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John Locke and the Ethics of Belief
John Locke and the Ethics of Belief by Nicholas Wolterstorff Cambridge University Press, 1996 272 pp. $28, paper 
Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology
Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology by Nicholas Wolterstorff Cambridge University Press, 2001 200 pp. $65 |
Nicholas Wolterstorff, recently retired as Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale, is arguably contemporary Christianity's most versatile philosopher. He has been noticed for metaphysics (On Universals [Chicago, 1970]); recognized for his work in aesthetics (e.g., Works and Worlds of Art [Oxford] and Art in Action [Eerdmans, both 1980]); noted (and notorious) for his defense of the marginalized, and especially Palestinians (Until Justice and Peace Embrace [Eerdmans, 1983]; respected for contributions to philosophical theology (Divine Discourse [Cambridge, 1995]); and praised for his championing of Christian education (Educating for Responsible Action [Eerdmans 1980] and Educating for Life: Reflections on Christian Teaching and Learning [Baker, 2002]). He is perhaps best known, however, for his work alongside William Alston and his old college buddy Alvin Plantinga in developing one of the most important theories of knowledge of our day, the so-called Reformed epistemology (Reason within the Bounds of Religion [Eerdmans, 1976] and several co-edited books).
In the service of the latter agenda, Wolterstorff has also demonstrated an extraordinary ability at the history of philosophy. What he has uncovered in what he calls "the archaeology of cultural memory" is both startlingly revisionist of what we all thought we knew about modernity and bracingly relevant to our own immediate concerns. In particular, Wolterstorff's findings dispute commonly held stereotypes of what "modern thinking" is, and they point toward instructive and exciting alternatives to arrogant forms of both modern and postmodern thought.
Wolterstorff has produced two volumes in the last several years, each of which deals with a major figure in modern philosophy: John Locke and the Ethics of Belief and Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. These full-length monographs are, in an important sense, preliminary chapters in Wolterstorff's magnum opus of epistemology—the completion of which is eagerly awaited by his many philosophical fans. In the meantime, we have plenty of recovered treasure to enjoy in these two historical books.
In John Locke and the Ethics of Belief, Wolterstorff presents a public intellectual deeply afraid of the social chaos around him in late-17th-century Europe. Religious extremism has riven his country and those across the Channel. Locke therefore offers his Essay Concerning Human Understanding as a tract for the times, not as an arcane disquisition for his fellow academicians. And since his times are not entirely unlike our own, we do well to consider what he offers. Indeed, Wolterstorff sees Locke responding to a question strikingly apropos to our day: "How should we form our beliefs on fundamental matters of religion and morality so as to live together in social harmony, when we can no longer appeal to a shared and unified tradition?"
Locke indeed breaks with tradition and instead enlists Reason as our primary agent of thinking—that's what makes him modern. More particularly, the medieval mind's regard for tradition, its assumption that rationality itself consists essentially in the study and appropriation of tradition, has brought misery to Europe. Wolterstorff offers a lapidary account of this outlook:
The conviction remained that if one assigned the proper priorities among the texts (with the Bible being preeminent), selected the right senses, used the appropriate strategies of interpretation, and made the right distinctions, a richly articulated body of truth would come to light. St. Paul and Virgil, Aristotle and Augustine, would all be seen to fit together. Where once the texts had appeared contradictory, now they would be seen as getting at different facets of the complex truth.
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