Special Projects by Justin Sands
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The following is a flyer for my upcoming publication with Indiana University Press. For those who... more The following is a flyer for my upcoming publication with Indiana University Press. For those who are interested, please contact me for a author discount code.
Merold Westphal is considered to be one of the preeminent Continental philosophers of religion. His articulation of faith as the task of a lifetime has become a touchstone in contemporary debates concerning faith's relationship to reason. As Justin Sands explores his philosophy, he illuminates how Westphal’s concept of faith reveals the pastoral, theological intent behind his thinking. Sands sees Westphal's philosophy as a powerful articulation of Protestant theology, but one that is in ecumenical dialogue with questions concerning apologetics and faith's relationship to ethics and responsibility, a more Catholic point of view. By bringing out these features in Westphal's philosophy, Sands intends to find core philosophical methodologies as well as a passable bridge for philosophers to cross over into theological discourses.
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This is the introduction to, "In Anticipation: Eschatology and Transcendence in Contemporary Cont... more This is the introduction to, "In Anticipation: Eschatology and Transcendence in Contemporary Contexts," our special issue of Religions. Here you will find the article order and a brief commentary on how the articles correspond with each other.
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This is an announcement for a forthcoming special issue of Religions. Please also see our webpage... more This is an announcement for a forthcoming special issue of Religions. Please also see our webpage for more details: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/transcendence_and_eschatology
This special issue of the journal, Religions, seeks to explore the connections between eschatology and transcendence within contemporary philosophical-theological debates. This issue will inquire into the convergence or interrelation between the concepts of transcendence and eschatology and how they have developed within contemporary, primarily Continental, thought. On the one hand, thinkers within a hermeneutical-phenomenological context have made a theological turn to re-evaluate concepts of transcendence after the critique of metaphysics. On the other, political philosophers have explored how eschatology(-ies) undergird societal structures that situate the self into a larger, historical context. Within the former discussion, concepts such as radical transcendence and immanent transcendence – or even a so-called end to transcendence – have arisen as possible reorientations after onto-theology. Within the latter, the eschatological promise of the impossible becoming possible, or an end to history, have arisen as motivating principles behind the foundational intuitions and concepts in society.
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Transforming Encounters: Understanding/Exploring the Postmodern Self in a South African and Globa... more Transforming Encounters: Understanding/Exploring the Postmodern Self in a South African and Global Context (Encounters, for short) is a research group that explores the critiques raised by Continental philosophy concerning how one becomes an authentic or 'true' self. It does so through a South African perspective of the global world in which this country's people participate. In this vein, Encounters seeks to provide a collective for researchers within South Africa, and Southern Africa in general, to contribute to these ongoing discussions. The goal of this research group is not mere critique of (post)modernity or of Western thought writ large. Rather, its aim is to explore how the flattening and expanding (but also fragmenting) global context affects the life-world of South Africans and how their voices and concerns might contribute to the ongoing discussions about this world (or worlds). Brief Status Quaestionis of the Research Group: The issue of becoming a self in a world with other selves has been a through-line for academic thought since the Enlightenment and the emergence of Humanism. One can find this question on the minds of many of the great modern thinkers such as René Descartes, GFW Hegel, and Immanuel Kant. One can see this concept of selfhood as well as in the thought of their contemporary critics such as Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom sought to critique how modernity inadequately fashioned a concept of selfhood and the self's being with others. This form of critique continued in late-modern and postmodern thought by paying particular attention to how the self encounters the other, how the self builds its own life-world (Lebenswelt), and how the metaphysics that founds this life-world reveals particularly human, all too human, flaws within the self.
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Papers by Justin Sands
International journal of philosophy & theology, Mar 15, 2015
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International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Dec 26, 2017
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Journal of Africana Religions
This article is a combined effort of an author from Brazil and an author in South Africa to ident... more This article is a combined effort of an author from Brazil and an author in South Africa to identify and comprehend the trajectories African wooden sculptures go through in their material cultural biographies. Wooden sculpting has always been part of African traditions. Africa’s many artisans and markets provided and still provide a great number of wooden sculptures, which are now in several parts of the world, especially among former colonizers and in the diaspora. During their “lives,” such wooden sculptures acquired different statuses, such as commodities like souvenirs or valued art works, but also as priceless historical documents, objets d’art, and religiously consecrated entities. The value and meaning of wooden sculptures are always set in resonance with historical periods and local cultural moralities. Therefore, the study of such cultural biographies reveals aspects not only about the pieces themselves but also about their environment.
