Omnisubjectivity: A Defense of a Divine Attribute, by Linda Zagzebski
ISBN 978-0-87462-183-9. 60 pages. Hardcover. 4.5 x 7.0. Hardcover. LIST PRICE: $15.00
The Aquinas Lecture for 2013
In Omnisubjectivity: A Defense of a Divine attribute, Linda Zagzebski reflects on how the modern discovery of subjectivity should influence the way we think about God's attributes. Her examination of recent conceptions of omnipresence and omniscience reveals that if God truly has all possible cognitive perfections, then a new attribute should rightly be applied to God which the 'traditional attributes' do not address: omnisubjectivity.
Zagzebski describes omnisubjectivity as the complete and accurate grasp of every conscious state of every conscious being from that being’s first person perspective. Thus, God is not only omniscient, knowing that Mary sees red. But God is omnisubjective, knowing, from the first person perspective, the quality, qualia, and phenomenal consciousness of what it is like for Mary to see red. In this intriguing lecture, Zagzebski examines exactly why God must be omnisubjective and addresses the possible moral and ethical concerns of what it means for God to be fully present in His creatures' subjectivity.
About the Author
Dr. Linda Zagzebski, George Lynn Cross Research Professor of Philosophy and Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at the University of Oklahoma, is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers and of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. In 2012-13 she held a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete her book, Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief.
Marquette University Press
