This essay offers a critical reading of Karen Barad’s and Heinrich Päs’ interpretations of quantum mechanics, using a Categorial Differentiation approach to science and religion, which is inspired by Wittgenstein and van Fraassen. Barad and Päs are ontological realists, but their philosophies of quantum mechanics depart from what I call scientistic realist interpretations of quantum mechanics, which are mainstream in the analytic philosophy of physics. After an overview of the ontological turn in the philosophy of quantum mechanics and explaining the basic difference between scientistic and existential kinds of realism, I examine the central features of Barad’s agential realism and Päs’ quantum monism. The Categorial Differentiation approach, which offers a normative perspective on the relationship between science and religion, is introduced, and its relevance for the philosophy (and theology) of quantum mechanics is explained. I conclude the essay with a critical analysis of Barad’s and Päs’ interpretations from this Wittgensteinian perspective, focusing on the ways in which they relate the science of quantum mechanics with their respective existential–moral visions.

The main idea of this chapter stems from a grammatical peculiarity of 'being a saint' in the Christian context, which can be described as follows: the term 'saint' seems to be ascribable only to others but not to oneself. To appreciate the nature of the problem the author have described in the introduction it is important to get a feel for the different meanings that 'saint' can have in Christianity and see for which of those the problem is relevant. The Lutheran-episodic conception of sainthood which the author suggests instead of the strong realist metaphysics of sainthood can live with the broader, inclusive sense of 'saint' which stems from early Christian usage, according to which all Christians are saints. The fact that everybody, even those individuals who do the most saintly acts, has defects and weaknesses, should always guide use of the term 'saint'.

This essay examines pantheism within the framework of the ‘faith and reason’ field in the philosophy of religion, with an emphasis on the question of the relationship between pantheism and empirical–scientific rationality. I address this question from what I call the Wittgensteinian Nonoverlapping Magisteria (WNOMA) approach to religion and science. WNOMA affirms a categorial difference between religious and scientific language and attitudes. This difference is interpreted with the help of Wittgenstein’s distinction between religious and scientific beliefs and van Fraassen’s distinction between religious and empiricist stances. This means that WNOMA is antievidentialist regarding religious beliefs and sees the experiential and instinctive aspects of religion as more fundamental than the systematic–intellectual aspect. Part of the variety in contemporary pantheism relates to the question of whether the emphasis is on the experiential–spiritual side of pantheism or its intellectual side, i.e., whether pantheism is ‘hot’ or ‘cold’. I examine a few telling examples: Spinoza, Einstein, the World Pantheism Movement and a recent awe-some argument for pantheism by Ryan Byerly. The main contribution of this paper is a critical reading of these versions of pantheism from a WNOMA perspective, through which I hope to establish the plausibility and show some of the persuasive force of the WNOMA approach to pantheism, focusing on the relation of pantheism to scientific rationality on the one hand and felt experience on the other. I argue that hotter kinds of pantheism can be intellectually virtuous if they find a way to combine the empiricist stance and pantheist religious stance, even without a developed philosophical or theological system. I also argue that colder and philosophically rigorous pantheism can be problematic if it assumes religious evidentialism, neglects the experiential part of pantheism in favor of intellectualism or/and confuses the spheres of science and religion.

This collective paper on radicalization and violent extremism part of the 'Philosophy of education in a new key' initiative by Educational Philosophy and Theory brings together some of the leading contemporary scholars writing on the most pressing epistemological, ethical, political and educational issues facing post-9/11 scholarship on radicalization and violent extremism. Its overall aim is to move beyond the 'conventional wisdom' associated with this area of scholarly research best represented by its many slogans, metaphors and other thought-terminating cliches. By providing conceptual lenses on issues previously compartmentalized primarily [or even exclusively] in security and intelligence studies or at the fringes of scholarly interest, radicalization and violent extremism turn out to be much more complex than 'radicalization studies' has been eager to acknowledge.

As a philosophical approach to public moral discourse in a religiously plural society, Jeffrey Stout’s “modest pragmatism” has received a mixed response from the opposite sides of the secularism debate. While many political theologians and communitarians claim that Stout concedes too much to the secularists, some secularists find Stout’s inclusive approach towards religious reasonings in public discourse all too “theological.” This essay offers a re-examination and a further analysis of modest pragmatism in the light of recent work in epistemology of democracy (especially Anderson’s interpretation of Dewey’s inclusive and experimental democracy), and discourse ethics based on Jose Medina’s theory of hermeneutical (in)justice. I argue that Stout’s normative vision of public moral discourse is persuasive only if certain principles which Stout either affirms or presupposes – a strong principle of religious freedom, a democratic principle of inclusion and a principle to settle disputes discursively and non-violently – are placed in its centre and developed further than they have been in Stout’s own work. This also means that I apply the aforementioned theories – Medina’s theory of hermeneutical (in)justice in particular – to the question which they do not address, namely: how can and should different religious languages be included in public moral deliberation? The result is a new and stronger variant of the modest pragmatist vision of public moral discourse, and a renewed argument for a qualified secularity of such discourse.

