The question "How Do We Think About the Bible From a Philosophical Point of View?" is really too broad to begin a detailed and constructive discussion. The Bible certainly discusses philosophical problems of humanity (i.e. origin of life, our role in the world, the origin of evil, etc.). You will need to take a philosophical stance the Bible proposes and then form your hypothesis or question from that.
The Bible does not prove the belief in God or defend it, it presumes it. — neoshaman2012
it is best to address very specific topics and issues so as we may come to find very nuanced specific answers to those questions. Otherwise we are circling around a yet to be defined grey area which does not set any new foundations of relevant boundaries. — neoshaman2012
Definitions in Philosophy, as per:
http://www.biblicalworldview21.org/Glossary/Glossary.asp — Amity
This is a Glossary which acts as a 'mini-overview' of a Biblical and Christian worldview.
Of special importance are these words:
emotions, ethic, ethics, evangelical, heart, law, justice, philosophy (and all its synonyms), regeneration, righteousness, salvation, and truth. — Amity
However, we could say that there has been an different trend, towards an emphasis in social justice in more recent thinking, especially in the trend of liberation theology, which focuses on the alleviation of suffering...
— Jack Cummins
So, a different viewpoint from the way 'Justice' and 'Welfare' are defined in the Glossary ?
Can you provide sources from both theology and philosophy of religion ? — Amity
[ There follows a review of 6 major genres in the Bible: mythology, poetry, laws, moral/theological reflection, historical sources, and wisdom literature.] — Michael Langford
I will try to use some of the ideas as a basis for some further discussion. — Jack Cummins
With some sources such as these the thread may turn into a miniature encyclopedia — Jack Cummins
Let me briefly preface that I have studied and have degrees in both philosophy and religion, and joined this forum looking for good discussion. — neoshaman2012
I really chose the idea of thinking about The Bible as an approach to the philosophy of religion with a slightly different focus rather than the typical atheist vs theist dichotomy. — Jack Cummins
The aim is to look at The Bible as a text, and I do welcome your ideas. — Jack Cummins
I wonder how, from a philosophy point of view we may approach and understand this book, or collection of books .On one hand, there is theology, and, on the other, there is the philosophy of religion. — Jack Cummins
It might seem odd to include a book review of the Bible within a magazine devoted to philosophy, but one appears in Philosophy Now Issue 99. On reflection, I hold that there is a case for such a review, and not only on the grounds that that edition centred on God. Both the nature and the status of sacred texts raise a number of issues in philosophy concerning for example, the relation of philosophy to literature (to which at least one major journal is devoted), the relation of philosophy to mythology and poetry (a discussion that goes back at least to Plato), and the nature and justification of various forms of ‘authority’, to name just three. However, I found the particular review by Les Reid very deficient, and in what follows I propose to provide a more adequate one...
...any adequate review of the Bible has to begin with the many kinds of material found in it, which, taken as a whole, forms a kind of saga of a people covering many centuries. Parts are certainly mythology, but other parts have as much claim to being historical documents as many other ancient sources. This does not make them ‘literally’ accurate – but Reid’s implication that a Biblical text is either literally true or nonsense presents a bogus dichotomy. Things are more complex than that.
[ There follows a review of 6 major genres in the Bible: mythology, poetry, laws, moral/theological reflection, historical sources, and wisdom literature.]
....What worries me most about Reid’s review is the kind of certainty that pervades it, which seems to me to be inconsistent with the whole philosophical enterprise, from before the time of Socrates. To put my cards on the table, I am seriously agnostic about many theological claims, but I have made the existential commitment to be a disciple of Jesus – which involves saying, and meaning, “Jesus is Lord.” This is perfectly compatible with many kinds of doubt. Take Reid’s wholesale rejection of the possibility of a personal afterlife. Like many contemporary Christians I am not sure what will happen when I die, and my commitment to the way of Jesus in no way depends on a future life – but at the same time I find Reid’s certainty unwarranted.
— Michael Langford
I do wish to keep the discussion on the philosophical. — Jack Cummins
Of special importance are these words:
emotions, ethic, ethics, evangelical, heart, law, justice, philosophy (and all its synonyms), regeneration, righteousness, salvation, and truth.
