Veritas - 2022 by Haberdashers' Boys' School

Issue X Summer Term 2022

Journal of Theology and Philosophy VERITAS

Do you know that you are not dreaming right now? If so, how? If not, does it matter?

Senior School Essay Competition 25

Contents

Introduction

Middle School Essay Competition 35

Should we all be Utilitarians. By Eden Halperin 55

People 83

On the Opposing of Oppositions: “Projection” Revisited. By Dr Tromans 66

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russia-Ukraine War. By Adam Smith 15

By Oli Weiner

By Arjun Gala 20

By Dr Tromans

Can idleness be a good thing?

Lower School Essay Competition 40

On why Kant is wrong. By Kaylan Morzaria 60

Introduction

This edition contains submissions for three essay competitions addressing the relation between literature and philosophy/theology. Other pieces have been submitted as “open entries”. Thanks to all students who submitted entries.

It has been a great pleasure to be involved with the publication of Veritas for the second (and final) time. I owe thanks to the two student editors (from my Lower Sixth Philosophy class), Charlie Ballero and Eden Halperin. Much credit to them, not only for contributing articles but also for giving their time to help with the editing of the competition entries.

Dr Tromans, Editor

If so, how? If not, does it matter?

By Oli Weiner (U6C2)

We have all read and seen children’s books and films, such as “Alice in Wonderland”, that hook the audience into a gripping story, that the audience thinks has actually happened to the main character, only to be told at the end that it was all a dream. How do we know that this is not true too of reality? What if when we die it is revealed to us by some extraordinary being that what we have just lived was merely a dream relayed in first person, and if that is the case, why should we care? We too have all heard the phrase, “pinch me, I must be dreaming.” The use of this phrase instructs an action to be done that stimulates the receptor cells of the skin in order to “wakeup” the brain in order to deliver the feeling of pain, and in so doing prove that we are awake rather than dreaming. But what if our mind, or as Descartes speculated, an evil demon, has deceived us into performing this action and feeling a response, and this all happens whilst we are dreaming. In this essay, it will be concluded that we do know that we are not dreaming, but even if we did not, it would not matter.

Do you know that you are not dreaming right now?

Moments that happen while we’re sleeping, such as rain falling onto the roof or a car driving past, often become incorporated into our dreams. Sigmund Freud recalls a story of a man who dreamt he was at the guillotine during

P1: If I don’t know that I am not dreaming, then I do not know if I have legs;

the French revolution and awoke just as the blade hit his neck. He found that his headboard had fallen and struck him just where the blade had done in his dream. We think we know when we are awake and when we are asleep, when we are dreaming and when we are not, but it is actually not so clear. Many people experience waking up yet still feeling like the dream was real. Some people claim to have unbearable and persistent insomnia, but sleep studies often shows that while they believe they are awake, they are actually asleep, dreaming that they are lying in bed, tossing, and turning for hours at a time. They wake up convinced that they had not slept at all. So, is there a way to distinguish being awake and being asleep? In his Meditations, René Descartes argues that there is no difference. He begins the book by questioning whether or not we can know anything at all. One of the sceptical arguments that he puts forward is the Dream Argument. Descartes describes two scenarios, one in which we have something, such as legs and another in which we are sleeping and dream about having and using our legs. In the scenario, the dream is so realistic that when Descartes wakes up, he does not know whether he had just dreamt it. Descartes argues that dreams are often indistinguishable from veridical perceptions and therefore we cannot know that the two are objectively different. Thus, he makes the following argument:

However, this is a weak argument, and Descartes even provides a solution to the argument himself. Descartes notes that dreams are rarely connected to waking memories, and when a character in a dream disappears, we often do not see them ever again. Furthermore, dreams are often discontinuous, whereas reality is not. With this argument, Descartes attacks the second premise, that dreams are indistinguishable from reality, by showing that the nature of reality as a continuous chain of events with characters that we meet over and over again, is objectively different from dreams, which do not usually repeat themselves and are discontinuous. Descartes argues that it is human nature to seek a regular schedule with regular activities, which we do not experience in dreams and therefore dreaming cannot be reality. For example, in reality, we get up and go to school or to work every day and see the same people and have the same lessons, whereas in dreams we do not follow a regular schedule.

C1: Therefore, I do not know if I have legs. Here, Descartes’ argument aims to show that we cannot distinguish reality from a dream and therefore we do not know whether or not we are dreaming.

P2: I do not know that I am dreaming because dreams and reality are often indistinguishable;

P1: If I do not know that I am not dreaming, then I do not know that I do not know that I have legs;

The sceptic could respond to Moore’s argument by saying that the argument is begging the question. We cannot know for certain that we have legs because, as Descartes showed with his Evil Demon Argument (the idea that we cannot know anything because we are tricked into believing it by an evil demon), we cannot be certain that we know anything. Moore responds to this

The strongest objection to Descartes Dream Argument, which ultimately defeats it, and proves that we do know whether or not we are dreaming, comes from G.E. Moore. Moore flips Descartes’ argument around to form the following argument:

C1: Therefore, I know that I am not dreaming.

P2: I do know that I have legs;

Nevertheless, the sceptic could respond to this objection and say that through lucid dreaming, we can create a regular chain of events in dreams to create a “dream life” that is indistinguishable from reality. However, this is a weak response too as by saying that we must lucidly dream to create regularity in the “dream life” admits that we must do something outside of a dream, namely in the real world, to make dreaming seem like reality and thus we do still know that we are not dreaming.

C1: Therefore, nobody knows that they have legs;

C2: Therefore, we do not know whether we are dreaming or Whilstnot.

P1: For every person S, and every truth p, S knows p if and only if S is able to prove p;

objection very well by saying that by assuming that we cannot know whether or not we have legs, the sceptic too has begged the question and therefore they must give a reason to prove why we cannot know that we don’t have legs. The sceptic can respond to this objection; however they fall into Moore’s trap. The sceptic would have to respond by giving the following modus ponens argument:

Moore agrees that nobody can prove whether or not they have legs, he rejects the first premise, that something is only knowable if it is provable. Moore argues that there are certain a posteriori facts that we have deduced via our sense experience. These beliefs are basic and include things such as “water boils at 100°C”, and also “humans have legs” and we know them to be true. Moore argues that we know this to be true because all of humanity can verify that by nature, humans have legs. Therefore, Moore’s argument is correct. Moore’s objection to Descartes is incredibly strong and therefore we do know when we are dreaming and thus, I do know that I am not dreaming.

P2: But nobody can prove that they have legs;

So far, I have clarified that we can make a distinction between what we call dreaming and what we call reality and therefore the phrase “pinch me, I must be dreaming” can be used correctly to distinguish between what we call real life and dreams. However, how do we know that we are not constantly living in a dream world in which we falsely think that a reality exists? Is death the part at the end of the story when we are told that everything was just a Everybodydream?

In evaluation, whilst the sceptical argument that we cannot be certain about anything is somewhat convincing, we are able to ascertain that there is a difference between dreaming and reality and therefore we do know that we are not constantly dreaming.

experiences times during which the world doesn’t seem real and substantial as things go wrong, such as after the death of a loved one, or a natural disaster. We feel shocked and have a blank stare, saying things like “This can’t be happening.” It may be true that “time heals everything” and in time reality feels real again, but some people don’t and hallucinate for the rest of their lives. We can also experience the feeling of “this can’t be happening, it’s like a dream”, when someone is ecstatic:

everything can seem unreal. These experiences give the basis for the notion that life could actually just be a dream, only we don’t notice until there is a moment when things don’t seem real and we glimpse the dream for a while before lapsing back into it quite unconsciously, like if a sudden bang momentarily wakes us up in the middle of a dream and we become aware of the dream before drifting back to sleep and allowing it to continue. Plato’s image of the cave teaches us that the illusory nature of life has fooled us, with the exception of the few who have woken up and seen reality. Plato compares everyday life to watching shadows dance on the walls of a cave, and only those who turn around and see the sun projecting the shadows know what is real and where the illusion comes from. Personal experience, philosophy, and art have endorsed an idea that reality sometimes feels wrong under ordinary circumstances.

The world feels real 99% of the time, which we might think to be enough proof that we do not live in a dream, but modern science cannot prove that the physical, mindindependent world can be trusted. When we are dreaming at night in bed, a dream feels real until we wake up, so how do we know that we are not experiencing an exceptionally long dream that we have not yet woken up Additionally,from. nothing about reality can be scientifically proven. Matter can be reduced to invisible waves that have no definite location in time and space. The big bang

created a universe where time and space exist, but there is nothing verifiable about what existed before it. At best, all that we can verify about reality is that it matches a universal experience. Everything comes to us as experiences, and even when reduced to mathematics, experience is how that exists too all we know about mathematical truths comes from the human brain, not from Furthermore,nature.

are we to say that the testimony of people who have transcended everyday reality, is not as valid as the testimony that insists on everyday reality. They cannot simply be dismissed as they could be right when the vast majority of humanity is wrong, just as Copernicus was right in regard to the orientation of the solar system. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that it is highly unlikely that there is no reality. The same arguments that defeated the Brain in the Vat argument can be applied

argument against Dream Theory is argued by Wittgenstein. He says that to doubt the existence of reality requires some background knowledge and understanding of why it is possible that life is but a dream.

P1:Therefore:Todoubt, we must have some background knowledge;

Thehere.strongest

P2: To doubt reality with the argument that we are just living one big dream does not hinge on any background knowledge, it is merely a theory;

C2: Therefore, we are not constantly dreaming.

In conclusion, although we cannot rule out the possibly that life is but a dream, the fact that we can distinguish between our concept of reality and our concept of a dream, combined with the fact that it is highly unlikely that life is nothing but a dream proves that we can know when we are and are not dreaming.

This is a strong objection to the theory that we are simply living a dream because it strikes at the very possibility of us living a dream. Wittgenstein is arguing that there is no point theorising about purely living a dream because we have no reason to think that that is what is happening The sceptic cannot respond to this objection because there is no scientific evidence to suggest that we are constantly living a dream and therefore it is unlikely that we are constantly dreaming.

