Peter W. Ochs


Peter W. Ochs is the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia, where he has served since 1997. He is an influential thinker whose interests include Jewish philosophy and theology, modern and postmodern philosophical theology, pragmatism, and semiotics. Ochs coined the term "scriptural reasoning" and is the co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning, which promotes interfaith dialog among Christians, Jews, and Muslims through scriptural study groups. He is also a co-founder of the Children of Abraham Institute, which promotes interfaith study and dialog among members of the Abrahamic religions.

Biography

Ochs received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, and M.A. from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He has held teaching positions at Drew University, Colgate University, and the University of Maryland, College Park, and has been a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a visiting lecturer at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
In addition to teaching Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia, Ochs directs Religious Studies graduate programs in "Scripture, Interpretation, and Practice", an interdisciplinary approach to the Abrahamic traditions.
Ochs is an author who has written around a dozen books and hundreds of articles, reviews, and book chapters. He is series co-editor of Radical Traditions: Theology in a postcritical key, published by Westview Press/Harper Collins and SCM Press/Eerdmans, and series co-editor of Encountering Traditions, published by Stanford University Press.

Contribution

Scriptural reasoning

Ochs was one of the original members of a small group of Jewish philosophers who called themselves "textual reasoners". Textual reasoning evolved into a larger movement which Ochs dubbed "scriptural reasoning", and Ochs co-founded the Society for Scriptural Reasoning in 1995 together with David F. Ford and Daniel W. Hardy. The goal of the organization is to build consensus and promote reconciliation among Christians, Jews, and Muslims through shared discussion of the scriptures. In a panel discussion on the Public Broadcasting Service with Muslim theologian Mehdi Aminrazavi, professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Ochs proposed scriptural reasoning as a new approach to achieving peace in the Arab–Israeli conflict. He observed that all the religious Muslims, Christians and Jews involved in the conflict worship the same God of Abraham, and therefore might be brought together "to share what they believe and to act in relation to what's going on".
In 2008 Ochs founded and became the director of the "1000 Cities Project" for the Society for Scriptural Reasoning, with the goal of establishing Christian-Jewish-Muslim study groups throughout North America.

Peirce, pragmatism, and the logic of scripture

Ochs criticizes lingering elements of transcendentalism in Charles Peirce as a problematic conceptualism. Nevertheless, Ochs' own philosophy has a definite regressive direction, but this regressive movement of thought is always made through abductions whose validity can only be demonstrated in their actual fruitfulness in the context of a particular community of inquiry. Ochs' pragmatism privileges the late Peirce of 1905 lectures on Pragmaticism and concomitant texts. For Ochs, Peirce's Critical Common-Sensism means that only real doubts may be productive of inquiry, and these doubts can be resolved only with respect to vague but indubitable habits. 'Indubitable' beliefs remain fallible, however, in the sense that later inquiry might give us cause to doubt them. For Ochs', then, the synthetic a priori is transformed into fallibilistic common-sense principles.
Ochs also insists on a mathematical-diagrammatic dimension to Peirce's thought, a dimension that Ochs' theological interpreters have tended to neglect. Mathematics is the science of the possible. All new ideas are, strictly speaking, mathematical; but these ideas can only be validly applied to real experience through the logic of scientific inquiry.
Ochs argues that Peirce discovers, late in his career, that pragmatism must always take the form of self-critique. Textually, this claim is based largely on Peirce's genre choices: his use of autobiography to introduce his pragmaticism and his use of the dialogue form to present his pragmaticism as a response to the errors of would-be pragmatists. Philosophically, Ochs' insistence that inquiry be rooted in a particular community of inquiry seems itself to be rooted in a few basic features of Peirce's thought:
In 2002 Ochs co-founded and became co-director of The Children of Abraham Institute, which promotes interfaith scriptural scholarship as a means for fostering peace and harmony. The institute maintains centers at the St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, London; the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme; and student study groups at the University of Cambridge, University of Virginia, and Eastern Mennonite University.

''Dabru Emet''

Ochs was one of the four drafters of a full-page advertisement which appeared in the Sunday, 10 September 2000 edition of The New York Times, titled "Dabru Emet : A Jewish statement on Christians and Christianity", which publicized eight theological statements. The statement was signed by more than 150 rabbis and Jewish scholars from across the religious spectrum.

Editorial work

Ochs is the founding editor of the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning, founded in 2001, and editor and chair of the editorial board of the Journal of Textual Reasoning since 2002.
Also in 2001, he founded and serves as co-editor for the electronic journal La Pensee Juive de Langue Francaise. He is a member of the editorial board of Modern Theology, Theology Today, and CrossCurrents.

Personal life

He is married to Vanessa L. Ochs, Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies Program at the University of Virginia and a published author. They have two grown daughters, Elizabeth and Juliana.

Publications

Books, monographs