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In this dissertation, I will examine the conceptions of philosophy of the 19th and 20th Century thinkers Félix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and their implications for contemporary theories of religious ethics and philosophical practice, especially that of Pierre Hadot. In doing so, I will elucidate their understanding of both the goals of philosophical practice and the means by which they are achieved, focusing in particular on the importance of the body in their respective theories of philosophical practice. Specifically, I argue that Ravaisson, Bergson, and Merleau-Ponty’s theories of philosophical practice are grounded in an understanding of habit as a dynamic process of producing and transforming bodily dispositions that problematizes distinctions between self and world and limits attempts to achieve conscious self-mastery. As a result, their work calls into question the extent to which self-conscious cultivation of intellectual and bodily habits that conform to an ideal self-conception is either possible or desirable, and instead affirms a conception of philosophical practice as what I term “indefinite self-cultivation.” In chapter one, I examine Félix Ravaisson’s conception of philosophical practice in relationship to his theory of habit, which he claims originates as a principle of desire that gives rise to bodily spontaneity. This theory of habit underlies a conception of philosophical practice as imitation of models of ideal conduct through which habits of inventive conduct that outstrip capacities for rational deliberation are produced. In chapter two, I contrast Ravaisson’s conception of habit with Henri Bergson’s, who regards habit as a form of bodily memory that produces automaticity. Philosophical practice for Bergson resists the effects of habit on thought and action by engaging in philosophical intuition, an application of mental effort to processes of change and movement that generates new ideas and new forms of life. In chapter three, I examine Merleau-Ponty’s intermediate position between these theories of habit, and his argument that the fluid nature of habituation as a process of social interaction makes living according to a determinate way of life possible only at the risk of doing violence to oneself. For Merleau-Ponty, philosophy entails critical practice of interrogating and expressing affects and immediate responses to events that serves as a way to question consciously-held values and uncover new personal and social possibilities. Finally, in chapter four, I conceptualize Ravaisson, Bergson, and Merleau-Ponty’s theories of philosophical practice as forms of indefinite self-transformation by putting their work in critical conversation with Pierre Hadot’s theory of philosophy as a way of life.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: John Byrne, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy . Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: Travis Kroeker ... [et al.]. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 298-304).

Thesis (M.A.)--Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [162-164]).

Prof. H.P.P. Lotter

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Jewish ethicists face a twofold task of persuading audiences that (a) their proposal for an issue of social concern and justice is the right and good thing to do, and (b) their proposal fits within the Judaic tradition writ large. Whereas most scholarship in the field focuses on how Jewish ethicists argue by dividing arguments into halakhic formalist, covenantalist and narrativist categories, these efforts fail both to reflect the diverse ways ethicists actually argue and to explain why they argue in these ways. My project proposes a new methodology to understand how and why Jewish ethicists argue as they do on issues of justice and concern. My project combines philosophical theology and discourse analysis. The first examines an ethicist’s notion of covenant (brit) in light of theories found in the Jewish textual tradition. Clarifying an ethicist’s notion of covenant uncovers that person’s assumptions about the scope and binding nature of elements in the Judaic tradition, and that person’s conception of an audience’s responsibilities to the normative argument s/he articulates. Certain themes come to the fore for each ethicist that, when mapped, reveal striking relationships between an ethicist’s notion of covenant and anticipated ethical rhetoric. These maps begin to show why certain ethicists argue as they do. Discourse analysis then identifies the interrelationships between the speaker, the spoken and the audience – as they are actually articulated in Jewish ethicists’ practical arguments. These relationships form the how of Jewish ethical arguments insofar as they reflect an author’s rhetorical choices. My project applies discourse analysis to the rhetoric of a sample of living Jewish ethicists (J. David Bleich, Elliot Dorff, Eugene Borowitz) who speak out on issues of social concern and justice. As will be seen, a rich and complex relationship exists between an ethicist’s theory of covenant and his subsequent moral rhetoric. This twofold methodology enables the student of Jewish ethics to understand how and why seemingly disparate styles of normative speech are nonetheless participating in a common endeavor and discourse. And it supports the theologically-based rhetoric of religious ethical discourse in shaping justice in multi-cultural societies.

This dissertation describes a method for constructing a religious environmental ethic modeled on the spiritual practice of lectio divina, or devotional reading. Lectio divina is an explicitly religious way of reading, distinguished from other modes of reading not by what is read--even sacred scriptures can be read for mastery of content, for entertainment, etc.--but by how it is read. In lectio divina, the reader engages the text with a willingness to be transformed by an encounter with the sacred, mediated somehow by the text. This vulnerability is inherent in a religious reading, as is the intimacy implicit in the repeated engagement with the text that is central to the practice of lectio divina. The emphasis on vulnerability and intimacy marks this religious approach to environmental ethics as a form of virtue ethics. Consistent with the traditional insight conveyed by the two-books metaphor, whereby Christians believed God was revealed both in the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, I map the classic stages of lectio divina onto a reading not of scripture but of the natural world. Paying attention requires careful observation, the naming and description of relevant details, and awareness and articulation of emotional responses as one repeatedly visits natural settings. Pondering requires a willingness to enter deeply into the religious, scientific, and other sources that help us understand the natural world and our place within it, as well as a willingness to reflect critically upon those sources. Responding calls upon readers of nature to take definite actions that flow out of the previous stages of paying attention and pondering, utilizing knowledge born of familiarity to address environmental challenges while also protecting natural settings in which the unnamable sacred can be encountered. Surrendering involves acknowledging human limits of understanding, will, and action, and nonetheless finding rest and restoration by trusting in some force beyond the merely human. I illustrate this argument with interpretations of literary works by Terry Tempest Williams, thereby asserting the relevance of religiosity to human transformation and to efforts to imaginatively embody human-land relationships that further human and ecological flourishing.

This thesis investigates the topic of natural law in the Therav āda and Thomistic traditions by utilizing the methodology of comparative religious ethics. Approaches to the method such as ethical formalism, ethical naturalism, and narrative ethics are assessed with the author opting for a multidimensional approach that is religious and ethical. This multidimensional approach, as defined by William Schweiker, conducts natural law inquiry from a hermeneutical standpoint of moral diversity and democratic pluralism. The hermeneutical standpoint warrants a historicizing of natural law ethics that is compatible with modern secularity instead of a classicist metaphysical worldview. To achieve this task, the thought of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and Jewish theologian David Novak is used to formulate a concept of a natural law tradition. Three normative features define the natural law traditions in question: rationality as tradition- constituted, revelation as a historical phenomenon, and natural law as a cultural construct that is both comparative and ontological. The central claim of this thesis is that the Theravāda and Thomistic traditions provide a similar conceptual apparatus for rational discourse that can locate ethical commonalities and respect differences across traditions. The commonality between traditions is secured in natural law ethics because these traditions adhere to a constitutive truth that is the objective ground of all truths and of nature which designates a shared humanity. On the other hand, these natural law traditions are able to at least respect difference because they recognize the autonomy of other traditions outside of and pre- existing their own. Natural law ethics in these religious traditions therefore avoids the ethical challenges of relativism and authoritarianism. Both traditions define a concept of "nature" with a proper teleological orientation for the moral life. "Nature" is an open category in these traditions that can never be fully defined. This demonstrates how these natural law traditions avoid ontological violence. The overall claim is that natural law ethics, which are evident in the Therav āda and Thomistic traditions, offer something essential to a pluralistic secular democracy: an unconditioned view of human dignity that protects inalienable rights because it is secured by a higher law than civil laws.