
  •  88
    Probability in the Philosophy of Religion (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2012.
    Probability theory promises to deliver an exact and unified foundation for inquiry in epistemology and philosophy of science. But philosophy of religion is also fertile ground for the application of probabilistic thinking. This volume presents original contributions from twelve contemporary researchers, both established and emerging, to offer a representative sample of the work currently being carried out in this potentially rich field of inquiry. Grouped into five parts, the chapters span a bro…Read more
  •  15
    Introduction
    with Anna Bergqvist and Gary Kemp
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 79 1-12. 2016.
    Museums have traditionally been understood as places where carefully selected objects are categorized and put on display so that they can be known through observation. So-called ‘world-museums’, such as the British Museum, were designed to provide the public with access to the wider world through the knowledge they could acquire simply by observing the objects put forward for their inspection. This understanding of what museums do has been increasingly called into question due to changing views …Read more
  •  58
    Putnam's internal realism and Von balthasar's religious epistemology
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (2): 67-92. 1998.
    This article is principally concerned with a possible defense of some of the epistemological presuppositions of von Balthasar’s theological philosophy. The article claims that, taken as a whole, von Balthasar’s writings provide a systematic critique of a widely held epistemological paradigm, thereby implying a novel conception of rationality and objectivity. In so doing, he anticipates the central concerns of Hilary Putnam, whose own more developed work on rationality and objectivity can be empl…Read more
  •  111
    There have been a number of developments within religious epistemology in recent years. Currently, the dominant view within mainstream philosophy of religion is, arguably, reformed epistemology. What is less well known is that feminist epistemologists have also been active recently within the philosophy of religion, advancing new perspectives from which to view the link between knowledge and religious experience. In this article I examine the claim by certain feminist religious epistemologists t…Read more
  •  61
    Introduction to Philosophy and Museums: Essays in the Philosophy of Museums
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 79 1-12. 2016.
    Museums and their practices—especially those involving collection, curation and exhibition—generate a host of philosophical questions. Such questions are not limited to the domains of ethics and aesthetics, but go further into the domains of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of religion. Despite the prominence of museums as public institutions, they have until recently received surprisingly little scrutiny from philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. By bringing together contributio…Read more
  •  80
    In our increasingly multicultural society there is an urgent need for a theory that is capable of making sense of the various philosophical difficulties presented by ethical and religious diversity—difficulties that, at first sight, seem to be remarkably similar. Given this similarity, a theory that successfully accounted for the difficulties raised by one form of plurality might also be of help in addressing those raised by the other, especially as ethical belief systems are often inextricably …Read more
  •  22
    Human holiness as religious apologia
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 46 (2): 63-82. 1999.
    The article critically examines Hans Urs von Balthasar’s core intuition that human holiness has apologetic value for Christianity. It argues that von Balthasar’s claim relies on two notions of ‘proof’, and, in distinguishing between the two notions, it clarifies his position. This clarification is followed by a defense of von Balthasar’s view that it can be rational to accept Christian faith on the grounds of human holiness. However, by way of conclusion, the article proposes that von Balthasar’…Read more
  •  88
    The idea that the self is inextricably intertwined with the rest of the world—the “oneness hypothesis”—can be found in many of the world’s philosophical and religious traditions. Oneness provides ways to imagine and achieve a more expansive conception of the self as fundamentally connected with other people, creatures, and things. Such views present profound challenges to Western hyperindividualism and its excessive concern with self-interest and tendency toward self-centered behavior. This anth…Read more
  •  12
    Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Christocentric philosophical anthropology is the premise not only of his religious epistemology, but also of his whole theological enterprise. The importance of his anthropology to the rest of his theology is often overlooked, because its fundamentals are set out in an early work to which little critical attention has been given: Das Betrachtende Gebet—a work which emphasises the ‘necessity of prayer’. According to von Balthasar, in praying, one encounters God, and it is…Read more
  •  35
    Philosophy and Museums : Volume 79: Essays on the Philosophy of Museums
    with Harrison Victoria, Kemp Gary, and Bergqvist Anna
    Cambridge University Press. 2017.
    Museums and their practices - especially those involving collection, curation and exhibition - generate a host of philosophical questions. Such questions are not limited to the domains of ethics and aesthetics, but go further into the domains of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of religion. Despite the prominence of museums as public institutions, they have until recently received surprisingly little scrutiny from philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. By bringing together contrib…Read more
  •  11
    There have been a number of developments within religious epistemology in recent years. Currently, the dominant view within mainstream philosophy of religion is, arguably, reformed epistemology. What is less well known is that feminist epistemologists have also been active recently within the philosophy of religion, advancing new perspectives from which to view the link between knowledge and religious experience. In this article I examine the claim by certain feminist religious epistemologists t…Read more
  •  18
    This article reviews three basic ways in which the relationship between Abrahamic religion and science has been construed: as fundamentally antagonistic; as non-antagonistically incommensurable; and as complementary. Unfortunately, while each construal seems to offer benefits to the religious believer, none, as the article demonstrates, is without considerable cost.
  •  27
    Regarding museums as potential sites of formal learning, this article describes an innovative workshop for postgraduate researchers in philosophy and religious studies that was designed to serve as a template for other initiatives. It showcases pathways between research in the arts and humanities and museums’ collections. It is of use to scholars interested in exploring ways to use museum collections for research in arts and humanities disciplines.
  •  11
    Religious diversity
    In Victoria S. Harrison, Charles Taliaferro & Stewart Goetz (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Theism, . pp. 477-490. 2012.
    The chapter explores some of the connections between religious diversity and theism, beginning with a brief review of the scope and meaning of the terms "religion" and "religious diversity". A discussion of why religious diversity is sometimes thought to be problematic prepares the ground for a look at some of the ways in which it has been deployed within arguments for atheism or agnosticism. After outlining some possible responses to these arguments, attention turns to religious pluralism - a t…Read more
  •  4
    Theism and the challenge of twentieth-century philosophy
    Philotheos: International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 7 90-103. 2007.
    This paper examines the challenge that philosophers influenced by positivism posed to religion during the twentieth century, and considers how philosophers more sympathetic to theism responded to this challenge. By focusing upon the trajectory of the philosophical challenge to theism in the twentieth century, this paper seeks to highlight the various ways that the relationship between theistic faith and reason was conceived by those debating the credibility of religious belief. The paper conclud…Read more
  •  8
    The Apologetic Value of Human Holiness begins by providing the first comprehensive account of the model of human holiness developed by the leading theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. In so doing, the book also provides the first detailed explication of his Christocentric philosophical anthropology. Part 2 argues that von Balthasar anticipates some key developments in late twentieth-century Anglo-American analytical philosophy, and that certain of these developments - in particular, the ‘internal …Read more
  •  124
    There is wide agreement among philosophers of religion that the discipline should be responsive to the multicultural environment in which it is now practiced. However, there is considerable disagreement as to what the appropriate practice and method of the discipline should be within such an environment. It has been suggested that philosophy of religion should become comparative, and courses in comparative philosophy of religion are already increasingly commonplace. But what exactly is comparati…Read more
  • Ethics in the Confucian Tradition by Philip J. Ivanhoe (review)
    Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 2 175-180. 2002.
    No abstract available.