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To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0025.2008.01516.x Byline: PETER OCHS (1) Abstract: Abstract A genealogical study that traces a 'broadly Cartesian' pattern of argumentation: from Augustine's scriptural semiotic to the 'narrowly Cartesian' practice of foundationalism to Charles Peirce's pragmatic and reparative semiotic. The essay argues (1) that Augustine transformed Stoic logic into a scriptural semiotic; (2) that this semiotic breeds both Cartesian foundationalism and the pragmatic semiotic that repairs it; (3) that Peirce's semiotic displays the latter. In sum, Augustine's inquiry risks foundationalism but also breeds a self-corrective 'reparative reasoning.' This reasoning is at once scriptural and philosophic. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Religious Studies, Halsey Hall, University of Virginia, PO Box 400126, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4126 USApwo3v@virginia.edu

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0025.2008.00471.x Byline: PETER OCHS (1) Abstract: Abstract Immanuel Kant asked, What are the transcendental conditions for knowing the world and for knowing how we ought to behave in it? For Scriptural Reasoners, this question is answered through fellowships of scriptural study in which practices of shared reading and interpretation give rise to practices of reasoning, speculatively, about what ultimately guides and authorizes our action in the world. These practices lead, in one direction, to Textual Reasoning: fellowships of study that define and test such speculations from within the context of specific traditions of belief and action. In another direction, these practices lead to recommendations about academic study: for example, about how well or poorly various disciplines comprehend the conditions for understanding scriptural religion. Author Affiliation: (1)University of Virginia, Department of Religious Studies, P.O. Box 400126, Charlottesville, VA 22094-4126, USApwo3v@cms.mail.Virginia.edu

A comparative study of religious traditions by the scholars of religious studies is presented. The programs in comparative religious traditions can be nurtured and these programs would help in transforming unhappy debates between theology and religious studies into constructive dialogs between two complementary poles of 'religious and theological studies'.

The symposium on a move from phenomenology to scripture in the work of Paul Ricoeur and Emmanuel Levinas is discussed. Topics include the readership addressed by the symposium, who are participants in the transcendental project of modern European philosophy, and the symposium's message.

The emerging focus of contemporary American Jewish thought is . . . the Talmud! Two reasons come to mind for what may, in this age of postmodernism, seem like a [...]

Michael Wyschogrod's argument that Jews who become Christians should continue to observe the Torah has been seen by others as contradicting his own Jewish Orthodoxy. A Talmudic analysis of his argument, focusing on the plain-sense interpretation of Scripture, presents less contradiction. Such interpretation broadens concepts of oral law and practice of the Torah for both Jews and Christians to see similar elements which mutually enrich each group's understanding of God's presence.

Post-critical metaphysics uses a diagrammatic thought of re-constructing the logic in the Scriptures to allow the leading of a patterned existence. A reasoned approach to metaphysics is used by post-critical theologians to evolve new modes of understanding the Scriptures.

Successful Jewish-Christian dialogues are demonstrated by George Lindbeck and Michael Wyschogrod, who approach the connections between the theologies from a pragmatic perspective. Their dialogues are founded on the belief that one religion contains the solutions for the other's problems, the search for the corrective aspect, joint participation in applying the correction and not expanding the dialogue's influence beyond the specific. David Novak's model of Jewish-Christian dialogue describes the initial dialogue through generality/singularity and the postcritical dialogue through theonomous morality.

While pleased with Jon D. Levenson's designation of us as 'four highly-regarded professors of Jewish studies' ['How Not to Conduct Jewish-Christian Dialogue,' December 2001], we are dismayed by his wholesale [...]

Charles Peirce's pragmatism was driven by the difference between deconstructive historicism and semiotic foundationalism, and his belief that he mediated between the concepts. This was in fact the uniquely pragmatic aspect of his philosophy, and is akin to what James called the 'feeling of rationality in its practical aspect,' the pleasure derived from fluently and practically manipulating ideas. Apparent contradictions in Peirce's writings are functions of his attempt to resolve theoretical conflicts through dialogic inquiry.

The Philosophy of the Talmud, by Hyam Maccoby. New York: Routledge, 2002. 240 pp. $85.00. After the demise of the modern paradigms of rationality, can we still speak of the [...]

A philosophical evaluation of the practices of scriptural reasoning is presented.

Comparative religious traditions is to teach a variety of religious traditions, side by side, by examining how they are practiced, and how they tend to describe and account for their practices. It also offers several different contexts for comparing traditions, Jewish Kabbalism and Islamic Sufism, for example, or Ghanaian and Korean Methodism.

'Trinity, Time and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson' is reviewed and discussed. It would be prudent to treat Jenson's theology as a remedy to particular redundancies in modern theology rather than as a time-independent system.

The work of Stanley Hauerwas, 'With the Grain of the Universe' is reviewed and discussed. Various ideas presented in the work are challenged and compared with ideas of rationalists.

YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT testimonies on record of the theological consequences of the Shoah. It is a wrenching, troubling and yet tragically affirmative account [...]