<p> The movie Dogville (2003) provides viewers with a rare and provocative twist on differences between on the one hand the rigorous, Old Testament Jehovah, characterized by rules, and by rewards or punishments in this life, and on the other hand the loving, forgiving Christ and God of the New Testament and later Christianity who are characterized by forgiveness, and by rewards or punishments in an eternal afterlife. The movie, especially its ending, challenges the forgiving nature of the New Testament God and Christ, and makes a case that the Old Testament, rigorous Jehovah is more appropriate, at least for humans who respect themselves as responsible grown-ups. Earlier than these two views of God and man, and still alive and kicking, is a third view, the "Heroic." God is irrelevant here, either as a source of rules or as a source of forgiveness and redemption. Rather, man generates his own meaning by accepting his fate and struggling to do the best he can; this life is all there is and the struggle, i.e. living it is the only meaning. The three views can be seen on a continuum with the Heroic on one end and the forgiving Christ on the other, and the rigorous Jehovah in between and closer to the heroic than to the forgiving. The Dogville point of view, preferring a rigorous God to a forgiving one, is very rarely found in literature (the Grand Inquisitor episode in The Brothers Karamazov is similar to some extent) but both the Heroic and the forgiving Christian views appear everywhere, in all kinds of non-fiction, and either explicitly or as metaphors or parables in fiction. The Heroic view is taken here to include not only classic Greek and Roman heroic writings (e..g. those of Homer and Virgil) but also more modern schools of thought including Nietzsche, the existentialists, and other "God is dead" points of view. The paucity of the first view in literature is mirrored by the small number of its followers: all self-identifying Jews are less than 0.5% of the world's population and the orthodox are a minority within that. In stark contrast, about one-third of individuals world-wide self-identify as Christian. Followers of the Heroic view, roughly measured by self-identifying atheists and perhaps including agnostics, are between 15 and 20 percent of the population of the USA. Focusing on the United States, the data show that the number of adherents of each of the two extremes of an expanded continuum, i.e. the Heroic view on one hand and the born-again Protestant version of the forgiving view on the other, has been growing while the numbers of followers of everything in the middle, i.e. Judaism (excluding its New Age, non-religious variants), Roman Catholicism, and mainstream Protestantism have been declining. The waxing and waning of these different views are evaluated in the lights of literature, philosophy, psychology, marketing, and the idea that ideas ("memes" as coined, described and popularized by Richard Dawkins) evolve, endure or disappear according to the Darwinian principle of natural selection. The conclusion is that there are important, long-term reasons for the observed trend, and that therefore both born-again Protestantism and atheism are likely to continue to take market share from their competitors in the middle.</p>

The thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of two distinct strands of development within the soteriological thinking of the eastern fathers, strands which have sometimes been identified due to their use of similar terminology. It is argued that one tradition, represented in the thesis by the so-called catechetical 'school' of third century Alexandria, frames its understanding of salvation within the conceptuality provided by contemporary philosophical thought in an effort to accomodate the Christian gospel to the ears of its hearers. Here salvation is presented as the liberation of the human soul to participate through contemplation and disciplined ascent in the realm of ideas and reason. The christology inherent within this tradition is, we argue, unable to affirm either the full divinity or the full human integrity of the Saviour. The theme of a proper <i>incarnation </i> or <i>inhomination</i> of the divine Logos is not vital to the essentially subject-centred model of salvation adhered to. A contrast is drawn between this view of salvation as the <i>deification</i> of man on the one hand, and another model which, whilst employing the language of <i>deification</i> to describe what takes place in the salvation of man, nevertheless views the matter wholly differently. The theology of Irenaeus of Lyons and Athanasius of Alexandria is examined with a view to showing that for them salvation is inseparable from a proper <i>inhomination</i> of the divine Logos or Son, consisting, as they believe it does, in the assumption of human nature to participate in the life of God in the mediatory person of the Son. This radical involvement of God himself in the life of man is confessed unashamedly, notwithstanding its offensiveness to the sensibilities of greek thought. It is considered to be the irreducible heart of the Christian gospel, and the dogmatic starting point for a truly Christian theology. It is concluded that there are indeed two very different soteriological traditions here, and that they are bound up with two different christologies, and ultimately with two different methodologies. Hence the not infrequent bracketing together of these various theologians as common exponents of a 'greek' interpretation of salvation is a dangerous oversimplification which does little justice to the reality of the situation.

