Craig R. Ross
Current research interests:
1) The development of a “premodern-postmodern” philosophical theology drawing upon Eastern and Western patristic and 12th century scholastic traditions, and contemporary post-analytic and continental thought
2) The development of a philosophical theology of language incorporating Eastern and Western neoplatonist symbolic apophaticism and neo-peripatetic analogous traditions (via post-Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian thinkers) as a framework for assessing univocity and equivocity. This was aided by a Farmington Institute Scholarship at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford
3) The development of a Christian anthropological critique of anthropocentricism, radical geocentrism and transhumanist advocates of A.I (inspired by representatives of post-Husserlian & Heideggerian traditions such as Bernard Stiegler and Johannes Hoff).
4) The development of an interdisciplinary liberal arts pedagogy and teleology for secondary school teaching, with a particular interest in a “new-Trivium and Quadrivium” and understanding the analogous roles of grammatical and arithmetical reasoning (in noetic, discursive and calculative forms) in the formal and material sciences, humanities and arts. This was aided by a Farmington Institute scholarship at Sommerville College, Oxford.
5) The reassessment of my earlier reception study of ancient scepticism in early modern philosophy (especially in the writings of Pierre Bayle) as a (naïve) equivocal linguistic, logical and ontological critique of the univocal presuppositions of early modern philosophical traditions
6) The development of rhetorical and aesthetic pedagogies (especially via Old Master paintings) to enhance philosophical and theological literacy for secondary students and the general public (via traditional and new media).
Supervisors: John Carroll, Johannes Hoff, Richard Conrad, and Phillipa Byrne
1) The development of a “premodern-postmodern” philosophical theology drawing upon Eastern and Western patristic and 12th century scholastic traditions, and contemporary post-analytic and continental thought
2) The development of a philosophical theology of language incorporating Eastern and Western neoplatonist symbolic apophaticism and neo-peripatetic analogous traditions (via post-Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian thinkers) as a framework for assessing univocity and equivocity. This was aided by a Farmington Institute Scholarship at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford
3) The development of a Christian anthropological critique of anthropocentricism, radical geocentrism and transhumanist advocates of A.I (inspired by representatives of post-Husserlian & Heideggerian traditions such as Bernard Stiegler and Johannes Hoff).
4) The development of an interdisciplinary liberal arts pedagogy and teleology for secondary school teaching, with a particular interest in a “new-Trivium and Quadrivium” and understanding the analogous roles of grammatical and arithmetical reasoning (in noetic, discursive and calculative forms) in the formal and material sciences, humanities and arts. This was aided by a Farmington Institute scholarship at Sommerville College, Oxford.
5) The reassessment of my earlier reception study of ancient scepticism in early modern philosophy (especially in the writings of Pierre Bayle) as a (naïve) equivocal linguistic, logical and ontological critique of the univocal presuppositions of early modern philosophical traditions
6) The development of rhetorical and aesthetic pedagogies (especially via Old Master paintings) to enhance philosophical and theological literacy for secondary students and the general public (via traditional and new media).
Supervisors: John Carroll, Johannes Hoff, Richard Conrad, and Phillipa Byrne
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Papers by Craig R. Ross
The paper counterpoints the above with examples of medieval, modern and postmodern theology and philosophy that deny accounts of analogy (or its analogues) for univocal and equivocal approaches. Examples include early Wittgenstein, Rudolph Carnap, Jean Francois Lyotard, Duns Scotus, Suarez, Michel de Montaigne, Descartes, Richard Swinburne and Richard Dawkins. The paper's overall thesis illustrates how analogous language enabled the Wittgensteinian Thomists to safely navigate between the dangers of the Scylla and Charydis of exclusively univocal and equivocal accounts of language and being and thus how to avoid, with reference to the most notorious 20th Century examples, the errors of philosophical "positivism" and "postmodernism" and their theological cousins. A brief overview of the main critiques of analogy by classical and contemporary advocates of univocal approaches to religious language are provided. Replies to these critiques are briefly outlined and evaluated in turn.
The paper concludes with an evaluation of the Wittgensteinian Thomist synthesis. Although the latter provide insightful critiques of alternative theological and philosophical traditions, and furthermore provide a stimulating and fruitful linguistic training, its "linguistic turn" privileging of semantic analogy over metaphysical analogy (the so called "analogy of being") is regarded as deficient for two reasons. Firstly, it is exegetically deficient as a plausible interpretation of Aquinas. Both semantic and metaphysical accounts of analogy are clearly manifest in his writings and furthermore analogous language is derivative upon an analogy of being; an inversion of the Wittgensteinian Thomist view. Secondly, whilst some forms of linguistic and grammatical analysis could be regarded as necessary conditions for a robust contemporary theology, they are clearly not sufficient. The paper concludes that alternative approaches, like that of the Existential Thomist W. Norris Clarke, provide a less violent interpretation of the various uses of analogy in Aquinas's writings. Furthermore, whilst still appropriating the best insights of the "linguistic turn", neo-Existential Thomist approaches, like Clarke's and later representatives of this tradition, can provide more ample resources for theologising the contemporary "metaphysical turn" in analytic philosophy and the post-Heideggerian "remembrance of being".
The paper counterpoints the above with examples of medieval, modern and postmodern theology and philosophy that deny accounts of analogy (or its analogues) for univocal and equivocal approaches. Examples include early Wittgenstein, Rudolph Carnap, Jean Francois Lyotard, Duns Scotus, Suarez, Michel de Montaigne, Descartes, Richard Swinburne and Richard Dawkins. The paper's overall thesis illustrates how analogous language enabled the Wittgensteinian Thomists to safely navigate between the dangers of the Scylla and Charydis of exclusively univocal and equivocal accounts of language and being and thus how to avoid, with reference to the most notorious 20th Century examples, the errors of philosophical "positivism" and "postmodernism" and their theological cousins. A brief overview of the main critiques of analogy by classical and contemporary advocates of univocal approaches to religious language are provided. Replies to these critiques are briefly outlined and evaluated in turn.
The paper concludes with an evaluation of the Wittgensteinian Thomist synthesis. Although the latter provide insightful critiques of alternative theological and philosophical traditions, and furthermore provide a stimulating and fruitful linguistic training, its "linguistic turn" privileging of semantic analogy over metaphysical analogy (the so called "analogy of being") is regarded as deficient for two reasons. Firstly, it is exegetically deficient as a plausible interpretation of Aquinas. Both semantic and metaphysical accounts of analogy are clearly manifest in his writings and furthermore analogous language is derivative upon an analogy of being; an inversion of the Wittgensteinian Thomist view. Secondly, whilst some forms of linguistic and grammatical analysis could be regarded as necessary conditions for a robust contemporary theology, they are clearly not sufficient. The paper concludes that alternative approaches, like that of the Existential Thomist W. Norris Clarke, provide a less violent interpretation of the various uses of analogy in Aquinas's writings. Furthermore, whilst still appropriating the best insights of the "linguistic turn", neo-Existential Thomist approaches, like Clarke's and later representatives of this tradition, can provide more ample resources for theologising the contemporary "metaphysical turn" in analytic philosophy and the post-Heideggerian "remembrance of being".