»Zmerni pragmatizem« Jeffreyja Stouta kot filozofski pristop k javnemu moralnemu diskurzu v versko pluralni družbi je naletel na mešane odzive nasprotnih strani razprave o sekularizmu. Medtem ko številni politični teologi in komunitaristi trdijo, da Stout preveč popušča sekularistom, se po drugi strani nekaterim sekularistom zdi njegov vključujoči pristop do verskih utemeljitev v javnem diskurzu preveč »teološki «. Pričujoči esej ponuja ponovni pregled in nadaljnjo analizo zmernega pragmatizma v luči nedavnega dela na področju epistemologije demokracije (zlasti interpretacije Deweyjeve vključujoče in eksperimentalne demokracije, kot jo je podala Elizabeth Anderson) ter etike diskurza, ki temelji na teoriji hermenevtične (ne) pravičnosti Joseja Medine. Trdim, da je Stoutova normativna vizija javnega moralnega diskurza prepričljiva le, če določena načela, ki jih Stout bodisi potrjuje bodisi predpostavlja – močno načelo verske svobode, demokratično načelo vključenosti in načelo reševanja sporov diskurzivno in ne nasilno –, postavimo v njeno središče in jih razvijemo bolj, kot jih je v svojem delu razvil sam Stout. To tudi pomeni, da prej omenjene teorije – zlasti Medinovo teorijo hermenevtične (ne)pravičnosti – uporabim za vprašanje, ki ga ne obravnavajo, namreč: kako je mogoče in treba različne verske jezike vključiti v javno moralno razpravo? Rezultat je nova in močnejša različica zmerne pragmatistične vizije javnega moralnega diskurza ter obnovljen argument za kvalificirano sekularnost takega diskurza.

As a philosophical approach to public moral discourse in a religiously plural society, Jeffrey Stout's "modest pragmatism" has received a mixed response from the opposite sides of the secularism debate. While many political theologians and communitarians claim that Stout concedes too much to the secularists, some secularists, on the other hand, find Stout's inclusive approach towards religious reasonings in public discourse all too "theological." This essay offers a re-examination and a further analysis of modest pragmatism in the light of recent work in epistemology of democracy (especially Anderson's interpretation of Dewey's inclusive and experimental democracy), and discourse ethics based on Jose Medina's theory of hermeneutical (in)justice. I argue that Stout's normative vision of public moral discourse is persuasive only if certain principles which Stout either affirms or presupposes – a strong principle of religious freedom, a democratic principle of inclusion and a principle to settle disputes discursively and not violently – are placed in its center and developed further than they have been in Stout's own work. This also means that I apply the previously-mentioned theory – Medina's theory of hermeneutical (in)justice in particular – to the question which it does not address, namely: how can and should different religious languages be included in public moral deliberation? The result is a new and stronger variant of the modest pragmatist vision of public moral discourse, and a renewed argument for a qualified secularity of such discourse.

Deliberation as critical, open, inclusive and argument-based discussion about matters of public interest is a crucial mechanism of a healthy democracy. According to deliberative democracy defenders, like Jurgen Habermas, deliberation contributes to achieving a better and more just society. The present essay analyses the intertwinement between the development of this political value in the Euro-Atlantic world on the one hand, and Protestantism and its development on the other. Recent works in the history of Protestantism and the political history of democracy paint a complex, but powerful picture: despite the religious conservative tendencies in Protestantism, it seems that a notable measure of freedom of research, belief and debate could be found in the societies where Protestantism had become a dominant religious culture. While this development is partly a result of contingent historic events, it also had much to do with internal theological impulses within the Protestant thought.

Deliberacija oziroma kritična, odprta, vključujoča in argumentirana javna razprava

In the introductive chapter to the volume, I place the studies presented in the volume within the most relevant scholarly contexts: first and foremost, the studies in Wittgenstein interpretation, especially of Wittgenstein on 'religion', 'belief', and related concepts; and second, the recent versions of Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion and Wittgensteinian theology. I do this by offering a way to read Wittgenstein on religion through tracing four conceptions or 'pictures' of religion in Wittgenstein's thought, which have a particular place in Wittgenstein's specific understanding of philosophy as grammatical investigation. I show how the studies in the current volume relate to previous applications of Wittgenstein to the study of interreligious encounter, communication, disagreement, and related topics, and suggest how they are connected to some of the recent debates in religious studies, comparative theology, and comparative philosophy of religion more broadly.

