McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow, Christ Church, University of Oxford
http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/staff/dr-james-orr http://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/people/staff-list/dr-james-orr Address: Christ Church
Oxford OX1 1DP
United Kingdom
Heidegger’s jeremiads against metaphysics are amongst the most influential and iconoclastic in th... more Heidegger’s jeremiads against metaphysics are amongst the most influential and iconoclastic in the annals of continental philosophy; but none is more trenchant than the "Destruktion" of Descartes’ ontology of self with which "Sein und Zeit" begins. Yet for all the intellectual energy he expends on attempting to uncover the social texture of Dasein’s being-in-the-world, many remain convinced that Heidegger simply transposes the Cartesian ego into a phenomenological key. One of the first thinkers to arouse these suspicions was an erstwhile colleague of Heidegger, the Jewish-born phenomenologist and Carmelite spiritual writer, Edith Stein, in an unjustly neglected work, "Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie". What sets Stein’s critique apart from more influential treatments is that in the course of diagnosing weaknesses in Heidegger’s account from within his own methodological constraints, she reaches some strikingly theological conclusions. The task of the present study is to offer an assessment of her dissection of the status and function of sociality in the Daseinanalytik. After setting out Stein’s early phenomenology of empathy, I examine Stein’s argument that Heidegger’s tacit and mistaken appeal to theological categories ironically collapses his account of sociality back into the very subjectivism his "Destruktion" had been directed against. I conclude that Stein deftly reverses Heidegger’s strategy of atheological expropriation strategies by taking up a central theme in his own thought to articulate the theological unity of all finite existents. For Stein, unity at the level of fundamental ontology is most plausibly analysed by reference to the creaturely participation in the plenitude of Trinitarian being.
Nearly two decades before the publication of his epochal assault on natural theology in the Criti... more Nearly two decades before the publication of his epochal assault on natural theology in the Critique of Pure Reason, the basic ingredients of Kant’s criticisms of the traditional arguments for God’s existence were in place. Indeed his dissatisfaction with traditional teleological arguments is evident as early as 1755. Rejecting the conception of nature generated by widespread popular enthusiasm for ‘physico- theology,’ in the pre-critical period Kant opts instead for a radically Newtonian conception of physical reality as a pervasively mechanistic system that still preserves conceptual space for God as the ultimate explanatory ground for the law-governed systematicity and intelligibility of the natural world. This article argues, inter alia, that: (i) the pre-critical challenge of resolving deep tensions between teleology and mechanism without undermining traditional religious claims was at least one factor motivating Kant’s gradual adoption of transcendental idealism during the 1770s; and (ii) Kant’s principal pre-critical refinements of ‘physico-theology’ survive the Critical turn, in particular his emphasis on the non-inferential immediacy, theological modesty, and methodological utility of investigating nature as if it were grounded in the purposes of a supremely intelligent being.
Nancy Cartwright has recently claimed that construing physical regularities as laws presupposes t... more Nancy Cartwright has recently claimed that construing physical regularities as laws presupposes theistic commitment. To borrow her slogan: no God, no laws. Cartwright argues that the most plausible alternative for non-theists with realist intuitions about the modal status of lawlike phenomena is to ground them in powers. This article argues that a powers-based account of lawhood is inconsistent with a central commitment of metaphysical naturalism. It develops and rejects a platonic alternative before setting out a theistic analysis of powers that successfully accommodates the objections confronting alternative accounts. In slogan form: no God, no powers.
Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature (Routledge, forthcoming), 2021
The last two decades have witnessed a resurgence of ‘Aristotelian’ metaphysics within mainstream ... more The last two decades have witnessed a resurgence of ‘Aristotelian’ metaphysics within mainstream philosophy, including metaphysics, ethics and the philosophy of science. Few philosophers, however, have engaged directly with the question of how a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of nature might change the landscape for theological discussion concerning the natural order that is being uncovered by the sciences, the place of human beings and other kinds of agents within the natural world, or God’s relation to nature. Our volume seeks to address this need by bringing together new and substantial articles that explore the intersection between a scientifically-updated ‘neo-Aristotelian’ philosophy of nature and a scientifically-engaged theology of nature.
