J Aaron Simmons
Biographic Data
| ID | 449127 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Aaron Simmons |
| GIVEN NAMES | J Aaron |
| FAMILY NAME | Simmons |
| SIGNATURE | SIMMONS J A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Furman University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6071-2881 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
On the Virtues and Vices of the Singular Will: Seeking "One Thing" with Kierkegaard
In this essay, I follow the example of recent Kierkegaard scholarship in the attempt to consider Kierkegaard's work from a personal point of view. Accordingly, I begin with a biographical account of my first encounter with Kierkegaard's notion that "purity of heart is to will one thing". I explain that were it not for the intervention of one of my early professors, David Kangas, the idea might have prevented me from getting married. I then offer …
Art, Desire, and God: Phenomenological Perspectives
Bringing together thinkers from philosophy of religion, religious studies, music, art, and film, while drawing on a wealth of phenomenological resources and methods, a team of renowned scholars provide new vantages on the question of how art is an expression of the human desire for God. In three interrelated parts, chapters employ phenomenological tools to propose new ways for speaking of the desire for God. Scholars first draw upon music, sculpt…
Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Priority of Questions in Religions: Bringing the Discourse of Gods and Buddhas Down to Earth
"Buddhas, gods, prophets and oracles are often depicted as asking questions. But what are we to understand when Jesus asks 'Who do you say that I am?', or Mazu, the Classical Zen master asks, 'Why do you seek outside?' Is their questioning a power or weakness? Is it something we are only capable of due to our finitude? Is there any kind of question that is a power? Focusing on three case studies of questions in divine discourse on the level of st…
It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right: Phenomenology, Theology, and Janicaud
In his influential essay, “The Theological Turn of French Phenomenology,” Dominique Janicaud suggests that phenomenology and theology “make two.” On the thirtieth anniversary of that essay, here we consider some of the main lines of response that have been offered to his account. We suggest that there are three general approaches that have been the most prominent: indifferentism, integrationism, and pluralism. The indifferentists implicitly sugge…
Militant Liturgies: Practicing Christianity with Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and Weil
Traditional philosophy of religion has tended to focus on the doxastic dimension of religious life, which although a vitally important area of research, has often come at the cost of philosophical engagements with religious practice. Focusing particularly on Christian traditions, this essay offers a sustained reflection on one particular model of embodied Christian practice as presented in the work of Søren Kierkegaard. After a discussion of diff…
Religious, but Not Spiritual: A Constructive Proposal
Often the debates in philosophy of religion are quite disconnected from the empirical data gathered in the sociology of religion. This is especially the case regarding the recent increase in prominence of those identifying as "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR) within an American context. In the attempt to bring these two fields into productive conversation, this essay offers a constructive account of the SBNR in terms of what they reject (i.e.,…
Kierkegaard at the Intersections: The Single Individual and Identity Politics
Kierkegaard's authorship is frequently charged with being so radically individualistic that his work is of little use to social theory. However, in this essay, I argue that Kierkegaard's notion of "the single individual" actually offers important critical resources for some aspects of contemporary identity politics. Through a focused consideration of the two notes that form the little essay, "The Individual" (published with Point of View), I sugg…
Prospects for Pentecostal Philosophy: Assessing the Challenges and Envisioning the Opportunities
In this essay, I offer a constructive vision for the future of pentecostal philosophy. Specifically, I first offer a series of sociocultural challenges that pentecostal philosophy faces. Then I offer a short timeline of philosophical engagement from pentecostal thinkers over the past several decades. In order to open a more productive space for pentecostal philosophy moving forward, I argue that pentecostal philosophy needs to rethink its ties to…
Pentecostal Rationality: Epistemology and the Theological Hermeneutics in the Foursquare Tradition, by Simo Frestadius
Living in the Existential Margins: Reflections on the Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology
In this essay, I outline my view of an epistemic distinction between philosophy and theology along the lines of different evidential authorities operating in the two disciplines. I then go on to suggest that this epistemic view allows for a recognition of different discursive loyalties. In distinction from what I term “Plantinga-type” views, I contend that my broadly postmodern Thomistic account is preferable because of the way in which it better…