C1: Therefore, we cannot doubt our reality;

Pragmatists wonder why the notion of life as a dream matters. It makes a difference because we may want to transcend the dream. We may not fear death. We may identify with a self that is timeless and unbounded and therefore live life to its fullest. We may too stop

On the other hand, life has existed on Earth, either as reality or as a dream for thousands of years and will continue to do so. As argued by Aristotle, the main goal of life is to become virtuous and help others to do so in order to achieve a state of Eudaimonia. Bentham argued that the purpose of life is to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Kant argued that the purpose of life is to fulfil our duty, pursue our ends and help others to do so in order to reach a Kingdom of Ends. We can also find purpose to life through family, work, and religion, amongst various other sources. It does not matter whether we are living in a dream world, or in reality, as the purpose of life from all viewpoints will not be changed: what difference does it make if we are living in a dream?

experiencing emotions and instead constantly feel calm, alert, and open. We may feel detached, as if witnessing how life unfolds rather than being tossed and tumbled in the chaotic stream of daily events.

To conclude, we should keep on pinching ourselves to make sure that we are awake, because the chances that we will wake up at the end our life and be told that we have just lived a dream are so slim and claims that we will wake up have no grounding. We can distinguish between dreams and reality and therefore we do know when we are and are not dreaming. Furthermore, continue living life to its fullest and finding purpose because whilst the chances are so slim, even if we are told that we are living

in a dream, what difference does it make? To summarise, we do know when we are dreaming, and even if we did not, it does not matter.

Is life really a dream? the Chopra foundation (2018) Choprafoundation.org. Available at: Lacewing,dream/https://choprafoundation.org/articles/is-life-really-a-(Accessed:June3,2021).M.,2014,

Windt, J. M., 2021, “Dreams and Dreaming”, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2021, edited by Zalta, E. N. Stanford University Press.

Selected Bibliography

Philosophy for AS: Epistemology and Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge. Psychology Today, 2019, “Is life a dream?” Available at: consciousness/201907/ishttps://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/mysteries-lifedream(Accessed:June 5, Thompson,2021).

E., 2017, Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

By Adam Smith (10H1)

There are 11,000 parishes of the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church. There is a separate Ukrainian Orthodox Church; however, it only has 7,000 parishes. The Russian Orthodox Church also has some very controversial views on the war, as opposed to its Catholic counterpart, especially considering the pacifism of Jesus and Christian teachings such as “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37 39).

The war in Ukraine has been the most devastating conflict in modern European history. Five million refugees, mass murder, and the closest the world has been to nuclear annihilation since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963. Despite all this tragedy, the Church has large influence in this conflict. Most importantly, the Russian Orthodox Church, which holds sway over most people in Russia and Ukraine and binds the two warring countries together by faith.

The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, claims that God is on Russia’s side in the conflict, almost making it sound like a holy war like the Crusades. This in turn chimes with Putin’s claim that he is

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russia-Ukraine War

Exodus 20:13: “You shall not murder”

“denazifying” Ukraine, showing that at least the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church clearly supports the war. This kind of claim makes no sense, given that Russia has committed abhorrent crimes in Ukraine, bombarding a city into dust and murdering an entire town. Christian doctrine and belief do not support this kind of action, Russian troops have in fact broken the 10 commandments, “thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not commit Theadultery”.Conflict

in Ukraine has also had a major effect on inter-Church relations, especially between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Church. Pope Francis is vocally anti-war, saying that “The war of aggression against Ukraine is inhuman and sacrilegious”. He has also attempted to help relieve the defenders of Mariupol in Azovstal, using a boat flying the Vatican Flag, and his requests were rejected three times by the Russians. Patriarch Kirill, on the other hand, is very pro-war, consecrating the war and talking about a war of values against Western liberal values and ideals, speaking about gay pride parades “imposed on Donbass by the Ukrainians”, almost declaring a crusade against the West. Patriarch Kirill also claims that Russia is fighting the Antichrist, making it sound like the ultimate Crusade. In 2016 there was a historic meeting in Havana, Cuba, between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, the first since the Great Schism in 1054, the split between Western and Eastern Christianity (the motivations behind this meeting

– has recognised this split, but the Moscow Patriarchate has not. The Leaders of the Orthodox Christian Church of Ukraine condemned the invasion and called it a “fratricidal war”. Furthermore, there is tension between the Western branches of the Russian Orthodox Church, as the Western branches are very anti-war, following the lead of their respective country’s governments. Many priests within the Russian Orthodox Church have also condemned the war, with a joint plea sent to Patriarch Kirill to stop the war; some were then sacked.

could have also been political, due to Russia’s intervention in Syria). Another meeting was planned this year (2022), but due to the war it was cancelled, only one of many examples of worsening Church relations. Pope Francis has, however, attempted to reach out to Patriarch Kirill, telling him not to become “Putin’s altar boy”, and to speak in the language of Jesus not politics, during an online meeting when they spoke for 40 minutes on the Thewar.

war (and the period running up to the war) has also caused massive division within the Russian Orthodox Church, with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church breaking away in 2019 due to increased tensions after the annexation of Crimea, and increased division between the Russian Church and the wider Orthodox Church, as the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew the patriarch of Constantinople and the head of all the Orthodox churches

Due to the seemingly impossible match between supporting the war and Christianity, it appears inevitable that the Russian Orthodox Church and especially Patriarch Kirill are being bribed by the Russian government to support the war. During the defence of Moscow during WW2, Stalin permitted churches to reopen to help raise the morale of the Russian people. In that situation, however, the Soviet Union was fighting a defensive and existential war, whilst now they are the aggressors. For the Russian Orthodox Church, the support of the war is reputational suicide, exacerbating already huge tensions within the Church and furthering the image of Russia as an international pariah. This course of action seems to make no sense unless one considers a monetary factor. The Russian Orthodox Church already receives money from Rosatom, a Russian nuclear energy company to fund church projects around the world and is certainly scared to lose that boon and would be eager to have it supplemented by bribes from Putin. However, it is also possible that Patriarch Kirill is so supportive of Putin due to self-preservation. Putin’s enemies generally “commit suicide” by polonium in their drink, by falling out a window or by 7 shots to the back of the head. A third possibility is that Patriarch Kirill supports the war of his own accord, although this is unlikely as someone who believes in Christ’s teachings should not support a bloody and genocidal war, especially given that the Russian Orthodox Church does not believe in the concept of a “Just War”, that being a war that needs to be fought against evil, for example the Allies fighting Nazi

Germany in WW2. The Orthodox Church instead believes that war is a product of the imperfections of humanity, but that we should just let it play out.

In conclusion, the Russian Orthodox Church has been a significant player in this conflict, with its support for the war giving Putin backing by the Russian people as they believe they are on the right side in a holy and just war. The war has created a new iron curtain, and with it more and more division within the Church. The war has destroyed the Orthodox Church’s image and has made the Pope plea for an end to the conflict in desperation.

Can idleness be a good thing?

By Arjun Gala (L6H2)

Today in Western civilisation, most people’s lives are centred around efficiency and productivity. The end goal is to further our standard of living and commit ourselves to years of work for leisure that seems to be too far in the future to truly enjoy. This leisure often comes in retirement and with the average UK age for this being roughly 64, our society does not allow us to sufficiently enjoy the fruits of our labour. We may be able to take trips abroad or enjoy a weekend away but the main focus of our lives when we are at our peak functioning capacity is work. We are taught from a young age that good grades will take us to a prestigious university and the degree we work for will provide us the chance for employment. This path is our main option should we want a life of leisure in the Whenfuture.thought

out like this, it can seem that our society holds the wrong values. Perhaps, therefore, this notion of idleness is a positive direction to move towards. Idleness in this essay will be defined as individuals being given time to embark on journeys not with the purpose of finding what is practical in today’s society, but of simply finding what they enjoy and find of interest. We will also ignore the economic issues with idleness and focus solely on whether it is a concept that will better the lives of humanity.

The importance of idleness can be first seen through the idea of Existentialism. Sartre found that humans should have an existence before an essence. We understand from this that personality is not built over a previously designed model or with a precise purpose; rather, it is the human being who chooses to sculpt his or her character. However, today’s society prevents this as we see its ideals being instilled into individuals from an early age. This is seen as we often find that it is our occupation that defines us best. Most people can be characterised by their profession as it is what dominates the majority of their lives. We see therefore that the labour market has a significant influence on our lives, and it can be argued that this undue influence in fact changes our beliefs and preferences. Efficiency and productivity are what our lives become centred around as we enter the labour market, and not only is this creating a market society, but it is also removing Sartre’s notion of existence before essence.

Whilst society has not, and will not, become a uniform string of workers that have no sense of individual character, the idea of a capitalist society revolving around furthering one’s standard of living does in fact standardise several aspects of our lives, and this should be thought of as dangerous. It is a greater sense of idleness that resolves this issue as we discover more about our real interests and make rational decisions based not on the economic value of it but on the personal benefit it can bring. A market society that holds people making only economic decisions will continually lose its virtue as

individuals continually make decisions based on the economic prosperity it can bring, rather perhaps, than on the good it can do. Our society will, in the more dire scenario, become a drastically less virtuous one without an increased sense of idleness to allow ourselves to understand our desires and the societal desires that are most Furthermorethical.e, it should be argued that an enhanced sense of idleness can also heighten our ability to think critically as a society. Kant argued in his essay “What is Enlightenment?” that we are only enlightened when we are able to use our understanding without the guidance of another. We can find some value in this for today’s society as many are now able to access several opinions, figures, or articles within minutes through a quick Google search. This is perhaps what is most limiting in our society. The need for individual thought has diminished and those who are truly enlightened to the workings of our society are few and far. Kant would likely have been distraught at the state of current Western culture due to this. We should therefore urge for a greater access to idleness in our systems, not only to create a more virtuous society, but also to create a more thought provoked one.

