James Hall (2) (1933–)

A very interesting course. It is a historical look at the roots of modern rational empiricism and its critics. Starting with the Greeks, Hall moves through Descartes and into the 19th century rationalists, not spending a lot of time on any of them, but highlighting what they contributed to the way we view thinking. He spends a lot of time on logic and symbolic logic, always interests of mine. He also gives you a good understanding of what science does, how it does it, and what its limits are. More important, he discusses the tools that are available to individuals in their own thinking process and the limits of those tools.… (meer)

These thirty-six lectures are a look at religion from a philosophic point of view (not a look at philosophy from a religious point of view). These lectures take a look a the tools, words and ideas used by religion and evaluates the ability of religion to know what it believes. Following several introductory lectures there are eight lectures examining the various arguments (ontological, cosmological, teleological, divine encounter) for the existance of God. Then there are six lectures exploring the arguments (mostly centered on the problem of evil) for no God. Then the proposition that "evidence is irrelevant to faith" is examined, followed by an examination of the counter argument that "groundless faith is irrelevant to life." Then issues of "paradigms" are discussed. (Paradigm is one of my least favorite words.) Then the lectures explore the possibilities of finding truth in stories (fabulation).

The conclusion? Well, the lectures don't tell you what to think but provides this suggestion:

"Might this (brotherhood of man) not best begin with the admission that there is much to be said for agnosticism, especially among the faithful - that people do not necessarily know everything that they believe?"

After all, what ever we might believe, there's always a possibility that we're wrong.… (meer)