Taliaferro Ch. Proof and Faith: philosophy and Religion from the 17th century to our days / Translated from English by S. S. Pimenova, T. V. Malevich; scientific ed. by A. R. Fokin / Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoi kul'tury: Znak, 2014, 576 p.

Charles Taliaferro is a major specialist in philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion, having published more than twenty monographs and hundreds of articles. 1 The peer-reviewed book was published in the series " Philosophical Theology. Modernity and Retrospect". In terms of format, "Proof and Belief" is a cross between a textbook or introduction to the philosophy of religion and a research monograph,

1. Main publications and research interests of Ch. Taliaferro listed in the article T. V. Malevich Preface to the Russian edition / / Taliaferro Ch. Proof and Faith: philosophy and religion from the 17th century to the present day, Moscow, 2014, pp. 11-15.

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It provides a critical analysis of the main arguments and concepts of major thinkers. There are not so many similar works in Russian, and this book will certainly be interesting for the domestic reader.

Taliaferro structures his narrative around certain semantic lines that ensure the book's conceptual unity. First of all, these are proofs of the existence of God. Most of the philosophers presented in the monograph offer their own interpretation of traditional proofs, such as from motion, from the producing cause, from degrees of perfection, from expediency, but they are also analyzed by Kant, naturalism, pragmatism, etc. Another cross-cutting theme is the relationship between faith and reason, the dialogue between religious and secular worldviews. Taliaferro does not ignore the moral issues, while first of all the compatibility of the all-good almighty God and the presence of evil in the world is analyzed, the relationship between religion and gender, religion and love, friendship is also touched upon.

The book is quite large in volume - about 550 pages. It consists of nine chapters, each of which has an average of about 10 subsections. Such structuring of the material undoubtedly facilitates its perception by the reader. The first chapter is devoted to the Cambridge Platonists, the second to Descartes, the third to Locke, Leibniz, and Spinoza, the fourth to Hume, the fifth to Kant, and the sixth to the philosophy of religion of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. (post-Hegelian idealism, naturalism and pragmatism are considered, etc.); the seventh chapter gives a cursory overview of the ideas of about two dozen philosophers of the XX century (from Heidegger to Derrida), in the eighth chapter again a review is made, but the material is structured not by personalities, but by schools (this is modern positivism, Wittgenstein's followers, pluralistic philosophy). philosophy of religion, etc.); finally, the ninth chapter raises a number of problems of a sociological and ethical nature (for example, the modern academic environment, philosophy of religion in public life). As a feature of the author's method of presenting the material, we note Taliaferro's use of sometimes very extensive quotations, up to one and a half pages, which is probably done in order to make the reader feel the originality of the style of a particular philosopher.

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Let us note the advantages of the monograph, which determine its relevance. First, the book provides an analysis of many trends and philosophical schools that are little known to the Russian-speaking reader. In particular, the first chapter deals with the Cambridge Platonism of the 17th century2 and its main representatives - R. R. Tolkien. Kedworth, G. Mohr, and B. Whichcote. The Cambridge Platonists are closer to the Renaissance in their basic methodological guidelines than to the Modern age. They believed that man, like nature, is the creation of the all-good, all-powerful God. Philosophy and reason, armed with evidence, do not distance us from the Absolute, but bring us closer to it. It is not only wisdom that leads to the knowledge of God, but also a virtuous life, moral perfection, and emotional openness to the truth. Interesting and profound is the idea of a "plastic nature" located between God and the material world. Plastic nature acts as a vehicle for the will of God. It is relatively autonomous, and its presence avoids, on the one hand, the idea of the world as a soulless mechanism, and on the other - a situation in which God directly controls the life of each insect. Let us add that the idea of plastic nature is consonant with the ideas of the world soul or Sophia, which are characteristic of Russian philosophy. At the same time, from the point of view of modern science (in particular, synergetics), nature is plastic, that is, it has the ability to self-organize, self-build. Changes in the so-called inanimate nature occur not only under the influence of mechanical action from the outside, but also due to internal causality (for example, this is how the atoms of a radioactive substance decay). The idea of a plastic nature can also serve as one of the foundations of environmental ethics.

In addition to the Cambridge Platonists, the monograph presents little-known to the Russian-speaking reader early American philosophy of religion, feminist philosophy of religion, some modern skeptics and atheists, etc.

Secondly, the advantage of the book is that Taliaferro offers the reader not just a detached presentation of the concepts of various thinkers, but a critical study of the main arguments and strategies of philosophical search. A fair thesis is put forward that realism regarding categories is also moral-

2. C. Taliaferro was co-editor of Cambridge Platonists: Cambridge Platonist Spirituality (2005). Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press.

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It acts as an ally of philosophical theology. Accordingly, other, anti-realist lines of thought lead to agnosticism, skepticism, or to the fact that the theory becomes self-contradictory. Taliaferro examines Kant's ideas in detail. The German philosopher believed that we cannot know things in themselves, and we only comprehend phenomena. At the same time, knowledge about phenomena is reliable and irrefutable, but why should it be so? Kant seeks to rely on the invariant structures of subjectivity, but human consciousness, unlike the divine, is changeable and historical. It means that by studying only phenomena and a subject, even if it is transcendental, it is impossible to claim the universality and universality of one's conclusions. Kant's antinomies are widely known and still actively discussed. The first antinomy includes the thesis "the world has a beginning in time and is limited in space" and the antithesis "the world has no beginning in time and boundaries in space, it is infinite". Kant believes that the world itself is neither finite nor infinite, meaning that both the thesis and the antithesis must be rejected. Only the phenomenal world, shaped by our own cognitive abilities, is accessible to man. Taliaferro points out the following problem: "If Kant is right that thinking about the world itself leads to contradictory conclusions, does not the same contradiction arise in the world of representations?" (p. 315, 316). For example, it is impossible to imagine a square circle. Further, the question arises whether the contradictory, logically impossible idea of a square circle is not such not only in the world of phenomena, but also in the world itself. We cannot distinguish between things in themselves and phenomena. Reliable and generally valid statements about phenomena will be such if they relate not only to them, but also to the world itself. Taliaferro writes: "If someone claims that' there are only conceptual frameworks', is this person claiming that this statement is true and does not just refer to conceptual frameworks, but that conceptual frameworks actually exist? " (p.316).

