Religion as experience: Dialogue with John Dewey

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 667-683
Author(s):  
Anne-Sophie Lamine

This article discusses John Dewey’s (1859–1952): Theory of valuation (1939), Art as experience (1934), A common faith (1934), The public and its problems (1927) for the socio-anthropological analysis of the religious. This pragmatist approach, attentive to intersubjectivity and experience, allows to work on aspirations and ideals, through giving place to emotions besides rationality in the valuation process. Further, the idea of public and pre-political, permits to pay attention to processes which are different from differentiation and where people contribute to the common good from their specific (minority) situation. In a pragmatist approach, believing comes in three modalities as ‘caring about,’ in the sense of giving value to forms of experiences and self-construction, respectively, to forms of self-transcendence, and to ways of connecting with the world (others and nature).

Political society is established for the provision of the good life for the citizens of the society. But to ensure that the task is carried out, political societies elect or appoint leaders saddled with the responsibility of guiding, directing, leading and organizing the society. Capable and efficient political leaders help their societies to develop economically and help the citizens to have access to the good life. They are concerned about the common good of the society. Inept and inefficient leaders often are concerned about their own selfish interests and bring miseries and suffering to their peoples. In spite of the ideals of good leadership and the positive values of working for the public interest and common good of their societies, there are still many political leaders who are in power for their own sakes. Because of this there are many underdeveloped and poor societies especially in the Global South. This paper uses a critical analytic and hermeneutic method to examine and appraise the concept of the common good and its implications for political leaders. The value of the common good is applicable to every society. Political leaders everywhere are to strive for the common good. The paper finds that bad and corrupt political leaders are still prevalent in many societies in the world. The presented research will also help to designate the feature of the articulation of «common good» in the modern philosophical conceptions. The paper concludes that there is need to highlight the value of the common good that political leaders should strive for and help their societies obtain. This done there will be a higher level of peace and harmonies in political societies.


Author(s):  
Andrew M. Yuengert

Although most economists are skeptical of or puzzled by the Catholic concept of the common good, a rejection of the economic approach as inimical to the common good would be hasty and counterproductive. Economic analysis can enrich the common good tradition in four ways. First, economics embodies a deep respect for economic agency and for the effects of policy and institutions on individual agents. Second, economics offers a rich literature on the nature of unplanned order and how it might be shaped by policy. Third, economics offers insight into the public and private provision of various kinds of goods (private, public, common pool resources). Fourth, recent work on the development and logic of institutions and norms emphasizes sustainability rooted in the good of the individual.


Author(s):  
Neil Rhodes

This chapter begins by presenting translation as an aspect of the Erasmian legacy in England, and it argues that translation helps to heal the division discussed in Chapter 3 by enabling Protestantism and humanism to work together. Translation was part of a Protestant programme of nation-building and spreading the word for the common good, but it was also the means through which the literature of antiquity and of modern Europe was communicated to the public at large. Erasmus’ Paraphrases, Grimald's Cicero, and Hoby's Courtier are discussed in these two contexts. Translation points towards the Renaissance, as an insular purism based on Protestant fears of contamination and adulteration was superseded by a hospitality towards the foreign. The chapter ends by arguing that by the 1580s it is Protestant Bible translation that it is accused by Catholics of being literary.


2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 579-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Nyberg ◽  
John Murray

This article connects the previously isolated literatures on corporate citizenship and corporate political activity to explain how firms construct political influence in the public sphere. The public engagement of firms as political actors is explored empirically through a discursive analysis of a public debate between the mining industry and the Australian government over a proposed tax. The findings show how the mining industry acted as a corporate citizen concerned about the common good. This, in turn, legitimized corporate political activity, which undermined deliberation about the common good. The findings explain how the public sphere is refeudalized through corporate manipulation of deliberative processes via what we term corporate citizenspeak—simultaneously speaking as corporate citizens and for individual citizens. Corporate citizenspeak illustrates the duplicitous engagement of firms as political actors, claiming political legitimacy while subverting deliberative norms. This contributes to the theoretical development of corporations as political actors by explaining how corporate interests are aggregated to represent the common good and how corporate political activity is employed to dominate the public sphere. This has important implications for understanding how corporations undermine democratic principles.


2021 ◽  

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, the liber discipulorum honors the great legal scholar and outstanding economist Wernhard Möschel. The volume takes the reader into the world of academic teaching, combines scientific insight with wisdom, pays tribute to the great breadth of the jubilarian's oeuvre through a variety of contributions on commercial law, and thus shows what great and lasting influence a scientist can have who persistently and undauntedly fights for the common good.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-60
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Lear

Abstract Daniela Augustine’s The Spirit and the Common Good is a preachable theology because it is story – the story of the coming kingdom made present by the Spirit’s outpouring on Pentecost. Her book finds a fruitful locus of theological reflection in the former Yugoslavia’s Third Balkan War, by which she confronts the protological narrative of human violence with the counternarrative of the Scriptures, the Spirit, and the glorious transformation at the end of the age. In order to put flesh on Christian hope in the contemporary contexts, Augustine turns to hagiographical stories in the former Yugoslavia. Hagiography is not without perils for the theological task, not least in that it can downplay the sinfulness of the saints’ lives. But, as in the practice of Pentecostal testimony, Augustine’s work gives glory to God, not humans for the work of God in the world.


Author(s):  
Alison Roberts Miculan

One of the most pervasive problems in theoretical ethics has been the attempt to reconcile the good for the individual with the good for all. It is a problem which appears in contemporary discussions (like those initiated by Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue) as a debate between emotivism and rationalism, and in more traditional debates between relativism and absolutism. I believe that a vital cause of this difficulty arises from a failure to ground ethics in metaphysics. It is crucial, it seems to me, to begin with "the way the world is" before we begin to speculate about the way it ought to be. And, the most significant "way the world is" for ethics is that it is individuals in community. This paper attempts to develop an ethical theory based solidly on Whitehead’s metaphysics, and to address precisely the problem of the relation between the good for the individual and the common good, in such a way as to be sympathetic to both.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clive Pearson

AbstractThe nature of a public theology is to concern itself with the common good and the flourishing of all. The subject of climate change is to the forefront of the public agenda. Now and then the level of concern can slip down the opinion polls and it does attract a concerted degree of scepticism. It is nevertheless an issue that can allow us to consider the purpose and practice of a public theology. This article sets out to draw upon the insights of others who have contributed to this issue of the International Journal of Public Theology. It also sets out to place this work inside other discussions on what is a public theology and its intersection with an ecotheology.


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