The Rationality of Humility

In this paper I explore humility as a paradigm, with reference to recent debates over the morality and rationality of emotions, and to the relation between religion and emotion. In Ancient Greek ethics, humility did not yet play a role; with the rise of Christianity, however, it becomes one of the cardinal virtues -- only to disappear again with the onset of modernity. Against a culture-pessimistic interpretation of this development, this article begins by characterising the relation between virtue and emotion, before reconstructing the inner rationality of humility and showing how it can be traced through several transformations to a modern ethics of responsibility. Against this background, possible manifestations of the humble attitude in the present are made plausible

Arguments for a Symbol Theory of Embodied Religion: A Response to Mark Wynn

Within a scientistic view of the world, rituals and sacraments are suspect. They are often invoked as proof of the incompatibility of religion and modernity. Mark Wynn employs important theoretical and phenomenological arguments against this widespread view. These arguments allow for a non-reductionist understanding of everyday and religious experience. In my reply I reconstruct these considerations in the context of a symbol theory that incorporates insights of philosophical anthropology and the contemporary theory of emotion. In this light, metaphorical language about rituals and sacraments as embodiments of God or religion can be approached with interpretative strategies that can take criticisms into account