LOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS (entire book)

Philosophy and Global Affairs (Philosophy Documentation Center), 2022

Evolution of Scriptures, Formation of Canons: The Buddhist Case. Indian and Tibetan Studies Series 13. Hamburg, 2022

A Paradigmatic Analysis of Authority with Pentecostalism, 1995

This is an Annex to my 1995 Ph.D. dissertation. It is largely self-explanatory. It comes after 20 years of theological study and pastoring. In review there is not much I would change today, except I would add something on soteriology as I have abandoned the substitutionary atonement of my youth where God has an anger management issue. And I would add something on the subject of heaven/hell and the human bent for fiery retribution. Annex D Personal Reflection Absolute objectivity is the "Holy Grail" of the research world. Yet the psychology of knowledge has demonstrated the fallacy of such a quest. Sociologist

Open Press TiU, 2021

This handbook is an open educational and open-ended resource for whomever is interested in philosophical thinking. Each of the chapters is open in the sense of freely available and accessible to everyone. You may be a student who wants to get some background on a specific philosophical sub-discipline. You may be a teacher who wants to assign introductory reading for students. You may be a layperson interested in reading an overview of philosophical thinking, written in a clear and accessible way. Each of you: feel free to browse, download, print and use the collection as you see fit. We believe that open access is the future and that academic philosophy as presented in this volume is of potential worth to many of you out there. In this open-ended handbook you find two kinds of chapters. First, there are chapters that provide a broad introduction into a specific philosophical sub-discipline, such as political philosophy, epistemology or metaphysics. As this collection covers most of the sub-disciplines currently taught at Western philosophy departments, you can legitimately claim that you have been introduced to Western ‘philosophy’ as a whole, understood rather canonically, after having read the entire handbook. Second, there are chapters that introduce slightly more specific topics or philosophical approaches. You will always be able to know the focus of each chapter by looking at its subtitle. The open-ended nature of this handbook, means that new chapters will be added in the future. We hope that philosophy will change and grow with time to become more diverse and inclusive and that this handbook will do so as well. We think of philosophy and its evolution as an organic process, as a tree that branches out in many different directions, adding new directions as it goes along. In this handbook, we organize the wide variety of topics that philosophers discuss into four main branches, which represent important subject areas that philosophers have covered.First, there is ‘thinking about societies’, which includes chapters that cover philosophical approaches to matters of obvious societal relevance. How should we organize our societies? How should we treat others? What exactly are cultures and what role do they play in a globalized world? This branch covers philosophical discussions, theories and views on what binds and divides us as societies and communities.Second, there is ‘thinking about humans’, which includes chapters that zoom in on people, the members that make up those societies. Is there something like human nature and what does that look like? How do human minds and bodies relate to each other? Are we free or not? This branch covers what one could broadly call ‘philosophical anthropology’: philosophical discussions, theories and views on what it means to be human.Third, there is ‘thinking about thinking’, which include chapters that focus on the ways in which humans can relate to the outside world. How can we come to know things about that world? What is truth exactly? What are the values and limits of scientific understanding? How do we reason and argue and how do we do so properly? This branch covers philosophical discussions, theories and views on how humans come to believe things about themselves and the worlds they live in. Fourth, there is ‘thinking about reality’, which includes chapters that investigate those worlds in more direct ways. Do things have an essence? What do we mean when we say that some things exist and others do not? How can language help us access the reality out there? This branch covers philosophical discussions, theories and views on the world we, as humans, find ourselves in. If you like what is on offer in this handbook, you can let us know on the website https://www.openpresstiu.org/ and register for updates, for example when new chapters are added. Consider each chapter as a first and stand-alone introduction to the exciting and thought-provoking world of a specific branch of philosophy. The same will be true of future chapters. Like the chapters already included, these future chapters will be accessible for readers without any specific prior knowledge. All you need is curiosity, an open mind and a willingness to think twice.