When Liberalism Is Not Enough: Political Theology after Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas
In this paper, we are interested in extending out the dialectical models of religious ethics and political theology that Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas began by enacting a conversation between these two theorists. We do this by presenting and critically comparing Niebuhr's and Levinas's thought as concerns three key issues in moral and political theory: (1) the nature of persons, (2) the source and content of the moral ideal of love and th…
Retooling the Discourse of Objectivity: Epistemic Postmodernism as Shared Public Life
Michel Henry casts the objectivist tendencies in modern science as an existential threat to culture. Conservative distrust toward the public face of science and vulgar relativism toward the public face of the humanities heighten this indifference, this article suggests. This environment creates a public culture that breeds antagonism between the sciences and humanities. After establishing these ideas, the authors work to separate epistemological …
Christian Philosophy: Conceptions, Continuations, and Challenges
Living Joyfully after Losing Social Hope: Kierkegaard and Chrétien on Selfhood and Eschatological Expectation
In this essay, I offer an existential-phenomenological consideration of what it might look like to live joyfully after losing social hope. Using the example of the widespread hopelessness that many are feeling in light of the election of Donald Trump, I suggest that the danger of losing hope is that we can also lose our selfhood in the process. In order to develop a conception of "eschatological hope" that would be resistant to the loss of such s…
Reason, Revelation, and the Civic Order: Political Philosophy and the Claims of Faith
Debates concerning “religion in the public square” have been frequent since John Rawls famously argued that citizens in a liberal democracy should adhere only to “public reason” regarding political action and policy. Rawls did not see this suggestion as entailing a metaphysically substantive notion of rationality, but instead viewed public reason as a tool for social stability. The aims of such a conception are contingent relative to the social f…
Approaching God: Between Phenomenology and Theology. By Patrick Masterson
Journal Article Approaching God: Between Phenomenology and Theology. By Patrick Masterson Get access Approaching God: Between Phenomenology and Theology. By Patrick Masterson. Bloomsbury, 2013. 204 pages. $29.95. J. Aaron Simmons J. Aaron Simmons Furman University [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 82, Issue 3, September 2014, Pages …
Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy
Evangelical Environmentalism: Oxymoron or Opportunity
Often defined by affiliation with conservative politics and a limited range of moral issues concerning “family values,” evangelical Christianity in the United States might seem like an odd place to look for a substantial environmental ethic. However, over the past few years many evangelicals have been working very hard to change this public face of their community and are becoming increasingly active in environmental issues. In this essay, I prov…
God in Recent French Phenomenology
In this essay, I provide an introduction to the so-called 'theological turn' in recent French, 'new' phenomenology. I begin by articulating the stakes of excluding God from phenomenology (as advocated by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger) and then move on to a brief consideration of why Dominique Janicaud contends that, by inquiring into the 'inapparent', new phenomenology is no longer phenomenological. I then consider the general trajectories …
What About Isaac: Rereading Fear and Trembling and Rethinking Kierkegaardian Ethics
In this essay I offer a reading of Fear and Trembling that responds to critiques of Kierkegaardian ethics as being, as Brand Blanshard claims, “morally nihilistic,” as Emmanuel Levinas contends, ethically violent, and, as Alasdair MacIntyre charges, simply irrational. I argue that by focusing on Isaac's singularity as the very condition for Abraham's “ordeal,” the book presents a story about responsible subjectivity . Rather than standing in comp…
Evolving retail landscapes: Power retail in Canada
During the last fifteen years the Canadian retail landscape has been transformed by the growth and clustering of big box retailers into a range of 'power retail' developments. This has brought new retailers into Canada (predominantly U.S. retailers) with different business strategies that have lead to different consumer behaviour. The power retail phenomenon encompasses all aspects of the retail offer (price, product, service, etc.) and is not si…
Simmons, J.W. 1968: Changing residence in the city: a review of intraurban mobility. Geographical Review 58, 622-51
The Retail Environment
Part 1 Processes: why study retail location the geography of demand the major actors on the supply side the mystery of consumer behaviour. Part 2 Retail structure: retailing and the settlement pattern the changing distribution system commercial structure within the metropolis the changing retail structure. Part 3 Location analysis: making marketing decisions site selection trade area analysis choosing a location strategy. Part 4 The future: plann…
The Regional Mall in Canada
