Pantheists commonly wish to hold three distinct theses: that God is identical with the universe as a whole, that God is to be found altogether in each part of the universe, and that some features of the universe are more divine than others. However, it might well be complained that these constitute an incompatible set of requirements on any theory. After outlining the three positions in question, this paper considers how successfully the four main species of pantheist metaphysic — the (...) substance monist model, the microcosmic-macrocosmic model, the universal-expressivist model, and the Absolute Idealist model — are able to respond to the problem of their compatibility. (shrink)

This article argues that theism entails a species of pantheism on the grounds that there is simply no discernible difference between the God's knowledge of the world and the world that God knows. The case against this thesis begins with the traditional theory of distinctions. But since God is necessarily omniscient there is not even the possibility that these might be considered apart and thus distinguished in that way. But neither is it possible to do this by means of Leibnitz's (...) law, that is, by finding some feature possessed by the one but not the other. Three potential areas of difference are considered but rejected, first, that knowledge unlike the world is representational, and second, that knowledge unlike the world is phenomenal – there is something that it is like to have. Both of these features, though able to distinguish ordinary knowledge from its objects, cease to provide the difference we require when extended to the case of divine knowledge. A final area of potential difference lies in the transcendent nature of God over the world, especially with respect to time, finitude and possibility. But this, in the end, is found no more able to distinguish God's knowledge from its object than the previous two suggestions. (shrink)

Among the traditional list of divine attributes it is commonly said that God is a person. Making a distinction between being a person and having a personality, it is argued that God cannot be a person because it makes no sense to think of him as having a personality. Problems with the notion of divine personality are considered stemming from God’s perfection, his infinity, his omniscience, his rationality, his morally good nature and his gender neutrality. Three generic types of response (...) to these problems are considered, but each is found wanting. It is concluded that the problems with personality apply as much to the human case as to the divine. (shrink)

Does God knows what it is like to be me? Scripture and religious tradition seem quite clear that God knows everything about us, even the deepest secrets of our hearts. There is nothing hidden from him. And this is an answer backed up by a more philosophical theology; for among the traditional list of divine attributes is omniscience: knowing everything that there is to know. The idea, moreover, seems essential to the ordinary religious consciousness, for how can God really help (...) us, or fairly judge us, unless he knows exactly what things are like for us? (shrink)

Among the traditional list of divine attributes it is commonly said that God is a person. Making a distinction between being a person and having a personality, it is argued that God cannot be a person because it makes no sense to think of him as having a personality. Problems with the notion of divine personality are considered stemming from God’s perfection, his infinity, his omniscience, his rationality, his morally good nature and his gender neutrality. Three generic types of response (...) to these problems are considered, but each is found wanting. It is concluded that the problems with personality apply as much to the human case as to the divine. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBritish Idealism was the philosophical school which dominated during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Using the ideas of Bernard Bosanquet, John Caird and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison as an illustration, this paper looks at some of the ways in which the British Idealists sought to develop new and more subtle conceptions of the transcendent, able to resist the corrosive effects of late nineteenth-century critical and naturalistic thinking. The paper concludes by looking at three fields – philosophy, theology and literature (...) – in which it is possible to discern the ongoing influence into the first half of the twentieth century of their efforts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Leaving to one side McTaggart’s notorious proof of the unreality of time, this paper examines his positive account of the way in which reality, thus judged to be timeless, misleadingly appears to us as temporal, something which has been almost entirely ignored in the literature. The paper first examines his complex motivations in taking up the issue. It next considers an early unsuccessful approach, before expounding the details of its complex replacement as set out in McTaggart’s magnum opus, The (...) Nature of Existence. The paper concludes with a consideration of how such endeavours in constructive metaphysics ought best to be evaluated. (shrink)

Does God knows what it is like to be me? Scripture and religious tradition seem quite clear that God knows everything about us, even the deepest secrets of our hearts. There is nothing hidden from him. And this is an answer backed up by a more philosophical theology; for among the traditional list of divine attributes is omniscience: knowing everything that there is to know. The idea, moreover, seems essential to the ordinary religious consciousness, for how can God really help (...) us, or fairly judge us, unless he knows exactly what things are like for us? (shrink)

This paper examines John Stuart Mill’s ‘psychological theory’ of the mind, as he set it out in his Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy. After outlining Mill’s theory and the problem he finds with it, the paper discusses four different interpretations that have been suggested, before proposing a new alternative reading. The matter is of intrinsic interest to anyone who sees value in trying to get to the bottom of tricky texts about puzzling questions by great philosophers, but I argue (...) also that the investigation may help us with another vexed interpretative issue relating to an even more famous philosopher, David Hume, and that it may hold lessons for the philosophy of mind today. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a growth of interest in the great English idealist thinker T. H. Green (1836-82) as philosophers have begun to overturn received opinions of his thought and to rediscover his original and important contributions to ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. This collection of essays by leading experts, all but one published here for the first time, introduces and critically examines his ideas both in their context and in their relevance to contemporary debates.

Recent years have seen a growth of interest in the great English idealist thinker T. H. Green (1836-82) as philosophers have begun to overturn received opinions of his thought and to rediscover his original and important contributions to ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. This collection of essays by leading experts, all but one published here for the first time, introduces and critically examines his ideas both in their context and in their relevance to contemporary debates.

The ontological proof became something of a signature argument for the British Idealist movement and this paper examines how and why that was so. Beginning with an account of Hegel's understanding of the argument, it looks at how the thesis was picked up, developed and criticized by the Cairds, Bradley, Pringle-Pattison and others. The importance of Bradley's reading in particular is stressed. Lastly, consideration is given to Collingwood's lifelong interest in the proof and it is argued that his attention is (...) best understood as a direct continuation of theirs. In view of the fact that recent commentators have tried to draw a sharp line between Collingwood's approach to metaphysics and ontology and that of his predecessors, the establishment of this connection calls for a measure of reassessment on both sides. (shrink)

Scholars have remained undecided how much the British Idealists owe to Hegel, how much to Kant, and how much they may be credited with minting a new intellectual coinage of their own. By way of a detailed examination of T. H. Green’s metaphysics of free will and how it stands to both its Kantian and its Hegelian predecessors, this paper attempts to make some headway on that longstanding question of pedigree. It is argued that by translating previously naturalistic considerations about (...) free will into Kantian or atemporalist terms, Green makes some useful and important advances. But he still remains subject to the tension between libertarian and autonomous approaches to the issue. It might be wondered whether any theory could ever reconcile these two approaches, but it is argued that by filtering his Kantianism through a more Hegelian lens, Green manages somewhat to reduce the friction between these two perspectives and to get closer to his ideal of a unified theory of human free will. (shrink)

The nineteenth-century British philosopher William Hamilton defended his law of the conditioned in part on the strength of its ability to offer a satisfactory theory of causation. He maintained that our belief that every event is the outcome of some cause and the source of some further effect finds its ground, not in the world, but rather in the limitations of our own minds; specifically in our inability to conceive of either absolute commencement of being or its absolute annihilation. While (...) radically unlike modern conceptions of causality, Hamilton's account is better able to defend itself than either its critics or its neglect might suggest, while its modest and negative formulation recommends it to those of a sceptical tendency. (shrink)