Reducing the influence of work in one’s life is not unheard of. Denmark is a good example of this as they give students less homework and shorter schooling hours from a younger age. They also have an average of 33–

From this, we can understand the benefits and perhaps need of idleness in our society. However, it should be noted that lives being characterised or defined by an occupation can be seen as a positive outcome for a society. One could argue that many would find themselves down a nihilist route with a greater access to idleness. The meaning of life may be questioned with the requirement of us finding employment and prosperity losing significance and its critical role in society. We must

If life is about finding happiness and fulfilment, we are clearly putting too much importance on work and the labour market. Idleness by definition can bring us a further sense of individual thought as we spend more time learning about not only what we find interesting but also about what is important to society through a philosophical lens. The enlightenment period caused revolution and the liberalisation of society in the 18th century, but we perhaps need a second wave in order to realise what should drive our society.

37-hour work weeks, in comparison to the 44 hour average American work week, and a $20 minimum wage. The evidence for why this works is that Denmark is ranked as one of the happiest countries in the world. Idleness is built into their society, and it holds considerable importance. Whilst they may not be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, they have one the lowest poverty levels, and this should perhaps be stressed more than overall wealth.

therefore go about this concept with caution and perhaps see its virtue in simply instilling values in lives from an early age. Giving people the importance and benefits of idleness at an earlier stage in life can perhaps create a society which naturally accepts it, bringing us into a more virtuous and enlightened age.

Senior School Essay Competition

Philosophy is often looked upon as the science of knowledge and a subject filled with rational thinking and clear and precise arguments. However, as Khataniar suggests in his article “Philosophy and Literature: Certain Aspects of their Relationship”, philosophy can enter a realm of literary language and analysis where texts engage with fictional events in order to build up arguments and philosophical ideas. The most famous examples of this are Plato’s Dialogues, in which Plato uses the characters of Socrates and many other people to explain different theories through their dialogue. Here the language and structure of a fictional dialogue not only allows for a clear philosophical concept to be portrayed and explained, but for further nuance and complexity in

In this essay, I will argue that literature gives us access to certain insights on the human condition that can reach a level of profundity over the philosophical arguments of reality and knowledge often presented in philosophical texts, and we can see this not just in literature and fiction but in the literary parts of philosophy. The truths presented to us in literature also provide a greater sense of motivation and emotion due to the assorted styles of language used (whether it be simple colloquial terms or esoteric and verbose language).

Literature provides access to truths, particularly philosophical and theological truths, that cannot be expressed in any other way.

By Charlie Ballaro (L6H2)

There are several other key dialogues throughout all philosophical literature such as Berkeley’s Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous and many more, due to the clarity and ease of understanding that the medium of dialogue brings with it. As well as this, the realms of poetry and philosophy can also be combined to create texts with a much greater fictious nature that use allegory and symbols to convey the theories of the author. One key example of this being Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, where Nietzsche uses the character of Zarathustra and his reactions towards the different events of the text to present the core ideals of his philosophical and religious nihilism. Alongside these two facets of literature in philosophy, literature can be seen in one of the most integral parts of philosophical discussion: thought experiments. Thought experiments are used to enable the reader to clearly grasp the concepts and difficulties of a philosophical issue; fiction is used here to create exaggerated and extreme examples to further the understanding of the reader, with examples of Kant’s Axe-Murderer, Descartes’ Evil Demon, Harman’s Brainin-a-Vat, and the Utilitarian Train Track thought experiment showing this. Here fiction is used to create scenarios that are so incredibly fabricated and bizarre that the philosophical ideas relating to them are apparent and can be tested against the experiment or be made simpler to understand. In the ways shown above, literature can allow philosophical texts to impart their

the presentations of these ideologies, like in Plato’s The Republic where Plato portrays Thrasymachus as a hot headed “wild beast” to undermine his view on justice and the type of people who hold similar views.

theories in a convincing and simple way which allows for the reader to understand them fully and even be emotionally motivated by them.

is often characterized by suggestiveness in how it merely suggests the moral and existential concerns of humanity which cannot be presented with intellectual clarity, instead of stating it outright. And as Khataniar says, “Some of our deepest emotive concerns may thereby be stoked. Some of the moral and existential concerns of humanity defy intellectual clarity. Philosophy does not have this emotionally motivating factor and so can fail to inspire and move us in the same way”.

The ideas of literature are often presented in very subtle and nuanced ways, such as in Robert Frost’s “MendingWall”. Alongside presenting an ideology that conflicts with the ideas of borders between people, shown through the speaker’s distaste in his fellow farmer’s thought of “Good fences make good neighbours” and the comparison he draws with the farmer and an “old-stone savage”, Frost also manages to present an insight that combats Kant's

Literature itself can also be used to impart truths and ideas that philosophy cannot impart in the same way, through the use of language. The truths and messages uncovered by literature are incredibly different from those uncovered through philosophy, because the insights of literature are not presented in a deductive argumentative form, and neither are they clear and distinct in how they appear to us (something that philosophers such as Descartes hold as vital to the validity and credibility of an Literatureidea).

The intersection between literature and philosophy that we can see in the use of dialogue and thought experiments also goes both ways in presenting philosophical ideas in a very similar way to philosophical texts in literature. A key example of this is William Wordsworth’s The Prelude in which Wordsworth delves into and explains the didactic effect Nature has had on him. This focus on the source of his knowledge and character echoes the same type of thinking as Empiricist thinkers, who argue that all of our knowledge comes from our experience. Through the language of the poem, Wordsworth presents Nature as not an “object” but as a presence and a power; a motion and a spirit; not something to be worshiped and consumed, but always a guide leading beyond itself (Hartman, 1954); Nature’s depiction goes from being a “playmate” who composed Wordsworth’s thoughts to have “an infant softness” as a

theory that work and the aesthetic activity are antagonistic. Lentricchia says in his study Robert Frost: Modern Poetics and the Landscapes of Self that Kant’s theory is disproven as “the narrator makes work take on the aesthetic dimension” when the narrator refers to rocks that he and the other farmer place on the broken wall and how they “have to use a spell to make them balance”. In this way, as Lentricchia points out, the narrator “redeems work by transforming it into the pleasure of an outdoor game in which you need to cast spells to make rocks balance”. Here we can see the intricacies of tone and language being used in a way that can present ideas of the value of connection between people as well as refute philosophical theories of work, presenting work in a positive and aesthetic way.

child to being a vengeful “huge cliff” who inspires a “blank desertion” in Wordsworth as punishment for disrespecting Nature. As well as this, Wordsworth also uses a similar allegorical technique to most of philosophy by presenting nature through the lens of his memories, which play the role of thought experiment. In this way, The Prelude becomes an intensely philosophical text in his meaning as well as the method it uses to convey that Inmeaning.conclusion,

through the methods of Literature, philosophical ideas can be conveyed in unique and effective ways that can move a reader emotionally. This can be seen in both the adaption of literary techniques in philosophical texts such as dialogue and fictional thought experiments and the nuances of language in literature.

R. F., 1975, Modern Poetics and the Landscapes of Self. Duke University Press.

Khataniar, A., 2020, “Philosophy and Literature: Certain Aspects of their Relationship”, in European Journal of Molecular and Clinical Medicine 7. Accessed at https://ejmcm.com/article_2023.html.Plato,

Select Bibliography

Hartman, G. H, 1954, The Romance of Nature and the Negative Way in Wordsworth’s Poetry 1787 1814. Yale University Press.

The Republic. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Frost, R., 1914, North of Boston. First World Publishing. Wordsworth, W., 1850, Prelude. Boston: David R Godine, Lentricchia,2018.

The Way of a Pilgrim documents the journey of an unknown pilgrim through Russia, Ukraine, and Serbia. The book as well as following his physical journey also follows his spiritual progression within his own life.

Krish Gadhia (L6C1) on The Way of a Pilgrim

No one is certain about the authorship of this book or the identity of the monk himself. The book is set in the 19th century against the backdrop of the Crimean War. In the book, the pilgrim roams from village to village gaining spiritual guidance. From my reading of the book, I have identified three main teachings from the pilgrim's journey which teach human beings to live well, which are humility, surrender, and prayer. The book does this by using each experience of the monk to communicate a certain moral or teaching which broadly falls under the three pillars of humility, surrender, and prayer. The reason that I have found that these three ideas are integral to teaching a human being to live well is because they allow the pilgrim to live spiritual accomplished life, which rids him of suffering and fills him with compassion and devotion which I believe to be a fulfilling life. The book places an extreme amount of emphasis on humility when it comes to the pilgrim's journey. There is a clear spiritual pathway that the pilgrim is embarking on which is that of an “ignorant soul more and more towards humility”. If one is humble, one is welcoming and loving to other people, which results in the monk having a less prejudiced view of the world. The monk due to his constant reminders of humility, never believes himself to be overly advanced in the path of devotion; he always feels like he could do better and progress on his journey.

A second teaching the book provides humans is that of surrender. Out of all the hardship that the pilgrim goes through during his journey, he constantly stays positive and has firm faith in the plan and will of God. The pilgrim completely surrenders to the will of God and takes all events, good or bad, as a gift from the Lord. This was teaching the pilgrim received from his spiritual teacher who commanded the pilgrim to “let every action be a cause of your remembering and praising God!” In this way, through the example of the pilgrim we are taught to constantly take every action as a blessing; this leads to an unbroken state of contentment with whatever God intends for us. In poverty and pain, the pilgrim still praises God for what God has provided. In the modern world, where greed is the driving force, the pilgrim teaches us that in life being happy with all,

Humility also allowed the pilgrim to forgive those who stole from him as he believed that they had stolen out of necessity; as Jesus said in the Bible, “If any man will take away your coat, let him have thy cloak as well”. This humility can be applied to life today as it will allow humans to weaken the strong hierarchies and supremacies which we have manufactured and create a much more equal and loving society. Seeing everyone as equal and yourself as a servant allows one to be free of the shackles of hatred and negativity which are roadblocks to a fulfilling life.

