Protest and Enlightenment in the Book of Job

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wes Morriston
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
The World ◽  
Eleonore Stump ◽  
The Way

This chapter takes a close and critical look at the use made of the Book of Job by two contemporary Christian philosophers, Alvin Plantinga and Eleonore Stump. Their interpretations illustrate the way in which the theological or confessional turn in contemporary philosophy of religion can blind us to what foundational religious texts actually say. By carefully re-examining the Book of Job, the chapter seeks to show how even their own scriptures may sometimes undermine the standpoints of traditionalists. Read without theological blinders, the Book of Job presents a sharp challenge to traditional ideas about God and the world, while the theophany at the climax of the book opens up highly unorthodox but religiously interesting possibilities.

scholarly journals What does History Matter to Philosophy of Physics?

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 496-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ryckman
Keyword(s):  
General Structure ◽  
Philosophy Of Physics ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Naturalized Metaphysics ◽  
History Matter ◽  
Historical Detail ◽  
The Way

Abstract Naturalized metaphysics remains a default presupposition of much contemporary philosophy of physics. As metaphysics is supposed to be about the general structure of reality, so a naturalized metaphysics draws upon our best physical theories: Assuming the truth of such a theory, it attempts to answer the “foundational question par excellence”, “how could the world possibly be the way this theory says it is?” It is argued that attention to historical detail in the development and formulation of physical theories serves as an ever-relevant hygienic corrective to the “sentiment of rationality” underlying the naturalistic impulse to read ontology off of physics.

Dostoevskii and the Book of Job: The Struggle to Find Faith

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Rampton
Keyword(s):  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

The book of Job is essential for understanding Dostoevskii’s art, because of the similarity of the questions the authors engage with and the way their texts are constructed. However, ambiguities in the book of Job itself as well as disagreements about the presentation of faith and doubt in Dostoevskii’s fiction have made the discussion of precisely how the book of Job influenced Dostoevskii remarkably wide-ranging. In this article I argue for complementing the literary analysis of Dostoevskii’s novels with the insights of recent criticism of the book of Job. According to this reading, Job does not provide Dostoevskii with a cognitive answer to the question of why the innocent suffer or explain the existence of evil in the world, but rather acts as a confirmation that faith is a process in which doubt plays a crucial and ongoing role.

El sentido radical de la técnica

1998 ◽  
pp. 40-53
Author(s):  
Pablo López
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The World ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
Self Examination ◽  
The Way

In a radical and philosophical sense, technique is the way of rationally and systematically putting forward an ultimate cause of humanity in the world. Due to the increasing development of techniques in the last two centuries, technique has moved into the limelight of contemporary philosophy. A technological outlook favors some philosophical positions, but it raises perennial questions in a new fashion. Likewise the technique of philosophy is also considered. Philosophy has its own way or method of rational and systematic doing. Of course, there are varied methods in philosophy, but they must share some basic identity in order not to be confused with those not being philosophic. Also, since philosophy cannot examine techniques used by other domains, there cannot be a philosophy of technique without a self-examination of philosophy concerning its own techniques. What is more, our vision both of philosophy of technique and of technique itself corresponds to a vision both of the technique of philosophy and of philosophy itself. In terms of the limits of our human nature in its historical environment, technique can be understood as the historical way that human reason overcomes its limits. Nature and technique can merge and live together, provided that we are open to integrating them within ourselves.

Incompatible Discrepancy Between Low Proficiency of Arabic Language and Its High Status and Prestige

2021 ◽  
pp. 54-70
Author(s):  
Kazuhiko Nakae
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
High Status ◽  
Rote Learning ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Graphic Mode ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Muslims are ardent to learn Arabic and study al-Qurʾān, but many of them are not competent in manipulating the Arabic language. The discrepancy of high prestige and status of the language versus low proficiency of the learners is the target of the research in this chapter. The author calls this “incompatible discrepancy.” What do they indeed do in the Arabic school and Qurʾānic school? If they are so ardent, they should be highly competent in Arabic. The process of their learning is, exactly to say, rote-learning. In schooling they just memorize phrases from al-Qurʾān and the other religious texts. They start to learn Arabic as a graphic mode. They never learn Arabic as an identity marker without sticking to the way of learning it as a graphic mode. In this globalizing world everything is going to be digitalized. On the other hand, in the Islamic world many of the things remain analog, especially the way of leaning Arabic. The globalizing world is digital while the Islamic world is analog. Digital/analog can be considered as an important perspective for the world.

Understanding Theism

1981 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Millar
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Theistic Belief

Much contemporary philosophy of religion is preoccupied with highly general problems about the nature of religious belief and of religious language, rather than with how to interpret, in detail, specific religious beliefs or forms of religious discourse. Among the matters of dispute there seem to be two of overriding importance. The first concerns the relation between religious beliefs and experience and centres on the question, what sorts of experience are relevant to the acceptance or rejection of religious beliefs. The second concerns whether or not religious beliefs have an explanatory function. Discussion of both these themes in relation to theistic belief is still largely dominated by conceptions of God and of his relation to the world which have been developed by natural theologians, particularly, though not exclusively, those who have worked within traditions significantly influenced by Thomas Aquinas. Thus the idea that religious beliefs have an explanatory function is commonly associated with the view that they present answers to questions raised by those alleged traits or features of the world which have been the concern of natural theologians and which have been described by means of concepts of ‘contingency’, ‘purposiveness’, ‘order’, and ‘design’. Consequently, the sort of experience often held to be relevant to the acceptance or rejection of theistic belief is that which is relevant to the application of these problematic concepts.

