Edgar Burns
Biographic Data
| ID | 270635 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Edgar Burns |
| GIVEN NAMES | Edgar |
| FAMILY NAME | Burns |
| SIGNATURE | BURNS E |
| AFFILIATIONS | La Trobe University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7009-9948 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Evil and Divine Power: A Response to James Sterba’s Argument from Evil
In this article, I offer a response to James P. Sterba’s moral argument for the non-existence of God. Sterba applies to God the so-called Pauline Principle that it is not permissible to do evil in order that good may come. He suggests that this is the underlying element in discussions of the Doctrine of Double Effect, a doctrine that has been largely overlooked by philosophers of religion. Although, as hypothetical trolley cases demonstrate, huma…
Evil, Prayer and Transformation
Analytic theodicy commonly suggests an overarching reason why a benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent deity permits the quantity and intensity of suffering in our world. This is often couched in terms of freedom of belief or action, or some other variation of the claim that suffering is “worth the price.” I argue that not even the hope of post-mortem consolation could adequately compensate any individual for the inevitable loss of everything whic…
Local newspaper reporting humanitarian migrants’ settlement experience in an Australian country town
This article explores local media reporting about South Sudanese humanitarian migrants moving into a Victorian rural country town in Australia. In contrast with often cited negative media reporting on migrants, the newspaper articles examined positively construct South Sudanese humanitarian migrants as Australian citizens, attempting to reduce anxiety and uncertainty about the presence of these strangers in a country town without prior experience…
Images of Reality: Iris Murdoch's Five Ways from Art to Religion
Art plays a significant role in Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy, a major part of which may be interpreted as a proposal for the revision of religious belief. In this paper, I identify within Murdoch's philosophical writings five distinct but related ways in which great art can assist moral/religious belief and practice: art can reveal to us "the world as we were never able so clearly to see it before"; this revelatory capacity provides us with ev…
‘Ontological’ arguments from experience: Daniel A. Dombrowski, Iris Murdoch, and the nature of divine reality
Dombrowski and Murdoch offer versions of the ontological argument which aim to avoid two types of objection – those concerned with the nature of the divine, and those concerned with the move from an abstract concept to a mind-independent reality. For both, the nature of the concept of God/Good entails its instantiation, and both supply a supporting argument from experience. It is only Murdoch who successfully negotiates the transition from an abs…
Re-imagining career transition: What help from typologies
This article considers the part played by typologies in analysing career transition. It identifies three strands of typological thinking in seeking to understand this phenomenon. These are typologies as method, as a method–theory bridge, and as a theoretical mode of sociological thinking. The discussion explores ways in which each of these approaches to career transition may contribute insights or may simply complicate analysis. Positive and nega…
Is There a Distinctively Feminist Philosophy of Religion
Feminist philosophers of religion such as Grace Jantzen and Pamela Sue Anderson have endeavoured, firstly, to identify masculine bias in the concepts of God found in the scriptures of the world's religions and in the philosophical writings in which religious beliefs are assessed and proposed and, secondly, to transform the philosophy of religion, and thereby the lives of women, by recommending new or expanded epistemologies and using these to rev…
The Empty Shops Project: Developing Rural Students’ Sociological Insight
An informal research project with high local relevance was developed for a first-year sociology course at an Australian rural university campus. The project developed students’ sociological insight by challenging them to investigate “truths” about their own region, rather than immediately pushing them to comprehend new and different societyscapes. Classroom sessions elicited debate over the adequacy of social theories about rural and urban life, …
What Happens After Pascal's Wager: Living Faith and Rational Belief - Daniel Garber
Journal Article What Happens After Pascal's Wager: Living Faith and Rational Belief – Daniel Garber Get access What Happens After Pascal's Wager: Living Faith and Rational Belief. Daniel Garber, (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009. Pp. 63. Price £9.37.) Elizabeth Burns Elizabeth Burns Heythrop College, University of London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 61, Iss…
Developing Email Interview Practices in Qualitative Research
This article describes using email as a kind of interview. In a sociological study of professional career transition into law, on several occasions in that study, interview participants suggested using emails rather than face-to-face interviews. This 'irregularity' set off reflection whether email interviews counted as 'proper' interviews. Discussing examples of email interviews clarifies differences from other uses of email in research, and assi…
“Difficult Times . . . between Veterinarians and Farmers”: Occupational Control in the New Zealand Veterinary Club System, 1930s–1960s
The development of the New Zealand veterinary club system in the mid‐twentieth century departs from more conventional views of what constitutes professionalisation. It is studied here by examining the cautious contestation between farmers and veterinarians in expanding and controlling the provision of rural veterinary services. In describing the growth and consolidation of the club movement the concepts of state mediation and occupational heteron…
Iris Murdoch and the Nature of Good
Iris Murdoch's concept of Good is a central feature of her moral theory; in Murdoch's thought, attention to the Good is the primary means of improving our moral conduct. Unfortunately, her unsystematic presentation of her ideas and the difficulty of the issues being considered make it hard to be sure what she means by the Good, and how we are to attend to it. I will argue that this uncertainty has given rise to three objections which, with some c…
The Drama of Social Reality
Theatricality: A Study of Convention in the Theatre and Social Life
Sociology of Literature and Drama
Developing Email Interview Practices in Qualitative Research
This article describes using email as a kind of interview. In a sociological study of professional career transition into law, on several occasions in that study, interview participants suggested using emails rather than face-to-face interviews. This 'irregularity' set off reflection whether email interviews counted as 'proper' interviews. Discussing examples of email interviews clarifies differences from other uses of email in research, and assi…
Local newspaper reporting humanitarian migrants’ settlement experience in an Australian country town
