scholarly journals Rethinking the Binary of Pure Objectivity and Relativistic Chaos

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-34
Author(s):  
Jason Huber
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
The Common

This paper seeks to refute some of the common presuppositions of traditional Western epistemologies, which center on the claim that subjectivity cannot be as truth-yielding as "objectivity." This paper argues that aspects of the subjective can effectively be utilized in a valid epistemology attempting to approach an understanding of the truth of lived human experience—i.e. that subjectivity can in certain circumstances be as truth-yielding as, or even more so than, the epistemic ideal of objectivity. Ultimately, this paper concludes that the objective-subjective epistemic binary is artificial and disadvantageous in that neither pure objectivity nor absolute relativity are possible.

Two Sources of Morality

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Pettit
Keyword(s):  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Ethical Discourse ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
The Common

This essay emerges from consideration of a question in the epistemology of ethics or morality. This is not the common claim-centered question as to how moral claims are confirmed and whether their mode of confirmation gives us grounds to be confident about the prospects for ethical discourse. Instead, I am concerned with the less frequently posed concept-centered question of where in human experience moral terms or concepts are grounded — that is, where in experience the moral becomes salient to us. This question was central to moral epistemology in the form it took among thinkers such as Locke, Hume, and Kant, and it remains of the first importance today.

The two faces of time

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
JAN SOKOL
Keyword(s):  
Linear Time ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Scientific Concept ◽  
Dependent Development ◽  
The Common ◽  
Two Sides

Speaking of a ‘lack of time’, do we mean the same ‘thing’ as the variable ‘t’ in a graph of some time-dependent development? The following article tries to show that both concepts are extreme examples of the two sides, or faces, of the single phenomenon of time, as common and trivial as it is mysterious. Scientific, numerical time is considered first, followed by the time of the common human experience, the time in the present. It is on the basis of this curious ability to ‘keep in presence’ various events that follow one another, that the scientific concept of linear time has been established and, with it, the possibility to measure the time for scientific and practical purposes.

The Symbolic Relationship and Christian Truth

1966 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-136
Author(s):  
Richard C. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Statement ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

The philosophical problem of the relation of symbol to truth is far from solved, but there have been significant advances toward its solution. It is the common Christian understanding that God is Truth (among other things), and that all truths must ultimately find union in him. This is to say that all genuine truths must be compatible. The true conclusions of genuine science must be compatible with the true conclusions of genuine theology. Or, to bring this general statement to a more particular level, the true conclusions of Biblical scholarship must be compatible with the true conclusions of the natural sciences. When this compatibility is lacking, and it so often is, we must assume that the conclusions of one field of truth-seeking or the other do not partake of the Truth which is God. And there is no guarantee that theology as a field of truth-seeking cannot err. Another characteristic of genuine truth is that it is not dependent upon any particular environment or milieu—either social, cultural, philosophical, or even theological. Unless we are to make the common but dangerous division of sacred and secular, of holy and profane, claim that these areas of human experience have nothing to do the one with the other, compartmentalise our thought, and ask, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’, it must be concluded that there is no one specifically Christian milieu. Genuine truths must be true at all times, in all places, and for all men. But since we are not gods, we must hold these truths in what St Paul called earthen vessels (II Cor. 4:7), vessels shaped and moulded by our particular milieu.

Isomorphic Indicators in Theological and Psychological Science

1989 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray S. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Common ◽  
Science And Theology ◽  
Isomorphic Structure

The culture split between science and theology by which theology tends to abandon the concrete observable world to science, while science tends to dismiss questions of ontology (God), is presented as a framework within which to examine the preceding articles in this issue. The inadequacy of attempting to bridge this dichotomy by constructing a synthesis between psychology and theology on the common ground of religious experience is shown. An alternative approach to theology as having its focus on the interaction between the human self, others and God is presented, suggesting that a convergence between theology and psychology can be found in their common interest in the nature of the human self as being-in-becoming. This convergence is examined as an isomorphic structure where, despite different “ancestry,” theology and psychology attempt to explain and give meaning to human experience as grounded in being (ontology), experienced in a knowing way (epistemology), and open to change by the reality of transcendent being which moves the self toward goals which offer healing and hope (teleology).

scholarly journals Dem Menschen zugute. Götz Harbsmeier zum 60. Geburtstag

1972 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-62
Author(s):  
Regin Prenter
Keyword(s):  
Common Core ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Crucial Point ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Common ◽  
Theological Critique ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Eternal Salvation ◽  
Interesting Reading