Throughout the 20th Century, a number of philosophers, writers, artists and film makers have implied that there is some profound significance to the work of Donatien Alphonse François, the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). The project at hand is to evaluate the claim that Sade, in some sense, is a philosopher, and to assess what his philosophy amounts to. There are two aspects to this task. Firstly, I will consider the various philosophical interpretations of Sade’s work. This part of the study will serve as a guide into the Sadeian labyrinth, and will establish some of the more central interpretive themes, in particular the claim that Sade’s thought anticipates that of the Nazis, or that he brings early Modern thought to its logical conclusion. Secondly, I will inquire into Sade’s writings themselves. Of particular interest are Sade’s thoughts concerning the nature of sexuality, psychology, and the human condition in general, his critique of conventional morality, and his description of the nature of power. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

One of the traditional aims of the philosophy of science has been to formulate a methodology of science—that is, a normative theory of scientific method. The rules and standards of such a theory are intended to capture the central features of scientific rationality and to explain the sense in which scientific knowledge progressively grows. Although no particular methodology of science has won universal endorsement, it is generally agreed among philosophers that the broad aim of constructing one is both reasonable and worth pursuing in order to understand the nature of scientific growth. But this aim has also been attacked as fundamentally misconceived by some critics who maintain that no theory of method can do justice to actual science. The objections to the philosophical program of framing a methodology of science come mainly from three quarters. Firstly, there is Paul Feyerabend, according to whom the historical development of science reveals that no set of general normative rules and standards can be given for science. Most of the rules and standards hitherto proposed, he contends, have been violated by scientists and, moreover, were necessarily violated, owing to the incommensurability of revolutionary scientific theories. Secondly, there is Michael Polanyi, who claims that scientific rationality cannot be codified in the explicit rules and standards of any theory of method because much of scientific knowledge and practice is 'tacit' and reflects the personal, unspecifiable contributions of individual scientists. And thirdly, sociologists of scientific knowledge (in particular, those of the Strong Programme) assert that the nature and content of science should be explained in sociological terms rather than by reference to a methodology of science. However, it is argued here that the objections made by Feyerabend, Polanyi and the sociologists to the possibility of a theory of method do not stand up to critical examination. A large part of the anti-methodologists' case is based not only on an overly narrow view of the nature of a theory of method, but also on the mistaken belief that the traditional philosophical and epistemological approach to the investigation of scientific rationality should be replaced by a largely descriptive analysis of scientific practice. This belief is criticised on the grounds that a normative methodology must not be supposed to explain scientific practice, nor can views on the nature of scientific rationality be derived from descriptions of scientific practice. Finally, it is suggested that the positions of Feyerabend, Polanyi, and the Strong Programme have deep affinities with the 'practice-oriented' philosophy of the later Wittgenstein. This may, perhaps, explain why they abandon realist construals of scientific theories, of scientific standards, and of the notion of truth. Like Wittgenstein, they adopt a form of antirealism and conventionalism which leads, ultimately, to a relativist interpretation of scientific standards and knowledge. Coupled with the anti-methodologists' failure to defeat the possibility of a theory of method, this relativism demonstrates the poverty of an attack on method constructed on wittgensteinian lines.

This thesis is about the similarities of process between aesthetic experience and ethical judgement. I claim that in both cases the activity is best described as a type of play in which elements interact in mutual adjustment and transformation. This conception of play has its roots in Kant's aesthetic theory. Describing aesthetic experience as play results in emphasis on three central characteristics. These characteristics become the basis of constraints on judgement. In the case of ethical judgement these are important because they save from subjectivism a moral theory, particularism, which relies on individual judgement rather than moral rules. Seeing the activity of judgement as play suggests a conception of the outcome of judgement as picturing. This conception helps to make sense of reason-giving within the particularist model. A further analogy with the grounds of aesthetic qualities is used to illuminate the problem of justifying the values put into play. These values are ultimately defended in terms of their relationship to human flourishing. Perennial problems for theories based on human flourishing are avoided by my account because prescriptions for action are not derived from the characterisation of flourishing but from the process of individual judgement which values based on flourishing merely inform. One positive effect of adopting my model of judgement as play is the reduction of problems concerning the motivation to act on ethical judgements.

Throughout the 20th Century, a number of philosophers, writers, artists and film makers have implied that there is some profound significance to the work of Donatien Alphonse François, the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). The project at hand is to evaluate the claim that Sade, in some sense, is a philosopher, and to assess what his philosophy amounts to. There are two aspects to this task. Firstly, I will consider the various philosophical interpretations of Sade’s work. This part of the study will serve as a guide into the Sadeian labyrinth, and will establish some of the more central interpretive themes, in particular the claim that Sade’s thought anticipates that of the Nazis, or that he brings early Modern thought to its logical conclusion. Secondly, I will inquire into Sade’s writings themselves. Of particular interest are Sade’s thoughts concerning the nature of sexuality, psychology, and the human condition in general, his critique of conventional morality, and his description of the nature of power. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

Whole document restricted at the request of the author. / Christian religion and art enjoy a persistent relationship. Trying to account for this, I investigate the possibility that an aesthetic experience might facilitate a religious experience. I look at different kinds of experiences which typically are called "religious", and review some theories of religious experience. Even though my concern is not to use religious experience as a justification for religious belief, I settle, temporarily, for William Alston's account, which characterises religious experience as mystical perceptual experience. Alston's theory, however, underemphasises the role played in religious perceptual experiences by the experiencer's background beliefs. Arguing that background beliefs always play a part in how religious presentations are interpreted, I develop a theory called Alston-B. Within the structure of Alston-B, which identifies two highly integrated phases of perception (presentation and interpretation), I explore how artworks might play a part in these activities. The most persuasive theories, however, point away from understanding aesthetic experiences as a matter of observation. They point, rather, towards understanding them as imaginative personal encounters, or whole-person explorations of "worlds". While the force of this paradigm shift is felt, I examine three central background beliefs from the Protestant theological tradition. Alston-B, with its proper understanding of the importance of background beliefs in religious experience, requires that particular beliefs be admitted into enquiries about the nature of particular religious experiences. My examination of the background beliefs turns up material that suggests, in a way paralleled in my exploration of art theories, that the religious encounter is not so much a perceptual event as much as it is a perichoretic exchange. My investigation, then moves its focus from how a perceptual experience of art might serve a perceptual experience of God, to how a perichoretic encounter with art might serve a perichoretic experience of God. Drawing on Nicholas Wolterstorff's concepts of action, artwork-world, and projection, I argue that an encounter with an artwork can act as a rehearsal for the experience of God, since a "good" artwork provides its audience with a high degree of structural similarity (with regard to personal interaction) to the human encounter with the divine.

One of the traditional aims of the philosophy of science has been to formulate a methodology of science—that is, a normative theory of scientific method. The rules and standards of such a theory are intended to capture the central features of scientific rationality and to explain the sense in which scientific knowledge progressively grows. Although no particular methodology of science has won universal endorsement, it is generally agreed among philosophers that the broad aim of constructing one is both reasonable and worth pursuing in order to understand the nature of scientific growth. But this aim has also been attacked as fundamentally misconceived by some critics who maintain that no theory of method can do justice to actual science. The objections to the philosophical program of framing a methodology of science come mainly from three quarters. Firstly, there is Paul Feyerabend, according to whom the historical development of science reveals that no set of general normative rules and standards can be given for science. Most of the rules and standards hitherto proposed, he contends, have been violated by scientists and, moreover, were necessarily violated, owing to the incommensurability of revolutionary scientific theories. Secondly, there is Michael Polanyi, who claims that scientific rationality cannot be codified in the explicit rules and standards of any theory of method because much of scientific knowledge and practice is 'tacit' and reflects the personal, unspecifiable contributions of individual scientists. And thirdly, sociologists of scientific knowledge (in particular, those of the Strong Programme) assert that the nature and content of science should be explained in sociological terms rather than by reference to a methodology of science. However, it is argued here that the objections made by Feyerabend, Polanyi and the sociologists to the possibility of a theory of method do not stand up to critical examination. A large part of the anti-methodologists' case is based not only on an overly narrow view of the nature of a theory of method, but also on the mistaken belief that the traditional philosophical and epistemological approach to the investigation of scientific rationality should be replaced by a largely descriptive analysis of scientific practice. This belief is criticised on the grounds that a normative methodology must not be supposed to explain scientific practice, nor can views on the nature of scientific rationality be derived from descriptions of scientific practice. Finally, it is suggested that the positions of Feyerabend, Polanyi, and the Strong Programme have deep affinities with the 'practice-oriented' philosophy of the later Wittgenstein. This may, perhaps, explain why they abandon realist construals of scientific theories, of scientific standards, and of the notion of truth. Like Wittgenstein, they adopt a form of antirealism and conventionalism which leads, ultimately, to a relativist interpretation of scientific standards and knowledge. Coupled with the anti-methodologists' failure to defeat the possibility of a theory of method, this relativism demonstrates the poverty of an attack on method constructed on wittgensteinian lines.

This thesis is about the similarities of process between aesthetic experience and ethical judgement. I claim that in both cases the activity is best described as a type of play in which elements interact in mutual adjustment and transformation. This conception of play has its roots in Kant's aesthetic theory. Describing aesthetic experience as play results in emphasis on three central characteristics. These characteristics become the basis of constraints on judgement. In the case of ethical judgement these are important because they save from subjectivism a moral theory, particularism, which relies on individual judgement rather than moral rules. Seeing the activity of judgement as play suggests a conception of the outcome of judgement as picturing. This conception helps to make sense of reason-giving within the particularist model. A further analogy with the grounds of aesthetic qualities is used to illuminate the problem of justifying the values put into play. These values are ultimately defended in terms of their relationship to human flourishing. Perennial problems for theories based on human flourishing are avoided by my account because prescriptions for action are not derived from the characterisation of flourishing but from the process of individual judgement which values based on flourishing merely inform. One positive effect of adopting my model of judgement as play is the reduction of problems concerning the motivation to act on ethical judgements.

Throughout the 20th Century, a number of philosophers, writers, artists and film makers have implied that there is some profound significance to the work of Donatien Alphonse François, the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). The project at hand is to evaluate the claim that Sade, in some sense, is a philosopher, and to assess what his philosophy amounts to. There are two aspects to this task. Firstly, I will consider the various philosophical interpretations of Sade’s work. This part of the study will serve as a guide into the Sadeian labyrinth, and will establish some of the more central interpretive themes, in particular the claim that Sade’s thought anticipates that of the Nazis, or that he brings early Modern thought to its logical conclusion. Secondly, I will inquire into Sade’s writings themselves. Of particular interest are Sade’s thoughts concerning the nature of sexuality, psychology, and the human condition in general, his critique of conventional morality, and his description of the nature of power. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.