{"title":"Robert Cummings Neville","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"symbols-of-jesus-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780521003537","title":"Symbols of Jesus","description":"This is a systematic theology focusing on what makes Jesus important in Christianity. It studies six families of symbols about Jesus, showing how they are true for some people, not true for others, and not meaningful for a third group. Divine creation is analysed in metaphysical and symbolic terms, and religious symbolism is shown to be wholly compatible with a late-modern scientific world view. Robert Cummings Neville, a leading philosophical theologian, presents and illustrates an elaborate theory of religious symbols according to which God is directly engaged in symbolically shaped thinking and practice. Symbols are not distancing substitutes for God. Theology of symbolic engagement is defended as an alternative to doctrinal or descriptive theology. This major work re-shapes the way we think about Jesus, and will be of value to students, academics, clergy with theological training, and others grappling with the meaning and importance of religious symbols in our age.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49539161948433,"sku":"GOR012582412","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52663859413265,"sku":"NLS9780521003537","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521003539.jpg?v=1751136041"},{"product_id":"god-the-creator-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791408438","title":"God the Creator","description":"God the Creator provides a detailed exposition of a conception of God as the creator of everything determinate.  It does not defend an established conception such as the Thomist, the Calvinist, or the Process theological idea, but rather elaborates the ancient theme of creation ex nihilo in a new form appropriate to the contemporary world.  Part one is a rigorous philosophical development of the idea of God as creator ex nihilo, arguing that an adequate solution to the problem of the one and the many demands such a conception.  This part includes a dialectical examination of contemporary and classical theories of being.  Part two asks how one can have knowledge of the kind of God described previously; it deals with experience, analogy, and dialectic.  Part three applies the conception developed in part one to fundamental religious conceptions such as the object of worship, the nature of religion, and the practices of private and public religious life.  It presents theories arising from the conception of creation ex nihilo for the interpretation of religious concern, conversion, faith, certainty, solitude, bliss, service, liturgy, providence, evangelism, dedication, reconciliation, brotherhood, discipline, the integration of public and private religion relative to other dimensions of life, freedom, love, and glory.  Though the language arises from the Christian tradition and expresses an orthodox strand of that religion, the argument weaves throughout the concerns of many world religions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49641025372433,"sku":"GOR013330367","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49762328019217,"sku":"GOR013778697","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49939697303825,"sku":"CIN0791408434G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791408434.jpg?v=1751010571"},{"product_id":"human-condition-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791447802","title":"The Human Condition","description":"Explores the human condition in a range of world religions and discusses the issue and philosophical implications of comparison itself.  This multi-authored collaborative work on the idea of the human condition as a comparative category cuts across major religious traditions and cultures. Extensive essays by distinguished specialists examine Chinese religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Together the essays provide a multi-cultural approach to the human condition, discussing both broad sensibilities of religious traditions as well as specific texts. In addition the volume contains an introduction to a sophisticated theory of comparison for religious ideas, including explicit comparisons based on the specialized essays.  Contributors include Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Malcolm David Eckel, Paul Fredriksen, S. Nomanul Haq, Joseph Kanofsky, Livia Kohn, Robert Cummings Neville, Hugh Nicholson, Anthony J. Saldarini, Tina Shepardson, John Thatamanil,, and Wesley J. 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Metaphysically, it cannot give an adequate account of temporality in God, and Lewis Ford's attempt to do so is analyzed here; nor can it give an account of eternity in God, and Charles Hartshorne's efforts are analyzed.  Schubert Ogden has argued that a process neo-classical conception of God is both philosophically superior to alternatives and adequate for representing the religious dimensions of human experience, and Neville argues in detail that this is not so. Charles Winquist has argued that process theology can be made compatible with transcendental theology and its contemporary heirs, and Neville argues that this diminishes the contributions of both sides. John Cobb Jr. has pioneered in the use of process theology for establishing dialogues with East Asian religions, but Neville warns against the biases in its categories. Where process theology seeks to preserve both divine benevolence and human freedom by separating God's creativity from that in human individuals, Neville argues that this makes God unworthy of worship and the human heart empty of the divine. Whereas process theologians look on Neville's theology of divine creation ex nihilo of everything determinate as a peculiar kind of mystical atheism, Neville argues that process theology makes God just another cosmological object, not God at all. Creativity and God joins these issues.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50360465981713,"sku":"CIN0791428222G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213319430417,"sku":"NLS9780791428221","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791428222.jpg?v=1750883098"},{"product_id":"behind-the-masks-of-god-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791405796","title":"Behind the Masks of God","description":"Behind the Masks of God develops an abstract concept of creation ex nihilo to compare and contextualize many of the symbols and more concrete ideas of divinity in world religions.  The first focus is Christianity, and the book is put forward as an essay in Christian theology.  In addition, the essay asks how creation ex nihilo serves to relate Christianity to other religions, particularly those of China.  