Dem Menschen zugute. - Götz Harbsmeier zum 60. Geburtstag. Hrsg. Von K. E. Løgstrup und Emst Wolf. München 1970. Reviewed by Regin Prenter.On the back cover of the book under review it is claimed that the aim of all its contributors is to establish a positive relationship between Christianity and culture, but without indulging in a systematic Christian cultural synthesis. The reviewer asks the question whether all of them have actually succeeded. He finds that, in his settlement with the theology of Barth in a polemical epilogue, K. E. Løgstrup undisputably has succeeded. Løgstrup agrees with the Barthian theology that the Coming of God’s Kingdom is beyond philosophical cognition, and further, that the Coming of God’s Kingdom presupposes a common core of human experience. But he refuses to accept the point that this common core of human experience should be beyond philosophical cognition.Løgstrup also settles with the conception of this common core to be found in existential theology. It is true that Christ’s own preachings only mention such experience in passing. But this is due to the fact that what he said and did is the consummation of the Coming of God’s Kingdom. This cannot be said of the priest. He speaks of Jesu existence, which we (the priest) betray in our existence. What we say is not a message in itself, but only talk about a message; therefore we must “explain” . And therefore we cannot neglect the common core of human experience.In connection with Kaj Thaning’s interpretation of Grundtvig, Løgstrup emphasises Grundtvig’s repudiation of a Christian cultural synthesis. Although Christianity to Grundtvig was a message of the eternal salvation of the individual, this did not belittle the significance of earthly life. Christianity returns man to this life. Here man makes the experiences of life and death that make the message of an eternal life meaningful to him. It is suggested that in the last analysis Løgstrup agrees with Grundtvig rather than with Thaning. – In what follows the reviewer finds that Thaning’s contribution to the Festschrift is too orthodox in its Grundtvigianism - and this he regrets, for it makes dry reading.Apart from Løgstrup’s article the reviewer draws attention to Niels Thomsen’s article “That we should not despise Mystery and Cult” and Thorkild Bjørnvig’s “The young Dead - the young Living”. He also finds that Jørgen K. Bukdahl’s article on theological critique of Marxism is interesting reading matter. The crucial point is how we should understand man’s attidude to his own history. Is man created in the theological sense of the word, or is there nothing outside himself for him to take refuge to? - But how is the theologian to express his concept of creation in philosophical terms?Now and again Grundtvig is felt to be present in the background; but the book can by no means be regarded as presentation of Grundtvig as a challenge to the German philosophical and theological tradition, not even in Løgstrup’s and Thaning’s articles. This, however, is not a valid reason for not noticing the best of the contributions to the Festschrift. A summary of the last two reviews will appear in Grundtvig-Studier 1973.

Tacit Knowledge and Discourse Analysis

2005 ◽  
pp. 2724-2729
Author(s):  
Michele Zappavigna-Lee ◽  
Jon Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
Hidden Knowledge ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Common

Much of human experience is below-view, unattended to as we operate in the world, but integral to our performance as social creatures. The tacit knowledge involved in our practice allows us the experiential agility to be at once efficient and creative, to assimilate the novel and the familiar: in essence, to develop expertise. The possessors of skilful practice, the artisan, the witchdoctor or the physician, have occupied a position of both importance and mystery in most cultures since ancient times. Our interest over the ages in such hidden knowledge has caused us to mythologise expertise, placing it beyond the common by constructing it as unspeakable. Thus, in contemporary times it is not surprising that the dominant research perspective on tacit knowledge maintains that it is ineffable, that is, tacit knowledge cannot be understood by looking at what and how people communicate verbally. Indeed the word tacit has its origins in the Latin, tacitus, meaning silent.

Form in The Tree House

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael O’Neill
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Volume Form ◽  
Common Currency ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
The Common

This chapter discusses the use and workings of form in Kathleen Jamie’s The Tree House. It explores how she balances the claims of modernity and tradition, how she deploys an idiom that combines dialect, the demotic and the literary. It argues that the volume’s use of form is in contact with what in one poem is called ‘the common currency’ of human experience. It maintains that the volume’s handling of form shows Jamie’s awareness that any meanings derived from nature have, at least in part, to be meanings conferred upon it. The chapter also discusses Jamie’s ability to interweave motifs and themes on the volume, and it looks at the intermittent, productive tension between grand assertions at the close of poems and the seeming fragility of poetic form as a vehicle for larger resonances. It concludes by affirming that, in the volume, form is a mode of self-aware and resourceful attention.

Painful Times

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance Classen
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Black Death ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
The Common

This chapter explores the dimensions of touch in pain and suffering. It looks at the role of touch in the common ailments of premodern life as well as in the use of treatments. In addition, the chapter considers the role of religious touch in treating and curing ailments. This chapter also examines the sensuality of the blind, before moving on to more severe health issues such as leprosy, the Black Death, and the dancing mania, or St. Vitus's Dance. Next, the chapter discusses the uses and ubiquity of pain in human experience, then turns to the particular difficulties of sensation in the afterlife—most notably in Christian theological conceptions of hell. Finally, the chapter examines the feelings of sorrow and compassion.

Possible Theological Perspectives in Thomas Reid's Common Sense Philosophy

1990 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Philosophical Writings ◽  
Theological Thinking ◽  
The Way

It is well known that Thomas Reid, premier exponent of the Common Sense school of Scottish philosophy, was an ordained and active minister. Less clear is the role played by theology in the deve opment ofthat philosophy as it matured slowly under his pen, particularly in me most prominent of his works, the Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) and the Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788), works which range widely over the field of human experience and the nature of reality. When philosophy and theology assumed more distinct and separate identities in the generations which succeeded Reid, it became common for critics of the Common Sense school to base their analyses solely on philosophical foundations and to neglect the theological underpinning which is essential to a fuller and clearer grasp of Keid s position. It would be a useful contribution to more than one discipline were Thomas Reid's philosophy linked more closely to the development and extent of his theological thinking. While his philosophical writings are strewn with theological references in the way typical of the eighteenth century, there is more substance in these references than is usually the case, when divines ofthat age wrote philosophy. That they are much more than casual, conventional embellishments becomes apparent from a careful reading of his works.

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