Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism

Atheism and Theism 149
4 For essays in this vein see the issue on Analytical Thomism, The Monist, vol. 81,
1988; also J. Haldane (ed.) Mind, Metaphysics and Value in the Thomistic and
Analytical Traditions (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002).
5 A well-known British Christian atheist is the theologian and Anglican priest
Don Cupitt. Representative samples of his approach are Taking Leave of God
(London: SCM Press, 1980) and The Sea of Faith (London: BBC Publications,
1984). For a rejoinder on behalf of orthodox Christianity see The Ocean of Truth
by Brian Hebblethwaite (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), a colleague
of Cupitt in Cambridge.
6 Anselm’s reflections are set out in the Proslogion and Responsio editoris. Translations
of the relevant passages are to be found in S.N. Deane, Anselm’s Basic
Writings (La Salle: Open Court, 1962) and reprinted in A. Plantinga (ed.), The
Ontological Argument (London: Macmillan, 1968). For an interesting, though
difficult, exchange concerning the correct interpretation of Anselm’s reasoning
see C.J.F. Williams, ‘Russelm’, and G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Russelm or Anselm’,
both in The Philosophical Quarterly, 43 (1993). In large part the issue between
Williams and Anscombe arises in virtue of the insertion by an editor of a comma
into Anselm’s text.
7 In this connection see the interesting essay by Max Hocutt, ‘Aristotle’s Four
Becauses’, Philosophy, 49 (1974). For Aristotle himself see Metaphysics, Book Δ
(V) ch. 2; this is subjected to scholastic commentary by Aquinas in his Sententia
libri Metaphysicorum, V, lectio 2.
8 This modern translation comes from T. McDermott, Aquinas: Selected Philosophical
Writings, pp. 201–2.
9 J. Haldane, ‘Psychoanalysis, Cognitive Psychology and Self-Consciousness’, in
P. Clark and C. Wright (eds), Mind, Psychoanalysis and Science (Oxford: Blackwell,
1988).
10 D. Dennett, ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Strategies of Psychological Intelligence’,
in J. Miller (ed.), States of Mind (London: BBC Publications, 1983); see
also Dennett, ‘Artificial Intelligence as Philosophy and as Psychology’, in Dennett,
Brainstorms (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986).
11 K.V. Wilkes, ‘Analysing Freud’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 40 (1990).
12 See P. Churchland and J. Haldane, ‘Folk Psychology and the Explanation of
Human Behaviour’ I and II, in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supplementary
volume 62 (1988); reprinted in S.M. Christensen and D.R. Turner
(eds), Folk Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind (New Jersey: Erlbaum, 1993).
Our debate is continued in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 93 (1993).
13 Peter Geach, Mental Acts (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958).
14 See, for example, D. Dennett, ‘A Cure for the Common Code?’, ch. 6 in Dennett,
Brainstorms, and H. Putnam, ‘Does Evolution Explain Intentionality?’, ch. 2 in
Putnam, Renewing Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
15 For further discussion of Aquinas’s views see J. Haldane, ‘Aquinas on the Intellect’,
Philosophy, 67 (1992).
16 See Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 2, a. 3 as translated by McDermott in Aquinas:
Selected Philosophical Writings. This translation differs in being less formal than