Prayer is integral to human beings' well-being as it is a constant reflection on the divine which the book teaches to be the main aggregate of human life and of the Christian journey. When the pilgrim's aim to “pray without ceasing” is achieved, he described his soul as “filled with gratitude for the Lord, while my heart languished in unceasing joy.” This constant joy and gratitude is an extremely large part of living a good life, and one which is completely fulfilling as it is filled with thankfulness to the universe and to the divine, as he surrenders himself, his actions, his possessions and his thoughts all at the altar of Jesus. This prayer leads to the pilgrim forever

whether it is positive or negative, is an extremely important skill, as it removes us from our greed and allows happiness and gratitude to blossom if we surrender to the plan of God.

The way in which the book expects the reader to internalise these characteristics and these tenets of a good life is by being constantly absorbed in prayer. Throughout the book, the pilgrim's main aim is to internalise the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer is known as the Eastern “Prayer of the Heart”, which reads “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This prayer has been taught and venerated throughout the history of the Orthodox Church. The prayer is an essential tenet of the Philokalia which is the spiritual text that the monk constantly meditates on. The prayer itself is a constant reminder of humility; it communicates the downfallen state of humanity and recognises Jesus as the saviour, which allows the pilgrim to be so humble and grounded in the face of struggle, as aforementioned.

progressing in spirituality and to be always dedicated to living a better life which is a teaching which can definitely help humans live well.

In conclusion, the way of the pilgrim, through the example of a spiritual seeker, teaches the consumer three lessons which, despite being written two hundred years ago, still possess large amount of potency in our modern life. The teachings are humility, surrender, and prayer. Prayer is the main teaching which will aid someone in living well; constant meditation on the divine will allow someone to achieve the humility and surrender that the book also teaches. This prayer when internalised will transform and influence one's actions to become compassionate, as if one is remembering God in every moment, God will always be the intention and the goal of every act.

Middle School Essay Competition

Zakariya Tanweer (10M2) on The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

What can literature teach us about ethics and how to live a good life?

The Three Body Problem teaches human beings what living well actually means and how to pursue a meaningful life through its vast scope of hundreds of years. Throughout this essay, I will be covering how Cixin Liu teaches us this.

Cixin Liu uses worldbuilding to represent our world on a massive scale, through the amplification of space and time. Usually, writers try to keep their worlds small and specify only necessities, but from the mass riots in the cultural revolution to the hectic meetings of world leaders, Liu always manages to downplay the protagonists. Each individual has a minute part to play in the vast and eventually pointless attempt to save the world, but they

incorporation of astrophysics, Cixin Liu shows that scientific discoveries are built off each other, and society is a result of layers and layers of different ideologies built on top of each other, which we sometimes forget when we talk about “more evolved countries”. In reality, if one were to attempt to solve such a problem on one’s own, the solution would be quite primitive and more likely to be coincidental rather than based on rationality. Here is a good analogy: Ludolph van Ceulen (the man who spent his entire life calculating pi to a few decimal places in a very inefficient manner)… people like him try to rely on their own knowledge rather than looking at the application of theories and ideas from others within the contemporary and past community. Sure, we have advanced from the mathematicians who used to hoard formulae for wealth, but Cixin Liu also shows how global communication and lack of sovereignty is needed to achieve peace.

At first reading, the writer seems to have a very nihilistic view on life, but I believe Cixin’s most criticized chapter holds the true meaning behind this. Throughout the simulation of the unsolvable three body problem, each “scientist” tries their own way to solve the weather cycle, ending in failure until they start building off each other to create somewhat more productive systems and Throughcalendars.this

each build on each other and get closer and closer to achieving their goal.

often see themselves as charitable organizations. If they all stopped pointing guns at each other and trying to make their names in charitable acts, two things would happen: 1) They might actually carry out the will of God by helping others; 2) They would remove the ridiculous justification that religion causes war and fighting from people’s minds, and, even better, getting rid of the stigma on religion due to it being “too dated” and “anti-modern” an idea propagated by conflict between religions in addition to political integration. People need

Instead, the society which Liu suggests in The Dark Forest is somewhat more idealistic – bland maybe, but idealistic. The idea that culture and religion can be separated from politics is a believable notion, but to achieve such a thing would mean the co-existence of different religions and cultures, which does not seem plausible due to their contradictory nature. Rather we should foster rivalry within constructive parameters which would prevent any cultural or religious identity from being Religiousundermined.groups

A full-on Communist revolution is not the idea I am suggesting; the writer was not particularly supportive of the communist revolution, since it displaced his family. Liu even goes as far as to condemn Mao’s “cultural revolution”, in the first chapter on 2 bases: that it had a nationalist identity and that it aimed to destroy anything that was remotely contradictory.

The international law proposed in The Dark Forest follows something of an anarchistic ideology, providing quite a fluid and interpretable law system that accommodates for most views on how to live life; however, rather than being built on trust and rationality, it is built on social stigma and moral aptitude on an individual level. The more common “trust and rationality” approach to anarchism is kept on a global level, as relations are more strategic and thought Theout.

most obvious benefit of a society like this, is the abolishment of defeatism. In the first book, the greatest problem and threat to society is this lack of trust in authoritative power as world leaders try to suppress waves of defeatism. Why is this rebellion not present in the latter stages of the series? Well, this is because of the fundamental anarchistic idea that people are more likely to feel threatened and question the power system when they feel that they have lost power to a governmental body. But the governmental body in The Dark Forest seems to be ethereal and does not pose this threat.

to understand religion and science (the modern-day world) are not mutually exclusive.

I have talked about the wider scope for human society and life, but in essence Liu’s message for the reader here is to condemn ideas that radicalize society by undermining people in any number, whether they are a minority, or a majority, and look at the bigger picture. How

can you the individual contribute to society in a meaningful way? You probably aren’t going to be running around threatening multi dimensional nuclei with a more paranoid version of the fermi paradox, but still remember that the best way to improve yourself and your ideas is learning from the successes and failures of others and by standing on their shoulders.

My first takeaway from this book is to stop thinking that our past determines our present and our future. This is somewhat counterintuitive because many of us have bought into the Freudian School of psychology which is based on the model that childhood and upbringing determines to an extent what kind of person you are today. However, one of the key insights from Adlerian Psychology is that we do not need to be defined by our past actions; rather, we are completely free to choose our emotions and goals.

Ishan Visvanath (7C) on The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

This notion is justified by several terms in Adlerian Psychology, which explain how he wants us to separate our present goals and past causes, in order to be free to make unbiased decisions. This is the basis of several controversial, yet bold claims about how we do not suffer from experiences; instead, we make out of them anything

Junior School Essay Competition

The Courage to Be Disliked depicts the dialogue of a young man, who is dissatisfied with life, along with a philosopher who helps him combat these issues through philosophical reasoning. These theories are widely based on the writings of the Austrian psychiatrist, Alfred Adler (1870 1937), and are meant to be interpreted in the reader's own way.

The next idea that I found particularly intriguing was that, contrary to popular belief, emotions do not control us; instead, we create emotions to suit our present goals. For instance, the Philosopher in the book argues that when you chose to shout or argue with someone, it is not the anger causing you to do it; it is you choosing to channel anger into the process of shouting at someone. This is because you are constructing the emotion of anger, as a way of justifying your actions which you would have chosen to do anyway. Similarly, the Stoic philosopher Seneca argued that there was a gap between the stimulus that is happening to us, and the gap between the creation of a feeling in reaction to that stimulus. Essentially, this means that feelings are like choices, so we can choose anger over calm, fear over courage, and misery over joy. This relates to the teachings of Adler, by sharing similar views on the role of emotions in correlation to one’s choices.

that suits our needs. Whilst negative experiences obviously do affect us in some shape or form, he argues that nothing is determined purely by those familiarities; rather, we make our own assumptions from them.

The final lesson that really resonated with me was that freedom is the courage to be disliked. It is an intrinsic part of human nature to have the desire to be liked by other people. However, as Adler claimed, this is a recipe for unhappiness, because we are always basing our lives on the opinions of somebody else. The reason that this is so thought provoking is that there are so many situations in life where we chain ourselves, because we do not have the courage to be disliked by other people. This is the case for everyone, myself included. So often we want to start, or commit to something new and unique, but we are limited by our fear of being judged by others. In reality, how often have you disliked someone because they put themselves out there? Never. In fact, we are often in awe of people who are able to have the courage to follow their passions and ignore others initial judgement, which is the key message of the book.

Charlsantony Kaniude (7S) on Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Macbeth, at the beginning of the play, is a valiant and powerful warrior. He strives to serve his kingdom to the fullest and obeys the orders of the King, Duncan. When he is told his prophecy, he is hesitant and scared. Furthermore, the femme fatale Lady Macbeth craves this power upon her urging him to commit the crime. He says in his speech that he wants Duncan to “Hear it not” for it is “a knell”. This shows he feels guilty to be committing a crime. Later on in the play, the taste of power allows him to do anything to fulfil the prophecy. At the beginning, he only kills people directly related to the prophecy like Banquo (his best friend). Soon after he starts killing innocent people. These include the children and wife of Macduff. This clearly shows Macbeth’s descent into evil.

However, is this his own will or fate? Would Macbeth have done such things without the influence of his wife and the witches? I believe that the witches' prophecies allowed Macbeth to awaken his desires, and Lady Macbeth's ideals and manipulation drove him to commit the first murder. Without both of these factors the evil in Macbeth that caused him to commit his other crimes would not have been there otherwise. Ultimately, this is what Macbeth is about. Shakespeare is commenting on the religious

has many views on life that change during the play. At the start of the play a hopeful Macbeth returns from battle. He has many plans to help his land and sees his prophecy as his means to do so. When Lady Macbeth dies, we see a parallel view. He sees the prophecy as a curse. He has lost everything. His friends have died as well as his wife. Everyone has turned against him. At this point he’s at an all time low. He says life is “A tale told by an idiot”, that “signifies nothing”. Macbeth now feels that life is meaningless and is hoping to Macbethdie.

philosophy present at the time; that all humans are innately evil and how experiences make them become Macbethevil.also

does all of this for power, but it disturbs the natural hierarchy of things. In medieval times, it was believed that the health of a country was directly tied

After committing murder, Macbeth tries to wash blood off his hands, but this does not work. No matter how much he tries, the blood remains there. This illusion symbolises evil. Until this point Macbeth’s hands were clean. He was pure and innocent. Although when he kills Duncan blood is on his once clean hands. This shows Macbeth’s change from good to evil and how one bad act forever stains his hands. This is his tragic flaw that brings his downfall that restores the natural order.

to its king. If the King was good and just, then the nation would have good harvests and good weather. Macbeth shows this connection between the political and natural world: when he disrupts the order by murdering Duncan and usurping the throne, nature going haywire. Incredible storms rage, the earth tremors, animals go insane and eat each other. This emphasises the horror of Macbeth’s actions.