Over the last three decades, regional shopping malls have become significant features of the Canadian urban landscape. They account for the largest concentrations of employment, retail sales, and trip destinations outside the central business district, and they reshape patterns of accessibility within communities. This article examines the number, economic role, location, and implication of these facilities, in Canada, and contrasts them with sim…
The Retail Environment
Part 1 Processes: why study retail location the geography of demand the major actors on the supply side the mystery of consumer behaviour. Part 2 Retail structure: retailing and the settlement pattern the changing distribution system commercial structure within the metropolis the changing retail structure. Part 3 Location analysis: making marketing decisions site selection trade area analysis choosing a location strategy. Part 4 The future: plann…
The Regional Mall in Canada
Over the last three decades, regional shopping malls have become significant features of the Canadian urban landscape. They account for the largest concentrations of employment, retail sales, and trip destinations outside the central business district, and they reshape patterns of accessibility within communities. This article examines the number, economic role, location, and implication of these facilities, in Canada, and contrasts them with sim…
Evangelical Environmentalism: Oxymoron or Opportunity
Often defined by affiliation with conservative politics and a limited range of moral issues concerning “family values,” evangelical Christianity in the United States might seem like an odd place to look for a substantial environmental ethic. However, over the past few years many evangelicals have been working very hard to change this public face of their community and are becoming increasingly active in environmental issues. In this essay, I prov…
Evolving retail landscapes: Power retail in Canada
During the last fifteen years the Canadian retail landscape has been transformed by the growth and clustering of big box retailers into a range of 'power retail' developments. This has brought new retailers into Canada (predominantly U.S. retailers) with different business strategies that have lead to different consumer behaviour. The power retail phenomenon encompasses all aspects of the retail offer (price, product, service, etc.) and is not si…
Religious, but Not Spiritual: A Constructive Proposal
Often the debates in philosophy of religion are quite disconnected from the empirical data gathered in the sociology of religion. This is especially the case regarding the recent increase in prominence of those identifying as "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR) within an American context. In the attempt to bring these two fields into productive conversation, this essay offers a constructive account of the SBNR in terms of what they reject (i.e.,…
Living Joyfully after Losing Social Hope: Kierkegaard and Chrétien on Selfhood and Eschatological Expectation
In this essay, I offer an existential-phenomenological consideration of what it might look like to live joyfully after losing social hope. Using the example of the widespread hopelessness that many are feeling in light of the election of Donald Trump, I suggest that the danger of losing hope is that we can also lose our selfhood in the process. In order to develop a conception of "eschatological hope" that would be resistant to the loss of such s…
Militant Liturgies: Practicing Christianity with Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and Weil
Traditional philosophy of religion has tended to focus on the doxastic dimension of religious life, which although a vitally important area of research, has often come at the cost of philosophical engagements with religious practice. Focusing particularly on Christian traditions, this essay offers a sustained reflection on one particular model of embodied Christian practice as presented in the work of Søren Kierkegaard. After a discussion of diff…
Kierkegaard at the Intersections: The Single Individual and Identity Politics
Kierkegaard's authorship is frequently charged with being so radically individualistic that his work is of little use to social theory. However, in this essay, I argue that Kierkegaard's notion of "the single individual" actually offers important critical resources for some aspects of contemporary identity politics. Through a focused consideration of the two notes that form the little essay, "The Individual" (published with Point of View), I sugg…
When Liberalism Is Not Enough: Political Theology after Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas
In this paper, we are interested in extending out the dialectical models of religious ethics and political theology that Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas began by enacting a conversation between these two theorists. We do this by presenting and critically comparing Niebuhr's and Levinas's thought as concerns three key issues in moral and political theory: (1) the nature of persons, (2) the source and content of the moral ideal of love and th…
The Regional Mall in Canada
Over the last three decades, regional shopping malls have become significant features of the Canadian urban landscape. They account for the largest concentrations of employment, retail sales, and trip destinations outside the central business district, and they reshape patterns of accessibility within communities. This article examines the number, economic role, location, and implication of these facilities, in Canada, and contrasts them with sim…
