Kant contra Herder: Almost against Nature Martin A. Bertman, Helsinki University In Rousseau, Immanuel Kant found a congenial emphasis on (1) morality as the most important aspect of human dignity: its quality being freedom, (2) the perfectibility of humankind, and (3) the need to provide concrete, circumstantial proposals for moral progress in politics, particularly, in […]

John Valentine, Savannah College of Art and Design I One of the most enigmatic characters in modern literature is Meursault of Camus’s The Stranger. Is he an absurd hero or a dangerous psychological type? There are clearly two personifications in the novel: the Meursault of Part One, an embodiment of sensualism and carpe diem, a […]

Darren Hibbs, Nova Southeastern University Introductory texts in the philosophy of science usually provide a general account of the traditional problems that constitute the core of the discipline: the distinction between science and pseudoscience, the degree of objective reasoning in science, the problems of induction and underdetermination, the concept of explanation, and the realism-antirealism debate. […]

Peter Olen, University of South Florida I. Introduction Tensions between religious and secular groups in America and abroad are nothing new. Yet, at present, various cultures around the world are involved in internal clashes between competing beliefs that engage the attention of the public more often than not. Though a myriad of different issues, ranging […]

(Reprinted with the permission of the author from The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, Volume 51, Issue 38, Page B8.) Gary Pavela, University of Maryland In recent years, the actual or perceived abuse of professors’ authority has spawned claims of classroom indoctrination and a political movement to create a nationwide “academic bill of rights” to […]

Tim Mosteller, California Baptist University Introduction Is there heresy or blasphemy anymore? Heresy is understood to be an act committed by subject S just in case S, a member of a religious (or other) belief system R, believes h where h is a chosen rejection of a widely accepted belief p within and central to […]

(Reprinted with the permission of the author from The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, Volume 53, Issue 15, Page B14.) Gary Pavela, University of Maryland I often ask audience members at higher-education conferences how many of them come from campuses with “hate speech” codes. A substantial minority raise their hands, confirming research that about a […]

Arne Grøn, University of Copenhagen In-visibility I am not going to give a power point presentation. Thus I will not have the power to point to what I will be presenting. That is, I will not have the power to point to what you should see, to pictures that should come to your mind while […]

John Hacker-Wright, University of Guelph Introduction In this paper I intend to argue for the moral gravity of blasphemy from the perspective of virtue ethics. I do not intend to provide any argument for virtue ethics itself. ‘Blasphemy’, as I understand it, applies to actions and derivatively to the utterances, writings, visual depictions, and other […]

Daniel Murphy, Saint Peter’s College Introduction Over the past several years, the intelligent design/evolutionism debate (the “ID” issue) and a collective national reckoning with Islam as both a religious confession and a political force (the “Islamophobia” issue) have both become significant issues in public discourse in the United States. Strong, hostile rhetoric and also more […]