Moksh Pandya (8H) on Hindu Creation Stories

Long before modern science, practically every religion had its own version of Cosmogenesis, including Hinduism, a notion of the origin of the universe at a definite time. Most of them are based on the idea that an all powerful God created a world of matter and man. These doctrines cohered with the view of a God or Gods who should be invoked and thanked at another level. They were widely accepted because there was no better hypothesis to explain the existence of the world.

However, from a scientific point of view, these claims are untenable, as the findings of modern science spring from observations, insights, instruments, philosophical outlooks, and knowledge that was absent in the ancient world. However, the defenders of these claims contend that the philosophers and prophets of distant ages had other means of knowing than logic, differential equations, and the spectrometer; that the scientific insights in Scripture are a testament to their divine origin.

Though perhaps well-meaning, such claims essentially belonged to pseudoscience, not least because they are typically based on a narrow outlook and questionable translations of literary texts rather than on scientific papers. There is no solid evidence that ancient prophets or religious thinkers were privy to any revealed knowledge or scientific findings in advance of their peers, although ancient thinkers did articulate many of the broad

A Noble Prize winner, Dr Hauptman said at a conference in New York that “Belief in a supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, but this kind of belief is damaging to the well being of the human race”. Some scientists say simply that science and religion are two separate realms, “nonoverlapping magisterial” as the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould put in his book, Rock of Ages. In Dr Gould’s view, science speaks with authority in the realm of “what the universe is made of and why does it work this way”

There could be an argument that many scientists believe in God, as per the survey done by The Journal Nature in 1997; 40% of scientists believed in God. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary theorist at Oxford, countered this by claiming that scientists who were believers in God did not claim evidence for their belief. These scientists claimed that there was no evidence to suggest that God does not exist; hence they believe in God. As per Dawkins, this argument is pathetically weak. We know that there is no evidence against all sorts of things, but we don't waste our time believing in them.

In modern times when science has made so much progress, one can disregard Hindu cosmology and treat it as just an interesting story to listen to with no apparent scientific consequence; however, I want to challenge that;

possibilities such as metaphysical, philosophical, and scientific ideas.

Human beings are curious creatures, and we are always interested in understanding our place in this universe. We are very interested in questions such as how this universe was created and what is the future of this universe; all of the great civilizations in the past have had their own theories about how this universe came into existence, and what the future of this universe is going to be. This is called the cosmological theory of these civilizations.

As an example, we know that not only are the galaxies moving further away from each other every day, but also that this movement is accelerating over time, and we

let's see if Hindu Cosmology is of no scientific consequence in this age of the Big Bang Theory.

In these modern times, we believe in a universe that is more than 93 billion light-years in diameter and contains billions of galaxies with each galaxy containing billions of stars, and the sun is just one of them. We have The Big Bang Theory to describe the origin of the universe in which we estimate that the universe came into existence 13.77 billion years ago. We believe this theory as it is consistent with our observations of the expanding universe which, when run back in time, will lead us to an infinitesimally small point containing everything present in the universe now. Remember, the Big Bang is a theory that is consistent with our current scientific observation; this does not mean that it is an absolute truth; there are still many open mysteries associated with this theory.

So, as you can see there are speculations in our current theory as well, and therefore we should respect all the cosmological theories that have come before Big Bang Theory. In the past, we did not have all the scientific equipment that current scientists have to know what is going on in the universe; therefore, our ancestors were just coming up with theories based on the limited knowledge that they had about the universe.

This is the reason why we have absolutely no issue with the theory of evolution, while other religions have not been so receptive to it. In these modern times, as we are all so confident about our theories of how this universe was created, we generally disregard all previous mythical

have no direct explanation for it. Dark energy and dark matter have been included in the theory to deal with these inconsistencies. These are the rational explanations that scientists have put forward to explain things that they do not completely understand.

Traditionally, these cosmological theories were presented in the form of stories and Hindus were no exception to that. The only exception is that in Hinduism there are multiple theories of the creation of this universe as opposed to other cultures where there is just one; for example, Christianity has just one Genesis story, whereas Hinduism has multiple theories on multiple stories on the creation of this universe, and this is an indication that Hindus are open to changing their theories based on new evidence.

stories on the creation of this universe as superstition, and I think that that's a big mistake. The reason why we disregard all these stories is that we do not understand them correctly. If we look at them at their surface value, of course these stories won’t make any sense, but if you go deeper and you try to understand the significance of all the different characters in their stories, then these stories will start to make sense.

look at the story this way, then the whole story becomes logical and scientific. Scientists said that before

The most popular creation story of the Hindus mentions that initially there was nothing; the world was in a nonmanifest form underneath the ocean and Vishnu was sleeping on the ocean on Shesh Naag (a serpent). Vishnu then dreamt of creating this universe and a lotus sprouted out of his navel. After it had blossomed, Brahma came out of it; he then created this universe. If you're thinking that there is a real Vishnu in his human form sleeping on a serpent and a Brahma with four heads, then you have missed the point. In this story, Vishnu signifies the consciousness of this universe, while the ocean signifies the unmanifested universe. Shesh Naag (the serpent) represents that which will be left when there is no space, time, and matter, and in which the universal consciousness will rest when the world is in its unmanifested form. Brahma is the process through which the universe came into existence from its unmanifested Ifform.you

In the Hindu myth, Brahma comes out of a Lotus which is sprouting from Vishnu's navel and then creates the world; this is similar to the laws of this universe coming into existence in the Big Bang Theory when the world was created. Also, a lotus signifies birth in both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and therefore it is mentioned in the story as a metaphor for describing the birth of the

Auniverse.syou

the Big Bang there was no space, time, or matter; there was just a singularity where the entire unmanifested universe existed. This is very similar to the Hindu creation myth saying that in the beginning there was nothing and the world was beneath the ocean in an unmanifested form; the only difference is that instead of a singularity we have an ocean. The Big Bang Theory then says that something happened, and the singularity manifested into this universe. Hindu myth describes this something as the universal consciousness desiring to manifest the world. Again, this is not much different from the Big Bang.

can see, the barebones of the story we hear today about the creation of the universe, and what was told by our ancestors remain the same. It is just that in

Let me introduce you to the three logical concepts used to arrive at the cyclical universe theory of the Hindus: 1) Whatever has a beginning has an end; 2) Any material thing cannot stay in one form forever; it can only change from one form to the other; and 3) For something to exist forever, it has to go through cyclical changes.

If you agree with me on these key assumptions, then let us consider how it applies to the universe. We believe that

modern times, since we have a better understanding of the laws of nature, we have more details on the process itself. The underlying philosophy remains the same.

Considering the openness of Hinduism to easily include new information into their tradition, it is pretty clear that we have absolutely no issue in terms of including the Big Bang Theory into our tradition. It also blends well with our theory. There's only one issue with the Big Bang Theory: it is incomplete. It tells you how the universe came into existence, but it doesn't tell you what was there before the Big Bang, and it also doesn't tell you what is going to happen in the future. No one knows what is going to happen to the universe in the future, as we do not have enough scientific information to conclude anything about what was there before the Big Bang; we are not capable of really knowing what was there before the universe came into existence. Therefore, here we have to mostly use logic. This is where the concept of a cyclical universe and Hindu cosmology becomes quite relevant.

the universe has a beginning, the Big Bang; therefore, it must have an end. The universe is also changing all the time; it is right now expanding; however, this expansion cannot go on forever as this expansion also has a beginning. This expansion of the universe is just a change of the universe from one form to the other; the creation and expansion of the universe is part of another process that has got to be eternal, as if it was not eternal then, what was before that and what will be there after the process ends? The eternal process can only be done if it’s cyclical; therefore, the creation and destruction of this universe must also be cyclical, as you can see the entire concept of a cyclical universe makes a lot of sense and it is quite logical.

If I were to just use my speculation and logic to think about what to believe in and what is going to happen to the future of this universe, then I would agree with the Hindu concept. If the scientific evidence comes later showing that this is not the case, then there's no problem in Hindus also accepting that into their tradition. I think that it is true to say, that conflict often arises when people with transcendental knowledge attempt to share and explain matters pertaining to this world to scientists and mathematicians. When they do this without having peered through a telescope or a microscope, made sophisticated calculations, or haven’t used any other scientific tool to show scientists proof, they are bound to provoke the practicing scientists. This was evident in the case of Ramanujan the great mathematician whose

theorem was only proved through traditional mathematical proof years after his death. Likewise, when people who have believed solely in proof and data (for example scientists), blankly deny the existence or possibility of transcendental knowledge without going through vigorous discipline necessary to get a glimpse of such knowledge, they then appear naïve in the eyes of the people seeking transcendental knowledge. I also think that there can be a certain element of peace between both science and Hinduism; however, I think that science has quite a lot to catch up on.

different forms of utilitarianism. For example, Act Utilitarianism is to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. This is the type I explained above, where in all circumstances, one should aim to maximise happiness. Rule Utilitarianism is to follow general rules to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. A good example of this is the 10 commandments. Preference utilitarianism is to maximise people’s preferences, even if it doesn’t maximise happiness. In this essay I will argue for utilitarianism, to the extent that everyone should be Utilitarians in their everyday lives, and how it can be used Jeremyuniversally.Bentham lived from 1748 until 1832 as a philosopher, economist, jurist, and legal reformer, and was the founder of modern Utilitarianism. He specified in act, Quantitative Utilitarianism. He argued that we can measure pleasure and pain using the Felicific Calculus (also known as the Utility Calculus). This calculates total happiness by subtracting total pain from total happiness. The size of pleasures and pains are affected by the

Should we all be Utilitarians?

