To wrap up the theism versus atheism discussion (for now), this Wednesday April 21 we’ll discuss Terry Eagleton’s scathing review of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Eagleton’s review was published in the London Review of Books in 2006. You can access the review online at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching.

DPS Lectures online

Also, both AC Grayling’s and Tamas Pataki’s lectures are now available on the Deakin Philosophical Society website: http://deakinphilosophicalsociety.com/lectures

Regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
President, Deakin Philosophical Society.

The next instalment in the Deakin Philosophical Society’s 2010 presentation series is on this Thursday. Dr Tamas Pataki will explore the link between religion and violence.

Dr Pataki is honorary senior fellow at the University of Melbourne and honorary fellow of Deakin University. He studied philosophy at the University of Melbourne and psychoanalysis at University College, London University. He has been a lecturer in philosophy at RMIT, University of Tasmania and University of Melbourne. He co-edited, with Michael Levine, Racism in Mind (Cornell 2004) and is the author of Against Religion (Scribe, 2007) as well as of several articles and book chapters on the philosophy of mind, and numerous popular pieces and reviews.

The presentation is in room ib3.307 on the Waurn Ponds campus (the same room we used for AC Grayling’s presentation) from 3-4.30pm.

This is a public presentation and anybody is welcome to attend. If you have any questions you can email Dylan Nickelson: mail@deakinphilosophicalsociety.com or dnic@deakin.edu.au.

Against Religion
Wednesday, April 14
4-5.30pm in ib3.307 on the Waurn Ponds campus

In preparation for Dr Pataki’s presentation, this Wednesday the DPS will discuss his Australian Book Review essay ‘Against Religion‘. The essay is online at: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~abr/Feb06/Pataki%20essay.htm .

So feel free to join us for the discussion this Wednesday from 4-5.30pm in ib3.307.

Dylan Nickelson,
President, Deakin Philosophical Society.

Strauss opens with the contention that ‘No one can be both a philosopher and a theologian’ because, for the philosopher, ‘there can never be an absolute sacredness of a particular or contingent event’ (p. 111). For the theologian, ‘experience [revelation] and not reasoning based on sense perception, is the root of biblical wisdom’ (p. 112). In essence, the philosopher and the theologian determine what is good philosophy or good theology according to different criteria. Hence, although the conflict between philosophy and theology ‘is the secret of the vitality of the West’ (p. 113), throughout the history of this conflict ‘philosophy has never refuted revelation. Nor … has revelation, or rather theology, ever refuted philosophy’ (p. 117).

The same could be said of science as is said of philosophy. In the last few centuries science has come to know more than philosophy, but it has not refuted theology either (p. 114). Importantly for Strauss, however, it has never needed to. It’s only the modern philosophers who have turned their hand to refuting theology. In the past Socrates was content to say to theologians: ‘I do not reject your divine wisdom, I simply do not understand it. My wisdom is merely human wisdom’ (p. 113). We modern philosophers, however, or so Strauss contends, busy ourselves with attacking revelation. But in the process we eat our own heads.

Yes, eat our own heads (not Strauss’s words, but metaphorically his point). Philosophy turns its tools against theology, but in the process commits one of the biggest sins in philosophy – it begs the question. ‘Philosophy demands that revelation should establish its claim before the tribunal of human reason, but revelation as such refuses to acknowledge that tribunal’, Strauss argues (p. 116). So the philosopher urges the theologian to justify revelation, but only on philosophical grounds, i.e. only if the theologian rules out the possibility of revelation beforehand. Therefore, the philosopher has answered her own question before the game even begins. Big PHILOSOPHICAL mistake. Hence she eats her own head.

So, the big question: Are the only two options for modern philosophers (1) to end the debate with theology or (2) beg the questions we ask of them? We don’t have to accept the possibility of revelation if the debate ceases, but then what would we do? On the other hand, if we continue the debate and don’t accept the possibility of revelation we beg the questions we ask the theologian to debate. Hmm, tough one.

Regards,

Dylan Nickelson.
President, Deakin Philosophical Society.