1st Edition
Philosophical Approaches to Demonology
In contradistinction to the many monographs and edited volumes devoted to historical, cultural, or theological treatments of demonology, this collection features newly written papers by philosophers and other scholars engaged specifically in philosophical argument, debate, and dialogue involving ideas and topics in demonology. The contributors to the volume approach the subject from the perspective of the broadest areas of Western philosophy, namely metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and moral philosophy. The collection also features a plurality of religious, cultural, and theological views on the nature of demons from both Eastern and Western thought, in addition to views that may diverge from these traditional roots. Philosophical Approaches to Demonology will be of interest to philosophers of religion, theologians, and scholars working in philosophical theology and demonology, as well as historians, cultural anthropologists, and sociologists interested more broadly in the concept of demons.
Introduction
Robert Arp and Benjamin W. McCraw
Part I. Demons in Christianity
1 Augustine and Aquinas on the Demonic
Benjamin W. McCraw
2 The Demonic Body: Demonic Ontology and the Domicile of the Demons in Apuleius and Augustine
Seamus O’Neill
3 Christian Demonology: A New Philosophical Perspective
Shandon L. Guthrie
4 Women as "The Devil’s Gateway": A Feminist Critique of Christian Demonology
Jeff Ewing
Part II. Non-Christian Conceptions of Demons
5 Socrates’ Demonic Sign (Daimonion Sēmeion)
Charlene Elsby
6 The Ecological Demon: Silent Running and Interstellar
Brian Willems
7 Demons of Seduction in Early Jewish Literature
Dawn Hutchinson
8 The Jinn and the Shayatīn
Edward Moad
9 Māra: Devā and Demon
Christopher Ketcham
Part III. Demons and Epistemological Issues
10 Justified Belief in the Existence of Demons is Impossible
David Kyle Johnson
11 Esoteric Spirituality, Devils and Demons: Introducing the Gnostic Vision of Modernity
Kristina Sipova
12 Re-Enchantment and Contemporary Demonology
Olli Petteri Pitkänen
Part IV. Demons in Moral and Social Philosophy
13 Whedon’s Demons: The Immorality of Moral Clarity and the Ethics of Moral Complexity
Talia Morag
14 Modern Representations of Evil: Kant, Arendt, and the Devil in Goethe’s Faust and Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita
Elvira Basevich
15 The Politics of Possession: Reading King James’s Daemonologie Through the Lens of Mimetic Realism
Duncan Reyburn
Biography
Benjamin W. McCraw teaches philosophy at the University of South Carolina Upstate. He has a PhD from the University of Georgia and a BA from Wofford College. His research focuses primarily on epistemology and philosophy of religion—especially their intersection in religious epistemology. He’s published articles in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy and Theology, Social Epistemology, and Logos and Episteme as well as co-editor of The Concept of Hell (2015), Philosophical Approaches to the Devil (Routledge, 2015), and The Problem of Evil: New Philosophical Directions (2015).
Robert Arp works as a research analyst for the US Army. He has published in many philosophical areas, including philosophy of religion, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of mind. His work in philosophy of religion has appeared in Religious Studies, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Journal of Philosophical Research, International Philosophical Quarterly, and American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. He is editor of Revisiting Aquinas' Proofs for the Existence of God and co-editor of The Concept of Hell with Ben McCraw. See robertarp.com.