By Eden Halperin (L6S2)

Utilitarianism can be defined in three statements: 1) An act is right if it maximises what is good; 2) Happiness is the only good, which is pleasure and the absence of pain; and 3) No one’s happiness is more important than another’sThereare

intensity, duration, frequency, certainty, and minimising evil. Bentham created this calculus so that people can evaluate situations and choose the one with the highest positive number.

John Stuart Mill lived from 1806 to 1873, and was an English philosopher, economist, and exponent of Act Utilitarianism. He was prominent as a publicist in the reforming age of the 19th century and remains of lasting interest as a logician and an ethical theorist. Mill rejected Bentham’s views that pleasure and pains are equal. Instead, he argued that people who have experienced “higher pleasures” will always prefer them to “lower pleasures”. A higher pleasure is one of the thoughts, feelings, or imagination, whereas a lower pleasure would be one of the body or senses. As shown, Mill is a Qualitative Utilitarian, rather than a Quantitative Utilitarian like Bentham, who believes that it is better to be a “dissatisfied human, than a satisfied pig”.

Mill aims to prove the greatest happiness principle, and that happiness is the only value, using two stages. The first is that happiness is good. The only proof that an object is visible is that people see it; therefore, the sole evidence that something is desirable is that people desire it. No reason can be given why happiness is desirable except that everyone desires their own happiness. Each person takes their own happiness to be good, so adding each person’s happiness to others, general happiness of everyone is good in general.

The second stage is proving happiness is the only good. If I only desired happiness, happiness would be the only good; however, people desire many different things. Mill states that happiness has many ingredients, such as truth and freedom, which are desirable. By using Nozick’s experience machine argument, we can prove that people don’t want happiness because of the psychological effects that it has on us, but that we desire truth. Mill argues that knowing the truth doesn’t cause happiness, but people’s happiness consists in them knowing the truth. Mill says it is impossible not to desire pleasure, and since pleasure is happiness, we only desire happiness, therefore it is the only good.

Despite Mill and Bentham putting forward two different views, they both believe that happiness is the main goal and that everyone should strive to maximise it. Both argue convincing cases; however, there are several objections. Many of these objections originate from other types of Utilitarianism, which provides further evidence of the theory’s adaptability according to subjective Onepreferences.objection

to Utilitarianism is that it is difficult to calculate the Felicific Calculus. It seems impractically complicated to use every situation or decision that is not obvious. Also, to quantify and compare all the variables of pleasures and pain, and deciding between which is worth more, is almost impossible and entirely down to subjective opinion. Lastly, how could we know how

A second objection is the tyranny of the majority, and this can be explained in an example. A murder has happened, and an angry crowd want revenge by watching the perpetrator punished for their actions. If the police did not catch the murder, would it be right to frame an innocent man? The crowd would believe the murderer has been caught, even if it wasn’t really him, which would bring just as much happiness to if it was the real murderer or not. This happiness is likely to out weigh the man being framed. According to Utilitarianism, it would say that it is morally right to frame the innocent man, and it would be morally wrong not to.

intense a pleasure or pain is, since these are subjective emotions. This objection is strong and difficult to defend; however, Mill’s theory would suggest that higher and lower pleasures don’t require a calculus and just a matter of judgement, and so his theory still succeeds, even if Bentham’s fails. This objection was strong; however, Mill is able to defend Utilitarianism so far.

This objection can be responded to by Rule Utilitarianism, which focuses on the consequences of general rules, instead of specific actions, like Act Utilitarianism. Although in a specific instance like explained above, punishing the man leads to greater happiness, as a general rule it would lead to more unhappiness. For example, if we lived in a society where we knew innocent people were regularly framed, you would worry that it might happen to you. There would be no satisfaction in

everyone should be Utilitarians because Utilitarianism gives people the perfect guidance on how to approach life and its situations. It is not too detailed and complicated that it can only be used in certain circumstances; it is broad and can be adjusted accordingly. It also ensures human equality, so that people aren’t judged based on any values or properties. Finally, Utilitarianism has different forms, including Act, Rule and Preference, which people can decide which is the most convincing and correct, to use through situations in their life.

seeing criminals “brought to justice”, since there would be no way to know if they were guilty or not. Although the objection was strong and cannot be defended by act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism successfully defends Inutilitarianism.balance,

Kant describes several ways to determine whether a particular maxim passes the categorical imperative. If a maxim leads to a contradiction in conception, then we as rational humans have a perfect duty not to follow it. If a maxim leads to a contradiction, we have an imperfect duty to follow it. Furthermore, Kant says that acting for the sake of these duties – the good will – is the only thing that

In this essay, I shall argue that Kant’s deontological ethical theories are not strong methods of deciding if an action is morally right or wrong. I will present several arguments for my view and consider objections against it. However, firstly I would like to start by defining a few things and explaining Kantian ethics.

On why Kant is wrong

Deontological theories that claim we have moral duties to follow certain rules and that these rules are what determine whether a person’s actions are morally right or wrong. A categorical imperative is a rule you must follow irrespective of your desires and motives. Additionally, I would like to define “the good will” as follows: good will is the will for acting for the sake of duty, which according to Kant is the source of moral worth. Kant believes that we have a duty as rational agents to follow the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative says to only act according to maxims that can be applied universally, which is crucial as it is the first formulation of it.

By Kaylan Morzaria (L6S2)

In Kantian ethics, as we know, if I a maxim fails one of the two tests it cannot be passed. Kant would say that the maxim “it is perfectly fine to steal what is not yours” is a contradiction in conception. If the maxim was followed universally, then it would be morally okay for people to take things from others; however, if it was always acceptable to take things from others in this way, nobody would be able to claim ownership of anything because someone else would be entitled to take that thing from the “owner”. One cannot steal something from someone if they don’t own it in the first place. Kant would therefore say “it’s perfectly fine to steal what is not yours” leads to a contradiction in conception and that we have a perfect duty to never steal. In this case there is a sort of loophole in that can be used. Instead of following the maxim “it’s perfectly okay to steal”, I could instead claim my maxim is “it’s perfectly okay to steal if your name is Kaylan and

is good without qualification. My two arguments to support my case are that the categorical imperative can justify two contradictory courses of action and so does not provide clear guidance for actions, and secondly, because there are other valuable motivations for action besides the good will.

In response to this I am going to argue that there are sometimes cases where extra conditions added to the maxim are not irrelevant and considered cheating. For example, if we take a person who is starving and has no other way of getting food, they could perhaps act on the maxim that “it is okay to steal if their lives depend on it”. This differs from the previous example, which added irrelevant details such as the person's name and the date. Here, the individual is not dishonestly adding arbitrary conditions to his maxim to justify a selfish and immoral

Kant would argue in response that the extra conditions such as my name and which day of the week it is are irrelevant to this situation. Further, these conditions are not a part of my choice: I don’t choose which day of the week it is, and I don’t choose my name. Adding the extra conditions in this way is cheating because it ignores the true maxim you are acting on in favour of some false made up one. Kant would argue that the categorical imperative is concerned with the real maxim I am acting on and not some arbitrary one I just made up. If we apply the categorical imperative honestly to our true maxim, it would lead to a contradiction in conception. Kant would therefore argue that correct application of the categorical imperative always ends in a perfect duty never to steal.

it’s Wednesday”. This makes it so there is no contradiction in conception in making this rule universal. This shows how it is possible to avoid a perfect duty and justify any course of action by modifying the maxim you are acting on.

act. Moreover, the maxim "it's OK to steal if your life depends on it" is clearly applicable to Kant’s terms, as it does not lead to a contradiction in conception Private property would still make sense in a world where everyone followed this rule. It is possible to justify two completely contradictory actions using the categorical imperative, depending on which maxim is being used: “it is perfectly okay to steal” or “it is perfectly okay to steal if your life depends on it”. This illustrates how the categorical imperative does not provide clear and coherent rules for moral actions as it can justify two completely opposite courses of action. This maxim can be universalised without contradiction.

Another problem with Kant’s deontological ethical theory is that applying the theory too strictly leads to morally undesirable consequences. The theory itself is not concerned enough with the consequence of the action. For example, like stealing, Kant would say that “it’s perfectly okay to lie” leads to a contradiction in conception. This is because the purpose of a lie is to make the other person believe you are telling the truth, but if everyone always told lies then nobody would believe each other. Therefore, according to Kant, we have a perfect duty not to lie. However, there are situations where telling a lie seems to be the morally right action, such as white lies. If a friend asks whether you like her wedding dress, but you don’t, it is simply good manners to say “yes” even if it isn’t true. A more extreme example would be lying to save a life. If, for example, you

Kant may respond to this argument by saying that we still have a moral duty to follow the categorical imperative even when this leads to undesirable consequences such as unhappiness or even loss of life. Kant would argue that, although it may seem morally acceptable to tell a white lie in order to make someone happy, consequences such as happiness are not always good without qualification. For example, happiness derived from making others unhappy or from torturing isn’t good. In contrast, the good will itself is the only thing good without qualification. Therefore, we should always choose our actions in accordance with the categorical imperative. In opposition to this, Kant’s heavy focus on the good will being the only good without qualification doesn’t consider the moral value of other motivations to do good. According to Kant a son who spends time with his mother because he recognizes that it is his duty to do so if someone who is worthy of moral praise. In contrast, a son who spends time with his mother because he enjoys spending time with his mother is not worthy of moral praise; and in another example a bit more extreme, someone who visits their sick mother and spends time

let someone who is running from a crazed murderer hide in your garden or shed, the categorical imperative would require you tell the murderer that his victim is hiding in the shed or the garden when asked. Telling the truth in these situations appears to be the morally wrong thing to do, therefore showing that the categorical imperative is a flawed ethical theory.

with them because there is genuine love and care there, is not morally praiseworthy. However, someone who goes to visit their sick mother purely out of the sake of “duty” and not because they want to is deemed the morally correct person. Surely it is better and more morally right to spend time with your mother because you enjoy spending time with her, and similarly, surely it is better and more morally right to go spend time with your sick mother because you genuinely care about her then solely out of duty. These examples show the unfairness of Kant’s ethics in failing to consider other morally valuable motivations aside from “the good will”.

