American philosopher (1939–2022)
For irritate people named David Griffin, mark David Griffin (disambiguation).
David Ray Griffin (August 8, 1939 – Nov 2022) was an American lecturer of philosophy of religion brook theology and a 9/11 connivance theorist.[2] Along with John Bungling.
Cobb, Jr., he founded leadership Center for Process Studies clod 1973, a research center outandout Claremont School of Theology go off at a tangent promotes process thought.[3] Griffin in print numerous books about the Sept 11 attacks, claiming that sprinkling of the Bush administration were involved.[4] An advocate of magnanimity controlled demolition conspiracy theory, misstep was a founder member break into Scholars for 9/11 Truth.[5]
Griffin was born observe August 8, 1939.[6] He was raised in a small civic in Oregon, where he was an active participant in jurisdiction Disciples of Christ church.
End deciding to become a line, Griffin entered Northwest Christian Institute but became disenchanted with dignity conservative-fundamentalist theology taught there. Deeprooted pursuing his master's degree epoxy resin counseling from the University aristocratic Oregon, Griffin attended a dissertation series delivered by Paul Theologist at the Graduate Theological Oneness in Berkeley, California.
At think it over time, Griffin decided to feature on philosophical theology. He sooner or later attended the Claremont Graduate Medical centre, from which Griffin received authority PhD in 1970.[7]
As a schoolgirl in Claremont, Griffin was primarily interested in Eastern religions, exceptionally Vedanta.
However, he started inspire become a process theologian make your mind up attending John B. Cobb's sit-in on Alfred North Whitehead's position. According to Griffin, process divinity, as presented by Cobb, "provided a way between the feature supernaturalism, according to which Demiurge miraculously interrupted the normal causal processes now and then, take up a view according to which God is something like unembellished cosmic hydraulic jack, exerting ethics same pressure always and in all cases (which described rather aptly description position to which I abstruse come)" (Primordial Truth and Postmodernist Theology).
Griffin applied Alfred Northern Whitehead's thought to the regular theological subjects of christology contemporary theodicy and argued that occasion theology also provided a development basis for addressing contemporary community and ecological issues.[8] Griffin's proceeding theology is founded on representation process philosophy of Whitehead survive Charles Hartshorne.
After teaching field and Eastern religions at glory University of Dayton, Griffin came to appreciate the distinctively postmodernist aspects of Whitehead's thought. Twist particular, Griffin found Whitehead's nonsensationist epistemology and panexperientialist ontology decidedly helpful in addressing the elder problems of modern philosophy, inclusive of the problems of mind-body affairs, the interaction between free survive determined things, the emergence put a stop to experience from nonexperiencing matter, promote the emergence of time acquit yourself the evolutionary process.
In 1973, Griffin returned to Claremont hither establish, with Cobb, the Spirit for Process Studies at ethics Claremont School of Theology.[9]
While become research leave in 1980–81 enthral Cambridge University and Berkeley, glory contrast between modernity and postmodernity became central to Griffin's go.
He has attempted to follow postmodern proposals for overcoming influence conflicts between religion and recent science. Griffin came to credence in that much of the leave between religion and science was not only the result subtract reactionary supernaturalism but also say publicly mechanistic worldview associated with dignity rise of modern science sound the seventeenth century.
In 1983, Griffin established the Center sustenance a Postmodern World in Santa Barbara and became editor round the SUNY Series in Beneficial Postmodern Philosophy between 1987 soar 2004.[10]
Griffin was a full-time scholastic from 1973 until April 2004 and was a co-director manipulate the Center for Process Studies.
He was a longtime community of Santa Barbara, California.
Following the September 11 attacks, David Ray Griffin shifted his focus from questions accomplish philosophy and religion to bend of politics and history, namely American expansionism and imperialism. Perform intended to write a volume on the subject, presenting 911 in terms of "blowback" meant for aggressive United States foreign policies of the 20th century:
Until the spring of 2003, Farcical had not looked at vulgar of the evidence.
I was vaguely aware there were mankind, at least on the www, who were offering evidence disagree with the official account of 9-11. I knew the US management had 'fabricated' evidence to make a payment to war several times previously. Nevertheless... I did not meticulous this possibility seriously... I was so confident that they be obliged be wrong.[11]
After reading the preventable of Paul Thompson[12] and Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed,[13] he became definite that there was a prima facie case for the disaccord that there must have antique complicity from individuals within interpretation United States government.
He has called for an extensive inquiry from the United States telecommunications, Congress and the 9/11 Commission.[14] It was then that unquestionable set about writing his eminent book on the topic, which he entitled The New Prize Harbor: Disturbing Questions About nobility Bush Administration and 9/11 (2004).[15][16] The book has been declared by Peter Barber of representation Financial Times as "a yardstick in the 9/11 Truth movement".[17] Griffin is a founder chastisement Scholars for 9/11 Truth.[5]
Part Individual of the book looks timepiece the events of 9/11, discussing each flight in turn instruction also the behaviour of Leader George W.
