Nicholas Wolterstorff

An Engagement with Rorty

I do not know how to argue the question of whether it is better to see human beings in [the] biologistic way [advocated above] or to see them in a way more like Plato’s or Kant’s. So I do not know how to give anything like a conclusive argument for the view which my critics call ‘relativism’ and which I prefer to call ‘antifoundationalism’ or ‘antidualism.’ It is certainly not enough for my side to appeal to Darwin and ask our opponents how they can avoid an appeal to the supernatural. That way of stating the issue begs many questions. It is certainly not enough for my opponents to say that a biologistic view strips human beings of their dignity and their self-respect. That too begs most of the questions at issue. I suspect that all that either side can do is to restate its case over and over again, in context after context. The controversy between those who see both our species and our society as a lucky accident, and those who find an immanent teleology in both, is too radical to permit of being judged from some neutral standpoint. (xxxii)

Is it Possible and Desirable for Theologians to Recover from Kant

Kant marks a watershed in the history of theology, after which the anxious questions, “Can we speak of God? How can we?” have continually haunted modern theologians, insisting on being addressed before any others. Feeling compelled not to say about God what they want to say without first establishing that they are justified or entitled in saying those things, theologians have experienced both frustration and anxiety. However, the widespread assumption that one must experience the Kantian agony in order to be a modern theologian is challenged. Wolterstorff contends that one can move beyond Kant by rejecting the mental representationalist picture required by the latter’s account of intuitions and concepts. Conceiving of our intuitions as ’inputs’ which are then mentally represented according to concepts, is not only unnecessary but misleading. Theologians are better off rejecting the assumption that awareness always represents input and adopting instead the view that perceptual awareness, for example, is not so much an input but an action – the actualization of one of our human powers. Such an alternate pathway (opened up by Thomas Reid) would allow modern theologians to appropriate Kant without being appropriated by Kant.

Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition

Papers presented at the conference held August 3-8, 1981 in Toronto, Ont., and sponsored by Calvin College, the Free University of Amsterdam and the Institute for Christian Studies

Understanding liberal democracy : essays in political philosophy

PART ONE: PUBLIC REASON LIBERALISM PART TWO: RE-THINKING LIBERAL DEMOCRACY PART THREE: PERSPECTIVES ON RIGHTS PART FOUR: LIBERAL DEMOCRACY AND RELIGION

Response to My Commentators

This article is a response to the commentaries on my book Justice: Rights and Wrongs in the previous contributions in this issue of Studies in Christian Ethics (23.2) .

Toleration, justice, and dignity. Lecture on the occasionof the inauguration as professor of Dirk-Martin Grube, Free University of Amsterdam, September 24, 2015

After discussing the nature of toleration, giving a brief history of the emergence of religious toleration in the West, and presenting my understanding of religion, I develop what I call ‘the dignity argument’ for religious toleration: to fail to tolerate a person’s religion is to treat that person in a way that does not befit their dignity. And to treat them in a way that does not befit their dignity is to wrong them, to treat them unjustly.

Miroslav Volf on Living One’s Faith

Abstract In this essay the author reflects on Miroslav Volf’s discussion, in A Public Faith, of Christianity as properly a prophetic religion. The author focuses especially on the two main malfunctions that Volf cites as accounting for the fact that the faith of individual Christians is often not prophetic, namely, what he calls “idleness of faith” and what he calls “coerciveness of faith.”

Reason and trust in Reid

My theme in this essay is the anti-rationalism in Reids thought. I explore three areas of Reids thought in which anti-rationalism is a prominent feature: Reids attack on the Way of Ideas and his own account of how beliefs are formed, in particular, perceptual beliefs, his response to the skeptic, and his understanding of the task of the philosopher.

Reid on Justice

Thomas Reid’s moral philosophy is one of the most neglected parts of his corpus. An indication of this neglect is that, of the thirteen essays in The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid, only one is devoted to Reid’s moral philosophy, that by Terence Cuneo, one of the editors of the Companion.

Faith After Foundationalism.

Preface Part 1: Can There Be a Religious Epistemology? 1. Foundationalism and Religion: a Philosophical Scandal 2. The Reformed Challenge to Foundationalism 3. Preliminary Criticism of the Reformed Challenge 4. Basic Propositions: Reformed Epistemology and Wittgensteins On Certainty 5. Epistemology and Justification by Faith 6. Religion and Epistemology 7. A Reformed Epistemology? 8. Religious and Non-Religious Perspectives 9. Philosophy, Description and Religion Part 2: Manners Without Grammar 10. The Hermeneutic Option 11. Optional Descriptions? 12. The Hidden Values of Hermeneutics 13. The Sociologising of Values 14. Religion in the Marketplace Part 3: Grammar and Theology 15. Grammar and the Nature of Doctrine 16. Grammar and Doctrinal Disagreement 17. Grammar Without Foundations 18. Grammarians and Guardians Part 4: Religion and Concept-Formation 19. Epistemological Mysteries 20. A Place for Mystery 21. Morality, Grace and Concept-Formation 22. Religious Concepts: Misunderstanding and Lack of Understanding