Neville addresses both Buddhism and Christianity, and to a lesser extent Taoism, as test cases for the applicability of creation ex nihilo as a fundamental comparative category for connecting theistic religions with non-theistic ones.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50365492953361,"sku":"CIN0791405796G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791405796.jpg?v=1751137800"},{"product_id":"eternity-and-time-s-flow-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791416006","title":"Eternity and Time's Flow","description":"Neville returns eternity to the center of consideration by analyzing the obsessive culture that attempts to get along denying it; and he analyzes the nature of time's flow itself, the nature of divine eternity, and the subtle problems of personal immortality. He argues that time and eternity constitute one topic and that, therefore, time itself is beyond understanding, beyond personal grasp, and beyond civilized orientation without a proper comprehension of eternity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50365712630033,"sku":"CIN0791416003A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51284003324177,"sku":"CIN0791416003G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52674608955665,"sku":"NLS9780791416006","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53134540439825,"sku":"NGR9780791416006","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791416003.jpg?v=1751010578"},{"product_id":"truth-of-broken-symbols-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791427422","title":"The Truth of Broken Symbols","description":"Provides a cross-cultural analysis of how religious symbols function from a theological and philosophical perspective.  This book provides a cross-cultural analysis of how religious symbols function from a theological and philosophical perspective. Showing how religious symbols can be true in various qualified senses, Neville presents a theory of religious symbolism in the American pragmatic tradition extending and elaborating Tillich's claim that religious symbols participate in the divine realities to which they refer and yet must be broken in order not to be idolatrous or demonic. The Truth of Broken Symbols offers a theory of religious symbolism treating reference, meaning, and interpretation, and discussing different functions of religious symbols in theological, practical, and devotional contexts. It shows that religious symbols are to be properly understood as true or false and that symbol-systems such as myths, theologies, or liturgical symbols are to be used to engage divine realities while internally exhibiting semiotic structures of reference, meaning, and interpretation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50365959405841,"sku":"CIN0791427420G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52147221561617,"sku":"NLS9780791427422","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791427420.jpg?v=1751200782"},{"product_id":"seasons-of-the-christian-life-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781498286206","title":"Seasons of the Christian Life","description":"Once liberal Christianity was preached in ways that defined it in the public eye. Now Christianity is identified almost exclusively with its conservative expressions. Seasons of the Christian Life presents a series of sermons articulating a liberal Christianity over against its conservative neighbors. They were preached at the University Church (Marsh Chapel) at Boston University (save for one preached in Memorial Church at Harvard) during the 2004-2005 academic year when President George W. Bush was reelected and the country was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at war with terrorists wherever they could be imagined. The sermons follow the Revised Common Lectionary and focus on biblical interpretation as it is applied to the then-current spiritual, cultural, social, and political situation. The author is a professor of theology and at the time was Dean of Marsh Chapel and Chaplain of the University.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51030720413969,"sku":"NIN9781498286206","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52544758841617,"sku":"NLS9781498286206","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1498286208.jpg?v=1750925002"},{"product_id":"ultimate-realities-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791447765","title":"Ultimate Realities","description":"Explores ultimate realities in a range of world religions and discusses the issue and philosophical implications of comparison itself.  The idea of ultimacy as a comparative category that cuts across major religious traditions and cultures is discussed in Ultimate Realities, a multi-authored collaborative work. In this light, Chinese religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are examined by distinguished specialist historians. Two senses of ultimacy emerged in the Comparative Religious Ideas Project from which this volume came. One is the ultimacy of ontological matters such as God, the Dao, or Brahman. The other is the anthropological ultimacy of religious quests such as the Buddhist journey to enlightenment which does not stress any ontological ultimate, and indeed in some forms considers ontological ultimates to be problematic. Underneath this comparative study is a theory and method of comparison which are discussed at length and embodied in the project.  Contributors include John H. Berthrong, Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Malcolm David Eckel, Paula Fredriksen, S. Nomanul Haq, Joseph Kanofsky, Livia Kohn, James E. Miller, Robert Cummings Neville, Hugh Nicholson, Anthony J. Saldarini, Tina Shepardson, John Thatamanil,, and Wesley J. 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The book's central thesis is that the entire created world includes everything determinate, and thus the creator does not exist within creation. Strangely, this reverses nearly everything in the Western tradition. Surprisingly, this thesis is approached from a great many angles, all of which are within the Western, South Asian, or East Asian traditions. Surely put, this thesis will win out in the long run. Although Neville writes for an English-reading audience, he engages with thinkers from all these traditions.\"","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51632205562129,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51632205824273,"sku":"NIN9781438499628","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51632205889809,"sku":"NGR9781438499628","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53595783463185,"sku":"NLS9781438499628","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1438499620.jpg?v=1750923097"},{"product_id":"strange-surprising-sure-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781438499611","title":"Strange, Surprising, Sure","description":"Accessible and wide-ranging essays on the philosophy of religion.  