Viney, Donald Wayne 1953-

views updated

VINEY, Donald Wayne 1953-

PERSONAL: Born February 13, 1953, in Shawnee, OK; son of Wayne (a professor) and Wynonna Rose Viney; married Christine Elizabeth Hailey, September, 1975 (divorced, 1984), married Rebecca Nell Viney, May 25, 1985; children: Jennifer Michelle (first marriage), Aislinn. Education: Colorado State University, B.A., 1977; University of Oklahoma, M.A., 1979, Ph.D., 1982. Politics: Democrat

ADDRESSES: Home—2003 Countryside Dr., Pittsburg, KS 66762-3525. Offıce—Pittsburg State University, 1701 South Broadway, Pittsburg, KS 66762-3023. E-mail—[email protected].


CAREER: Educator. East Central University, Ada, OK, part-time instructor in English, 1982-84; University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, adjunct lecturer in philosophy, 1982-84; Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS, assistant professor, 1984-89, associate professor, 1989-96, professor of philosophy, 1996—. University Press of Kansas, member of board of editors, 1989-92.


MEMBER: American Philosophical Association, Society of Christian Philosophers, Center for Process Studies, Highland Institute for American Religious Thought, Metaphysical Society of America, American Academy of Religion, Kansas Philosophical Association, Alpha Mu Gamma, Phi Kappa Phi.


WRITINGS:

Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God, State University of New York Press (Albany, NY), 1985.

Questions of Value: Readings for Basic Philosophy, Ginn Press (Needham Heights, MA), 1989, published as Questions of Value: Beginning Readings for Philosophy, Kendall/Hunt Publishing (Dubuque, IA), 1998.

A Philosopher Looks at the Bible, Pittsburg State University (Pittsburg, KS), 1992.

Logic for Nonvulcans: Introduction to Logic, Logos-Sophia Press (Pittsburg, KS), 1997, published as A Brief Guide to Logic and Critical Thinking for Nonvulcans, Kendall/Hunt Publishing (Dubuque, IA), 1998.

(Editor) Translation of Works of Jules Lequyer, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 1998.

(Author of biography) Jules Lequyer's Abel and AbelFollowed by "Incidents in the Life and Death of Jules Lequyer" French translation by Mark West; Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 1999.


Midwest Quarterly, member of editorial board, 1987—, acting editor-in-chief, 1991, acting book review editor, 1997; Logos-Sophia, editor-in-chief and founder, 1988; The Practice of Social Science and History, coeditor, 1990-95; Process Studies, abstractor, 1994; Universitas, editor, 1996. Contributor of articles and book reviews to journals.


SIDELIGHTS: Donald Wayne Viney is a professor of philosophy at Pittsburg State University in Kansas. Viney publishes widely in the area of the philosophy of religion, and he has written extensively about the life and work of Charles Hartshorne, an important twentieth-century American philosopher and metaphysician, as well as on Jules Lequyer, a nineteenth-century French philosopher. Viney is the author of the 1985 work Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God, and he served as editor for a special 2001 issue of the academic journal Logos-Sophia that was dedicated to Hartshorne. Viney also edited the 1998 Translation of Works of Jules Lequyer, and he contributed a biography to Jules Lequyer's Abel and Abel Followed by "Incidents in the Life and Death of Jules Lequyer."


For Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God Viney examined Hartshorne's 1970 publication "Six Theistic Proofs," in which the philosopher formulated his position for God's existence. Viney attempts "to clarify and to assess the six proofs individually," explained Philip E. Devenish in Theological Studies, "as well as to show their interconnectedness as a 'cumulative case' for the neoclassical theism Hartshorne has spent his philosophical life developing." In Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God, Viney "presents a comprehensive, accurate, and highly readable summary of Hartshorne's use of the classical arguments for the existence of God (ontological, cosmological, design, epistemic, moral, aesthetic)," explained J. Edward Barrett in Theology Today. Choice reviewer R. H. Nash described the work as "a clear, well-written study of Hartshorne's efforts to provide arguments for the existence of God."


Translation of Works of Jules Lequyer includes a short biography of the philosopher, an introduction to Lequyer's work written by Viney, and translations of several of Lequyer's major works, including "The Dialogue of the Predestinate and the Reprobate." According to Anita Chancey, writing in the Midwest Quarterly, "Lequyer's legacy merits attention on several levels." Chancey added, "His philosophy, particularly on freedom, creativity, and God's knowledge of future contingents, is surprisingly modern. The quality of Viney's scholarship and the fit between Lequyer's work and the foundations of modern process philosophy and theology mark this volume as a significant addition to process literature."

The 1999 work Jules Lequyer's Abel and Abel Followed by "Incidents in the Life and Death of Jules Lequyer" contains Mark West's translation of Lequyer's prose work Abel and Abel, as well as a full-length biography by Viney. Carol Walker McCay, reviewing the work in the Midwest Quarterly, stated that Viney "brings to life" Lequyer's "mystic, tormented genius and the tragedy of his unrequited love, professional failures, and descent into a desperate poverty and increasing madness. He also traces the development of Lequyer's thought, accompanied as it was by a lifelong philosophical anguish over the momentous consequences of the creative acts produced by human freedom." McCay called Viney's contribution "an authoritative, engrossing biography."


BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, June, 1985, R. H. Nash, review of Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God, p. 1512.

Midwest Quarterly, summer, 1999, Anita Chancey, review of Translation of Works by Jules Lequyer, p. 515; winter, 2001, Carol Walker MacKay, review of Jules Lequyer's Abel and Abel Followed by "Incidents in the Life and Death of Jules Lequyer" p. 228.

Theological Studies, September, 1985, Philip E. Devenish, review of Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God, pp. 587-588.

Theology Today, January, 1986, J. Edward Barrett, review of Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God, pp. 551-553.


ONLINE

Pittsburg State University Web site,http://www.pittstate.edu/ (November 16, 2004), "Donald Wayne Viney."

More From encyclopedia.com