This article explores local media reporting about South Sudanese humanitarian migrants moving into a Victorian rural country town in Australia. In contrast with often cited negative media reporting on migrants, the newspaper articles examined positively construct South Sudanese humanitarian migrants as Australian citizens, attempting to reduce anxiety and uncertainty about the presence of these strangers in a country town without prior experience…
The Empty Shops Project: Developing Rural Students’ Sociological Insight
An informal research project with high local relevance was developed for a first-year sociology course at an Australian rural university campus. The project developed students’ sociological insight by challenging them to investigate “truths” about their own region, rather than immediately pushing them to comprehend new and different societyscapes. Classroom sessions elicited debate over the adequacy of social theories about rural and urban life, …
Sociology of Literature and Drama
Theatricality: A Study of Convention in the Theatre and Social Life
The Drama of Social Reality
Iris Murdoch and the Nature of Good
Iris Murdoch's concept of Good is a central feature of her moral theory; in Murdoch's thought, attention to the Good is the primary means of improving our moral conduct. Unfortunately, her unsystematic presentation of her ideas and the difficulty of the issues being considered make it hard to be sure what she means by the Good, and how we are to attend to it. I will argue that this uncertainty has given rise to three objections which, with some c…
“Difficult Times . . . between Veterinarians and Farmers”: Occupational Control in the New Zealand Veterinary Club System, 1930s–1960s
The development of the New Zealand veterinary club system in the mid‐twentieth century departs from more conventional views of what constitutes professionalisation. It is studied here by examining the cautious contestation between farmers and veterinarians in expanding and controlling the provision of rural veterinary services. In describing the growth and consolidation of the club movement the concepts of state mediation and occupational heteron…
Developing Email Interview Practices in Qualitative Research
This article describes using email as a kind of interview. In a sociological study of professional career transition into law, on several occasions in that study, interview participants suggested using emails rather than face-to-face interviews. This 'irregularity' set off reflection whether email interviews counted as 'proper' interviews. Discussing examples of email interviews clarifies differences from other uses of email in research, and assi…
The Empty Shops Project: Developing Rural Students’ Sociological Insight
An informal research project with high local relevance was developed for a first-year sociology course at an Australian rural university campus. The project developed students’ sociological insight by challenging them to investigate “truths” about their own region, rather than immediately pushing them to comprehend new and different societyscapes. Classroom sessions elicited debate over the adequacy of social theories about rural and urban life, …
What Happens After Pascal's Wager: Living Faith and Rational Belief - Daniel Garber
Journal Article What Happens After Pascal's Wager: Living Faith and Rational Belief – Daniel Garber Get access What Happens After Pascal's Wager: Living Faith and Rational Belief. Daniel Garber, (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009. Pp. 63. Price £9.37.) Elizabeth Burns Elizabeth Burns Heythrop College, University of London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 61, Iss…
Is There a Distinctively Feminist Philosophy of Religion
Feminist philosophers of religion such as Grace Jantzen and Pamela Sue Anderson have endeavoured, firstly, to identify masculine bias in the concepts of God found in the scriptures of the world's religions and in the philosophical writings in which religious beliefs are assessed and proposed and, secondly, to transform the philosophy of religion, and thereby the lives of women, by recommending new or expanded epistemologies and using these to rev…
‘Ontological’ arguments from experience: Daniel A. Dombrowski, Iris Murdoch, and the nature of divine reality
Dombrowski and Murdoch offer versions of the ontological argument which aim to avoid two types of objection – those concerned with the nature of the divine, and those concerned with the move from an abstract concept to a mind-independent reality. For both, the nature of the concept of God/Good entails its instantiation, and both supply a supporting argument from experience. It is only Murdoch who successfully negotiates the transition from an abs…
Re-imagining career transition: What help from typologies
This article considers the part played by typologies in analysing career transition. It identifies three strands of typological thinking in seeking to understand this phenomenon. These are typologies as method, as a method–theory bridge, and as a theoretical mode of sociological thinking. The discussion explores ways in which each of these approaches to career transition may contribute insights or may simply complicate analysis. Positive and nega…
Images of Reality: Iris Murdoch's Five Ways from Art to Religion
Art plays a significant role in Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy, a major part of which may be interpreted as a proposal for the revision of religious belief. In this paper, I identify within Murdoch's philosophical writings five distinct but related ways in which great art can assist moral/religious belief and practice: art can reveal to us "the world as we were never able so clearly to see it before"; this revelatory capacity provides us with ev…
Local newspaper reporting humanitarian migrants’ settlement experience in an Australian country town
This article explores local media reporting about South Sudanese humanitarian migrants moving into a Victorian rural country town in Australia. In contrast with often cited negative media reporting on migrants, the newspaper articles examined positively construct South Sudanese humanitarian migrants as Australian citizens, attempting to reduce anxiety and uncertainty about the presence of these strangers in a country town without prior experience…
Evil, Prayer and Transformation
Analytic theodicy commonly suggests an overarching reason why a benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent deity permits the quantity and intensity of suffering in our world. This is often couched in terms of freedom of belief or action, or some other variation of the claim that suffering is “worth the price.” I argue that not even the hope of post-mortem consolation could adequately compensate any individual for the inevitable loss of everything whic…
Evil and Divine Power: A Response to James Sterba’s Argument from Evil
In this article, I offer a response to James P. Sterba’s moral argument for the non-existence of God. Sterba applies to God the so-called Pauline Principle that it is not permissible to do evil in order that good may come. He suggests that this is the underlying element in discussions of the Doctrine of Double Effect, a doctrine that has been largely overlooked by philosophers of religion. Although, as hypothetical trolley cases demonstrate, huma…
Sociology (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Social science (6 works) · Political science (5 works) · Theology (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Economics (3 works) · Law (3 works)