Conceptions of Faith

This entry focuses on the recent resurgence of discussion of faith in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. One prominent position that perhaps runs contrary to the popular-level view of the matter is that faith does not require belief. This—whether faith requires belief—is one of the most discussed issues in the literature, with some arguing that a different, weaker attitude than belief, such as acceptance or hope, is sufficient for faith. Other alternatives to the belief model of faith include imaginative faith in ultimism, faith as doxastic venture, and faith as trust. Additional topics in this entry include whether faith is consistent with evidentialism or whether it inherently requires a type of irrationality, and finally the degree to which skepticism is consistent with faith. In order to keep this entry a manageable size we will not address historical accounts of faith or those found within the Continental tradition. Additionally, we will not discuss non-Western conceptions of faith; the literature we examine focuses on propositional faith as found in the Judeo-Christian tradition (which is the focus of much contemporary philosophy of religion). Finally, given space constraints we focus on work produced after 2000, with the exception of particularly influential pieces.

Philosophy of Technology between the Continental and Analytic Traditions

During the past fifty-odd years, philosophy of technology has been nurtured by two distinct philosophical traditions, the continental and the analytic, with the former at first sight dominating. On closer scrutiny, however, it appears that philosophy of technology’s borrowings from the continental tradition have been superficial and eclectic at best, and philosophy of technology cannot be said to be firmly rooted in either continental or analytic philosophy. Yet the felt contrast, or even antagonism, between these traditions has arguably prevented the field from acknowledging that it failed to develop an encompassing conception of technology and from contemplating as a serious possibility that the phenomenon of technology may be so large as to escape such a definition. In response, this chapter proposes to think of philosophy of technology as composed of three subfields, and it makes suggestions on how the particular strengths of analytic and continental philosophy can contribute to these subfields.

Levinas and the ethical turn: a Nietzschean critique and response

The contentious ‘ethical turn’ in continental philosophy motivates this project. Emmanuel Levinas is among the leaders of this movement to draw renewed attention to ethics in the continental tradition. Levinas describes the transcendence that transpires in the self-Other encounter as the source of ethical obligation. However, given Friedrich Nietzsche’s ethical critique, his followers view the category of transcendence with suspicion. They think it presupposes an ontology of unchanging being. Since Nietzsche and his disciples reject ontologies of unchanging being, preferring immanence instead, they think that transcendence inevitably appeals to some imaginary world beyond the one we inhabit. Consequently, they view all philosophers of transcendence as escapist. To assess whether Levinas’ philosophical project is viable, I draw from Nietzsche’s work to mount a Nietzschean critique of Levinas. I subsequently consider a Levinasian reply to the Nietzschean critique, arguing that Levinas’ transcendence provides a compelling alternative to a Nietzschean ethics of immanence.

Levinas and the ethical turn: a Nietzschean critique and response

The contentious ‘ethical turn’ in continental philosophy motivates this project. Emmanuel Levinas is among the leaders of this movement to draw renewed attention to ethics in the continental tradition. Levinas describes the transcendence that transpires in the self-Other encounter as the source of ethical obligation. However, given Friedrich Nietzsche’s ethical critique, his followers view the category of transcendence with suspicion. They think it presupposes an ontology of unchanging being. Since Nietzsche and his disciples reject ontologies of unchanging being, preferring immanence instead, they think that transcendence inevitably appeals to some imaginary world beyond the one we inhabit. Consequently, they view all philosophers of transcendence as escapist. To assess whether Levinas’ philosophical project is viable, I draw from Nietzsche’s work to mount a Nietzschean critique of Levinas. I subsequently consider a Levinasian reply to the Nietzschean critique, arguing that Levinas’ transcendence provides a compelling alternative to a Nietzschean ethics of immanence.

