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What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers? We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on 30 central philosophical issues. This article documents the results. It also reveals correlations among philosophical views and between these views and factors such as age, gender, and nationality. A factor analysis suggests that an individual's views on these issues factor into a few underlying components that predict much of the variation in those views. The results of a metasurvey also suggest that many of the results of the survey are surprising: philosophers as a whole have quite inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of philosophical views in the profession.

The first half of the eighteenth century witnessed a resurgence of Platonism in literature generally and in theology in Germany en Holland in particular, because of the appeal Plato’s ideas held for the distinction between immanent and transcendental reality, man’s quest for unity with the Good, and the human soul as the vehicle for uniting with God. Because most human beings are preoccupied with material things, Plato believed they need to have their thoughts turned to the immaterial reality behind the material world, and thus to be weaned away from the objects of their passions. To Plato the world is more than a world of appearances. Behind each particular thing is the idea or form of the thing. Moreover, the ideas or forms are all ultimately related to the Form of the Good. Plato believed that the soul is an immaterial entity, which in some ways is like the Forms. Particularly revealing to the emerging trend of Romanticism was Plato’s philosophical transcending of sceptical and materialistic views of reality, the notion that those who know what is good will love and desire it, and that moral virtue is of itself a prerequisite to knowing the good. The problem presented itself as to how sinful man and chaos in the world can be brought in accordance with God’s perfect and sinless nature. Because Plato’s view of human improvement by means of education and salvation through personal virtue is far removed from the Christian message of redemption by a loving, personal God, Pietists reverted to the neo-Platonism legacy of love mysticism to resolve the dualism inherent to the Romantic juxtaposition of the immanent and the transcendent. The Voortrekker woman Susanna Smit reflected these influences in her Reformed Pietistic spirituality and re-interpreted the Christian conviction of the love of God and man’s salvation by relying on neo-Platonism love spirituality in the works of James Hervey, Rutger Schutte, Hieronymus van Alphen, Rhijnvis Feith and other pietistically inclined authors. This research investigates the impact of the idea of experiential numinous love mediating between the Good and the human soul and neo-Platonism love sentimentality in Susanna Smit’s diaries and the effect of these influences in her Reformed Pietistic spirituality from 1843 to 1863.

The first half of the eighteenth century witnessed a resurgence of Platonism in literature generally and in theology in Germany en Holland in particular, because of the appeal Plato’s ideas held for the distinction between immanent and transcendental reality, man’s quest for unity with the Good, and the human soul as the vehicle for uniting with God. Because most human beings are preoccupied with material things, Plato believed they need to have their thoughts turned to the immaterial reality behind the material world, and thus to be weaned away from the objects of their passions. To Plato the world is more than a world of appearances. Behind each particular thing is the idea or form of the thing. Moreover, the ideas or forms are all ultimately related to the Form of the Good. Plato believed that the soul is an immaterial entity, which in some ways is like the Forms. Particularly revealing to the emerging trend of Romanticism was Plato’s philosophical transcending of sceptical and materialistic views of reality, the notion that those who know what is good will love and desire it, and that moral virtue is of itself a prerequisite to knowing the good. The problem presented itself as to how sinful man and chaos in the world can be brought in accordance with God’s perfect and sinless nature. Because Plato’s view of human improvement by means of education and salvation through personal virtue is far removed from the Christian message of redemption by a loving, personal God, Pietists reverted to the neo-Platonism legacy of love mysticism to resolve the dualism inherent to the Romantic juxtaposition of the immanent and the transcendent. The Voortrekker woman Susanna Smit reflected these influences in her Reformed Pietistic spirituality and re-interpreted the Christian conviction of the love of God and man’s salvation by relying on neo-Platonism love spirituality in the works of James Hervey, Rutger Schutte, Hieronymus van Alphen, Rhijnvis Feith and other pietistically inclined authors. This research investigates the impact of the idea of experiential numinous love mediating between the Good and the human soul and neo-Platonism love sentimentality in Susanna Smit’s diaries and the effect of these influences in her Reformed Pietistic spirituality from 1843 to 1863.

This study offers a comparative analysis of the symbolism of the soul’s ascent in Gregory of Nyssa’s De vita Moysis and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Oratio. Rather than attempting to establish a linear or exclusive dependence, it focuses on a series of Mosaic themes that articulate a dynamic conception of perfection in both authors. Beginning with Moses as a paradigm of virtuous life, the paper examines the shared anthropology of desire underlying Nyssen’s notion of unending progress and Pico’s sacra ambitio. It then traces the ordered sequence of symbols as it develops in Gregory’s treatise: light and darkness, the mountain of the knowledge of God, Jacob’s ladder, the tabernacle, the eagle, death as consummation, and divine friendship. Through the interplay of these symbols both thinkers configure spiritual growth as an ever-deepening participation in divine unity and truth. Particular attention is given to integration of the classical disciplines of the ancient philosophical curriculum within the Mosaic itinerary, as well as to the conception of truth as gradually apprehensible but ultimately inexhaustible. The paper concludes by pondering the results of the comparative study and reflecting on Pico’s way of assimilating the wide variety of sources in his project of philosophical concord.