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International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 2016
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Open Philosophy
This article critically examines the competitive, adversarial nature of the Western neoliberal st... more This article critically examines the competitive, adversarial nature of the Western neoliberal style of democracy. Specifically, this article focuses on Amartya Sen’s notion of a “universal democracy” as a means of addressing socio-economic inequalities through Sen’s capability approach. Sen’s capability theory has become an acclaimed and widely used theory to evaluate and understand development and inequalities. However, we employ a distinctive critique by engaging Amartya Sen through Herbert Marcuse’s analysis of one dimensionality and the adversarial nature of Western democracy. We further highlight how contemporary neoliberal society employ a particular, adversarial form of public participation. Through this, we underline the various neoliberal problemata, such as Western idealism, political passivity, and a “flattening of choice,” within contemporary democracies and locate how their competitive, winner-take-all nature has become essential to contemporary, Western democratic mod...
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This is an announcement for a forthcoming special issue of Religions. Please also see our webpage... more This is an announcement for a forthcoming special issue of Religions. Please also see our webpage for more details: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/transcendence_and_eschatology This special issue of the journal, Religions, seeks to explore the connections between eschatology and transcendence within contemporary philosophical-theological debates. This issue will inquire into the convergence or interrelation between the concepts of transcendence and eschatology and how they have developed within contemporary, primarily Continental, thought. On the one hand, thinkers within a hermeneutical-phenomenological context have made a theological turn to re-evaluate concepts of transcendence after the critique of metaphysics. On the other, political philosophers have explored how eschatology(-ies) undergird societal structures that situate the self into a larger, historical context. Within the former discussion, concepts such as radical transcendence and immanent transcendence – or even a so-called end to transcendence – have arisen as possible reorientations after onto-theology. Within the latter, the eschatological promise of the impossible becoming possible, or an end to history, have arisen as motivating principles behind the foundational intuitions and concepts in society.
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The following is a flyer for my upcoming publication with Indiana University Press. For those who... more The following is a flyer for my upcoming publication with Indiana University Press. For those who are interested, please contact me for a author discount code. Merold Westphal is considered to be one of the preeminent Continental philosophers of religion. His articulation of faith as the task of a lifetime has become a touchstone in contemporary debates concerning faith's relationship to reason. As Justin Sands explores his philosophy, he illuminates how Westphal’s concept of faith reveals the pastoral, theological intent behind his thinking. Sands sees Westphal's philosophy as a powerful articulation of Protestant theology, but one that is in ecumenical dialogue with questions concerning apologetics and faith's relationship to ethics and responsibility, a more Catholic point of view. By bringing out these features in Westphal's philosophy, Sands intends to find core philosophical methodologies as well as a passable bridge for philosophers to cross over into theological discourses.
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Debating Otherness with Richard Kearney: Perspectives from South Africa, 2018
This chapter introduces Richard Kearney's intellectual autobiography (the next chapter) a... more This chapter introduces Richard Kearney's intellectual autobiography (the next chapter) and, while doing so, helps situate his work into three questions: Where have you been, Where are you now, Where are you going? Since narrativity is so important to his work, this chapter asks of Richard Kearney the simple Ricoeurian question: D'ou parlez vous? It also touches upon his more recent work on carnal hermeneutics. This is an open access book that can also be downloaded here: https://books.aosis.co.za/index.php/ob/catalog/book/94
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South African Journal of Philosophy, 2018
One can view the recent science fiction films Gravity, Interstellar, and The Martian as a three-p... more One can view the recent science fiction films Gravity, Interstellar, and The Martian as a three-part dialogue concerning the existential relationship between humanity, technology, and the science employed to create said technologies. Pitched into the deep of space, each film’s protagonist must seek to find technological answers to save their own existence. Each film’s exploration of these themes essentially questions the importance of technology as a product of scientific-calculative thinking and the validity of this thinking as the primary mode of understanding the world. In this article, I explore the existential dialogue crafted between these films through Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger. Through Benjamin, we will see how the medium of film is completely dependent upon technology to present its art and how this transforms the stories it tells, while also transforming the audience and the audience’s reality. Consequently, understanding the popular reception of these films becomes just as important as the films themselves for our present study. Through Heidegger, we will see how technology provides a space where we can find a truth about ourselves and our reality. However, modern technology’s increasing scientific complexity, created by scientists who in turn employ modern technology to further science, also conceals just as much as it reveals. These films provide us with an opportunity to explore a truth about our dependence upon technology even though, as technologically dependent works of art, they may also conceal how dependent upon science we have become when constructing our reality.
