Outline: Along with a loss of faith in reason and science, the twentieth century witnessed a loss of faith in the human self and society as a whole. Two devastating world wars left scant reason for Enlightenment optimism. Commencing with Frege, Husserl and Bergson, Alan Padgett and Steve Wilkens chart the course of twentieth-century philosophy on its journey toward postmodernism. The voyage is …
In this book we explore elementary parts of logic and neighboring fields. Part I of the book lays the foundation. In parts II and III we look at further developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These later developments have affected people’s views of logic as a whole. But not all readers will be equally interested in them. I have placed the discussion of Christian foundations f…
Can it be justifiable to commit oneself 'by faith' to a religious claim when its truth lacks adequate support from one's total available evidence? In Believing by Faith, John Bishop defends a version of fideism inspired by William James's 1896 lecture 'The Will to Believe'. By critiquing both 'isolationist' (Wittgensteinian) and Reformed epistemologies of religious belief, Bishop argues that an…
Richard Swinburne analyses the purposes of practising a religion, and argues that religious faith requires belief that a particular creed provides the rationale for supposing that these purposes will be achieved.
Christians should use and develop their minds. The mental faculties of the human mind—the power to think, to discover, to wonder, and to imagine—are precious gifts of God. The Christian who pursues knowledge, seeks education, and explores even the most “secular” subjects is fulfilling a Christian vocation that is pleasing to God and of great importance to the Church. The Bible, by prece…
We all engage in the process of reasoning, but we don’t always pay attention to whether we are doing it well. This book offers the opportunity to practice reasoning in a clear-headed and critical way, with the aims of developing an awareness of the importance of reasoning well and of improving the reader’s skill in analyzing and evaluating arguments.
The aim of this book is to offer such an analysis for those crucial sections of the Critique where Kant presents the constructive side of his theory of knowledge. This is an immodest aim and one that I could not hope to fulfill if I did not stand on the shoulders of giants. Drawing on their work, I shall try to show that the first half of the Critique of Pure Reason contains a sustained and cha…
Philosophy can be an extremely technical and complex affair, one whose terminology and procedures are often intimidating to the beginner and demanding even for the professional. Like that of surgery, the art of philosophy requires mastering a body of knowledge as well as acquiring precision and skill with a set of instruments or tools. The Philosopher's Toolkit may be thought of as a collection…
Smart Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing 2E is a practical step-by-step guide to improving skills in analysis, critical thinking, and the effective communication of arguments and explanations. The book combines an accessible and straightforward style, with a strong
foundation of knowledge. The text treats reasoning as an aspect of communication, not an abstract exercise in logic. Th…
This book is a series of essays on the topic of faith and reason. But there are many such essays, and many such books. What, if anything, makes this one significantly different? From near the beginning of Christianity there have been reflections on this topic. It could hardly have been otherwise, given that the culture with which Christianity first interacted, once it had emerged from Judaism, …
Outline: In recent years 'Abdolkarim Soroush has emerged as one of the leading revisionist thinkers of the Moslem world. Supporters and critics alike have called him the Martin Luther of Islam - a man whose ideas on religion and democracy could bridge the chasm between Moslem societies and the rest of the world. Soroush and his contemporaries in other Moslem countries are shaping what may becom…
Outline: Written by four members of the Calvin College philosophy department, this book is a valuable resource for teachers and undergraduate students of philosophy. In addition to providing clear introductions to the modes of reasoning students encounter in their philosophy course readings, it includes a nuanced description of common informal fallacies, a narrative overview philosophical accou…
Outline: This volume contains a variety of philosophical essays that illuminate the character of religious knowledge. Among this issues discussed in the book are the viability of contemporary epistemological theories, the relation between divine and human knowledge, the ontological argument and natural theology in general, whether we know that we have religious knowledge, the status of historic…
Overview: Dedicated to Norman Kretzmann - a major figure within medieval philosophy and a leader in the redifinition of philosophy of religion - this book presents important new essays by fourteen eminent philosophers. Examining aspects of the rationality of faith or bringing philosophical techniques to bear on particular religious texts or doctrines, each chapter deepens our understanding of …