In Strange, Surprising, Sure, Robert Cummings Neville presents a theory of being, change, and value, and engages other philosophers who deal with these concepts. The book's central thesis is that the entire created world includes everything determinate, and thus the creator does not exist within creation. Strangely, this reverses nearly everything in the Western tradition. Surprisingly, this thesis is approached from a great many angles, all of which are within the Western, South Asian, or East Asian traditions. Surely put, this thesis will win out in the long run. Although Neville writes for an English-reading audience, he engages with thinkers from all these traditions.\"","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51650117927185,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51650118058257,"sku":"NIN9781438499611","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53595718254865,"sku":"NLS9781438499611","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1438499612.jpg?v=1751305869"},{"product_id":"religion-in-late-modernity-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791454244","title":"Religion in Late Modernity","description":"A well-known theologian and philosopher offers a late-modern perspective on religion, one opposed to the received truths of postmodern religious thought.  Religion in Late Modernity runs against the grain of common suppositions of contemporary theology and philosophy of religion. Against the common supposition that basic religious terms have no real reference but are mere functions of human need, the book presents a pragmatic theory of religious symbolism in terms of which the cognitive engagement of the Ultimate is of a piece with the cognitive engagement of nature and persons. Throughout this discussion, Neville develops a late-modern conception of God that is defensible in a global theological public.  Against the common supposition that religion is on the retreat in late modernity except in fundamentalist forms, the author argues that religion in our time is a stimulus to religiously oriented scholarship, a civilizing force among world societies, a foundation for obligation in politics, a source for healthy social experimentation, and the most important mover of soul.  Against the common supposition that religious thinking or theology is confessional and inevitably biased in favor of the thinker's community, Neville argues for the public character of theology, the need for history and phenomenology of religion in philosophy of religion, and the possibility of objectivity through the contextualization of philosophy, contrary to the fashionable claims of neo-pragmatism. This vigorous analysis and program for religious thinking is straightforwardly pro-late-modern and anti-postmodern, a rousing gallop along the high road around modernism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52135359906065,"sku":"NLS9780791454244","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53008914088209,"sku":"NIN9780791454244","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780791454244.jpg?v=1757548639"},{"product_id":"tao-and-the-daimon-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780873956628","title":"The Tao and the Daimon","description":"The Tao and the Daimon examines a central theme in religious studies: the question of the authority and authenticity of traditional religious faith and practice (tao) in light of the challenge from the spirit of critical reason (Socrates' daimon). From a non-judgmental, historical standpoint, it develops the dialectical relation between religion and rational inquiry. Neville employs a philosophical system to set a task for reflection, making it possible to see how Eastern and Western religious traditions differ, overlap, contradict, and reinforce one another. The central chapters are detailed studies of theologically interesting elements in Christianity, Buddhism, taoism, and Neoconfucianism.  How can one judge of the higher truths of another religion without having practiced it? Can the tao and the daimon, after all, be reconciled purely in the conceptual realm of speculative philosophy? Neville recognizes the very real differences between conceptualizing and practicing and the very real differences in understanding that can result. At the same time, he transcends the problem by identifying (and exemplifying in his own work) speculative philosophy as a tao in itself, \"a new locus of religious significance, our own scholarly interpretation, new creations of the holy out of practiced scholarly piety toward the old.\"","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52233995878673,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52233996763409,"sku":"NLS9780873956628","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780873956628.jpg?v=1757802620"},{"product_id":"defining-religion-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781438469584","title":"Defining Religion","description":"Provides a new orientation to philosophy of religion and a new theory of how religion ought to be defined.  In this collection of essays, written over the past decade, Robert Cummings Neville addresses contemporary debates about the concept of religion and the importance of the comparative method in theology, while advancing and defending his own original definition of religion. Neville's hypothesis is that religion is a cognitive, existential, and practical engagement of ultimate realities-five ultimate conditions of existence that need to be engaged by human beings. The essays, which range from formal articles to invited lectures, develop this hypothesis and explore its ramifications in religious experience, philosophical theology, religious studies, and the works of important thinkers in philosophy of religion. Defining Religion is an excellent introduction to Neville's work, especially to the systematic philosophical theology presented in his magisterial three-volume set Philosophical Theology.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52346962280721,"sku":"NLS9781438469584","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53491702169873,"sku":"NIN9781438469584","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781438469584.jpg?v=1758176965"},{"product_id":"on-the-scope-and-truth-of-theology-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780567027320","title":"On the Scope and Truth of Theology","description":"This is the first volume of Robert Cumming Neville's magnum opus, Theology as Symbolic Engagement. Neville is the premier American systematic theologian of our time. His work is profoundly influenced by Paul Tillich, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the American pragmatists John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce. From Tillich he takes the notion of religion, art, and morality as symbol, and the notion that religion is the substance of culture and culture the form of religion. Thus, theology is symbolic engagement with cultural forms, and Neville explores the ways that such engagement occurs among various religious traditions. One of the most important tasks in theology is to devise ways of testing, correcting, or  affirming claims that we had been unable to question before. This book will argue that \"system\" in theology is not merely correlating assertions, but rather building perspectives from which we can render the various parts of theology vulnerable for assessment. In fact, one of the unique features of this book is its engagement with other religions. Such dialogue has been a feature of Neville's work from the beginning.\nTheology as Symbolic Engagement breaks the boundaries of systematic theology and moves away from the static character that characterizes such enterprises from Barth onward. Instead, Neville's book showcases the dynamic character of all theology. The hallmark of this entire project is its effort to show theology to be hypothetical and to make it vulnerable to correction.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52423403110673,"sku":"NLS9780567027320","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780567027320.jpg?v=1759149231"},{"product_id":"philosophical-theology-set-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781438457123","title":"Philosophical Theology Set","description":"A three-volume philosophical theology by Robert Cummings Neville that redefines ultimacy, human existence, and religion for believers and skeptics alike.  From one of the most distinguished contemporary philosophers of religion, Robert Cummings Neville presents a bold, systematic rethinking of ultimate reality, human existence, and the meaning of religion for our time.  This three-volume work advances a comprehensive philosophical theology addressed equally to believers, unbelievers, and scholars across traditions. Across Ultimates, Existence, and Religion, Neville confronts the great first-order questions of the Axial Age traditions: Why is there something rather than nothing? What grounds obligation? How do we seek wholeness? How should we engage others? Where is meaning to be found?  Volume One: Ultimates Neville begins with a daring metaphysical hypothesis: reality is grounded in an ontological act of creation that gives rise to five ultimates—the act itself, the form and components of determinate things, their existential location, and their value-identity. From these emerge five universal religious problematics that shape every major tradition. With philosophical rigor and cross-cultural depth, Neville analyzes what can—and cannot—be known about ultimacy.  Volume Two: Existence Turning to the human condition, Neville explores religion as the engagement with ultimate boundary conditions common to all people. Religion articulates existential predicaments while opening venues for ecstatic fulfillment. Both universal and historically embodied, religion emerges as humanity’s response to contingency, obligation, wholeness, community, and meaning.  Volume Three: Religion In this culminating volume, Neville develops a theory of religion and articulates a plausible sacred worldview to guide religious participation today. His philosophical account of value reshapes discussions of ethics, spirituality, and institutional religious life, and concludes with a provocative exploration of \"religionless religion,\" in which institutions are penultimate to ultimate concerns. Together, these volumes form a unique, multidisciplinary, comparative, and nonconfessional theological system—running counter to dominant intellectual trends while drawing deeply from both Eastern and Western traditions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52430847312145,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52430848033041,"sku":"NLS9781438457123","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781438457123.jpg?v=1773316780"},{"product_id":"boston-confucianism-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791447185","title":"Boston Confucianism","description":"Is it possible to be a Confucian without being East Asian, as so many philosophers have been Platonists without being Greek? Strangely enough, many scholars would answer in the negative, citing the inextricable connection between Confucianism and East Asian culture. Boston Confucianism argues to the contrary, maintaining that Confucianism can be important to the contemporary global conversation of philosophy and should not be confined to an East Asian context. It promotes a multicultural philosophy of culture and makes a contribution to Confucian-Christian dialogue, showing that the relations among the world's great civilizations today is not a clash, as Samuel Huntington has argued, but an entanglement whose roots are worth sorting and whose contemporary mutual developments are worth promoting.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52466678595857,"sku":"GOR014532178","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213342138641,"sku":"NLS9780791447185","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780791447185.jpg?v=1759677962"},{"product_id":"good-is-one-its-manifestations-many-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781438463414","title":"The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many","description":"Presents a twenty-first-century, progressive, liberal Confucianism.  Building on his long-standing work in metaphysics and Asian philosophy, Robert Cummings Neville presents a series of essays that cumulatively articulate a contemporary, progressive Confucian position as a global philosophy. Through analysis of the metaphysical and moral traditions of Confucianism, Neville brings these traditions into the twenty-first century. According to Confucianism, rituals define most of our relations with other individuals, social institutions, and nature, and while rituals make possible the positive institutions of high human civilization, they may also lead to harmful behaviors, including racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Neville argues that the amendment of rituals that institutionalize oppression is a positive task, which should be undertaken from within a skillfully ritualized life rather than in the form of external criticism. 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Religion, writes Robert Cummings Neville, articulates existential predicaments and provides venues for ecstatic fulfillment. Like its companion volumes treating ultimacy and religion, Existence advances a systematic philosophical theology to address first-order questions found in the array of Axial Age religions. Issues arising in the major religious traditions are explored through a complex array of philosophical approaches. This second volume shows religion to be the engagement of ultimate realities common to all human beings. Neville finds five problematics relative to ultimate boundary conditions of the human world: the contingency of existence, living under obligation, the quest for wholeness, engagement with others, and the meaning or value in life. 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Through the development of philosophical theology, Neville has built a unique, multidisciplinary, comparative, nonconfessional theological system, one that addresses concerns and provides tools for scientific and humanistic scholars of religion, postmodern thinkers, intellectuals from both secular and religious backgrounds, and those interested in the global state of religion today.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52585282994449,"sku":"NLS9781438457000","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781438457000.jpg?v=1761052544"},{"product_id":"nurture-in-time-and-eternity-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781498286213","title":"Nurture in Time and Eternity","description":"The dimension of eternity has been lost from much contemporary religious consciousness. 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This book provides a cross-cultural analysis of how religious symbols function from a theological and philosophical perspective. Showing how religious symbols can be true in various qualified senses, Neville presents a theory of religious symbolism in the American pragmatic tradition extending and elaborating Tillich's claim that religious symbols participate in the divine realities to which they refer and yet must be broken in order not to be idolatrous or demonic. The Truth of Broken Symbols offers a theory of religious symbolism treating reference, meaning, and interpretation, and discussing different functions of religious symbols in theological, practical, and devotional contexts. 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It calls for a new theory of theorizing that at once provides synoptic understanding and recognized differences and incommensurabilities. Many postmodern critics have thundered against theories that oppress by the value-laden bias of their own forms, and by the interest guiding their forms. Neville provides a theory of theories that responds to these challenges and addresses the problem of theorizing across different cultures.  The other problem is how to exercise practical reason across cultures expressive of different civilizations. How can human beings be responsible in a world where all values seem culture-bound and the obvious solution seems to be moral relativism that trivializes responsibility? Neville presents a theory of practical reason oriented to objective norms determined cross-culturally and based on a Confucian sense of the ritual character of the most important levels of moral life.  This book completes Neville's series, Axiology of Thinking, a trilogy of systematically related studies of valuation in four kinds of thinking: imagination, interpretation, theorizing, and the pursuit of responsibility. Reconstruction of Thinking and Recovery of the Measure, both published by SUNY Press, are companion volumes.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52620220236049,"sku":"NLS9780791425787","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780791425787.jpg?v=1761538053"},{"product_id":"realism-in-religion-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781438428260","title":"Realism in Religion","description":"A philosophical consideration of key religious issues from a pragmatist's perspective.  Religion is basic to the human condition according to this philosophy of religion from a pragmatist's perspective. 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Using the work of pragmatists Peirce and Whitehead in particular to ground his philosophy of religion, Neville surveys a wide swath of twentieth-century theology and current trends, from Barth and Tillich to liberal and postliberal theology, systematic theology, concepts of God, and approaches to scripture.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52654917517585,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52654918107409,"sku":"NLS9781438428260","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781438428260.jpg?v=1762218144"},{"product_id":"on-the-scope-and-truth-of-theology-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780567027221","title":"On the Scope and Truth of Theology","description":"This is the first volume of Robert Cumming Neville's magnum opus, Theology as Symbolic Engagement. Neville is the premier American systematic theologian of our time. His work is profoundly influenced by Paul Tillich, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the American pragmatists John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce. From Tillich he takes the notion of religion, art, and morality as symbol, and the notion that religion is the substance of culture and culture the form of religion. Thus, theology is symbolic engagement with cultural forms, and Neville explores the ways that such engagement occurs among various religious traditions. One of the most important tasks in theology is to devise ways of testing, correcting, or affirming claims that we had been unable to question before. This book will argue that \"system\" in theology is not merely correlating assertions, but rather building perspectives from which we can render the various parts of theology vulnerable for assessment. In fact, one of the unique features of this book is its engagement with other religions. Such dialogue has been a feature of Neville's work from the beginning. Theology as Symbolic Engagement breaks the boundaries of systematic theology and moves away from the static character that characterizes such enterprises from Barth onward. Instead, Neville's book showcases the dynamic character of all theology. 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Neville here offers a broad and detailed interpretation of the relevance of Confucianism and Daoism to contemporary issues. The discussion includes analyses of classical Confucian and Daoist texts, especially those of Xunzi and Laozi, and of the current scene of English-speaking philosophy advancing Chinese themes. The book also reflects on the nature of comparative philosophy as such, and the role that comparative philosophy has in the ongoing contemporary engagement with globalization, the clash of cultures, and scientific transformations of the worldviews of diverse civilizations. 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It studies six families of symbols about Jesus, showing how they are true for some people, not true for others, and not meaningful for a third group. Divine creation is analysed in metaphysical and symbolic terms, and religious symbolism is shown to be wholly compatible with a late-modern scientific world view. Robert Cummings Neville, a leading philosophical theologian, presents and illustrates an elaborate theory of religious symbols according to which God is directly engaged in symbolically shaped thinking and practice. Symbols are not distancing substitutes for God. Theology of symbolic engagement is defended as an alternative to doctrinal or descriptive theology. This major work re-shapes the way we think about Jesus, and will be of value to students, academics, clergy with theological training, and others grappling with the meaning and importance of religious symbols in our age.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52663380214033,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52663381491985,"sku":"NLS9780521807876","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521807876.jpg?v=1762271878"},{"product_id":"soldier-sage-saint-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780823210367","title":"Soldier, Sage, Saint","description":"This is a philosophic study of some aspects of spiritual development, broadly defined. Professor Neville has been influenced significantly by comparison between several of the world's great spiritual traditions, and he has tried to be faithful to experiences in those traditions. Readers whose interest in spiritual development come out of non-Western traditions will find this book congenial. But this is a philosophical study, and the book puts forward a philosophical theory of spiritual development, paying attention to personal, social, and metaphysical concerns, and analyzing three central images of spiritual heroism. The central contribution attempted here is a way of understanding the quest for spiritual liberation or perfection through the models of the spiritual soldier, the sage, and the saint. 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The first volume in a trilogy, this book and companion volumes treating existence and religion advance a systematic philosophical theology to address first-order questions found in the array of Axial Age religions. Questions generally arising in the major religious traditions are interrogated with a dialectic of philosophical approaches. This volume begins the project with a consideration of ultimacy defined philosophically and illustrated in a wide range of traditions. To the question of how or why there is something rather than nothing, Neville answers with an elaborate hypothesis about the ontological act of creation that creates all determinate things as related to but different from one another. The result is the claim that there are five ultimates: the ontological act, the form of determinate things, the components of determinate things, the existential location of determinate things relative to one another, and the value-identity of ultimate things, giving rise to five universal religious problematics of ultimacy respectively: the question of existence, the ground of obligation, the quest for wholeness, engaging others, and finding meaning. Neville analyzes what can and cannot be known about each of these ultimates. 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In this collection of essays, written over the past decade, Robert Cummings Neville addresses contemporary debates about the concept of religion and the importance of the comparative method in theology, while advancing and defending his own original definition of religion. Neville's hypothesis is that religion is a cognitive, existential, and practical engagement of ultimate realities-five ultimate conditions of existence that need to be engaged by human beings. The essays, which range from formal articles to invited lectures, develop this hypothesis and explore its ramifications in religious experience, philosophical theology, religious studies, and the works of important thinkers in philosophy of religion. Defining Religion is an excellent introduction to Neville's work, especially to the systematic philosophical theology presented in his magisterial three-volume set Philosophical Theology.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52820883898641,"sku":"NLS9781438469577","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781438469577.jpg?v=1764330772"},{"product_id":"metaphysics-of-goodness-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781438477435","title":"Metaphysics of Goodness","description":"Develops a theory of culture based on a metaphysics that elaborates on the Platonic and Confucian traditions.  In Metaphysics of Goodness, Robert Cummings Neville extends Alfred North Whitehead's project of cultural studies, which was based on a new metaphysics that Whitehead developed in Adventures of Ideas. Neville's focus is value or goodness in many modes. The metaphysics treated in this book derive from the Platonic and Confucian traditions, with significant modifications of Whitehead, Peirce, Dewey, Confucius, Xunzi, and Zhou Dunyi. Part one develops a theory of form based on a metaphysics of harmony. Part two elaborates a theory of art based on a metaphysics of beauty. Part three sketches a theory of personhood based on a metaphysics of obligation. Part four discusses civilization in a systematic way based on a metaphysics of flourishing. Throughout the book, Neville elaborates a theory of interpretation that is inspired by Peirce, Dewey, and Xunzi but is not limited to their ideas. While the reasoning of the book is concise, it employs methodologies from many kinds of philosophy, art criticism, ethics, and cultural studies, and sees philosophy as needing to learn from all these disciplines.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52821008253201,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52821010088209,"sku":"NLS9781438477435","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781438477435.jpg?v=1764330996"},{"product_id":"ultimates-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781438448831","title":"Ultimates","description":"A new theology of ultimate realities and a new theory of religion to back it up addressed to believers, unbelievers, and scholars of all traditions.  Finalist for the 2015 John N. Findlay Award in Metaphysics presented by the Metaphysical Society of America   Robert Cummings Neville offers a new theology of the ultimate and a new theory of religion to back it up. The first volume in a trilogy, this book and companion volumes treating existence and religion advance a systematic philosophical theology to address first-order questions found in the array of Axial Age religions. Questions generally arising in the major religious traditions are interrogated with a dialectic of philosophical approaches. This volume begins the project with a consideration of ultimacy defined philosophically and illustrated in a wide range of traditions. To the question of how or why there is something rather than nothing, Neville answers with an elaborate hypothesis about the ontological act of creation that creates all determinate things as related to but different from one another. The result is the claim that there are five ultimates: the ontological act, the form of determinate things, the components of determinate things, the existential location of determinate things relative to one another, and the value-identity of ultimate things, giving rise to five universal religious problematics of ultimacy respectively: the question of existence, the ground of obligation, the quest for wholeness, engaging others, and finding meaning. Neville analyzes what can and cannot be known about each of these ultimates. Readers will find Neville's theory of religion and philosophy a bold one, running counter to dominant trends while richly informed by a long and fruitful engagement with theology, philosophy, and religion, East and West.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52821026275601,"sku":"NLS9781438448831","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781438448831.jpg?v=1764331022"},{"product_id":"religion-book-robert-cummings-neville-9781438456997","title":"Religion","description":"The concluding volume in a trilogy advancing a systematic philosophical theology, this book presents a plausible sacred worldview for religious participation.  Religion is the third and final volume in Robert Cummings Neville's systematic development of a new philosophical theology. Unfolding through his earlier volumes, Ultimates and Existence, and now in Religion, philosophical theology considers first-order questions generally treated by religious traditions through philosophical methods while reflecting Neville's long engagement with philosophy, theology, and Eastern and Western religious traditions. In this capstone to the trilogy, Neville provides a theory of religion and presents a sacred worldview to guide religious participation. His philosophical theory of value enlightens religions' approaches to ethics, spirituality, and religious institutional living and collaboration. With a detailed examination of plausibility conditions for sacred worldviews, the book concludes with an exploration of \"religionless religion\" for which institutions of religion are of penultimate value.  Through the development of philosophical theology, Neville has built a unique, multidisciplinary, comparative, nonconfessional theological system, one that addresses concerns and provides tools for scientific and humanistic scholars of religion, postmodern thinkers, intellectuals from both secular and religious backgrounds, and those interested in the global state of religion today.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52821173829905,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52821174124817,"sku":"NLS9781438456997","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781438456997.jpg?v=1764331565"},{"product_id":"ritual-and-deference-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791474570","title":"Ritual and Deference","description":"Brings Confucianism and Daoism into conversation with contemporary philosophy and the contemporary world situation.  Ritual and Deference develops Robert Cummings Neville's thesis that contemporary philosophy has much to gain by shaping itself through important themes of the Chinese philosophical traditions, especially the themes of ritual and deference. Neville here offers a broad and detailed interpretation of the relevance of Confucianism and Daoism to contemporary issues. The discussion includes analyses of classical Confucian and Daoist texts, especially those of Xunzi and Laozi, and of the current scene of English-speaking philosophy advancing Chinese themes. The book also reflects on the nature of comparative philosophy as such, and the role that comparative philosophy has in the ongoing contemporary engagement with globalization, the clash of cultures, and scientific transformations of the worldviews of diverse civilizations. Neville stresses the importance of deferring to the integrity of cultures while still submitting them to normative analysis and criticism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52855212900625,"sku":"NLS9780791474570","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780791474570.jpg?v=1764980391"},{"product_id":"recovery-of-the-measure-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791400999","title":"Recovery of the Measure","description":"\"The world is as we interpret it.\" Arguing that this assumption is a major and pervasive error, Neville demonstrates that the world is the measure of our interpretations. Distinguishing two traditions of hermeneutics, the continental tradition focusing on the interpretation of texts and the American tradition on the interpretation of nature; Neville argues that, since interpretation itself is part of the natural world, a philosophical vision of nature must be restored to currency in order to provide an interpretive theory of the world that can be a measure of interpretation. The natural world must be construed richly enough to be inclusive of human intention and purpose. By taking the discussion of hermeneutics from the context of textuality and placing it within that of nature, Recovery of the Measure provides a non-modernist and non-postmodernist theory of interpretation.  The first four chapters and the last four constitute a hermeneutical theory addressing contemporary problems of interpretation situated in the context of the philosophy of nature. 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Part one is a rigorous philosophical development of the idea of God as creator ex nihilo, arguing that an adequate solution to the problem of the one and the many demands such a conception. This part includes a dialectical examination of contemporary and classical theories of being.  Part two asks how one can have knowledge of the kind of God described previously; it deals with experience, analogy, and dialectic.  Part three applies the conception developed in part one to fundamental religious conceptions such as the object of worship, the nature of religion, and the practices of private and public religious life. It presents theories arising from the conception of creation ex nihilo for the interpretation of religious concern, conversion, faith, certainty, solitude, bliss, service, liturgy, providence, evangelism, dedication, reconciliation, brotherhood, discipline, the integration of public and private religion relative to other dimensions of life, freedom, love, and glory.  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The modern period, beginning with the European Renaissance, spawned many developments, not just the modernist one in terms of which the tradition has been read. From the standpoint of the highroad around modernism, both modernism and post-modernism look like nothing more than two late modern movements, perhaps too preoccupied with themselves and their historical place to engage a swiftly changing world containing more than the Western tradition. 