Metaphor, Analogy, and the Place of Places: Where Religion and Philosophy Meet

Vaught identifies the place where religion and philosophy meet--and he does so in constant conversation with Augustine, Hegel, Heidegger and Jaspers. Vaught argues that both religious and philosophical discourse assume one of four modes: figurative, analytical, systematic, and analogical. Any real innovation occurs by moving from one mode of discourse to another. Vaught also explores the relationship among ＂space,＂ ＂time,＂ and ＂place＂ as well as ＂mystery,＂ ＂power,＂ and ＂structure.＂ Remarkably, Vaught shows how the category of ＂place＂ serves as the intersection of both triads. In the end, ＂place＂ is the orientation that guides the discussions of Being and God, where philosophy and religion are joined.

Dr. Carl G. Vaught was appointed Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University in 1998. He received his B.A. from Baylor in 1961, where he graduated summa cum laude and received the Alpha Chi Scholarship Award as the valedictorian of his class. He attended Yale University as a Woodrow Wilson and a Danforth Graduate Fellow and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale in 1966. Before he came to Baylor, he taught in the Philosophy Department at Penn State for thirty-one years where he directed the dissertations of twenty-nine graduate students and he served as Head of the Department of Philosophy from 1982 to 1992. He became a Fellow of the Society of Philosophy in America in 1987, was affiliated with Oriel College in Oxford in 1990-91, and was a Distinguished Alumnus at Baylor in 1993. His principal philosophical interests are metaphysics, the philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy.