There are two kinds of facts: normative and non-normative. Facts about how things should be, what is or is not properly functioning, what is right or wrong, what is healthy or not, and what is good or bad are normative. Facts about how things are or how they could be or statistically tend to be…

Neo-Aristotelianism is indeed resurgent in contemporary philosophy. The renaissance has been underway for at least fifty years, beginning with a new focus on classical metaphysical themes by Roderick Chisholm, David M. Armstrong, Alvin Plantinga, and Robert M. Adams. In the 1960’s and 70’s, these anglophone philosophers began digging themselves out of the rubble of logical…

My overall aim in this brief response to Paul Gould’s lead essay is to draw the reader’s attention to an area of contemporary moral philosophy—Neo-Aristotelian metaethics—that is ripe for rediscovery in the wake of the ongoing resurgence of Neo-Aristotelianism in metaphysics and philosophy of science. Sketching A Metaphysical Picture Let me begin with a thumbnail…

I am grateful to Professor Gould for his invitation to respond to his introductory remarks for this symposium. Professor Gould is especially interested in a framework for philosophical thought and a particular comprehension of nature, that, as he says, held sway for millenia. He refers to this as the “Neo-Aristotelian picture,” according to which “the…

Our conception of nature and the natural shapes our way of perceiving, thinking, and living. Let me explain. On the dominant way of conceiving the world and our place in it today, gifted to us by the Enlightenment thinker David Hume among others, the universe is like a clock—a mechanism—and is wholly composed of bits…

I am honored beyond comparison that my colleagues and role models of scholarship took the time to read and respond to my suggestive paper. I would like to offer an all too brief and unfairly loaded rejoinder to each—I hope the conversation will spur others of like kind among those reading. I should also note…

Something Like an Introduction To begin, an anecdote: I was asked recently to referee a paper for a philosophy of religion journal. I ended up declining to review the paper because I knew who its author was, but I did read it. I’ll not name the author here, of course, but I will tell you:…

Introduction As the only philosopher in a symposium on “Biblically Sensitive Philosophy,” I feel considerable pressure to represent my people well. But I feel a competing interest to defend the value of biblical texts as data for philosophical consideration and analysis. Indeed, the latter claim needs defense. Some of the challenges that Dru discusses in…

Introduction: Theology and Philosophy (In General) Lesslie Newbigin saw Western intellectual history as the confluence of two streams, one flowing from Greco-Roman antiquity, the other from the Christian Scriptures. The barbarian tribes that called Europe home during the medieval and early modern periods “were taught to think in Greek and Latin, but the story that…

There is no single view about the authority of Scripture held amongst analytic theologians. There is no single view about how to use Scripture in theological argument among analytic theologians either. This should come as no surprise to those acquainted with analytic theology. It is, after all, a methodological approach to doing theology that is…

A Quick Story In 2007, I gave a paper at Oxford University for the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion titled “Why God Might be Poly-present, not Omnipresent.” Though not a gem of an essay, I basically argued that Scripture consistently presents God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in particular spatial location, not ubiquitously present everywhere…

  “I shall cite evidence to show that they [extraterrestrials] have long since invaded and that their effects can be uncovered by historical research.” —Michael J. Crowe, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate Do you remember your first encounter with Star Wars? I recall lightning-fast ships traversing a distant galaxy, odd-looking aliens socializing at a rough cantina, and…