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South African Journal of Philosophy, 2019
This article presents a possible method to engage African thought from a Western context. It does... more This article presents a possible method to engage African thought from a Western context. It does so by first showing the need for such an engagement by arguing that philosophical research is dominated by Western normativity: in phenomenology, for example, questions and answers gathered in this method more often than not ignore other cultures and perspectives, thus yielding results that only reflect a Western historico-cultural context. In order to open this normativity to other encounters, this article presents a dialogue between Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenological method and Serequeberhan’s African hermeneutics. The upshot of this dialogue is that it presents a way for thinkers in a Western context to engage African thought without dominating or otherwise “recolonising” said thought.
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Religions, 2018
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Special Projects by Justin Sands
Merold Westphal is considered to be one of the preeminent Continental philosophers of religion. His articulation of faith as the task of a lifetime has become a touchstone in contemporary debates concerning faith's relationship to reason. As Justin Sands explores his philosophy, he illuminates how Westphal’s concept of faith reveals the pastoral, theological intent behind his thinking. Sands sees Westphal's philosophy as a powerful articulation of Protestant theology, but one that is in ecumenical dialogue with questions concerning apologetics and faith's relationship to ethics and responsibility, a more Catholic point of view. By bringing out these features in Westphal's philosophy, Sands intends to find core philosophical methodologies as well as a passable bridge for philosophers to cross over into theological discourses.
This special issue of the journal, Religions, seeks to explore the connections between eschatology and transcendence within contemporary philosophical-theological debates. This issue will inquire into the convergence or interrelation between the concepts of transcendence and eschatology and how they have developed within contemporary, primarily Continental, thought. On the one hand, thinkers within a hermeneutical-phenomenological context have made a theological turn to re-evaluate concepts of transcendence after the critique of metaphysics. On the other, political philosophers have explored how eschatology(-ies) undergird societal structures that situate the self into a larger, historical context. Within the former discussion, concepts such as radical transcendence and immanent transcendence – or even a so-called end to transcendence – have arisen as possible reorientations after onto-theology. Within the latter, the eschatological promise of the impossible becoming possible, or an end to history, have arisen as motivating principles behind the foundational intuitions and concepts in society.
Papers by Justin Sands
Merold Westphal is considered to be one of the preeminent Continental philosophers of religion. His articulation of faith as the task of a lifetime has become a touchstone in contemporary debates concerning faith's relationship to reason. As Justin Sands explores his philosophy, he illuminates how Westphal’s concept of faith reveals the pastoral, theological intent behind his thinking. Sands sees Westphal's philosophy as a powerful articulation of Protestant theology, but one that is in ecumenical dialogue with questions concerning apologetics and faith's relationship to ethics and responsibility, a more Catholic point of view. By bringing out these features in Westphal's philosophy, Sands intends to find core philosophical methodologies as well as a passable bridge for philosophers to cross over into theological discourses.
This special issue of the journal, Religions, seeks to explore the connections between eschatology and transcendence within contemporary philosophical-theological debates. This issue will inquire into the convergence or interrelation between the concepts of transcendence and eschatology and how they have developed within contemporary, primarily Continental, thought. On the one hand, thinkers within a hermeneutical-phenomenological context have made a theological turn to re-evaluate concepts of transcendence after the critique of metaphysics. On the other, political philosophers have explored how eschatology(-ies) undergird societal structures that situate the self into a larger, historical context. Within the former discussion, concepts such as radical transcendence and immanent transcendence – or even a so-called end to transcendence – have arisen as possible reorientations after onto-theology. Within the latter, the eschatological promise of the impossible becoming possible, or an end to history, have arisen as motivating principles behind the foundational intuitions and concepts in society.
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