To conclude, Kant’s deontological ethical theory is a flawed ethical theory for the two reasons given. These are that the categorical imperative cannot provide clear guidance for moral action. The second is that the strictness of the theory leads to absurd outcomes due to it ignoring the moral significance of other motivations for doing an action. Therefore, Kantian ethics are flawed and is not a very convincing account of how to judge if an action is morally correct or incorrect.

As I explain below, the above principles allow us to talk of “projection” in theology so as to avoid the “Feuerbachian problem”. Without them, our theology is never able to rise above the level of anthropology. We are no longer talking about God, but “merely” about ourselves. In this way, one could say that I move away from an approach that is either/or (one or the other), to one of both/and (both together). This is what I call the strategy of opposing oppositions between God and the world. In truth, this article is simply an attempt to think

On the Opposing of Oppositions: “Projection” Revisited

Essential to my argument in this article are the following principles: first, a “non-competitive” relation between divine and human activity, and, second, a return to the classical doctrine of divine transcendence. The latter is a precondition for the former. In the teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Vedantic and Bhaktic Hinduism, Sikhism, and so forth, God is both ultimate and intimate. On this view, one should neither “set God apart” from creatures, so that transcendence becomes a divine economy of domination; nor should we collapse God into the creation (as has been the case in certain feminist approaches), becoming a kind of pantheism. Rather, the being of God is both transcendent and immanent. God is not “a” being among beings, but rather belongs to a different ontological plane.

By Dr Tromans

Throughout Western philosophy, there have been many suspicious, if not hostile, hermeneuts of religion – many attempts to “explain it all away”, so to speak but, famously, Paul Ricoeur offers an argument for the fundamental importance of the three great “masters of suspicion”: Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Laying the cornerstones of so-called “secular philosophy”, each of these thinkers developed a science of meaning, which claimed to lay bare the falsity of religion by systematically connecting its symbols with powerful, unconscious forces of which the believers themselves are ignorant. And, while Ricoeur himself virtually overlooks the fact, underlying these three attempts to explain religion on secular terms is the striking metaphor, which originates in Feuerbach, of “projection” (as George Eliot, Feuerbach’s translator, rendered the term Vergegenständlichung).

through, in a “concentrated form”, so to speak, the implications of the classical insight that the difference of God from the world is a difference which differs from any mere difference among creatures.

In Feuerbach’s best-known work, The Essence of Christianity, the overarching pattern is to say that the ultimate derivation of religious beliefs is an objectification of human attributes onto a perfect divine being (“God is the mirror of man”), but that the realisation of the

The Barth-Feuerbach Confrontation: God and the Dialectical Way

Supreme Being as humanity’s own being will culminate in the dissolution of belief in God. All theological statements are spontaneous projections of the best aspects of human nature, which “man” must internalise and realise. “Man”, then, must get rid of God. God, for “Man”, must no longer be God, but “Man”. “Homo homini Deus est [Man is God for Man]” (Feuerbach, 1957, p. 159).

Broadly an empiricist, Feuerbach holds that “God” cannot signify anything “supernatural”, in the sense of an object existing outside empirical reality. He seems to think that this is what theologians understand God to be when they attribute human predicates to the non-empirical divine subject. The word “God”, Feuerbach sees, cannot refer to a metaphysical entity, a thing of some particular kind, but he does not see how God can be anything else. The divine subject is thus found to be human. Theology is nothing but anthropology. We say that “God is love”, but actually “love is divine”; for “God is wise”, we must say “wisdom is divine”. The attributes projected onto God are those human attributes we take to be divine, because we regard them as being beyond ourselves and higher than ourselves, as worthy of our devotion and worship. “The fact is not that a quality is divine because God has it, but that God has it because it is in itself divine” (ibid., p. 21).

Religion, rather than acknowledge the greatness and dignity of “Man”, takes these good human properties and (mistakenly) attributes them to an alien being having independent existence outside the human, something set over-against the world. It is thus a cause of human self-

alienation. For what one casts into the heavens, one takes away from the human person at the same time: “To enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all, man must be nothing” (ibid., p. 26). According to Feuerbach, religion must always present the question of God in opposition to the question of the human: “Religion is the disuniting of man from himself; he sets God before him as the antithesis of himself. God is not what man is man is not what God is” (ibid., p. 33). In this disjunction, God is transformed into the perfected, inauthentic, and (in the fullest sense) fictitious essence of the human person, transplanted into the beyond and leaving the human being corrupt, impoverished, and “incapable of good”, in direct proportion to God’s own enrichment.

Feuerbach’s knowledge and understanding of theology is not only exiguous, but also twisted by his characteristically modern preconceptions. A number of contemporary philosophical theologians have attempted to elaborate the utterly unique philosophic-linguistic apparatus indispensable to the proper articulation of (what one might call) a “non contrastive” (or non competitive) relation of creatures to creator. Now, at this point, it seems we get somewhere near the heart of the problem. For what has never fully been discovered in the Feuerbachian tradition is the “ontological difference”. Feuerbach’s religious origins in Lutheranism are crucial. Here, everything comes down to the theological disjunction: either God or the human but not both.

Denys Turner suggests that the “opposition between Barthian theism and Feuerbachian atheism” resembles “that between an object and its image in a mirror: all the connections of thought are identical, but their relations are, as it were, horizontally reversed from left to right” (Turner, 2004, p. 230). The revelationism of Barth simply reverses the direction of Feuerbach’s humanism, leaving the Feuerbachian account of the competition between God and creatures intact. “God is in heaven, thou art on earth”, as Barth famously said. The Barth-Feuerbach confrontation leads to a “bad dialectic”: a predicament that forces us to choose between the equally bad alternatives of “pure projection” and “positivism of revelation”. We are presented with a kind of Kierkegaardian either/or: either God or the human but not both. My argument here is that theology needs to reject the false opposition between God and the human, and to recognise that both Barth and Feuerbach are in some sense correct: the first emphasises that language comes from God; the second emphasises that language is of human Theologyorigin.does not have its own specialist subject matter, so it must always speak about God by speaking about something else, attempting to say something about everything in relation to God. In fact, if theology did have a proper subject matter of its own, it would be idolatrous, for theology concerns not a partial sphere of reality, but the ground of all beings, and all in relation to this source. Theology is a science which attempts to speak truthfully

Projection and the Principle of Non-Competition

of God. However, since God is not any kind of thing, and is not immediately available in our experience, theology must also speak about the creation in this attempt, using what is natural to creatures – being, desire, society, senses, language, culture, and so forth – all the while assuming that these creaturely sources also extend to that which exceeds the natural namely, the “supernatural”. We can never “see” God, from which it follows that any notion of divinity that can communicate anything must use ‘natural’ materials: language, culture, desire, and so on. The alternative between projection and revelation, “invention” and “discovery”, is never just a straightforward dichotomy. Even revelation must involve the process of human experience and understanding; otherwise, it will have no meaning, as Feuerbach understood.

In commenting on Aquinas’s observation that the word “god” is not a “proper name”, Nicholas Lash helpfully reminds us that, for most of our history, the word “God” (with or without a capital G) was the common name for whatever people worshipped: whatever it was, in practice, that people did, in fact, worship as of ultimate reality and significance in their lives (Lash, 1986, p. 162 163). On this account, the word “god” works rather like the word “treasure”. A treasure is what someone treasures, what he or she holds in high regard. There is no class of objects known as “treasures”. The question,

This last line of reflection leads us on to the connection made by feminists between human values and the concept of God. For, if something like Feuerbach’s account is accepted, the following question needs to be considered: If “God” represents those qualities “we” take to be of ultimate value and significance, whose values does the symbol of God reflect? The notion of God has come under heavy criticism by feminist thinkers. In theorising about religion, many have adopted

then, says Lash, is not: “What can we predicate of ‘God’?” But, rather, “What do we take to be ‘divine’ attributes?” To ask what attributes we take to be divine is to ask what we “take to be of ultimate value and significance”; it is to ask where we ultimately put our trust, on what our “hearts and hopes are set” (ibid., p. 163).

Something is divine if someone worships it. This argument should remind us of Feuerbach. According to Feuerbach, the attributes of deity reflect the deepest longings of the human heart. In Feuerbach’s own words, “The fact is not that a quality is divine because God has it, but that God has it because it is in itself divine” (Feuerbach, 1957, p. 21). The word “god”, then, is concerned, it seems, not so much with entities or individuals, but rather with events and activities, occurrences and patterns of behaviour not so much with objects or things, but rather with the deepest and best of human desires, which is to say, those things we take to be “divine”.

Feuerbach’s projectionist theory, which understands theology to be, at bottom, anthropology. Religious beliefs are, in fact, the means by which our deepest desires are objectified. Feuerbach’s projectionist theory represents an attempt to explain theological predication in terms of the “realised wishes of the heart” (ibid., p. 140). “God” man’s projection of himself can then mirror back to the masculine subject a reflection of his own masculine desires. Hence, for men, God is a form of self-completion.

