McGaughey's project rejects the "pragmatic" solution to the sceptical dilemma created by deconstruction and postmodernism. It is not enough to say that the absence of absolute knowledge permits our embracing traditional theological claims because they have worked. McGaughey argues that once we recognize the conditions that make any and all experience possible are as certain as the immediacy of self-consciousness, the "how" of our knowing instructs us that we can and do "know" even when we do not have access to the "things" we know. In other words, Practical Theology shifts the focus away from what merely "pragmatically" works to the "practical" conditions that enable any and all knowledge and understanding.

Author Biography

Douglas R. McGaughey is Professor of Religious Studies and Classical Studies in the College of Liberal Arts at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.