Target Centred Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics in its contemporary manifestation is dominated by neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics primarily developed by Rosalind Hursthouse. This version of eudaimonistic virtue ethics was groundbreaking but by now has been subject to considerable critical attention. The time is ripe for new developments and alternatives. The target centred virtue ethics proposed in this book (TVE) is opposed to orthodox virtue ethics in two major ways. First, it rejects the ‘natural goodness’ metaphysics of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics owed to Philippa Foot in favour of a ‘hermeneutic ontology’ of ethics inspired by the Continental tradition and McDowell. Second, it rejects the well-known ‘qualified agent’ account of right action made famous by Hursthouse in favour of a target-centred framework for assessing rightness of acts. The target-centred view, introduced in Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (VEP), is much more developed in TVE with discussions of Dancy’s particularism, default reasons and thick concepts, codifiability, and its relation to the Doctrine of the mean (suitably interpreted). TVE retains the pluralism of VEP but develops it further in relation to a pluralistic account of practical reason. Besides the pluralism TVE develops other substantive positions including the view that target centred virtue ethics is developmental, suitably embedded in an environmental ethics of “dwelling”; and incorporates a concept of differentiated virtue to allow for roles, narrativity, cultural and historical location, and stage of life.

Two Kindred Neo-Kantian Philosophies of Science: Pap’s The A Priori in Physical Theory and Cassirer’s Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics

The main thesis of this paper is that Pap’s The Functional A Priori in Physical Theory and Cassirer’s Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics may be conceived as two kindred accounts of a late Neo-Kantian philosophy of science. They elucidate and clarify each other mutually by elaborating conceptual possibilities and pointing out affinities of neo-Kantian ideas with other currents of 20th century’s philosophy of science, namely, pragmatism, conventionalism, and logical empiricism. Taking into account these facts, it seems not too far fetched to conjecture that under more favorable circumstances Pap could have served as a mediator between the “analytic” and “continental” tradition thereby overcoming the dogmatic dualism of these two philosophical currents that has characterized philosophy in the second half the 20th century.

Phenomenological approaches to personal identity

This special issue addresses the debate on personal identity from a phenomenological viewpoint, especially contemporary phenomenological research on selfhood. In the introduction, we first offer a brief survey of the various classic questions related to personal identity according to Locke’s initial proposal and sketch out key concepts and distinctions of the debate that came after Locke. We then characterize the types of approach represented by post-Hegelian, German and French philosophies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We argue that whereas the Anglophone debates on personal identity were initially formed by the persistence question and the characterization question, the “Continental” tradition included remarkably intense debates on the individual or the self as being unique or “concrete,” deeply temporal and—as claimed by some philosophers, like Sartre and Foucault—unable to have any identity, if not one externally imposed. We describe the Continental line of thinking about the “self” as a reply and an adjustment to the post-Lockean “personal identity” question (as suggested by thinkers such as MacIntyre, Ricœur and Taylor). These observations constitute the backdrop for our presentation of phenomenological approaches to personal identity. These approaches run along three lines: (a) debates on the layers of the self, starting from embodiment and the minimal self and running all the way to the full-fledged concept of person; (b) questions of temporal becoming, change and stability, as illustrated, for instance, by aging or transformative life-experiences; and (c) the constitution of identity in the social, institutional, and normative space. The introduction thus establishes a structure for locating and connecting the different contributions in our special issue, which, as an ensemble, represent a strong and differentiated contribution to the debate on personal identity from a phenomenological perspective.

Russian Literature and Philosophy: Problems of Study and Preliminary Results

The paper provides an analytical and historical survey of the studies of the interaction between literature and philosophy in the Russian and foreign humanities. Particular attention is paid to the paradoxical fact that despite the obvious synergy of philosophy and literature in Russian culture, which is essentially “a form of national self-consciousness,” there have not yet been developed optimal methods and tools to access the philosophy of the literary text. Thus, huge factual material has been left unexamined. It seems that the current surge of interest in the interaction of literature and philosophy is related not so much to the national cultural tradition as to the relevance of this topic in the West, where non-literary circumstances have not affected philosophical interpretation of literary texts. The break with the original national philosophy of the early 20th century, caused by socio-historical cataclysms, has posed a dilemma for Russian scholars: either to leave theoretical questions unresolved or resolve them with the reference to the Western models offered by the “continental” tradition or the analytical philosophy of literature.

Late-Victorian Decadent Song Literature

This article considers the Victorian and Edwardian vogue for setting late-Victorian decadent poetry to music. It examines the particular appeal of Ernest Dowson's and Arthur Symons's verse to the composers Cyril Scott and Frederick Delius, whose Songs of Sunset (1911) was regarded as the “quintessential expression of the fin-de-siècle spirit,” and discusses the contribution of women composers and musicians—particularly that of the Irish composer and translator Adela Maddison (1866–1929)—to the cross-continental tradition of decadent song literature and the musical legacy of decadence in the late-Victorian period and beyond.