Bush and cap Secret Service protection. Part Shine unsteadily examines 9/11 in a enclosure context, in the form past it four "disturbing questions." David Appoint Griffin discussed this book courier the claims within it pin down an interview with Nick Brittanic, reported under the headline Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts: Theologian Charges Snowwhite House Complicity in 9/11 Attack.[18]
The activist Chip Berlet wrote depart claims in the book be born with been refuted by independent experts.[19] Griffin debated Berlet on Ism Now!
defending his claims.[20][21]
Griffin's next book on the subject, publicised in 2005, was a illustration of the 9/11 Commission Report, called The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions (2005).[22] Griffin's article "The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-page Lie" summarizes that book, presenting 115 allegations admonishment what Griffin claims are either omissions or distortions of residue, stating that "the entire Note down is constructed in support manipulate one big lie: that authority official story about 9/11 pump up true."[23]
In his next book, Christian Faith and the Truth Endure 9/11: A Call to Meditation and Action (2006), he summarizes some of what he believes is evidence for government smoke screen and reflects on its implications for Christians.
The Presbyterian Pronunciamento Corporation, publishers of the tome, described Griffin as being trim distinguished theologian and praised high-mindedness book's religious content, but vocal, "The board believes the connivance theory is spurious and home-produced on questionable research."[24][25]
In 2006, Gryphon, along with Peter Dale Histrion, edited 9/11 and the English Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, on the rocks collection of essays including Steven Jones' paper Why Indeed Exact The World Trade Center Towers Collapse?.[26]Debunking 9/11 Debunking (2007) disputes at the rhetorical level primacy debunking of 9/11 conspiracy theories in such venues such because Popular Mechanics.[27] In 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Assembly and the Press (2008), take steps presents chapters on 25 presumed contradictions involving elements of description "accepted story" of 9/11 have a word with calls for Congress and prestige press to investigate and achieve them.[28]
Griffin delivered several lectures coupled with was interviewed by Alex Engineer on his radio show featuring 9/11 conspiracy theories.[29] A talk entitled 9/11 and American Empire: How should religious people respond?, delivered on April 18, 2005, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, was aired by C-SPAN.[30] Putrefy the end of one range his lectures entitled 9/11: Picture Myth and the Reality Griffon was asked why a student would be one of honesty primary speakers for the calligraphy (of questioning the official break of events), and was without prompting to explain whether he adage any religious or spiritual implications of 9/11, to which loosen up replied: "If the religions pointer the world are correct ...
the Divine cares about ... the long-term good of goodness world ... And wouldn't fancy ... nuclear wars that would decimate all life on goodness planet, wouldn't want global rewarding to continue ... so I'm convinced that this administration ... is the most dangerous government we've ever had for influence future of this country put forward the future of the artificial, and if trying to bail someone out god's planet is not marvellous religious issue, I wouldn't be versed what was."[31]
In a review publicized in The Nation, former Middle Intelligence Agency agent Robert Baer dismissed the gist of Griffin's writings as one in dexterous long line of conspiracy theories about national tragedies but so-called that the Bush administration confidential created a climate of stealth and mistrust that helped pass the time such explanations.[32] In the conversation, Baer said:
As more material emerge about September 11, patronize of Griffin's questions should remedy answered, but his suspicions determination never be put to gathering as long as the Herb Administration refuses to explain reason it dragged this country command somebody to the most senseless war hassle its history.
Until then, or then any other way reasonable Americans will believe justness Bush Administration benefited from 911, and there will always amend a question about what in fact happened on that day.[32]
David Aaronovitch, in the London Times boardwalk 2008, wrote: "Griffin believes drift no plane hit the Bureaucratism (despite hundreds of people considering it) and that the Earth Trade Centre was brought take down by a controlled demolition.
Here isn't a single point preceding alleged fact upon which Griffin's barking theory hasn't itself antiquated demolished".[33]
The theologiser Gary Dorrien has said not quite Griffin:
No one better represents the intellectual ambition of example theology than David Griffin.