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He argues that time and eternity constitute one topic and that, therefore, time itself is beyond understanding, beyond personal grasp, and beyond civilized orientation without a proper comprehension of eternity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213275029777,"sku":"NLS9780791415993","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780791415993.jpg?v=1772754066"},{"product_id":"cosmology-of-freedom-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791427583","title":"The Cosmology of Freedom","description":"The book shows the connections between the personal and the social dimensions of freedom, and how all the meanings of freedom are functions of the natural cosmos.  Neville's The Cosmology of Freedom corrects the tendency to believe that freedom consists in one thing alone, for instance not being constrained, or being able to choose between live options, or participating in a democratic political process. He lays out in systematic fashion the connections between personal dimensions of freedom, such as external liberty (Hobbes), the ability to act on the basis of one's intentions (Spinoza), choice between live options (James), and creativity (Whitehead), and social dimensions of freedom, such as opportunity (Du Bois), social pluralism (Dewey), integral life-style (Tillich), and participatory politics (Dahl). Discerning the nuances of these dimensions of freedom, it becomes a matter of experience and empirical investigation to determine in specific circumstance whether, in what senses, and to what degree a person or society is free.  To distinguish and to relate these senses of freedom, a broad philosophical perspective is required. Neville provides a functional philosophical cosmology that shows how all the senses of freedom are functions of the natural cosmos. In conjunction with his theory of divine creation in God the Creator, this book is an important argument for reconciling human freedom and divine creativity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53213314777361,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213315268881,"sku":"NLS9780791427583","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780791427583.jpg?v=1772754293"},{"product_id":"boston-confucianism-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791447178","title":"Boston Confucianism","description":"Is it possible to be a Confucian without being East Asian, as so many philosophers have been Platonists without being Greek? Strangely enough, many scholars would answer in the negative, citing the inextricable connection between Confucianism and East Asian culture. Boston Confucianism argues to the contrary, maintaining that Confucianism can be important to the contemporary global conversation of philosophy and should not be confined to an East Asian context. It promotes a multicultural philosophy of culture and makes a contribution to Confucian-Christian dialogue, showing that the relations among the world's great civilizations today is not a clash, as Samuel Huntington has argued, but an entanglement whose roots are worth sorting and whose contemporary mutual developments are worth promoting.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53213343383825,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213343908113,"sku":"NLS9780791447178","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780791447178.jpg?v=1772754513"},{"product_id":"religious-truth-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780791447789","title":"Religious Truth","description":"Explores religious truth in a range of world religions and discusses the issue and philosophical implications of comparison itself.  This multifaceted study compares how six traditions interpret religious truth, and how it has come to be illustrated so diversely in the Chinese religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Philosophical essays integrate the comparisons, ask what religious truth might be in terms of a contemporary defensible theory, and reflect on what all this shows for the nature of religion and its study.  Contributors include Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Malcolm David Eckel, Paul Fredriksen, S. Nomanul Haq, Joseph Kanofsky, Livia Kohn, James E. Miller, Robert Cummings Neville, Hugh Nicholson, Anthony J. Saldarini, John Thatamanil,, and Wesley J. 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Neville employs a philosophical system to set a task for reflection, making it possible to see how Eastern and Western religious traditions differ, overlap, contradict, and reinforce one another. The central chapters are detailed studies of theologically interesting elements in Christianity, Buddhism, taoism, and Neoconfucianism.  How can one judge of the higher truths of another religion without having practiced it? Can the tao and the daimon, after all, be reconciled purely in the conceptual realm of speculative philosophy? Neville recognizes the very real differences between conceptualizing and practicing and the very real differences in understanding that can result. 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Despite the diversity of argued opinions on the fundamental array of metaphysical topics, these essays display the zest of a reborn enterprise, at once appropriating a rich and honorable past and moving into new areas only recently thought illegitimate for philosophy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213596942609,"sku":"NLS9780887064715","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780887064715.jpg?v=1772756394"},{"product_id":"puritan-smile-book-robert-cummings-neville-9780887065422","title":"The Puritan Smile","description":"This book develops a contemporary metaphysics of morals. Currently the liberal tradition defines the field of moral and political theory. It contains the popular utilitarian, the deontological, and the virtue-ethics approaches to normative theory; and by a broad dialectical negation, it also defines the historical materialism of Marx. The Puritan Smile circumvents the Liberalism-Marxism dialectic with the Puritan emphasis on responsibility and their social definition of individuality. To this core of classical puritanism is added the deeply rooted sense of culture and the vast historical experience of Confucianism with which it resonates strongly.  The need for tolerance and the celebration of liberty is asserted by Neville in order to offset the tendencies toward dogmatism and totalitarianism inherent within the Puritan and Confucian views. 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