The problem raised by Kant in the first antinomy is extremely complex. If we turn to the question of the finiteness of the world, we cannot do without the principles of dialectics, as well as the data of modern cosmology. The following statements are true. The universe has a beginning

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It is limited in time and space, but there are innumerable universes that are dying and emerging. It is impossible to find the beginning of the totality of an infinite number of universes. Each local universe has emerged from the global or superuniverse, which is beyond the limitations of time and space, has no beginning, but is itself the beginning of all that exists.

Taliaferro's reflections on Descartes, Hobbes, Nietzsche and other thinkers are informative and interesting. As you read the book, you will find additional arguments in favor of the thesis that the philosophy of religion is the core of metaphysical research. The concept of God is inextricably linked with the idea of the reality and existence of man and the world. Indeed, virtually all of the major thinkers either developed one or another version of philosophical theology, or acted as its critics.

Third, some of the methodological principles that Taliaferro seeks to follow in his book seem fair and important. One of the sections of the monograph is called "Philosophy of Religion and Friendship", and it states that it is necessary to recognize the merits of opponents, the viability and relevance of their research programs - of course, provided that the point of view of the "opposite side" meets the requirements of clarity and consistency of presentation, completeness, historical, philosophical and scientific literacy.

This is related to the need to turn to non-theistic and Eastern religions. For example, when studying the problem of evil, we can consider the Buddha's criticism of the concept of an all-powerful and all-good Creator of the world. Taliaferro analyzes the pluralistic philosophy of religion, in particular John Hick's idea of a noumenal sacred reality, to which many of the world's great religions refer and lead. About Hick himself, he writes the following: "Hick became a leading, universally recognized force in the development of the philosophy of religion in the late twentieth century" (p. 511). Openness and the ability to accept a different point of view are important when it comes to the basic questions of human existence: death and the post-mortem existence of the soul. A few decades ago, the idea that the soul survives the death of the body was viewed in academic circles as having at best only psychological significance. At the same time, the evidence of world religions, observational data from medicine and parapsychology were ignored. You can't use SKA-

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It is clear that the situation has changed dramatically now, but at least the afterlife is seen as a valid alternative to materialism.

Fourthly, although the book does not contain many biographical details, a number of facts from the lives of philosophers are of great interest, since philosophy consists not only of theoretical research, but also of the life experience and worldview of a particular person. For example, Hume's description of the last days of his life is impressive: "I am waiting for an early death. I suffered very little from my illness, and, what is still more curious, in spite of the great exhaustion of my body, my mental balance never left me for a moment, so that if I had to name any period of my life that I would like to relive, I would point to the last one... It's hard to be less attached to life than I am now. " 3 219, 220). One of the contemporaries who visited Hume before his death was very surprised that the philosopher in the last days of his life did not change his skeptical, denying the existence of heaven and hell, views. Taliaferro also writes that the positivist and critic of religion, Alfred Ayer, at the end of his life "to his horror" (p. 467) experienced something like a near-death experience, and one of his last articles has a telling title: "What I saw when I was dead." Would Hume have remained as adamant in his skepticism if he had lived through such an experience?

We also note the shortcomings of Taliaferro's monograph, in particular, the schematic, simplified approach to a number of philosophers. The book examines many different thinkers, and if the work of some of them (for example, Kant, Descartes, Hume) is analyzed in sufficient detail, others are barely mentioned, and in the latter case we are talking about philosophers of the first magnitude. Thus, Karl Marx examines the context of Feuerbach's philosophy, and Taliaferro confines himself to the following statement:" Marx's general concept of human development, historical materialism, tries to explain the emergence of religion and social institutions in general from an economic point of view " (pp. 354, 355). What remains undisclosed is Marx's original idea that as a result of a change in the economy, or basis, the superstructure and thinking are radically transformed.

3. Hume D. Moya zhizn [My life] / / Sochineniya: V 2 t. T. 1. Moscow, 1996, p. 50.

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In one of the subsections (13 pages), Gadamer, Riker, Derrida, and Foucault are considered together, and this is what the author of the monograph thinks unites them: "At the risk of oversimplifying the situation, I will still assume that each of them tried to make sense of human identity in relation to religion" (pp. 421, 422).. This is certainly an oversimplification, and a very significant one.

It is regrettable that the book does not analyze Russian philosophers at all. It is difficult to judge what this is connected with. It is unlikely that the reason is the limited volume of the monograph, because it deals with dozens of personalities, and you can always add several pages. At the risk of making a mistake, let us assume that from Taliaferro's point of view, Russian thinkers did not make a significant contribution to the philosophy of religion. Although the West also recognizes the depth, strength, and originality of the ideas of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Berdyaev, it would be interesting and productive to compare Dostoevsky with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and Berdyaev with Buber and Levinas.

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