Heidegger’s jeremiads against metaphysics are amongst the most influential and iconoclastic in th... more Heidegger’s jeremiads against metaphysics are amongst the most influential and iconoclastic in the annals of continental philosophy; but none is more trenchant than the "Destruktion" of Descartes’ ontology of self with which "Sein und Zeit" begins. Yet for all the intellectual energy he expends on attempting to uncover the social texture of Dasein’s being-in-the-world, many remain convinced that Heidegger simply transposes the Cartesian ego into a phenomenological key. One of the first thinkers to arouse these suspicions was an erstwhile colleague of Heidegger, the Jewish-born phenomenologist and Carmelite spiritual writer, Edith Stein, in an unjustly neglected work, "Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie". What sets Stein’s critique apart from more influential treatments is that in the course of diagnosing weaknesses in Heidegger’s account from within his own methodological constraints, she reaches some strikingly theological conclusions. The task of the present study is to offer an assessment of her dissection of the status and function of sociality in the Daseinanalytik. After setting out Stein’s early phenomenology of empathy, I examine Stein’s argument that Heidegger’s tacit and mistaken appeal to theological categories ironically collapses his account of sociality back into the very subjectivism his "Destruktion" had been directed against. I conclude that Stein deftly reverses Heidegger’s strategy of atheological expropriation strategies by taking up a central theme in his own thought to articulate the theological unity of all finite existents. For Stein, unity at the level of fundamental ontology is most plausibly analysed by reference to the creaturely participation in the plenitude of Trinitarian being.
Nearly two decades before the publication of his epochal assault on natural theology in the Criti... more Nearly two decades before the publication of his epochal assault on natural theology in the Critique of Pure Reason, the basic ingredients of Kant’s criticisms of the traditional arguments for God’s existence were in place. Indeed his dissatisfaction with traditional teleological arguments is evident as early as 1755. Rejecting the conception of nature generated by widespread popular enthusiasm for ‘physico- theology,’ in the pre-critical period Kant opts instead for a radically Newtonian conception of physical reality as a pervasively mechanistic system that still preserves conceptual space for God as the ultimate explanatory ground for the law-governed systematicity and intelligibility of the natural world. This article argues, inter alia, that: (i) the pre-critical challenge of resolving deep tensions between teleology and mechanism without undermining traditional religious claims was at least one factor motivating Kant’s gradual adoption of transcendental idealism during the 1770s; and (ii) Kant’s principal pre-critical refinements of ‘physico-theology’ survive the Critical turn, in particular his emphasis on the non-inferential immediacy, theological modesty, and methodological utility of investigating nature as if it were grounded in the purposes of a supremely intelligent being.
Nancy Cartwright has recently claimed that construing physical regularities as laws presupposes t... more Nancy Cartwright has recently claimed that construing physical regularities as laws presupposes theistic commitment. To borrow her slogan: no God, no laws. Cartwright argues that the most plausible alternative for non-theists with realist intuitions about the modal status of lawlike phenomena is to ground them in powers. This article argues that a powers-based account of lawhood is inconsistent with a central commitment of metaphysical naturalism. It develops and rejects a platonic alternative before setting out a theistic analysis of powers that successfully accommodates the objections confronting alternative accounts. In slogan form: no God, no powers.
Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature (Routledge, forthcoming), 2021
The last two decades have witnessed a resurgence of ‘Aristotelian’ metaphysics within mainstream ... more The last two decades have witnessed a resurgence of ‘Aristotelian’ metaphysics within mainstream philosophy, including metaphysics, ethics and the philosophy of science. Few philosophers, however, have engaged directly with the question of how a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of nature might change the landscape for theological discussion concerning the natural order that is being uncovered by the sciences, the place of human beings and other kinds of agents within the natural world, or God’s relation to nature. Our volume seeks to address this need by bringing together new and substantial articles that explore the intersection between a scientifically-updated ‘neo-Aristotelian’ philosophy of nature and a scientifically-engaged theology of nature.
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