Saints, Heretics, and Atheists - A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion

Based on lectures from a popular course taught in the Program for General Education at Harvard University for over a decade, Saints, Heretics, and Atheists invites readers along for a journey that is unique in its sweeping historical approach to the philosophy of religion and the balance it strikes between traditional, non-traditional, and atheistic standpoints with respect to religion in the western tradition.

Sommario

• Acknowledgements


• Preface


• 1. Plato's Euthyphro: What is Piety?


• 1.1. The setting


• 1.2. First attempt: examples of piety


• 1.3. Second attempt: what is dear to the gods


• 1.4. Third attempt: what all the gods love


• 1.5. Fourth attempt: piety is the part of justice that concerns the gods


• 1.6. Fifth attempt: the pious is what is dear to the gods


• 2. Augustine's On Free Choice of the Will: Where Does Evil Come From?


• 2.1. The setting


• 2.2. What is the cause of evil?


• 2.3. The well-ordered person


• 2.4. Sin and ignorance


• 2.5. An objection and two conclusions


• 2.7. Freedom and determinism


• 3. Augustine's On Free Choice of the Will: Why Do We Have Free Will?


• 3.1. Set up and structure


• 3.2. How is it manifest that God exists?


• 3.3. Do all things, insofar as they are good, come from God?


• 3.4. Should free will be counted as a good thing that comes from God?


• 3.5. Happiness and immortality


• 4. Augustine's On Free Choice of Will: Why Do We Sin?


• 4.1. Why do we sin, and who is to blame?


• 4.2. Is libertarian freedom consistent with divine foreknowledge?


• 4.3. Can't God be blamed for creating beings that he knows will sin?


• 4.4. Is it the case that some of us must sin?


• 4.5. Three views on divine foreknowledge


• 5. Anselm's Proslogion: Does Reason Prove that God Exists?


• 5.1. The setting


• 5.2. Anselm's ontological argument


• 5.3. A Perfect Island?


• 5.4. Two Objections


• 6. Ibn Sina's The Book of Salvation: What is the Nature of the Soul?


• 6.1. The setting


• 6.2. What does the intellect do?


• 6.3. Is the soul immaterial?


• 6.4. Is the soul immortal?


• 6.5. What am I?


• 7. Al-Ghazali's The Rescuer from Error: Is Religious Belief Founded in Reason?


• 7.1. The setting


• 7.2. Three views on faith and reason


• 7.3. The quest for certainty


• 7.4. Three false foundations


• 7.5. Is God hidden?


• 8. Al-Ghazali's The Rescuer from Error: Is Religious Belief Founded in Experience?


• 8.1. Al-Ghazali's turn to mysticism


• 8.2. Three accounts of religious experience


• 8.3. Is religious experience a good reason for belief?


• 9. Aquinas's Summa Theologica: Does Experience Prove that God Exists?


• 9.1. The setting


• 9.2. Is the existence of God self-evident?


• 9.3. Can we prove that God exists?


• 9.4. The argument from motion, the first step


• 9.5. The argument from motion, the second step


• 9.6. The argument from motion, the conclusion


• 9.7. The argument from providence


• 10. Aquinas's Summa Theologica: What is the Impersonal Nature of God?


• 10.1. Is God simple?


• 10.2. Is God perfect?


• 10.3. Is God infinite?


• 10.4. Is God one?


• 10.5. Analogical predication


• 11. Aquinas's Summa Theologica: What is the Personal Nature of God?


• 11.1. The big picture


• 11.2. Divine knowledge


• 11.3. Divine will


• 11.4. Divine love


• 11.5. Is God masculine?


• 12. Porete's The Mirror of Simple Souls: What is Salvation?


• 12.1. The setting


• 12.2. Assent and annihilation


• 12.3. Heaven


• 12.4. Hell


• 12.5. Life after Death?


• 13. Pascal's The Wager: Should We Bet on God?


• 13.1. The setting


• 13.2. A wager


• 13.3. Pascal's wager


• 13.4. Background assumptions


• 13.5. Objections and replies


• 14. Spinoza's Ethics: Is God Nature?


• 14.1. The setting


• 14.2. Substance monism


• 14.3. The Master Argument


• 14.4. "Deus sive Natura" (God or Nature)?


