John Edwin Smith - Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32)
Here you can read online John Edwin Smith - Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32) full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 1967, publisher: Marquette University Press, genre: Religion. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32): summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32)" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
John Edwin Smith: author's other books
Who wrote Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32)? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32) — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32)" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
Under the Auspices of the Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau
By John E. Smith, D.D., Ph.D.
MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY PRESS MILWAUKEE 1967
Page ii
Library of Congress Catalog Number 67-20684
Copyright 1967 By the Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of the Phi Sigma Tau Marquette University
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
Page iii
Prefatory
The Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau, the National Honor Society for Philosophy at Marquette University, each year invites a scholar to deliver a lecture in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas whose feast day is March 7. These lectures are customarily given on the first or second Sunday of March.
The 1967 Aquinas Lecture Religion and Empiricism was delivered on March 5 in the Peter A. Brooks Memorial Union by Professor John E. Smith, professor of philosophy, Yale University.
Professor Smith was born on May 27, 1921, in Brooklyn, New York. He earned the A.B. at Columbia University in 1942; the B.D. at Union Theological Seminary in 1945; the Ph.D. at Columbia in 1948.
He began his teaching career at Vassar College and from 1946 to 1952 was Instructor and then Assistant Professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. He joined the Yale faculty in 1952 as Visiting
Page iv
Assistant Professor and in 1953 joined the regular philosophy faculty at Yale, becoming Associate Professor in 1955 and full Professor in 1959.
Professor Smith was a Morse Fellow at the University of Heidelberg in 1955-56. In 1960 he was the Dudleian Lecturerone of the oldest distinguished lectureships in the United States, having been founded by a member of the Harvard College class of 1696. In 1963 Professor Smith was the Suarez Lecturer at Fordham University and received the Honorary LL.D. at the University of Notre Dame in 1964.
Professor Smith's publications include: The Spirit of American Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1963; Reason and God, New Haven: Yale University Press; a critical edition of Jonathan Edwards' Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959; translation of R. Kroner's Kants Weltanschauung, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1956; Royce's Social Infinite, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co.,
Page v
Inc., 1950; articles in many philosophical and theological journals.
To these publications Phi Sigma Tau is pleased to add: Religion and Empiricism.
Page 1
Religion and Empiricism
In one of those generalizations that are not entirely true, but are too instructive to be false, a recent writer has suggested that while the ancient Greek philosophers were fascinated chiefly by the cosmos, and the major philosophers of the Middle Ages concerned themselves primarily with God, the persistent topic of modern philosophy for the past two and a half centuries has been man, his nature and conduct. It was not a philosopher but the 18th century poet, Alexander Pope, who expressed this concern in a pointed way when he declared that "the proper study of mankind is man." One of the most important consequences of this modern drift in philosophical interest has been the appeal to experience which made itself felt throughout the major philosophies of Enlightenment, and found expression in the writings of such diverse thinkers as Locke, Kant, Rousseau and Hume.
Page 2
The fundamental idea behind the new appeal to experience was that man can encounter the world and himself directly, and thus attain, in the form of the experience that results, a touchstone of truth and reality. Being contemporaneous with the data presented, or as we might now express it, "seeing for yourself," became the ultimate criterion for judgment. Both Locke and Kant were fond of contrasting those who beg their thoughts from others, with those who dare to attend to their own experience and draw conclusions from it. According to the new doctrine, past beliefs and conclusions, traditions and claims both to knowledge and to power, however ancient or revered, must meet the test of experience. The contact with reality, frequently understood as the sensible present, was made the judge and master over all the deliverances of the past.
The fundamental idea of experience as both the substance of philosophical thought and the criterion of its validity, proved itself to be a persistent one. The idea and the doctrines through which it
Page 3
found expression, came to be developed in several different directions so that, in addition to what I shall call "classical empiricism" the characteristic position of Locke and, in a different way, of Humeother forms of the appeal to experience have appeared in response to new problems and interests. Logical empiricism, linguistic empiricism, pragmatic empiricism and radical empiricism are the names for these new philosophical standpoints. Despite profound differences between them, all are committed to the proposition that something called experience is, to paraphrase Dewey, the ultimate arbiter of all questions of fact and existence.
This history of the empirical philosophies forms a chapter in the history of thought which has its own importance; I wish, however, to single out for special attention a more limited topic, the question of the implications of the appeal to experience for religion, and especially the bearing of that appeal on the problem of God. For religion, which is at once so intimately connected with the nature of man
Similar books «Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32)»
Look at similar books to Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32). We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Reviews about «Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32)»
Discussion, reviews of the book Religion and Empiricism (Aquinas Lecture 32) and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.