Arguments central to antique and late antique philosophy and theory of mathematics (especially Proclus and Boethius) as they relate to the further development of the communis mathematica scientia (koinê mathêmatikê epistêmê) of Plato’s Politeia and its establishment in a highly developed scientific model are discussed, with emphasis on a detailed analysis of the understanding of music within this context, thereby spanning an arch from late antique positions up to those of the Renaissance in order to elucidate how the understanding of music (and the other quadrivial disciplines) was transformed from a metaphysical-ontological (and also theological) to an ever more logical-rhetorical position. In particular, a comparison of the approaches of Nicholas of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino serves to mark the boundaries that prepared the ground for this transformation.

Physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, psychology, sociology, history, and similar sciences that deal with empirical facts can describe the reality they investigate in varying levels of detail and provide specific statements and results about it. However, the question of describing mathematical objectivity appears to be more challenging than describing the objectivity addressed in the aforementioned sciences. This difficulty likely stems from the immaterial nature of mathematical objects, as well as their physical and temporal indeterminacy.In this text, we will revisit one of Cantor’s attempts to describe mathematical reality, select a few comments of that description, and analyse them. Additionally, we will compare Cantor’s approach with some contemporary representations of mathematical Platonism that incorporate significant empiricist elements. Finally, we will propose what we believe to be a promising approach to understanding mathematical reality, one that we think offers a promising support for Platonism in mathematics.

Japanese philosopher Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962) not only discussed religion in ways that were rooted in the fundamental claims of his writings, such as Shinran in Philosophy as Metanoetics (1946), but he also made proposals on religion, as in Demonstration of Christianity (1948), where he advocated for the need for a \"second religious reformation.\" For Tanabe, philosophy and religion (along with science) are fused in a specific way, and it is possible to find a vision of religion to be aimed for that is worth considering as a theory of religion among Japanese philosophers. To examine the theory of religion of Tanabe, this study focuses on the work, Demonstration of Christianity, and other works from the perspective of religious studies. In Demonstration of Christianity, the concept of absolute religion toward the second religious reformation is envisioned based on Tanabe's dialectics of the absolute mediation, and a discussion on his world religion can be found, although it is limited to Christianity and some Buddhist sects. Reflecting his absolute dialectic, Tanabe says that this world religion was established through the absolute mediation of Christianity with \" Nembutsu-Zen \" (the unification of Pure Land Buddhism and Zen Buddhism). One cannot deny the impression of Christocentrism in these discussions, but they are in the result of Tanabe's thoroughness in philosophy. What can be drawn from these discussions is that Tanabe's theory of religion is strongly connected to Platonism, which he considered the root of his dialectics. For example, the third article in Existence, Love, and Practice(1947), \"Self-Transcendence in Platonism and Faith in Gospel.\" Tanabe's argument reveals the characteristics of conceiving a new religion that combines Buddhism and Christianity, philosophy, and religion through a creative interpretation of Platonism, the source of Western thought where philosophy and religion are inseparably linked.

Does mathematics ever play an explanatory role in science? If so then this opens the way for scientific realists to argue for the existence of mathematical entities using inference to the best explanation. Elsewhere I have argued, using a case study involving the prime-numbered life cycles of periodical cicadas, that there are examples of indispensable mathematical explanations of purely physical phenomena. In this paper I respond to objections to this claim that have been made by various philosophers, and I discuss potential future directions of research for each side in the debate over the existence of abstract mathematical objects. Introduction: Mathematical Explanation Indispensability and Explanation Is the Mathematics Indispensable to the Explanation? 3.1Object-level arbitrariness 3.2Concept-level arbitrariness 3.3Theory-level arbitrariness Is the Explanandum ‘Purely Physical’? Is the Mathematics Explanatory in Its Own Right? Does Inference to the Best Explanation Apply to Mathematics? 6.1Leng's first argument 6.2Leng's second argument 6.3Leng's third argument Conclusions

Christian environmental ethics have always navigated the thin line between the Scylla of pantheism and the Charybdis of deism. On the one hand, removing God from the world avoids pantheism but can inadvertently render the divine a distant, absentee father who cares little about what we do with the environment. On the other hand, if we bring the Creator too close to creation, we may begin to blur the distinction between them, fringing on pantheism. While making nature divine might at first seem to heighten the environmental desecration of the earth by making it a literal de-sacralizing of the sacred, this may be only a surface-level reading (or, at least, only true of very carefully nuanced versions of pantheism). For the pantheist, God would not just be the trees but the machines that log them; God would not just be the polar bears but the carbon dioxide that is evicting them. God would be no more present in that which is desecrated than in that which does the desecration (e.g., God would be one with the pesticides, bulldozers, and factory smoke). By making God everything, it becomes difficult to call any person, act, legislation, or event godless. This paper offers Henry More’s view of divine space as a constructive, Platonic Christian middle way between these two extremes, charting a God who is spatially present to nature without being pantheistically reducible to it, in the same way that space is intimately close to the objects within it while nonetheless remaining distinct from them. The bulk of the paper counters potential opponents to this proposal, specifically defending Morean space from the charge that it would break down the Creator–creature distinction and/or cave to the environmental Scylla of pantheism.