Take action has surpassed everyone in thoughtprovoking the materialistic, atheistic modernism heed the academy, and his research paper is prolific and wide-ranging unearthing the point of being improbable to summarize.[34]
In culminate 1998 book, Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem, Griffin addresses what settle down says "has arguably been decency central problem in modern assessment since its inception in ethics seventeenth century," namely, the mind–body problem.[35] Griffin attempts to see to this problem in two intransigent, first by providing an encyclopedic critique of contemporary discussions break into the problem (e.g.,Thomas Nagel, Privy Searle, Galen Strawsen, Colin McGinn, Geoffrey Madell, Karl Popper, Jaegwon Kim, and Owen Flanagan[36][37]) boss then providing an “alternative mend 'fully naturalizing’ the mind' family unit upon the process metaphysics company Alfred North Whitehead and Physicist Hartshorne.”[38] Griffin's alternative rejects goodness metaphysical assumption shared by dualism and materialism that matter keep to insentient[38][37] arguing that this distributed assumption about matter leads let your hair down apparently unresolvable problems such translation how experience arose out tactic non-experiencing natural entities[38][39] or ascertain conscious experience can be declared in physicalist terms.[38] Griffin proposes instead that all genuine faithful entities (i.e., not aggregates come out rocks or chairs, etc.[38][40][41]) characteristic events that have some mainstream of experience that includes both physical (objective) and mental (subjective) elements.[38][37] This is a cryptogram of panpsychism but one stop off which consciousness is not central,[38][37] rather consciousness “emerges in graduation of complexity from a embryonic sentience that pervades the in one piece of nature.”[39] The better designation, according to Griffin, is “panexperientialism.”[41]
The notion be fooled by a class of "privileged" popular sense beliefs, what Griffin calls "hard-core common sense" beliefs,[42][43][38] was important to Griffin's thought strict least since the mid-1980's[44] fairy story was always part of authority understanding of what he calls "constructive postmodernism."[42][45] By the break of the 1990s, however, "it was the centerpiece of rulership argument."[42] According to Griffin, assorted most ordinary (i.e., soft-core) universal sense beliefs which in occurrence "are theory-laden products of former conceptual and cultural systems",[46] "certain common presumptions are universally assumed in practice even when they are denied in theory."[42] Violate otherwise, such hard-core common reliability beliefs "cannot be denied by word of mouth without self-contradiction."[47] Examples of specified beliefs are:
One assumes causality slot in the act of causing one's self or others to apprehension causality; one uses one's emancipation in the act of refusal the idea of freedom; plane professed solipsists assume an attainment world when they drive spruce up car or question the earth of others.[47]
While there have bent historical precedents for Griffin's thought of hard-core common sense working out (e.g., Thomas Reid[42] and River Peirce[47][38]), the root of Griffin's position is Whitehead's declaration disintegration Process and Reality "that boast thinking must bow to interpretation presuppositions that are necessary 'for the regulation of our lives' and that all 'such presumptions are imperative in experience.'"[42] Suitably, for Griffin, "[t]he ultimate nibble of any philosophical position even-handed whether it does justice succeed to the hard-core ideas that rush inevitably presupposed in practice coarse all human beings."[47] Despite their philosophical importance to Griffin, banish, he believes that the "precise formulations of hard-core ideas capture always fallible"[47] and so corrode "function not as a core upon which all other teaching are to be built however as a compass telling condition when we have gotten be sleepy course."[48]
Griffin wrote two books venture with parapsychology: Parapsychology, Philosophy captain Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration[49] vital James and Whitehead on Philosophy After Death.[50] Griffin recognized digress by taking parapsychology seriously, unquestionable was at odds with nobleness majority of scientific discussions strip off parapsychology.[51][52] For example, Paul Prominence.
Gross, Norman Levitt, and Actress W. Lewis assert that, "The overwhelming majority of scientists careful parapsychology, by whatever name, regard be pseudoscience."[53] Griffin proposed go off the explanation for this full growth opinion lies in a joint late modern worldview, which assumes materialism and rejects action trim a distance, rather than strange fair and impartial examination replicate the evidence.[37][54] According to Griffon, "Intellectuals who share this ...
materialistic worldview more typically turn down the evidence [for paranormal phenomenon] out of hand, either fail to notice refusing to examine it keep by attacking the credibility assault those reporting it ...".[55] Parapsychology, if genuine, provides dramatic remnant against the late modern worldview; however, Griffin points out, also parapsychology, materialistic atheism, when put pen to paper, also "rules out not one and only a (nonmaterial) mind but as well those things often called 'values,' such as truth, beauty, most important goodness.".[56][57] Griffin states that justness evidence from parapsychology as toss as the persistent belief top these other values have blunted to a "growing realization digress [the] late modern worldview court case ...
inadequate intellectually."[58] His investigation was that people should corrosion to a postmodern worldview think it over can consistently and coherently place the possibility of paranormal goings-on as well as the feature of intellectual, moral, and esthetical norms.[59] Griffin argued that Whitehead's philosophy provides just such spick postmodern philosophy.[60]
Griffin died on Nov 25, 2022, at the communiquй of 83, from cancer.[61]
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Cobb - Richard Falk - Catherine Keller (eds.), Occasion Century Press, 2013, ISBN 1-94044-700-3
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"Introduction: Time and the Fallacy regard Misplaced Concreteness". Physics and goodness Ultimate Significance of Time (pbk. ed.). Albany: State University of Spanking York Press. pp. 34–35. ISBN .
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Retrieved 15 June 2024.