The Promise of Passional Reason

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی

نویسنده

Professor of Theology & Ethics, College of Arts and Sciences: Religious Studies, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA.

چکیده

In some contexts, philosophical debate can be rancorous even when the volume is kept low. In other contexts, certain stripes of “evangelical apologetics” can be equally adversarial and inimical in tone. In the name of preserving a professional, if not an irenic spirit, some unspoken ground rules have been adopted for interreligious dialogue. First is the demand to avoid all appearance of circular reasoning, which is to say avoid making any rhetorical moves that depend upon metaphysical presuppositions about the reality of God. Second, it is understood that (supposedly) unimportant theologically-laden details are to be left off until the (supposedly) prior task of establishing God’s reality is achieved. Such ground rules put philosophical theologians at a distinct disadvantage in interreligious dialogue as they sideline the very voices that have the highest stake in the conversation. William Wainwright offers the concept of “passional reason” as a way to counter the ground rules. Wainwright has shown that charges of circularity and subjectivism fail in the cases of such thinkers as Jonathan Edwards, John Henry Newman, and William James. Read in one way, Wainwright’s work may be taken as a strategic defense that prevents antagonists from excluding religious voices from philosophical conversation. I argue that there is an even more fruitful way to read Wainwright. Simply put, Wainwright’s recapture and rehabilitation of “passional reason” for philosophy of religion simultaneously opens the door for more constructive approaches to interreligious dialogue than an agonistic-styled philosophical debate can allow.

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات

عنوان مقاله [English]

The Promise of Passional Reason

نویسنده [English]

  • Brad Kallenberg
Professor of Theology & Ethics, College of Arts and Sciences: Religious Studies, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA.
چکیده [English]

In some contexts, philosophical debate can be rancorous even when the volume is kept low. In other contexts, certain stripes of “evangelical apologetics” can be equally adversarial and inimical in tone. In the name of preserving a professional, if not an irenic spirit, some unspoken ground rules have been adopted for interreligious dialogue. First is the demand to avoid all appearance of circular reasoning, which is to say avoid making any rhetorical moves that depend upon metaphysical presuppositions about the reality of God. Second, it is understood that (supposedly) unimportant theologically-laden details are to be left off until the (supposedly) prior task of establishing God’s reality is achieved. Such ground rules put philosophical theologians at a distinct disadvantage in interreligious dialogue as they sideline the very voices that have the highest stake in the conversation. William Wainwright offers the concept of “passional reason” as a way to counter the ground rules. Wainwright has shown that charges of circularity and subjectivism fail in the cases of such thinkers as Jonathan Edwards, John Henry Newman, and William James. Read in one way, Wainwright’s work may be taken as a strategic defense that prevents antagonists from excluding religious voices from philosophical conversation. I argue that there is an even more fruitful way to read Wainwright. Simply put, Wainwright’s recapture and rehabilitation of “passional reason” for philosophy of religion simultaneously opens the door for more constructive approaches to interreligious dialogue than an agonistic-styled philosophical debate can allow.
 

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • passional reason
  • evangelicalism
  • apologetics
  • Wainwright
  • Wittgenstein
  • interreligious dialogue

مراجع

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Cavell, S. (1999). The claim of reason: Wittgenstein, skepticism, morality, and tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dayton, D. W., & Johnston, R. K. (Eds.). (1991). The variety of American evangelicalism. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Edwards, J. (1843). The Distinguishing marks of a work of the spirit of God. In The works of President Edwards: a reprint of the Worcester ed., with valuable additions and a copious general index, 4 Vols. New York, NY: J. Leavitt and J. F. Trow.
Edwards, J. (1960). The nature of true virtue. Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Paperbacks (The University of Michigan Press).
Gavrilyuk, P. L., & Coakley, S. (Eds.). (2012). The spiritual senses: perceiving God in Western Christianity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hadot, P. (1995). Philosophy as a way of life. (M. Chase, Trans.). Oxford, UK & Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Hertzberg, L. (1988). On the attitude of trust. Inquiry, 31(3), 307-322.          
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Heschel, A. J. (1976). God in search of man: a philosophy of Judaism (reprint ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kallenberg, B. J. (2004). Praying for understanding: reading Anselm through Wittgenstein. Modern Theology, 20(4), 527-546. 
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MacIntyre, A. (1984). After virtue: a study in moral theory (2nd ed.). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
MacIntyre, A. (1988). Whose justice? Which rationality? Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
MacIntyre, A. (1990). Three rival versions of moral enquiry: encyclopaedia, genealogy, and tradition. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Marsden, G. M. (1991). Understanding fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.
Newman, J. H. C. (1870). An essay in aid of a grammar of assent (repr. 1979 ed.). Notre Dame, IN and London, UK: University of Notre Dame Press.
Ochs, P. (12 October 2007). Interviewer: B. Abernethy. Religion & Ethics News Weekly, PBS.
Wainwright, W. J. (1995). Reason and the heart: a prolegomenon to a critique of passional reason. Ithaca, NY & London, UK: Cornell University Press.
Wainwright, W. J. (2020). God, love and interreligious dialogue. Journal of Philosophical Theological Research, 22(85), 5-14.    
doi: 10.22091/JPTR.2020.5351.2288
Wiggins, D. (1980). Deliberation and practical reason. In A. O. Rorty (Ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (pp. 221-240). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. (G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). New York: Macmillan.
Zagzebski, L. T. (1996). Virtues of the mind: an inquiry into the nature of virtue and the ethical foundations of knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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پژوهش‌های فلسفی -کلامی
دوره 24، شماره 3 - شماره پیاپی 93
ویژه نامه « الهیات، فلسفه و اخلاق: یادبود ویلیام ج. وین رایت»
مهر 1401
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