AbstractRooting itself in Catholic social teaching rather than theology of creation, this book develops a novel approach to Catholic ecological ethics. It argues that the traditional conception of the social common good should be fully broadened to encompass all creation, including abiota. Furthermore, the book suggests a comparative‐theological approach to ecological ethics through careful conversations with Buddhist, Hindu, and American Lakota conceptions and practices. While its vision of the cosmic common good at times appears too inclusive and perhaps ‘too good to be true’, this book is a valuable contribution to Christian ecological ethics and includes a fresh comparative‐theological take on ecological questions.

It has been argued that German Liberal Protestant theologians of the 19th and the early 20th Century, despite their affirmation of the freedom of religion and their support for the emancipation of Jewish people, remained strongly anti-Judaic. The ‘father of liberal theology’, Friedrich Schleiermacher, is accredited with launching a particular neo-Marcionite brand of anti-Judaism which introduced a radical break between the Old and the New Testaments, and accordingly, between Judaism and Christianity. Paul Tillich, standing at the other end of the German Liberal Protestant story, is often seen as effectively ending (together with Barth) this particular version of anti-Judaism by systematically re-stressing the continuity between the Testaments, and between Judaism and Christianity. In this essay, I problematize this understanding by comparing Schleiermacher’s and Tillich’s views of Judaism. I examine the ways in which the central theological and philosophical ideas of Schleiermacher and Tillich have informed (or not) their views of, and attitudes towards, Judaism and Jewish people, respectively. This comparison is made possible by the fact that both thinkers had deeply philosophical and systematic ways of doing theology. Finally, I suggest what contemporary lessons this comparison in Christian thinking about Judaism we might be able to learn from it for today.

According to G.E. Moore, Wittgenstein said that “different religions treat something as making sense, which others treat as nonsense: they don’t merely one deny a proposition which other affirms’ (MWL 8:78). Although Lindbeck probably has not read this exact statement from Wittgenstein, no theologian has taken the depiction of interreligious disagreement that is encapsulated in it more seriously than George Lindbeck. For, while other theologians before or after Lindbeck have recognized the phenomenon of grammatical incommensurability between conceptual systems of different religions as an important factor in interreligious communication, Lindbeck made incommensurability and untranslatability absolutely central, indeed programmatic, for his approach to interreligious relations (Lindbeck 2002, 223).

From examining the work of Lindbeck, Tracy, and Burrell, we have learned valuable lessons, both in terms of interpreting Wittgenstein theologically as well as in terms of the possibilities of applying a (more or less) Wittgensteinian approach in theology to the topics such as interreligious incommensurability, (un)translatability, dialogue, communication, and disagreement. In this chapter, my focus will narrow down somewhat: I will present my perspective on interreligious disagreement which builds on the critical explorations in previous chapters but goes a step further. From a Wittgensteinian perspective—that is, according to my interpretation of Wittgenstein on religion outlined in previous chapters, especially in Chap. 2 —I want to shed light on the aspects of interreligious disagreement which were not addressed at any length by Lindbeck, Tracy, and Burrell.

I suggest that we can recognize four major conceptions of religion in Wittgenstein's work. I call them grammaticalist, instinctivist, existentialist, and nonsensicalist conceptions of religion. The grammaticalist conception of religion depicts central religious utterances as 'grammatical propositions', or grammatical 'remarks' (PI §251). For example, Christian doctrinal formulations, such as 'God has sent his Son Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls', are understood as rules of grammar for the central Christian concepts, in this case 'God', 'God's son', 'salvation', and 'soul'. Instinctivist conception refers to Wittgenstein's emphasis that religion (of linguistic behaviour, believing, rituals, and other religious practices), however complex and intellectually sophisticated, has primarily to do with 'primitive' or 'instinctive reactions', and not (at least not primarily) with 'cool' intellectual procedures. By Wittgenstein's existentialist conception of religion I mean his affirmation of the intimate connection between religious believing on one hand and decisions of living importance as well as particular kinds of felt experience on the other (e.g. wonder at the existence of the world, feeling of absolute safety, existential guilt). Lastly, nonsensicalist conception depicts religious language as '[running] against the boundaries of language', as the expressions of religiously and ethically salient experience are strictly speaking 'nonsensical' (LE 11–12).