Current and Forthcoming Issues:
Advisory Editor: Leonardo Zaibert, Union College
Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Taken literally, this famous passage is puzzling. For on the one hand if they really did not know what they were doing, and assuming that this ignorance was not culpable, then surely they should be excused, and not forgiven. Forgiveness, as a matter of sheer logic, presupposes culpable wrongdoing. On the other hand, if they did know that they were doing wrong, then presumably they should have been punished and, again, not forgiven. To understand forgiveness, it seems, we need to know how exactly it differs from a series of other phenomena such as punishing and blaming, on the one hand, and pardoning and condoning on the other. This issue of The Monist welcomes contributions addressing these and related questions, including: What, if anything, justifies forgiveness? How does forgiveness relate to mercy, leniency, and mere forgetting? Can, or should, forgiveness be granted unconditionally, or does it necessitate repentance on the part of the wrongdoer? And what, for that matter, is repentance? Can forgiveness be granted by anyone or only by those directly wronged? And how is purely mental forgiveness related to that sort of forgiveness that is communicated to the wrongdoer, or to someone else, in words?
93:1 January 2010 The Meaning of Life
Advisory Editor: Quentin Smith, Western Michigan University
The vagueness and ambiguity of the question ‘Is there a meaning of human life?’ is standardly resolved by reformulations using more precise categories from the philosophy of religion or from moral realism. But are there alternatives to such reformulations?
Consider:
- Biology: the meaning of human life is to survive and reproduce; because we no longer have to struggle to survive and reproduce, we are no longer in a position to experience this meaning.
- Physics: Hawking has argued that the meaning is in principle expressible in terms of a ‘complete unified theory’, which will throw light inter alia on‘the question of why it is that we and the universe exist.’
- Psychology: People talk of sensing ‘emptiness’ in depression and ‘fullness’ in joy. Can these metaphors be justified as referring to modes of epistemic access to some mind-independent meaning of human life that is neither religious nor ethical in nature?
- Art: Some hold that there are artistic symbols which somehow express the meaning of human life but in a way that is not expressible in linguistic form. Can such a linguistic ineffability theory be philosophically defended?
Are there other approaches to defending a theory of the meaning of human life? Is it possible to articulate a formal structure or account of meaning which all such theories must share? Articles are invited addressing these and related questions in an analytical spirit.
|