Click on the Contributor's name to see the Abstract for his or her article Affiliated with Lebanon Valley College of Pennsylvania Volume
13 SPRING/SUMMER 2006
CONTENTS
About the Contributors ARTICLES Moral Explanation Narrative, Relativism, and Realism, in Ethics Philosophy’s Living-Pedagogy Truth: A Modern and Postmodern View Mill and Freud: The Role of Reason and Pleasure in Society The New Empirical Metaethics SELECTED BOOK and FILM REVIEWS BOOKS Bruce Fleming, Science and the Self: The Scale of Knowledge Pedro Blas Gonzalez, Human Existence as Radical Reality: Ortega y Gassett’s Philosophy of Subjectivity A. Cleveland Harrison, Unsung Valor: A GI’s Story of World War II Mary E. Hess, Engaging Technology in Theological Education: All That We Can’t Leave Behind Gerald Holton, Victory & Vexation in Science: Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Others David Albert Jones, The Soul of the Embryo Karen L. King, What Is Gnosticism? Rebecca J. Lester, Jesus in Our Wombs: Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent Stephen Mulhall, Philosophical Myths of the Fall Peter Hanns Reill, Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment Rosemary Radford Ruether, Goddesses and the Feminine Divine: A Western Religious History John J. Shea, Finding God Again: Spirituality for Adults Scott Soames, Reference and Description: The Case Against Two-Dimensionalism Harvey Whitehouse and Robert N. McCauley, eds., Mind and Religion: Psychological and Cognitive Foundations of Religiosity FILMS Max Cacopardo, director. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir Lutz Hachmeister and Michael Kloft. The Goebbels Experiment Pirjo Honkasalo, director. The 3 Rooms of Melancholia Petr Lom, director. Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan Franz Reichle, director. Monte Grande: What is Life? Catherine Scott, director. Pat Fiske, producer. Ray Moynihan, co-writer. Selling Sickness BOOKS OF NOTE Abstracts of Current Issue Moral Explanation The structural similarities between scientific explanation and moral justification are explored. Both, it is claimed, are answers to Why-Questions; in the case of explanation, “Why did X happen?” and in the case of justification, “Why do X?” After surveying various models of explanation in an attempt to shed light on their structure, it is argued that both explanation and justification relate—and must relate—the phenomenon at issue to background theory, relevant particular facts, and given goals. _________________________________
Narrative, Relativism, and Realism, in Ethics Narrative is a potent antidote for our tendency to reduce other people to bloodless abstractions and statistics. Virtue theorists in ethics have been particularly persuasive in pointing out the connections between narrative and ethics. Narrative accounts in ethics have the concrete experiential basis that virtue ethicists have been seeking to integrate back into ethical discussions. Some virtue theorists further maintain that those character traits a particular society chooses to regard as virtues and those character traits it chooses to regard as vices are culturally and ethically relative. It is true that when we immerse ourselves in the narratives of others with the intent to genuinely appreciate how others experience and understand their lives we may begin to get a sense that the values and standards we take as important in our personal lives are merely relative. A reader who is consistently exposed to a diversity of narratives may come to believe in relativism. But I argue that although virtue ethics—with its connection to concrete narrative accounts—is compatible with both cultural and ethical relativism, when people read the undercurrent of relativism as a vindication of ethical relativism then I believe they are being too hasty with their conclusion. This is because virtue ethics—with its connection to concrete narrative accounts—is also compatible with ethical realism: the view that there are permanent, universal, objective values and standards. The forcefulness and persuasiveness of narrative accounts should not make us feel compelled to either endorse ethical relativism or give up ethical realism. _________________________________
Philosophy’s Living-Pedagogy This paper argues that traditional education failed to acknowledge the relational, contextual, and living aspects of learning, and by so doing turned learning into a formal and detached possession of information and not into existential moments of understanding. “Wisdom is in the muscles,” observed Emerson, and only learning that also involves the dimension of actual living can lead to a transformation of the whole person. I offer the classical American tradition in philosophy as a corrective to the formalistic and dualistic nature of tradition pedagogy. With their unique brand of naturalism, the classical American tradition succeeded in redefining the nature of our metaphysical assumptions, the nature and the process of learning, and ultimately the nature of personhood. Finally, I provide a case-study in which the wisdom of philosophy is taught in a more participatory and engaged manner, consistent with the ideas of the American philosopher of education, John Dewey. I call this approach to learning, Living-Pedagogy. _________________________________
Truth: A Modern and Postmodern View The idea of truth has been an essential element of the Christian tradition. Our idea of truth, however, has changed significantly over time. This paper considers some of those changes. In particular it argues that the Augustinian, medieval view and the postmodern view are very similar. Equally, when we consider the modern, Enlightenment view of truth, we find it is not only incompatible with both the Augustinian and postmodern views, but it is also equally at odds with what is at the core of the Christian tradition. _________________________________
Mill and Freud: The Role of Reason and Pleasure in Society _________________________________
The New Empirical Metaethics Metaethics, the part of ethics that concerns itself with the subject matter and methodology of ethics, has taken a scientific turn. I review four recent books that illustrate this turn and show why it marks an advance over its linguistic analytic and a priori predecessors. _________________________________ The cover design for the SPRING/SUMMER 2006 issue of BRIDGES was created by Mr. Ty Bachus. ________ copyright©
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