An incomplete review, notes only from this excellent article. Hat tip to Sam Norton in his comment below. And some good links in the piece, eg to Stanley Fish.
Explanation … avoiding reductionism.
Terry Lectures on video – nb Terry Eagleton joke ?
“It was I felt, characteristic of the delightfully informal nature of American society that I should receive a letter from Yale inviting me to deliver the Terry Lectures. I had of course long been accustomed to the instant-first-name culture, but this long-range intimacy nevertheless came as something of a surprise.”
Terry Eagleton “Reason, Faith and Revolution”
The Terry Foundation Lectures, Yale, 2009
Flattening out “important differences” … finding difference is easy, synthesising common value is harder – Mary Parker-Follett.
Determinedly symmetrical. Refusing to take a stand on big issues “of our time”. (see also Zizek’s Empty Wheelbarrow.)
Keep mixed groups (with important differences) talking on common ground – Mary Parker-Follett again and conflict resolution (integration, as opposed to compromise)
James & Nietzsche, Metaphysical Poets and the Poetics, B.F.Skinner (vs Chomsky “impoverished”), Dewey, Hume, Burkert, Gombrich, Meyer, Sokal (“mischief, unrepresentative”, “mutual ignorance and caricature”, “demonizing”.)
Cognitive science of religion … “The New Naturalism” Distinction between New Atheism of Dawkins and New Naturalism of Dennett, though even Dennett limited – a misunderstanding – “correspondingly dubious conception of beliefs—religious and otherwise—as static, discrete items of cerebral furniture” – far from static or discrete, just useful …. misplaced reductionism again.
Excellent piece.