Workshops
Pantheism and Panentheism Project Workshop 2019
John Hick Centre for the Philosophy of Religion
University of Birmingham
Workshop Location:
The Studio, 7 Cannon St, Birmingham B2 5EP
Wednesday 29 May
13:30-15:00: Session 1
Speaker: T. J. Mawson (University of Oxford, UK), ‘Pantheism, Panentheism, Theism’ Commentator: Yujin Nagasawa (University of Birmingham, UK)
15:00-15:30: Tea/coffee & cookies
15:30-17:00: Session 2
Speaker: Scott Davison (Morehead State University, USA), ‘Intrinsic Value Pantheism’ Commentator: Amber L. Griffioen (University of Konstanz, Germany)
Thursday 30 May
10:30-12:00: Session 3
Speaker: Ken Perszyk (University of Waikato, New Zealand), ‘Panentheist Interpretations of Theism’ (co-authored with John Bishop, University of Auckland, New Zealand)
Commentator: Ryan Byerly (University of Sheffield, UK)
13:30-15:00: Session 4
Speaker: István Aranyosi (Bilkent University, Turkey), ‘Pantheism, Naturalism, and Cosmology’
Commentator: Andrei Buckareff (Marist College, USA)
15:00-15:30: Tea/coffee & cookies
15:30-17:00: Session 5
Speaker: Emily Thomas (University of Durham, UK), ‘Pantheism and Time in Samuel Alexander and May Sinclair’
Commentator: Georg Gasser (University of Innsbruck, Austria)
Pantheism and Panentheism Project Workshop 2018
Center for Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy Department
Rutgers University
Thursday 7 June
1:30-3:30: ‘Concise Grammar of Pantheism’
Speaker: Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins University)
Commentators: Robert Oakes (University of Missouri) and Thaddeus Robinson (Muhlenberg College)
3:30-4:00: Coffee break
4:00-6:00: ‘Kantian Gods and Wax Noses’
Speaker: Andrew Chignell (Princeton University)
Commentators: Klaas Kraay (Ryerson University) and Jeanine Diller (University of Toledo)
Friday, 8 June
10:00-12:00: ‘Pure form Cannot be Powerful – Even if Divine’
Speaker: Anna Marmadoro (Durham University)
Commentators: Andrei A. Buckareff (Marist College) and Eric Steinhart (William Paterson University)
12:00-1:00: Lunch
1:15-3:15: ‘Mental Qualities, Selfhood, and the Problem of God's Person’
Speaker: Sam Coleman (University of Hertfordshire)
Commentators: Yujin Nagasawa (University of Birmingham) and Meghan Sullivan (University of Notre Dame)
Abstracts
Concise Grammar of Pantheism
Yitzhak Melamed
Pantheism – roughly, the view that all things are in God – seem to enjoy a genuine renaissance of late. Arguably, pantheism (in its various forms) is attractive to our age not only because it is more amenable to naturalist conception of both God and humanity, but also because it has been traditionally associated (in Christendom) with heresy. In this sense pantheism offers a certain form of religiosity that is detached from the burden of old religion and its violent, dogmatic, and intolerant history.
Though I am a proud card-carrying member of the pantheistic club, I will not at all argue for this view in the current paper. My aim here is much more modest and rudimentary: to clarify the logical space of the family of views that are commonly put together under the rubric of pantheism or panentheism. Such a clarification is urgently needed for two main reasons. First, agreeing on a common terminology for the various branches of pantheism will help us avoid the unfortunate, yet quite common, state of talking past each other, rather than engaging in genuine philosophical debate. Second, some of the folk formulations of pantheism seem to prejudge its very possibility. For example, if one defines pantheism as the view that “all things are parts of God,” and one is committed to a mereology in which parts are prior to their whole, it would seem that the road to pantheism is virtually blocked unless one is willing to embrace the unpalatable view that your smallest left finger and Billy the porcupine are prior to God. To avoid such pre-judgements, we will allow for a variety of ways in which things can be “in” God, i.e., we will allow for things to be in God, but not as parts of God.
Kantian Gods and Wax Noses
Andrew Chignell
In this paper I consider three of Kant’s main efforts in philosophical theology. I argue that the first one, from the pre-critical period, collapses into Spinozism, that the second is highly problematic and does not in any case sanction an existence-claim, and that the third one comes in three versions, only one of which has a shot at delivering anything like the traditional omni-omni-omni God. I also argue that this last one – let's call it the “moral-psychological” proof – needn’t deliver that God either: depending on various contextual factors, and within certain metaphysical and moral constraints, it might well deliver an alternative conception of the deity. I conclude with a reflection on whether that is a welcome feature of the moral-psychological argument, or whether it makes theology into a mere "wax nose" discipline.
Pure form Cannot be Powerful – Even if Divine
Anna Marmadoro
According to Aristotle, the world is hylomorphic: matter is en-formed by forms. The only hylomorphic exception in the universe is the Divine, the First Mover, which is pure form by itself, not instantiated and not en-mattered. I will argue that Aristotle is misguided in this (non-Panentheistic) view of the Divine. By depriving the Divine of hylomorphic structure, he deprived the divine of power.
I will articulate the stance that power is structured into potentiality and some type of actuality. Actuality and potentiality is what gives power its structure.
I will then show that Aristotle introduced two forms of potentiality, which have shaped our understanding of it ever since. Potentiality is:
1. directed (physical potentiality)
2. incomplete (metaphysical potentiality)
These are two very different conceptions of potentiality. Physical potentiality, namely, efficient causation, e.g. heat, is directed towards its activation, e.g. towards heating.Metaphysical potentiality, e.g. that we reach by abstraction, is being deprived of form (which can be instantiated in the potential).
Both types of potentiality can give rise to hylomorphic modelling. However, whereas material hylomorphic composites are decomposable, metaphysical hylomorphic composites need not be decomposable. Aristotle thought that they had to be decomposable, and so made the Divine non-hylomorphic: pure form, setting it apart from matter in the world.
However, the divine is essentially power, or powerful. As I argue,d power is hylomorphically structured into potentiality and actuality. From this, I will conclude that if the Divine, as pure form, is simple and unstructured, is therefore powerless.
Mental Qualities, Selfhood, and the Problem of God's Person
Sam Coleman
Through a critique of the experiential approach to self, which grounds self/personhood in the contents of conscious experience, I arrive at a theory that grounds the self in intrinsically unconscious mental qualities. Thus the self of which one is consciously aware can also persist unconsciously. I go on to apply this theory to the problem of God's person, which is an objection to pantheism. The objection is that God cannot be considered a person on pantheism, since pantheists identify God with the universe, but the universe is not plausibly construed as a person - notably because the universe is not conscious. Hence pantheism is not after all theistic, and may even be tantamount to atheism. I show how my theory of personal identity enables pantheists to get around this objection, and to hold consistently that God is the universe and a person.