Issue · 2014
Volume 1, Issue 2, Pages 70-125
10 articles · pp. 70-125 · All issues →
Book ReviewWhy Tolerate Religion? by Brian Leiter
Reviewed by David Svolba, Fitchburg State University, USA email: dsvolba@fitchburgstate.edu
One way in which our society ‘tolerates’ religion is by exempting citizens from laws that compel them to act in ways their religions forbid, or that forbid them from acting in ways their religions require. According to Brian Leiter, religious toler…
7 Jun 2014- Articles
Metaphysics for a World in Evolution
Joseph Andrew Bracken
Metaphysics as theoretical framework for more empirically oriented research in science and in the humanities seems to be either ignored or regarded with great suspicion at the present time. Natural scientists, for example, by and large employ an instrumentalis…
25 May 2014 - Book Review
Science and Religion: 5 Questions by Gregg Caruso
Reviewed by John Shook, University at Buffalo, USA, Email: jshook@pragmatism.org
If you could ask some of the most prominent scholars across the humanities and sciences the same five ques- tions about science and religion, what would you ask? This opportunity came to philosopher Gregg D. Ca- ruso, thanks to a publisher whose “5 Quest…
27 Jun 2014 - Author Meets Critic: Session 1
Thad Metz's Fundamentality Theory of Meaning in Life: A Critical Review
Stephen Kershnar
Thad Metz’s book of the nature and value of the meaning of life, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), is the single best discussion of the meaning in life in the literature. It is an extraordinary work and is requ…
17 Jul 2014 - Author Meets Critic: Session 1
Meaning as a Distinct and Fundamental Value: Reply to Kershnar
Thaddeus Metz
I am grateful to Stephen Kershnar for his thoughtful critical notice of my book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study (Metz 2013), published elsewhere in the current issue of this journal (2014). He provides a succinct and accurate overview of the book’s c…
17 Jul 2014 - Author Meets Critic: Session 1
Meaning in Life Does Not Exist and Would Not Focus on Rationality If It Did
Stephen Kershnar
Thad Metz offers some insightful responses to my criticisms of his important book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), on meaning in life. Here I argue that his responses do not succeed. Earlier I provided two objectio…
17 Jul 2014 - Articles
Community and an Ethos of Science
H. Bruce Rinker
A great synthesis of scientific ideas around the 17th century CE marked the emergence of modern science that later accelerated especially with the emergence of ecology and evolutionary thinking. However, the strict determinism and mechanistic assumptions inher…
20 Jul 2014 - Book Review
Dealing with Darwin. Place, Politics, and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution, by David N. Livingstone
David N. Livingstone, Dealing with Darwin. Place, Politics, Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution, Johns Hopkins University Press, University Professor et al.
The eminent evolutionist, Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in 1973 that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” But it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural…
27 May 2014 - Book Review
A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
Reviewed by Rick Repetti, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY, Email: Rick.Repetti@kbcc.cuny.edu
A Manual for Creating Atheists (hereafter, “the Manual”) is a training guidebook for curing those “contaminated” with what Boghossian calls “the faith virus.” It is replete with pithy aphorisms, guidelines, strategies, talki…
27 Jun 2014 - Book Review
Beyond an Absence of Faith: Stories About the Loss of Faith and the Discovery of Self by Jonathan M.S.Pearce and Tristan Vick
Reviewed by Elly Vintiadis (www.ellyvintiadis.com)
Beyond an Absence of Faith is an edited anthology that consists of the autobiographical accounts of the journey of ex-believers from a life of faith to a life of atheism or agnosticism. It brings together the so-called ‘deconversion’ stories of 16…
17 Jul 2014