Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy

Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy

Author: Sami Pihlström

Publisher: Helsinki University Press

Published: 2020-02-03

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9523690051

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As a traditional theological issue and in its broader secular varieties, theodicy remains a problem in the philosophy of religion. In this remarkable book, Sami Pihlström provides a novel critical reassessment of the theodicy discourse addressing the problem of evil and suffering. He develops and defends an antitheodicist view, arguing that theodicies seeking to render apparently meaningless suffering meaningful or justified from a ‘God’s-Eye-View’ ultimately rely on metaphysical realism failing to recognize the individual perspective of the sufferer. Pihlström thus shows that a pragmatist approach to the realism issue in the philosophy of religion is a vital starting point for a re-evaluation of the problem of theodicy. With its strong positions and precise arguments, the volume provides a new approach which is likely to stimulate discussion in the wider academic world of philosophy of religion.


Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy

Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy

Author: Sami Pihlström

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 9789523690066

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Both as a traditional theological issue and in its broader secular varieties, theodicy remains a problem in the philosophy of religion. In this book, Professor Sami Pihlström provides a novel critical reassessment of the theodicy discourse addressing the problem of evil and suffering. He develops an antitheodicist view, arguing that theodicies seeking to render apparently meaningless suffering meaningful or justified from a “God's-Eye-View” ultimately rely on metaphysical realism failing to recognize the individual perspective of the sufferer. Pihlström thus shows that a pragmatist approach to the realism issue in the philosophy of religion is a vital starting point for a re-evaluation of the problem of theodicy.


Pragmatist Truth in the Post-Truth Age

Pragmatist Truth in the Post-Truth Age

Author: Sami Pihlström

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-09-23

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1009051504

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It is commonly believed that populist politics and social media pose a serious threat to our concept of truth. Philosophical pragmatists, who are typically thought to regard truth as merely that which is 'helpful' for us to believe, are sometimes blamed for providing the theoretical basis for the phenomenon of 'post-truth'. In this book, Sami Pihlström develops a pragmatist account of truth and truth-seeking based on the ideas of William James, and defends a thoroughly pragmatist view of humanism which gives space for a sincere search for truth. By elaborating on James's pragmatism and the 'will to believe' strategy in the philosophy of religion, Pihlström argues for a Kantian-inspired transcendental articulation of pragmatism that recognizes irreducible normativity as a constitutive feature of our practices of pursuing the truth. James himself thereby emerges as a deeply Kantian thinker.


Pragmatic Humanism Revisited

Pragmatic Humanism Revisited

Author: Ana Honnacker

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-11-19

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 3030024415

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How can we feel at home in this world without clinging to false certainties? This book offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its potentials for a worldview that relies only on human resources. Thinking along with authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller, it highlights a fundamentally humanist strand of pragmatism aimed at fostering human creativity and transformative action. It is grounded in everyday experience and underlines our responsibility to strive for the better. Ana Honnacker traces perspectives on science, religion, and ethics in the light of a pragmatic understanding of humanism. Furthermore, she suggests how to address the existential challenges we face today. Thus, pragmatic humanism is explored not only as a philosophy for critical minds, but also as a way of life.


Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy

Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy

Author: Sami Pihlström

Publisher:

Published: 2020-02-24

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9789523690042

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This book examines the theodicy discourse addressing the problem of evil and suffering, arguing that a pragmatist approach to the realism issue in the philosophy of religion is a vital starting point for a novel critical reassessment of the theodicy problem. The book develops a new antitheodicist view on what it means to respond to suffering.


The Axiology of Theism

The Axiology of Theism

Author: Klaas J. Kraay

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-10-14

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 1108656765

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Theism is the view that God exists; naturalism is the view that there are no supernatural beings, processes, mechanisms, or forces. This Element explores whether things are better, worse, or neither on theism relative to naturalism. It introduces readers to the central philosophical issues that bear on this question, and it distinguishes a wide range of ways it can be answered. It critically examines four views, three of which hold (in various ways) that things are better on theism than on naturalism, and one of which holds just the opposite.


Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience

Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience

Author: Kelly A. Parker

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-12-03

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1498581064

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The essays in Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience offer a survey of the ways that “resilience” is becoming a key concept for understanding our world, as well as providing deeper insight about its specific actual and proposed applications. As a concept with multiple theoretical and practical meanings, “resilience” promises considerable explanatory power. At the same time, current uses of the concept can be diverse and at times inconsistent. The American philosophical tradition provides tools uniquely suited for clarifying, extending, and applying emerging concepts in more effective and suggestive ways. This collection explores the usefulness of theoretical work in American philosophy and pragmatism to practices in ecology, community, rurality, and psychology.


Humanism, Antitheodicism, and the Critique of Meaning in Pragmatist Philosophy of Religion

Humanism, Antitheodicism, and the Critique of Meaning in Pragmatist Philosophy of Religion

Author: Sami Pihlström

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2023-03-20

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1666926280

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Arguing, humanistically, that we live in a "human world" inescapably colored by meaning, this book shows why the pursuit of meaningfulness is not ethically innocent but must be subjected to critique. Pragmatist critique of meaning both embraces critical humanism and rejects theodicies postulating ultimate meaning in suffering.


Pragmatic Reason

Pragmatic Reason

Author: Robert B Talisse

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-03-23

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1000858189

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Christopher Hookway has been influential in promoting engagement with pragmatist and naturalist perspectives from classical and contemporary American philosophy. This book reflects on Hookway’s work on the American philosophical tradition and its significance for contemporary discussions of the understanding of mind, meaning, knowledge, and value. Hookway’s original and extensive studies of Charles S. Peirce have made him among the most admired and frequently referenced of Peirce’s interpreters. His work on classical American pragmatism has explored the philosophies of William James, John Dewey, and Josiah Royce, and examined the influence of pragmatist ideas outside of the United States. Additionally, Hookway has participated in a number of celebrated exchanges with some of the most high-profile figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy, including Karl-Otto Apel, Philip Pettit, Hilary Putnam, and W.V.O. Quine, through which his treatments of a large range of topics in epistemology and the philosophies of mind and language have been developed and promoted. The chapters in this book—which include contributions from several of Hookway’s former students and colleagues—include studies of Hookway’s engagement with the works of Peirce, James, and Dewey, his contributions to virtue epistemology, and his discussions of hope and pragmatist metaphysics. Pragmatic Reason will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on American philosophy, the history of analytic philosophy, and epistemology.


Religion in the Secular Age

Religion in the Secular Age

Author: Herta Nagl-Docekal

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-09-05

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 3111248690

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What does it mean to be religious believers for people whose living conditions are defined by an increasingly secularized environment? Is the common distinction between faith and knowledge valid? The 21 essays cover approaches from various fields of the humanities. Some explore post-Kantian thoughts, discussing, i.a., American Pragmatism, M. Buber, M. Horkheimer, H. Putnam, J. Habermas, Ch. Taylor and variants of deconstruction, while other essays focus on ways in which the conflict between agnostics and seekers is addressed in US literary works, as in Fl. O’Connor, W. Percy, N. Hawthorne, J. Updike and in novels dealing with pandemics, for instance by L. Wright, E. M. Wiseman and R. Cook. Historical studies examine the intermingling of the sacred and the secular in the American South and neo-scholastic objections to modernity. Theological issues are being re-framed in essays discussing the relevance of pluralism, the relation of religious conviction and public opinion, the situation of scientists who believe and the thoughts of N. Frye and M. McLuhan. Finally, essays pay attention to religious aspects in works of art, e.g. in Ukrainian poetry, G. Mahler’s symphonies and in a TV show presenting new “American Gods” of globalization.