Newman, Marcel, and Personal Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 002114002097770
Author(s):  
R. James Lisowski CSC
Keyword(s):  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
John Henry Newman ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
Gabriel Marcel ◽  
Personal Nature ◽  
Mature Work ◽  
Genuine Knowledge

This article suggests that the religious epistemology of John Henry Newman can be enhanced if read through the philosophical lens of Gabriel Marcel. After briefly describing Newman’s epistemology as it appears in his most philosophically mature work, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, and with particular attention paid to the illative sense, the charge of relativism will be considered. The answer to this concern of relativism is found in embryo in the pages of the Grammar itself, when it highlights not only the personal nature of assent but also suggests a communal dimension. To make this point explicit, I suggest reading Newman’s epistemology through the lens of Marcel’s philosophy. While being akin to Newman in terms of what constitutes genuine knowledge and one’s attainment of it, Marcel provides a richer philosophical story as to why our knowing is both personal and communal. To this end, the Marcelian understanding of situated existence and testimony will be explored. In sum, a Marcelian optic helps to supplement Newman’s epistemology while not detracting from it.

Ecclesiology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Michael Shea
Keyword(s):  
Vanishing Point ◽  
John Henry Newman ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
Doctrinal Development ◽  
The Church

John Henry Newman never wrote a treatise on the Church, yet ecclesiology functions like a vanishing point towards which nearly every line of his thought can be traced. It is with an orientation to the Church that Newman elaborated his conceptions of the sacraments, revelation, history, tradition, doctrinal development, and ecclesiastical offices, in addition to more abstract notions such as faith, assent, religious epistemology, and conscience. The metaphor can be taken even further. For not only does the Church enjoy an orienting presence across most developed subjects in Newman’s corpus, but like a vanishing point, the Church’s configuration can appear in remarkably diverse ways depending upon the arrangement of more proximate subjects that Newman’s various writings held in view. The vanishing point is also more than a metaphor, because at the heart of his ecclesiology is a missing document from 1847. This chapter consider’s Newman’s his developing notion of the Church as a dynamic and polycentric communion of believers.

scholarly journals Zagzebski, Authority, and Faith

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trent Dougherty
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Epistemic Authority ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
The Face ◽  
Mature Work ◽  
High Octane

Epistemic Authority is a mature work of a leading epistemologist and philosopher of religion (and metaphysician, too, but that character doesn’t feature in this story). It is a work primarily in epistemology with applications to religious epistemology. There are obvious applications of the notion of epistemic authority to philosophy of religion. For, on the face of it, the notion of some kind of ‘epistemic authority’ may serve as a conceptual anchor for our understanding of faith. Indeed, there is ample historical precedent for this. Faith, says Locke, is ‘the assent to any proposition ... upon the credit of the proposer, as coming from God, in some extraordinary way of communication’. 1 In later Lockeans, ‘credit’ is often rendered ‘authority’, and the terms were used synonymously at the time of his writing. 2 One of the beauties of Locke’s view is its reductionism, that is, it’s parsimony, which is a species of elegance and therefore beauty. Zagzebski’s notion is more high-octane than Locke’s. In this essay I will do four things. In Section 1 I will describe two kinds or notions of authority or at least two usages of the word ‘authority’. In Section 2 I will describe Zagzebski’s use of one of these notions, the non-Lockean one, to ground the reasonableness of religious belief. In Section 3 I will give four arguments against her view. In section 4 I will reply to her critique of Locke. The upshot, in my view, is that though we learn much (very much indeed) from Epistemic Authority (about both testimony in general and religious testimony in particular among many other things), a more Lockean approach to the nature of faith is still preferable.

scholarly journals Gagasan Allah Kristianitas dalam Modernisme, Postmodernisme, dan 'Illative Sense' John Henry Newman

MELINTAS ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Riston Situmorang
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
John Henry Newman ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Experience Of God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Idea Of God

Modern worldview tends to explore everything, including the idea of God, grounded on reason and rational evidences. Postmodernism on the other hand tends to consider that the basic of epistemology of modernism fails to explain the experience and the existence of God, because modernism relies too much on the cognitive and empiric powers. John Henry Newman might be viewed as a constructive postmodernist for he chooses a different power for judging the truth about the concept and experience of God. Newman appears not to think in ‘either-or’ way like in the rationalism and empiricism worldview, but attempts to fuse and bridge the ways of thinking using ‘both-and’. He suggests that this power, i.e., the <em>illative sense</em>, is a faculty that help the believers judge the truth in comprehending the existence of God. With illative sense, people may decide and make spontaneous inferences on concrete issues naturally. In this line, postmodernism might be seen not as a threat or enemy, but companion to religion, for the postmodern epistemology tends to be sensorial, intuitive, and experiential. Illative sense, as a power that each believer has, is converging the particularities towards the existence of God in the context of religious epistemology.