Simmons, J.W. 1968: Changing residence in the city: a review of intraurban mobility. Geographical Review 58, 622-51
The Retail Environment
Part 1 Processes: why study retail location the geography of demand the major actors on the supply side the mystery of consumer behaviour. Part 2 Retail structure: retailing and the settlement pattern the changing distribution system commercial structure within the metropolis the changing retail structure. Part 3 Location analysis: making marketing decisions site selection trade area analysis choosing a location strategy. Part 4 The future: plann…
Evolving retail landscapes: Power retail in Canada
During the last fifteen years the Canadian retail landscape has been transformed by the growth and clustering of big box retailers into a range of 'power retail' developments. This has brought new retailers into Canada (predominantly U.S. retailers) with different business strategies that have lead to different consumer behaviour. The power retail phenomenon encompasses all aspects of the retail offer (price, product, service, etc.) and is not si…
What About Isaac: Rereading Fear and Trembling and Rethinking Kierkegaardian Ethics
In this essay I offer a reading of Fear and Trembling that responds to critiques of Kierkegaardian ethics as being, as Brand Blanshard claims, “morally nihilistic,” as Emmanuel Levinas contends, ethically violent, and, as Alasdair MacIntyre charges, simply irrational. I argue that by focusing on Isaac's singularity as the very condition for Abraham's “ordeal,” the book presents a story about responsible subjectivity . Rather than standing in comp…
God in Recent French Phenomenology
In this essay, I provide an introduction to the so-called 'theological turn' in recent French, 'new' phenomenology. I begin by articulating the stakes of excluding God from phenomenology (as advocated by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger) and then move on to a brief consideration of why Dominique Janicaud contends that, by inquiring into the 'inapparent', new phenomenology is no longer phenomenological. I then consider the general trajectories …
Evangelical Environmentalism: Oxymoron or Opportunity
Often defined by affiliation with conservative politics and a limited range of moral issues concerning “family values,” evangelical Christianity in the United States might seem like an odd place to look for a substantial environmental ethic. However, over the past few years many evangelicals have been working very hard to change this public face of their community and are becoming increasingly active in environmental issues. In this essay, I prov…
Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy
Approaching God: Between Phenomenology and Theology. By Patrick Masterson
Journal Article Approaching God: Between Phenomenology and Theology. By Patrick Masterson Get access Approaching God: Between Phenomenology and Theology. By Patrick Masterson. Bloomsbury, 2013. 204 pages. $29.95. J. Aaron Simmons J. Aaron Simmons Furman University [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 82, Issue 3, September 2014, Pages …
Reason, Revelation, and the Civic Order: Political Philosophy and the Claims of Faith
Debates concerning “religion in the public square” have been frequent since John Rawls famously argued that citizens in a liberal democracy should adhere only to “public reason” regarding political action and policy. Rawls did not see this suggestion as entailing a metaphysically substantive notion of rationality, but instead viewed public reason as a tool for social stability. The aims of such a conception are contingent relative to the social f…
Living Joyfully after Losing Social Hope: Kierkegaard and Chrétien on Selfhood and Eschatological Expectation
In this essay, I offer an existential-phenomenological consideration of what it might look like to live joyfully after losing social hope. Using the example of the widespread hopelessness that many are feeling in light of the election of Donald Trump, I suggest that the danger of losing hope is that we can also lose our selfhood in the process. In order to develop a conception of "eschatological hope" that would be resistant to the loss of such s…
Retooling the Discourse of Objectivity: Epistemic Postmodernism as Shared Public Life
Michel Henry casts the objectivist tendencies in modern science as an existential threat to culture. Conservative distrust toward the public face of science and vulgar relativism toward the public face of the humanities heighten this indifference, this article suggests. This environment creates a public culture that breeds antagonism between the sciences and humanities. After establishing these ideas, the authors work to separate epistemological …
Christian Philosophy: Conceptions, Continuations, and Challenges
Living in the Existential Margins: Reflections on the Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology
In this essay, I outline my view of an epistemic distinction between philosophy and theology along the lines of different evidential authorities operating in the two disciplines. I then go on to suggest that this epistemic view allows for a recognition of different discursive loyalties. In distinction from what I term “Plantinga-type” views, I contend that my broadly postmodern Thomistic account is preferable because of the way in which it better…