New rationalism -spiritual rationalism. 2-nd half Here are presented 4 last chapters of the book. First Russian edition of the book was in 1992 in Kiev ( "Неорционализм"). 2-nd Russian edition was in 2012 in Moscow ("Неорционализм - духовный рационализм"). English edition of first half of the book was in 2019 (New Rationalism - Spiritual Rationalism. Bulletin de l'Académie Internationale CONCORDE). Classical rationalism, which lies at the basis of the unusually rapid progress of Western society in the recent past, both in the field of science and technology and in the social sphere, faced with difficulties in explaining certain paradoxes in modern physics, entered a phase of crisis. This led to today's global crisis of the most Western society and humanity as a whole. Attempts to correct classical rationalism so far have been unsuccessful. In this book, the author proposes his own concept of revised classical rationalism, which he calls “New rationalism” or “Spiritual rationalism”. The book contains new theories of knowledge, determinism, freedom, ethics and rational theory of the spirit. In the last part of the book, there is an analysis of the causes of the crisis of classical rationalism, the reasons for the failure of previous attempts to correct it and an analysis of the position of philosophers who accepted the impossibility of correcting it

In Buddhism and in Kant, we can see one similar demand for an incompatible but harmonious and mutual dependence between the constraints of natural causality and the spiritual liberation from those constraints: sa s!ra ! v.s. nirv! a " in the former; nature v.s. freedom in the latter. Kant has a firm position that in order to answer that demand, transcendental epistemology is needed, and this position is so difficult for later thinkers to masticate that people still have to "defend" Kant. In Buddhism, there are enduring debates whether epistemology can be a proper way to explain this almost paradoxical dependence, and the debates have divided Mah!y!na Buddhism into Madhyamaka and Yog!c!ra, and then M!dhyamaka into Sv!tantrika and Prasa"gika.

Spirituality and the Good Life: Philosophical Approaches, 2017

The role of philosophy Philosophy has long been a contested subject, and there have been, and still are, many different and often conflicting conceptions of its proper scope and aims. But if we go back to how its founding father, Socrates, conceived of the philosophical enterprise, we find one element which has continued to be central to much if not all subsequent philosophizing, that of critical scrutiny or examination (in Greek exetasis), encapsulated in Socrates' famous pronouncement at his trial, 'the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being'. 1 For Socrates, such 'examination' meant, in the first place, a careful scrutiny of the meaning of our concepts: What do we really mean by justice, or piety, or courage? Can we define these notions?; Do we really understand the criteria for their use? … and so on. And of course this basic feature of philosophizing remains central today. Philosophers continue to be preoccupied with language, and with the correct analysis of concepts, both in general use and in the specialised disciplines; indeed, for a fair time during the latter part of the twentieth century, it was held that the analysis of language was the only proper object of philosophy. 2 Yet alongside what may be called this technical or professional concern with meaning and language, philosophers have very often also had a commitment to 'examination' in a deeper sense: they have felt a powerful drive to stand back from our day-today preoccupations and concerns and to inquire into the overall direction and purpose of our lives, and the significance of our human existence. This deeper project of examination also has its roots in Socrates, who was patently committed, like many of his successors in the Classical and Hellenistic philosophical worlds, to the search for a life of integrity and virtue. The wording of Socrates' famous pronouncement at his trial should remind us that philosophical 'examination', for Socrates, involved not just a series of abstract conceptual puzzles but a critical scrutiny of the entire character of one's life (bios). What is more, as is made clear in the Apology, Socrates' philosophical vocation was linked with an unwavering allegiance to the dictates of his conscience, the 'divine sign', as he put it, whose inner voice demanded his obedience. 3 Socrates reproaches his Athenian accusers for being very concerned with things like money and reputation, but not having the faintest concern for the improvement of the most precious part of themselvestheir souls. 4 And he goes on to explain that the very activity for which he was famousengaging his interlocutors in philosophical dialoguewas explicitly designed to 'persuade young and old to make their first and chief concern not for their bodies or their wealth, but for the best possible condition of their souls.' 5

Journal For the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 2011

Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2015

The Heythrop Journal, 2009