Full Description
With few exceptions, the field of Eastern Christian studies has primarily been concerned with historical-critical analysis, hermeneutics, and sociology. For the most part it has not attempted to bring Eastern Christian philosophy into serious engagement with contemporary thought. This volume seeks to redress the matter by bringing the Eastern Christian tradition into a meaningful dialogue with contemporary philosophy. It boasts a diverse group of scholars—specialists in ancient philosophy, analytic philosophy, and continental philosophy—who engage with a wide range of pressing issues. Among other things, it addresses such topics as contemporary atheism, the metaphysics of action, religious epistemology, the philosophy of language, bioethics, the philosophy of race, and human rights. In so doing, it aims to introduce contemporary readers to unique perspectives and novel arguments often overlooked by mainstream anglophone philosophy.
Contents
Part I: Metaphilosophy.- Chapter 1: Ephrem and the Pursuit of Wisdom.- Chapter 2: The Emergence of the Scholastic Attitude towards Philosophy in Greek Patristic Thought.- Part II: Philosophical Theology & Metaphysics.- Chapter 3: What We Can and Cannot Say: An Apophatic Response to Atheism.- Chapter 4: Divine Impassibility in Eastern Patristic Thought: Origen of Alexandria and Gregory Thaumaturgus.- Chapter 5: Gregory of Nyssa on the Individuation of Actions and Events.- Part III: Epistemology & Philosophy of Language.- Chapter 6: Towards an Epistemology of Mystical Experience: Controversies on 'Perceiving God' in Late Antique Greek and Syriac Christianity.- Chapter 7: The Mystery of Words: Orthodox Theology and Philosophy of Language.- Part IV: Ecological Philosophy & Bioethics.- Chapter 8: The Human Role in the Cosmos: Potential Contributions to an Ecological Philosophy.- Chapter 9: Byzantine Theology and its Philosophical Insights for Transhumanist and Transgender Understandings of the Body.- Part V: Social & Political Philosophy.- Chapter 10: The Problematic Essence of the Oriental 'Mother': Eastern Christian Approaches to Orientalism.- Chapter 11: Theosis and Rights: The Personalist Basis of Individual Rights in Russian Religious Philosophy.- Chapter 12: The Liturgy after the Liturgy: Compassion, Vulnerability, Solidarity, and the Quest for Social Justice.