When Liberalism Is Not Enough: Political Theology after Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas
In this paper, we are interested in extending out the dialectical models of religious ethics and political theology that Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas began by enacting a conversation between these two theorists. We do this by presenting and critically comparing Niebuhr's and Levinas's thought as concerns three key issues in moral and political theory: (1) the nature of persons, (2) the source and content of the moral ideal of love and th…
Prospects for Pentecostal Philosophy: Assessing the Challenges and Envisioning the Opportunities
In this essay, I offer a constructive vision for the future of pentecostal philosophy. Specifically, I first offer a series of sociocultural challenges that pentecostal philosophy faces. Then I offer a short timeline of philosophical engagement from pentecostal thinkers over the past several decades. In order to open a more productive space for pentecostal philosophy moving forward, I argue that pentecostal philosophy needs to rethink its ties to…
Pentecostal Rationality: Epistemology and the Theological Hermeneutics in the Foursquare Tradition, by Simo Frestadius
It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right: Phenomenology, Theology, and Janicaud
In his influential essay, “The Theological Turn of French Phenomenology,” Dominique Janicaud suggests that phenomenology and theology “make two.” On the thirtieth anniversary of that essay, here we consider some of the main lines of response that have been offered to his account. We suggest that there are three general approaches that have been the most prominent: indifferentism, integrationism, and pluralism. The indifferentists implicitly sugge…
Militant Liturgies: Practicing Christianity with Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and Weil
Traditional philosophy of religion has tended to focus on the doxastic dimension of religious life, which although a vitally important area of research, has often come at the cost of philosophical engagements with religious practice. Focusing particularly on Christian traditions, this essay offers a sustained reflection on one particular model of embodied Christian practice as presented in the work of Søren Kierkegaard. After a discussion of diff…
Religious, but Not Spiritual: A Constructive Proposal
Often the debates in philosophy of religion are quite disconnected from the empirical data gathered in the sociology of religion. This is especially the case regarding the recent increase in prominence of those identifying as "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR) within an American context. In the attempt to bring these two fields into productive conversation, this essay offers a constructive account of the SBNR in terms of what they reject (i.e.,…
Kierkegaard at the Intersections: The Single Individual and Identity Politics
Kierkegaard's authorship is frequently charged with being so radically individualistic that his work is of little use to social theory. However, in this essay, I argue that Kierkegaard's notion of "the single individual" actually offers important critical resources for some aspects of contemporary identity politics. Through a focused consideration of the two notes that form the little essay, "The Individual" (published with Point of View), I sugg…
Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Priority of Questions in Religions: Bringing the Discourse of Gods and Buddhas Down to Earth
"Buddhas, gods, prophets and oracles are often depicted as asking questions. But what are we to understand when Jesus asks 'Who do you say that I am?', or Mazu, the Classical Zen master asks, 'Why do you seek outside?' Is their questioning a power or weakness? Is it something we are only capable of due to our finitude? Is there any kind of question that is a power? Focusing on three case studies of questions in divine discourse on the level of st…
On the Virtues and Vices of the Singular Will: Seeking "One Thing" with Kierkegaard
In this essay, I follow the example of recent Kierkegaard scholarship in the attempt to consider Kierkegaard's work from a personal point of view. Accordingly, I begin with a biographical account of my first encounter with Kierkegaard's notion that "purity of heart is to will one thing". I explain that were it not for the intervention of one of my early professors, David Kangas, the idea might have prevented me from getting married. I then offer …
Art, Desire, and God: Phenomenological Perspectives
Bringing together thinkers from philosophy of religion, religious studies, music, art, and film, while drawing on a wealth of phenomenological resources and methods, a team of renowned scholars provide new vantages on the question of how art is an expression of the human desire for God. In three interrelated parts, chapters employ phenomenological tools to propose new ways for speaking of the desire for God. Scholars first draw upon music, sculpt…
Philosophy (19 works) · Epistemology (18 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Theology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism (8 works) · Political science (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works)