Scientism

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
Genuine Knowledge

Can only science deliver genuine knowledge about the world and ourselves? Is science our only guide to what exists? Adherents of scientism tend to answer both questions with yes. Scientism is increasingly influential in popular scientific literature and intellectual life in general, but philosophers have hitherto largely ignored it. This collection is one of the first to develop and assess scientism as a serious philosophical position. It features twelve new essays by both proponents and critics of scientism. Before scientism can be evaluated, it needs to be clear what it is. Hence, the collection opens with essays that provide an overview of the many different versions of scientism and their mutual interrelations. Next, several card-carrying proponents of scientism make their case, either by developing and arguing directly for their preferred version of scientism or by responding to objections. Then, the floor is given to critics of scientism. It is examined whether scientism is epistemically vicious, whether scientism presents a plausible general epistemological outlook, and whether science has limits. The final four essays zoom out and connect scientism to ongoing debates elsewhere in philosophy. What does scientism mean for religious epistemology? What can science tell us about morality and is a scientistic moral epistemology plausible? How is scientism related to physicalism?

John Henry Newman

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril O'Regan
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
John Henry Newman ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Oxford University

The nature of faith and reason and their proper relation was a preoccupation of John Henry Newman throughout his long writing career, beginning with his Oxford University Sermons and carrying on long after the publication of An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. In both classic sites of his religious epistemology, Newman wrote out of the British naturalist tradition, which gave sanction to the normal workings of the human mind in religious as well as non-religious affairs against the universalistic tendencies of Lockean epistemology. In so doing, Newman defended religious belief as a form of knowing. Accordingly, this chapter will not only present Newman’s religious epistemology from these important texts but will also show the influence of Newman’s thought on later epistemology as well as the problems, arising from Newman’s writings, that require further epistemological attention.

Watching Birds and People

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-176
Author(s):  
Mikael Rothstein
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Good Working ◽  
Anthropological Field Work ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The Way

This article explores ornithology as a hidden resource in anthropological field work. Relating experiences among the Penan forest nomads of Sarawak, Borneo, the author describes how his personal knowledge of bird life paved the way for good working relations, and even friendship, with the Penan. Representing two very different cultures simple communication between the scholar on duty and the Penan community was difficult indeed, but the birds provided a common ground that enabled the two parties to exchange experiences, knowledge and skills. In certain ways the author's fieldwork-based project relates to the Penan’s religious interpretation of birds, but the article is primarily concerned with the fact that a mutual understanding was created from this common ground, and that our thoughts on fieldwork preparations may be taken further by such experiences.

FENOMENOLOGIA DA LIBERDADE: ENTRE A CONSCIÊNCIA FANATIZADA E A TRANSCENDÊNCIA DO SER

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 211
Author(s):  
Ezir George Silva
Keyword(s):  
Gabriel Marcel

O trabalho inscreve-se nos estudos sobre Filosofia, Ciências da Religião, Espiritualidade e Educação. Seu objetivo é analisar como a noção de Liberdade se articula, fenomenologicamente, entre a consciência fanatizada e a transcendência do Ser, à luz da abordagem hermenêutico-fenomenológica do Pensamento Filosófico de Gabriel Marcel. Averiguar como essas categorias podem ajudar na construção de uma visão de mundo que não oblitera as dimensões do Ser e que se coloca contra as posturas aviltantes que despersonalizam as relações humanas. No primeiro momento, discutiremos as perspectivas ontológicas entre Liberdade e Razão e seu desdobramento para a compreensão do homem sobre si mesmo, o outro e o mundo. Na segunda parte, analisaremos a tensão entre Liberdade e Verdade, destacando o modo como o processo de abstração do Ser pode transformar-se numa autolatria. No terceiro momento, refletiremos sobre a Liberdade e a Heteronomia, como engajamento promotor de outras realidades existenciais e testemunhos espirituais. Enfim, pretende-se identificar as implicações dessas abordagens sobre as relações intersubjetivas, numa perspectiva da formação humana.

Existence as belonging:

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Martín Grassi
Keyword(s):  
Gabriel Marcel

O existencialismo é normalmente considerado uma filosofia da auto-afirmação. Entretanto, a filosofia existencial de Gabriel Marcel enfatiza o pertencimento (participation) e a comunidade como os conceitos fulcrais para compreender a existência humana. A existência humana pertence ao mundo, a outros seres semelhantes, ao Ser em si mesmo e ao Transcendente. Ao enfatizar o pertencimento, Marcel oferece uma nova e radical perspectiva sobre a liberdade e a metafísica, pois o ser não pode senão ser acolhido, e a dinâmica inteira da liberdade é sobre responder ao chamado do Outro. Esse tipo particular de existencialismo, portanto, pode desempenhar hoje um papel proeminente no debate filosófico, principalmente por evitar a oposição dialética entre o Eu e o Outro. A filosofia de Marcel oferece algumas percepções centrais sobre o significado da palavra “com” e, portanto, questiona a nossa compreensão da comunidade e do ser-com.

Gabriel Marcel

1909 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 275-276
Author(s):  
Henry Vignaud
Keyword(s):  
Gabriel Marcel
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