• 15. Spinoza's Ethics: Are We Modes of God?


• 15.1. Substance, attributes, modes


• 15.2. Human beings


• 15.3. Against libertarian freedom


• 15.4. For compatibilist freedom


• 15.5 Moderating the passions


• 16. Spinoza's Ethics: Good without God?


• 16.1. Two accounts of goodness


• 16.2. Beyond egoism


• 16.3. Good without God?


• 17. Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: Is the Universe Designed?


• 17.1. The setting


• 17.2. The limits of reason


• 17.3. Cleanthes's first design argument


• 17.4. Cleanthes's second design argument


• 17.5. Is the universe fine-tuned?


• 18. Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: Design without a Designer?


• 18.1. The regress objection


• 18.2. The design argument and traditional theism


• 18.3. An immanent designer?


• 18.4. No designer at all?


• 18.5. Contemporary criticisms


• 19. Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: True Religion?


• 19.1. The "causal" argument


• 19.2. The problem of evil


• 19.3. Consistency, evidence and evil


• 19.4. "True religion"


• 19.5. Two contemporary views on the problem of evil


• 20. Shepherd's The Credibility of Miracles: May we believe in miracles?


• 20.1. The setting


• 20.2. Against miracles


• 20.3. What is a miracle?


• 20.4. Believing in miracles?


• 21. Mills' Essays on Religion: Is Religion Useful?


• 21.1. The setting


• 21.2. On Nature


• 21.3. Raising the question


• 21.4. Is religion publicly useful?


• 21.5. Is religion privately useful?


• 21.6. What is secular humanism?


• 22. Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality: What do Good, Bad and Evil mean?


• 22.1. The setting


• 22.2. Three big ideas


• 22.3. Genealogy of values


• 22.4. Inversion of values


• 22.5. Evaluation of values


• 22.6. Debunking morality and religion?


• 23. Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality: Whence Conscience, Bad Conscience


• and Guilt?


• 23.1. The origin of conscience


• 23.2. The origin of bad conscience


• 23.3. The origin of moral guilt


• 23.4. Should we obey our conscience?


• 24. Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality: No Alternative?


• 24.1. What do ascetic ideals mean?


• 24.2. The puzzle of ascetic ideals


• 24.3. The "vale of tears"


• 24.4. "pointless suffering"


• 24.5. "the ascetic priest"


• 24.6. No alternative?


• 25. William James's Will to Believe: The Right to Believe?


• 25.1. The setting


• 25.2. The ethics of belief


• 25.3. The varieties of belief


• 25.4. A first argument


• 25.5. A second argument


• 25.6. Returning to Plato

Info autore

Jeffrey K. McDonough is Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. His research focuses on the intersection of philosophy, science, and religion in the early modern era. He has written numerous articles on philosophy in the early modern period. His Leibniz's Miracle Creed and Teleology: A History were recently published by Oxford University Press.

Riassunto

Does God exist? What is the nature of evil, and where does it come from? Are humans free? Responsible? Immortal? Does it matter? Saints, Heretics and Atheists offers a historical introduction to fundamental questions in the philosophy of religion. Ranging from ancient times to the twentieth century, it is divided into twenty-five succinct, chronological chapters. Individual chapters discuss philosophies from history's greatest thinkers including Plato, Augustine, al-Ghazali, Aquinas, Margarite Porte, Spinoza, Hume, Mary Shepherd, and Nietzche. The book closes with an exploration of William James's defense of the right to believe, possible limitations of that right, and the nature of philosophical progress.

Based on lectures from a popular course taught in the Program for General Education at Harvard University for over a decade, Saints, Heretics, and Atheists invites readers along for a journey that is unique in its sweeping historical approach to the philosophy of religion and the balance it strikes between traditional, non-traditional, and atheistic standpoints with respect to religion in the western tradition.

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: McDonough , McDonough, Jeffrey K. McDonough, Jeffrey K. (Professor of Philosophy Mcdonough
• Editore: Oxford University Press
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pubblicazione: 06.12.2022
• EAN: 9780197563847
• ISBN: 978-0-19-756384-7
• Pagine: 288
• Categoria: Scienze umane, arte, musica > Storia > Tematiche generali, enciclopedie