What, more precisely, is “projection”? I suggest five answers, or uses, for the term. First, projection is a term of opprobrium designating the illusory objectification of human desire beyond the world (Projection 1). Projection 1 can be found in both Barth and Feuerbach. Second, projection is a feminist invective used against the privileging of male desires/values in traditional representations of the divine “attributes” (Projection 2). Feminists argue that traditional male theology is an ideological construct. Theology is anthropology; God is the “mirror of man” (as Feuerbach says). Third, projection is the conscious creation of a “divine horizon” which furthers the aim of the gendered becoming of women (Projection 3). Grace Jantzen’s positive interpretation of projection from a feminist perspective is an example of Projection 3. In her still important work, Becoming Divine (1998), Jantzen built upon the work of Feuerbach (and Nietzsche) for the creation of a new feminine imaginary. The loss of God’s existence – as an event to be celebrated! – opens the way for a deliberate projection of

answers or uses share similar premises. First, in every case, the use of the term indicates a certain anthropomorphism when we speak of God. Our language about God is language about ourselves. It begins with what is natural to us, with our experience. Second, projection entails the expression of human aspiration. Theology is a form of anthropology. As such, it reflects the deepest desires of creatures. Third, projection is the action of throwing out or ahead. As the expression of human desire, our language about God helps to “draw us forwards”. Finally, the word carries a creative, active sense. Projection is a form of human making, and thus involves (either consciously or unconsciously) the exercise of the imagination.

Theseexplain.five

the divine, not as a form a male self-completion, but as a necessary means to the flourishing of women. Fourth, projection is the invention of new metaphors for God, for the sake of certain pragmatist goals (Projection 4). Here, theological predications are no longer predications about God, but predications about our own being. Consequently, we are permitted to invent theological metaphors on the basis of their pragmatic effects (McFague, 1987). Finally, projection is a term innocent of any pernicious connotations, indicating merely the naming of God from human desire, enabled in us by the divine reality (Projection 5). My own positive reading of projection is a version of projection 5 as I shall now

My own positive version of projection (Projection 5) challenges our propensity (learned from Barth and Feuerbach) to associate projection with falsehood. In this respect, my argument is in agreement with feminism’s positive interpretation of projection (Projection 3).

What is the ontological status of the divine in each of these answers? In Projection 1, projection is regarded as an error or illusion. Here, projection and truth (or projection and discovery) act as opposites. Projection 1 supposes that once a theological predication is drawn from the human being, it is rendered false. Because it is human, it cannot be genuinely theological. All the modern proponents of projectionism Feuerbach’s objectification theory, Marx’s opium theory, and Freud’s illusion theory – understood it as entailing an error or delusion. Theology is anthropology and nothing more. It is my suspicion that we are being presented with a pseudo dichotomy here simplistic either/ors like this are rarely helpful and one of my aims in this article is to call certain taken-forgranted “truths” into question.

Projection 3, Projection 4, and Projection 5 overlap in complex ways. The constructivism of Projection 3 shares a similar form to the pragmatism of Projection 4. In both cases, projection is driven by human desire and guided by certain practical motivations. In Projection 3, the issue of the actual existence of God is largely put aside. For, if we suspend questions of metaphysical truth so the argument goes – we are free to focus on the adequacy of our projections for nourishing the becoming of women.

In Projection 5, projection is driven by human desire and enabled in us by the power of God. Here, by God is meant the beginning and end of all things, both “in us” and “above us”. Moreover, in this case, our speaking about God can be rightly regarded as a speaking about God, and not merely a speaking about human beings. Oddly, what I mean by projection (Projection 5) is very much what Barth and Feuerbach mean by projection (Projection 1): the naming of God from human desire. The difference between Projection 1 and my own positive reading of projection (Projection 5) depends entirely on whether the divine and the human are considered as

Projection 4 postulates a transcendent divine reality of which we can speak only metaphorically. On this view, our language refers properly only to our existence, not the existence of God. Since theologians are, “as it were, painting a picture”, every theological predication has the same truth-value. And since “theology is mostly fiction” (McFague, 1987, p. ix; her emphasis), it should be free to say, concerning God, more or less whatever takes its fancy. Whereas Projection 4 posits a transcendent divine reality of which we can speak only metaphorically, Projection 3 brushes aside the issue of God’s actual existence, suggesting as in the case of Jantzen that it would be better to overcome the binary between realism and non-realism altogether. Ultimately, however, Projection 4 shares a similar form to Projection 3. In both cases, projection is the conscious creation of a divine role model, for the sake of certain pragmatist goals.

Conclusion

mutually inclusive, or mutually exclusive. Under the “rule” of non competition, there is no dichotomy between the divine and the human. Our human names can be names of God Projection.

5 is quite similar to Projection 3 and Projection 4, insofar as projection is driven by human desire, the desire for the Good. In each case, moreover, our God talk (as a form of human making) helps to “draw us forwards”. In Projection 5, however, projection is also “enabled in us by the divine reality”. Is this not a case of wanting to have one’s cake and eating it too? How can one affirm that language comes from God without denying the proposed projection? The principle of noncompetition guarantees that God’s being is simultaneously transcendent and immanent. God is not simply the end of our desire, but is our desire.

Our speaking of God is, inevitably, a speaking about ourselves. Theology is a form of anthropology, as Feuerbach reminds us. Yet this is what makes God-talk so difficult and so suspect in the eyes of very many thinkers. Theology, it is claimed, is a projection and nothing more. In response to this dilemma, one gets the doubtful piety of a Barthian Offenbarungspositivismus, in which the “soleness” of revelation bespeaks the delivery of non-worldly truth to human beings as a bolt from the blue. The result is “positivism”, the “purely passive

78 occurrence and diffusion of the self-revelation of Deity in man” (Przywara, 1935, p. 23). As suggested above, Barth repeats (rather than critiques) Feuerbach’s ontotheology, leaving the basic dialectical framework of the opposition between God and humanity intact. However, Barth’s response to Feuerbach has an interesting element within it. To be a creature, one might say, means to exist in a relation “given hitherward from God”, and not “constructed thitherward” from creatures (ibid, p. 95). Theological discourse is grounded in worship, in the response to a gift that is freely given. However, the “givenness” of theology does not absolve it from the human act of reception. This way of putting things leads us in the direction of a “synergic drama between God and humanity” (Milbank, 2011, p. 151), rather than to the questionable piety of a revelatory actualism, wherein the (utterly depraved) creature is but the passive receptor of God’s revelation “from above”

In its emphasis on perfection terms, or those attributes humans “consider the best of themselves” (Jantzen, 1998, p. 90), my argument has important similarities to Jantzen’s positive interpretation of projection (Projection 3). Theology and anthropology always walk hand in hand, as Feuerbach recognised. However, if theology is anthropology, correlatively, anthropology is theology. Put concisely: theology is both “projection” and “discovery”. I am speaking here of God’s total ontological transcendence – the assertion of which allows God to be simultaneously “other” than creation (superior summo

on the ways creatures use perfection terms can remind us of that to which we strive as finite beings. For how could one ever aspire to create a more just society if “just”, in its normal use, functioned as a merely descriptive predicate? Being human, which is not just a matter of being but also of becoming, is to be orientated beyond the boundaries of what we now know, to be open to endless transformation. This natural desire for the Good is a desire for divinity. Or, as Jantzen puts it, “The attributes valorized as divine are those humans consider the best of themselves, which they partly have and partly long to become” (ibid., p. 90). Since our language, in this domain, will always fail to determine its object directly, that language will be more fitting as a vehicle for seeking a truth which it cannot exhaustively grasp. Yet what saves such a stance of humility from the spectre of hopelessness which haunts much current discourse regarding any such quest for truth, is the belief that the universe occurs in and through God, and that those enquiring have their origins in eternity, able to seek

79 meo) or “above” it, and yet also “in” the world, within its very being, revealing himself as closer to each of us than we are to ourselves (interior intimo meo). God is the non aliud, as Nicholas of Cusa puts it, precisely “not other”. The “logic” of “creation” is one of no contrast. In a word, God’s true transcendence God’s non-objective “objectivity”, as it were transcends even the traditional “Western” opposition between the transcendent and the Reflectingimmanent.

In short, a non-competitive relation between God and creatures is indispensable to an articulation of theology as a theandric or divine human activity. Using the term projection in a way that is, perhaps, less than common has the advantage of allowing a dialogue with feminism to go ahead. We can dispense with Projection 1. If the theological teachings of the great world religions are correct, then God’s light is seen everywhere, and the mark of the divine is impressed upon our nature. The important theological question, then, is: Where, why, and how does sexual/gender difference make a difference?

vestiges of the Wisdom of God, the “Woman clothed with the sun” (Revelation 21:1), so that the “beginning” of all things becomes at once the “end” of creatures whose “dwelling is in the heavens”.

Our speaking about God begins with what is natural to us, with our experience. There is little original or new about this suggestion, to be sure; but what has been missed in the past has been attention to the different ways in which human beings experience the divine. Feminism, I have attempted to show, makes Feuerbach relevant. The problem is not with projection, but with the exclusion of the projections and goals of all marginalised and repressed groups: women, transgender people, blacks, disabled people, lesbians and gay men, and many others. From this point of view, theology is regarded as a discourse intended to work against what is held to be oppression. The idea that religious language is

derived from human projection must be engaged in feminist thought, where Feuerbach has been read creatively and “against the grain”. Religion, as Feuerbach said, is too important a subject to leave to the theologians. For feminist theologians, if it is men to whom the subject of religion is left, it is the attributes or perfections of “man” that religious communities will take to be “divine”. Feuerbach’s radical critique of theology has been understandably embraced by feminist thinkers as a means of reclaiming the significance of God for women.

Feuerbach, L., 1957, The Essence of Christianity. New York: Harper Torch Books. Jantzen, G., 1998, Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion. Manchester University Press. Lash, N. 1986, Theology on the Way to Emmaus. London: SCM Press

Przywara, E., 1935, Polarity: A German Catholic’s Interpretation of Religion, trans. A. C. Bouquet. London: Oxford University Press.

McFague, S., 1987, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological Nuclear Age. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Milbank, J., 2011, “On ‘Thomistic Kabbalah’”, Modern Theology 27/1.

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On the Opposing of Oppositions: “Projection” Revisited. By Dr Tromans

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On why Kant is wrong. By Kaylan Morzaria

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