scholarly journals Reading the Book of Job and Camus' La Peste during COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-27
Author(s):  
Erwin Susanto
Keyword(s):  
Active Response ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Religious Person ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

The pandemic crisis that is COVID-19 has caused unprecedented suffering throughout the world. At such a time, the religious person can legitimately ask why God allows this and how one’s faith might wrestle with such tragedy. In my search of the Scriptures to respond to these questions, I find the Book of Job to be a fruitful dialogue partner—be it in the way it urges one to consider aspects of suffering that are not apparent or in how it resists attempts at oversimplifying God’s character. In this essay, I compare the Book of Job with Albert Camus’s novel La Peste, the latter being set during an epidemic. I argue that both literary works provide space for a theological voice to recognize and articulate suffering in terms of divine justice; both works also enable one to resist any concrete framework for explaining suffering. I then suggest that La Peste complements one’s reading of Job as Scripture by highlighting both the importance of active response to suffering as well as the relational dimension of suffering in the world, which should prove to be helpful in this time of crisis and beyond.

Becoming Politicized

2017 ◽  
Vol 225 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Barkas ◽  
Xenia Chryssochoou
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
Greek Society ◽  
Economic Vulnerability ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Identity Model ◽  
Beliefs About The Future ◽  
Of Greece ◽  
The Way

Abstract. This research took place just after the end of the protests following the killing of a 16-year-old boy by a policeman in Greece in December 2008. Participants (N = 224) were 16-year-olds in different schools in Attiki. Informed by the Politicized Collective Identity Model ( Simon & Klandermans, 2001 ), a questionnaire measuring grievances, adversarial attributions, emotions, vulnerability, identifications with students and activists, and questions about justice and Greek society in the future, as well as about youngsters’ participation in different actions, was completed. Four profiles of the participants emerged from a cluster analysis using representations of the conflict, emotions, and identifications with activists and students. These profiles differed on beliefs about the future of Greece, participants’ economic vulnerability, and forms of participation. Importantly, the clusters corresponded to students from schools of different socioeconomic areas. The results indicate that the way young people interpret the events and the context, their levels of identification, and the way they represent society are important factors of their political socialization that impacts on their forms of participation. Political socialization seems to be related to youngsters’ position in society which probably constitutes an important anchoring point of their interpretation of the world.

Restrained Airs: The Diegetic Surface and Nondiegetic Depth of British Film Music

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-443
Author(s):  
Paul Mazey
Keyword(s):  
Film Music ◽  
The World ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Film Making ◽  
The Way

This article considers how pre-existing music has been employed in British cinema, paying particular attention to the diegetic/nondiegetic boundary and notions of restraint. It explores the significance of the distinction between diegetic music, which exists in the world of the narrative, and nondiegetic music, which does not. It analyses the use of pre-existing operatic music in two British films of the same era and genre: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), and demonstrates how seemingly subtle variations in the way music is used in these films produce markedly different effects. Specifically, it investigates the meaning of the music in its original context and finds that only when this bears a narrative relevance to the film does it cross from the diegetic to the nondiegetic plane. This reveals that whereas music restricted to the diegetic plane may express the outward projection of the characters' emotions, music also heard on the nondiegetic track may reveal a deeper truth about their feelings. In this way, the meaning of the music varies depending upon how it is used. While these two films may differ in whether or not their pre-existing music occupies a nondiegetic or diegetic position in relation to the narrative, both are characteristic of this era of British film-making in using music in an understated manner which expresses a sense of emotional restraint and which marks the films with a particularly British inflection.

Profilometry. Using Corneo-scleral topography for scleral lens fitting

The Eye ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (128) ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Gregory DeNaeyer
Keyword(s):  
Ocular Surface ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Contact Lenses ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way

The world-wide use of scleral contact lenses has dramatically increased over the past 10 year and has changed the way that we manage patients with corneal irregularity. Successfully fitting them can be challenging especially for eyes that have significant asymmetries of the cornea or sclera. The future of scleral lens fitting is utilizing corneo-scleral topography to accurately measure the anterior ocular surface and then using software to design lenses that identically match the scleral surface and evenly vault the cornea. This process allows the practitioner to efficiently fit a customized scleral lens that successfully provides the patient with comfortable wear and improved vision.

Inverse Correlation: Comparative Philosophy in an Upside Down World

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-116
Author(s):  
Mark T. Unno
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Inverse Correlation ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
Human Limitation ◽  
Final Work

Kitarō Nishida introduces the concept of “inverse correlation” (Jp. gyakutaiō 逆対応) in his final work, The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview, which he uses to illuminate the relation between finite and infinite, human and divine/buddha, such that the greater the realization of human limitation and finitude, the greater that of the limitless, infinite divine or buddhahood. This essay explores the applicability of the logic and rhetoric of inverse correlation in the cases of the early Daoist Zhuangzi, medieval Japanese Buddhist Shinran, and modern Protestant Christian Kierkegaard, as well as broader ramifications for contemporary philosophy of religion.

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