2) The glossary is a mini-overview of a Biblical and Christian worldview. To know these definitions and many of their nuances is to have a basic understanding of worldview! 3) This glossary is concerned with establishing definitions that are consistent throughout this website... — biblical worldview - Glossary
Justice: the application of Biblical law in the appropriate situation or each person getting his just due, both reward and punishment, by the same criteria. Why designate the appropriate situation? God's justice has the range of application from the individual's conscience in society (social justice), to the laws of church government that require correction (discipline) of its members, and to the taking of a life in capital punishment after due process of state law. Properly applied, justice is always merciful, even to its ultimate application on earth in capital punishment. Final and perfect justice will be executed in the Last Judgment.
Welfare: "financial assistance paid by taxpayers (and administered by state agencies) to people who are unable to support themselves" (Wikipedia definition, modified by Ed). Under Biblical principles and law, there is no justification for this concept of Welfare. See law and force and the not-so-great welfare state.
— biblical worldview - Glossary
However, we could say that there has been an different trend, towards an emphasis in social justice in more recent thinking, especially in the trend of liberation theology, which focuses on the alleviation of suffering... — Jack Cummins
I see that http://www.biblicalphilosophy.org says “Welcome to the website that is committed to the inerrancy of the Bible”: this makes me think that actually it has nothing to do with philosophy, nor with the Bible, — Angelo
Welcome to the website that is committed to the inerrancy of the Bible and its total sufficiency within a philosophical discussion of Christianity. “In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” wrote the Apostle Paul (Colossians 2:3). On the one hand, many Christians see philosophy (etymology, “love of wisdom”) as a discipline that attacks our Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible, and His people. On the other hand, many Christian philosophers see philosophy as more important than the Scriptures. So, what about a Christian philosophy or Biblical philosophy? Could either of these be consistent with Biblical teaching and with scholarly philosophy? — biblical philosophy
One of the great divisions among Christians who work in philosophy, Biblical philosophy, or Christian apologetics is over presuppositionalism and evidentialism (see below). It will not take much reading on this site to know that I am a convinced presuppositionalist. Simply, one must assume something to have anywhere concrete to begin. René Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” Augustine of Hippo said, “I believe in order to understand.” Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Or, one can say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Or, you can choose your own place to start. I have reviewed what some of these starting points might be.
Thus, I prefer “Biblical philosophy,” rather than “Christian philosophy.” My most basic presupposition is that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible Word of God, that it is the only source of truth that anyone will know in this earthly life, and that it is sufficient for everything that anyone needs to know. "The Bible is true about everything to which it speaks, and it speaks to everything." — biblical philosophy
it seems obvious to me that Jack and other people have no intention to explore every detail and every problem related to the Bible and to philosophy — Angelo
Yeah. As per the OP, only philosophical contemplation of the Bible / NT is relevant. Jack Cummins, maybe you too, seem to drift changing the topic's goal posts, as it were, which is okay, but I'm off the bus before any quixotic or anachronistic detours. — 180 Proof
I am sorry if I am sending you off the bus, and I do wish to keep the discussion on the philosophical. But, the Bible is a big topic and I wish to look at it as fully as possibly can. I have a couple more books which I wish to bring into the thread but will not do so until Monday because I am at my mother's house. Generally, my own approach is about trying to use ideas in books as a basis for critical discussion, as when philosophy is just talking purely on the basis of one's own ideas I don't think it goes as far as when it involves considering specific ideas of writers. — Jack Cummins
Our hop-on, hop-off London bus tours give you the flexibility to plan your day, your way. You can choose to stay on board the entire route and let us take you for a scenic spin, or hop-off at the destinations you want to further explore. Once you've seen it, done it and selfied it, you simply wait for the next bus to come along to rejoin the tour. — bigbus tours/ hop-on-hop-off- London
He would definitely shoot himself if he accidentally browsed thephilosophyforum.com — Wittgenstein
You should read philosophical investigation alongside tractatus and compare both of them. Take your time. — Wittgenstein
To understand Wittgenstein, you need to be like him to a certain extend. — Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein would have killed himself, trust me — Wittgenstein
Sorry, I only trust camels...are you a camel ?Wittgenstein would have killed himself, trust me — Wittgenstein
Thus, even the philosophical achievements of the Tractatus itself are nothing more than useful nonsense; once appreciated, they are themselves to be discarded. The book concludes with the lone statement:
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
(Tractatus 7) This is a stark message indeed, for it renders literally unspeakable so much of human life. As Wittgenstein's friend and colleague Frank Ramsey put it,
"What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either."
