Prajna Vihara: Vol. 20, No. 1 (January - June 2019)
Recent Submissions
Service-learning and community : a case study of a university audio-book program for the blind
(Assumption University Press, 2019)
University courses in ethics are designed to help a student
develop their moral character. But while classroom work
provides students with knowledge, it is often not sufficient
for deeper character development. The students also need
some sort of practical engagement with people in their
surrounding communities. This interaction creates both
individual reflection and social awareness. Service-learning
is a program which encourages the participants to learn
and develop their moral characters through working in the
community. During this...
Towards a Neo-Aristotelian account of philosophical counseling
(Assumption University Press, 2019)
At present, there is no generally accepted account of what
philosophical counselling is or why we should practice
it. The aim of this article is to propose an account of
philosophical counselling in terms of an Aristotelian
concept of Eudaimonia. I argue that this concept provides
an apt description of what philosophical counselling,
in many cases, consists in. One benefit of construing
philosophical counselling in terms of Eudaimonia is that
it provides a natural justification for the practice: since it
is plausible that Eudaimonia is...
On bitcoin and Simmel's idea of perfect money
(Assumption University Press, 2019)
Georg Simmel in his book Philosophy of Money,described
how money evolves through history and predicted that it
will evolve to the point where it no longer relies on any
substance. He called this stage “perfect money,” which
he described as “money detached from every substantial
value”. Today we are faced with the development of
cryptocurrencies, of which Bitcoin is the best known.
Bitcoin presents a new system of transaction which does
not require governments or middlemen to regulate trade.
Since such currencies are completely beyond s...
A teleological interpretation of John Hick's threefold typology
(Assumption University Press, 2019)
This research critically investigates the soteriological ground
of John Hick’s religious typology and his understanding of
Religious Pluralism. It begins by considering the criticsims
of Gavin D’Costa who, in his early work, favored Hick’s
typology in Theology and Religious Pluralism, but later
became critical of it in his work, Impossibility of a Pluralist
view of Religions. It will also consider Paul Knitter’s
alternative fourfold typology introduced in his work,
Introducing Theologies of Religions, and Mark Heim’s
ideas concerning r...