This volume explores the ways in which religion became the object of scientific research in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most obvious is the development of an increasingly autonomous science of religion (with founding fathers like Max Muller and C.P. Tiele). However, within anthropology (Tylor, Frazer), sociology (Durkheim, Max Weber), and psychology (William James), religion also came to be seen as a separate entity to be studied comparatively. To capture this wide field this book focuses on the emergence of the discourse on religion in a broad academic context, among...

Peter Byrne presents a detailed study of the role of the concept of God in Kant's Critical Philosophy. After a preliminary survey of the major interpretative disputes over the understanding of Kant on God, Byrne explores his critique of philosophical proofs of God's existence. Examining Kant's account of religious language, Byrne highlights both the realist and anti-realist elements contained within it. The notion of the highest good is then explored, with its constituent elements - happiness and virtue, in pursuit of an assessment of how far Kant establishes that we must posit God. The...

Peter Byrne tells the story of Hugh Everett III (1930-1982), whose "many worlds" theory of multiple universes has had a profound impact on physics and philosophy. Using Everett's unpublished papers (recently discovered in his son's basement) and dozens of interviews with his friends, colleagues, and surviving family members, Byrne paints, for the general reader, a detailed portrait of the genius who invented an astonishing way of describing our complex universe from the inside. Everett's mathematical model (called the "universal wave function") treats all possible events as "equally real,"...

Medical students need a firm understanding of the wide range of signs and symptoms that indicate psychiatric disorders, and how the diagnosis, management and treatment options can differ from other medical specialities. The cases in this book will allow students to experience the full range of psychiatric conditions that they may encounter.

In From the Press Box, Peter Byrne gives the reader a ringside seat to the key sporting clashes of the past seventy years, beginning with the Republic of Ireland's historic match against England at Dalymount Park in 1948 (which was followed by a state reception for the England team, hosted by Taoiseach Eamon de Valera) and ending with the crowning of Kilkenny as All-Ireland hurling champions in 2012. Byrne writes superbly on all of Ireland's sporting heroes of recent times, including greats such as Ronnie Delaney, Roy Keane and Brian O'Driscoll. All the major sports are covered, from Gaelic...

This study is an introduction to the problems of moral philosophy designed particularly for students of theology and religious studies. It offers an account of the nature and subject matter of moral reasoning and of the major types of moral theory current in contemporary moral philosophy. The account aims to bring out the major issues in moral theory, to present a clear, non-technical articulation of the structure of moral knowledge and to explore the relation between religious belief and morality.