It was this carefully-delineated sense of what a logical language can properly express that influenced members of the Vienna Circle in their formulation of the principles of logical positivism. Wittgenstein himself supposed that there was nothing left for philosophers to do. True to this conviction, he abandoned the discipline for nearly a decade...
[Then]:
...One application of the new analytic technique that Wittgenstein himself worked out appears in several connected sections of the posthumously-published Philosophical Investigations (1953).
...Wittgenstein pointed out that if we did indeed have private inner experiences, it would be possible to represent them in a corresponding language.
....Just so, the use of language for pains or other sensations can only be associated successfully with dispositions to behave in certain ways. Pain is whatever makes someone (including me) writhe and groan.
I'll start.
What do you think Wittgenstein would have said about life, philosophy, economics nowadays? — Shawn
As Wittgenstein's friend and colleague Frank Ramsey put it, "What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either."
The fucker had read Hobbes after all ... — 180 Proof
...Wittgenstein was stung by this onslaught. In 1930, he wrote: ‘Ramsey’s mind repulsed me’; he had no capacity for ‘genuine reverence’; he had an ‘ugly mind’; and ‘his criticism didn’t help along but held back and sobered’. He told his friends that Ramsey was a ‘materialist’. Ramsey thought that Wittgenstein’s philosophy needed sobering up, and needed to pay attention to human beliefs, rather than independently existing propositions.
And here their debate breaks off, for Ramsey died on 19 January 1930, aged just 26. But years later, Wittgenstein would come around to Ramsey’s side.
When he did, he stopped saying nasty things about his friend, and instead thanked him in the preface to his second great treatise, Philosophical Investigations, which charted a very different course than the Tractatus:
since I began to occupy myself with philosophy again, 16 years ago, I could not but recognise grave mistakes in what I set out in that first book. I was helped to realise these mistakes – to a degree which I myself am hardly able to estimate – by the criticism which my ideas encountered from Frank Ramsey, with whom I discussed them in innumerable conversations during the last two years of his life.
...I would say the historical situation is that Peirce formed an absolutely coherent view of pragmatism/semiotics. But then because of social forces, that never broke out the way it should have at the time. What came through into the public was the diluted Jamesian understanding of pragmatism (stripped of its semiotic backbone), or the Deweyian version (stripped of the metaphysical ambition).
...And then there are a host of non-philosophical reasons why Peirce's impact was only as a whisper in the ear of AP. And why Pragmatism is viewed shallowly in terms of the metaphysically and logically unambitious retellings by James and Dewey. — apokrisis
I just found this article really elucidating on the magnitude of Ramsey's pragmatic approach to philosophical issues having influenced Wittgenstein's transition and later period. Hope someone enjoys it:
https://aeon.co/essays/what-is-truth-on-ramsey-wittgenstein-and-the-vienna-circle — Shawn
...Wittgenstein was stung by this onslaught. In 1930, he wrote: ‘Ramsey’s mind repulsed me’; he had no capacity for ‘genuine reverence’; he had an ‘ugly mind’; and ‘his criticism didn’t help along but held back and sobered’. He told his friends that Ramsey was a ‘materialist’. Ramsey thought that Wittgenstein’s philosophy needed sobering up, and needed to pay attention to human beliefs, rather than independently existing propositions.
And here their debate breaks off, for Ramsey died on 19 January 1930, aged just 26. But years later, Wittgenstein would come around to Ramsey’s side.
When he did, he stopped saying nasty things about his friend, and instead thanked him in the preface to his second great treatise, Philosophical Investigations, which charted a very different course than the Tractatus:
since I began to occupy myself with philosophy again, 16 years ago, I could not but recognise grave mistakes in what I set out in that first book. I was helped to realise these mistakes – to a degree which I myself am hardly able to estimate – by the criticism which my ideas encountered from Frank Ramsey, with whom I discussed them in innumerable conversations during the last two years of his life. — Cheryl Misak
Ciceronius stated that the pragmatists, for the most part, ignored what Wittgenstein had to say about meaning and use or utility. Why is that?
— Posty McPostface
I think it's more accurate to say that the Classical Pragmatists were unaware of Wittgenstein. Peirce died in 1914, James in 1910. There would be no reason for them to know Wittgenstein; the Tractatus didn't come out until after the First World War. As for Dewey, I don't know whether he knew of Wittgenstein or his work. Wittgenstein isn't mentioned in any of the works of Dewey I've read, (I haven't read them all, of course) and I think their interests differed for the most part. From what I've read, Wittgenstein was fond of James' Varieties of Religious Experience. It's the "neo-pragmatists" who have championed the view that Wittgenstein was a kind of pragmatist, so far as I know. — Ciceronianus the White
Experience and Nature and Art as Experience are also excellent — 180 Proof
Of books by Dewey? Probably Reconstruction in Philosophy or The Quest for Certainty are the most readable. — Ciceronianus the White
Sorry to hear of your experience.Once a conversation is centered upon contempt for the participants, it reminds me of why I dropped out of high school. — Valentinus
But what I'm saying is that some of your formulations (e.g. "On a personal level, piety is being good to one's own self, the inner divine intelligence", "In philosophical (Platonic) life, piety is practicing philosophy whose aim is to "become as godlike as possible" = "serving one's own God", i.e., one's own self") sound more like narcissistic self-aggrandizement — baker
I showed my son this thread and he laughed at how your challengers don't actually respond to your comments as given. That is what is funny. — Valentinus
Leads to utter nonsense, meaningless language use, equivocation fallacies, and inevitable self-contradiction and/or outright incoherence.
— creativesoul
In other words, it leads to typical troll behavior. — Olivier5
Unfortunately, the misrepresentations and lies continue. Such blatant dishonesty:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/555262
I will leave it stand. As an example.
My concern is that it will not stop - not particularly from the point of view of being a 'target' - but that any further threads concerning Plato's Dialogues will suffer the same fate.
I prefer now to read and consider any Dialogue in peace.
Hope that others continue in good spirit... — Amity
By the way, Libravox (Libravox.com) has a reading of James' "Pragmatism" that I really like. — T Clark
Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
An important, controversial, and often cited work on public education. Dewey discusses the role of public education in a democracy and the different methods for achieving quality in education. After its initial publication, this book began a revolution in educational thinking; one that emphasized growth, experience, and activity as key elements in promoting democratic qualities in students and educators alike. — Librivox - Democracy and Education by John Dewey
I'd recommend Larry Hickman's books about Dewey. — Ciceronianus the White
In 1999, for example, shortly after the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, the vice-president of a suburban Chicago school board complained in print that Dewey's ideas had been responsible for that tragic event...
Dewey's philosophy of education has dominated the field of learning. We are now paying the price." He then charged that "the seemingly mindless slaughter at Littleton was the acting out of the pragmatic view. If it works, if it feels good, do it. They did." — Larry Hickman
So, he thinks conclusions are, at least in theory, subject to correction, modification or rejection as we learn more, have new experiences and discover new or more evidence. This troubles some people. — Ciceronianus the White
In Dewey's view, then, learning is much more than simply a preparation for living. It is a process of living whose goal is the growth of individuals and institutions in ways that will allow them to participate fully in a life that is free and democratic....
If our effort is to be intelligent, it must negotiate a creative compromise between the actual and the ideal. Where there is enthusiasm for such activities, where there is a “unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions,” said Dewey, there is religious experience...
Working together, he argued, science and religion can establish platforms on which we can build a common faith, a faith for all humankind... — Hickman on Dewey
There's no point knowing who wrote what or it could turn into a popularity contest. — Baden
If anyone's not sure if their idea is acceptable, PM me. — Baden
There is a standard structure to short stories but this is a lounge thing and all in fun. I don't want to be too prescriptive about it. Besides, there are much better resources than me readily available on this subject. — Baden
Anyone could enter, entries were anonymous, and anyone could vote on winners or comment on stories. — Baden
like three guys hammering the same pole. Ting. Ting. Ting. — Olivier5
I'll try and see where that takes me... — Olivier5
Rhythm becomes you. — Olivier5
if they are several of you listening, you can dance together by the magic of the rhythm — Olivier5