Andrei Buckareff

In this paper, I examine Mark Johnston’s panentheistic account of the metaphysics of the divine developed in his recent book, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry. On Johnston’s account, God is the ‘Highest One’ and is identified with ‘the outpouring of Being by way of its exemplification in ordinary existents for the sake of the self-disclosure of Being’. Johnston eschews supernaturalism and takes his position to be consistent with what he calls ‘legitimate naturalism’ which he takes to be some version of ontological naturalism. But, as I will argue in what follows, Johnston’s legitimate naturalism is not clearly ontological naturalism. In what follows, given the other general features of his account, I argue that if we assume ontological naturalism, we should prefer a pantheistic conception of God over a panentheistic conception of God such as the one Johnston proffers. I take it that we can preserve everything Johnston wants in his account of divinity if we accept pantheism; but, if we wish to purge our conception of God of any supernaturalism, we should accept pantheism.

Mark Heller has recently offered a proposal in defense of a fairly strong version of doxastic voluntarism. Heller looks to the compatibilist theory of free will proposed by R.E. Hobart in the first half of the twentieth century for an account of doxastic control. Heller’s defense of Hobartian Voluntarism is motivated by an appeal to epistemic deontologism. In this paper I argue that Heller’s defense of a version of strong or direct doxastic voluntarism ultimately fails. I finally argue that the failure of his theory of epistemic agency does not imply the untenability of epistemic deontologism.

: The suffering of creatures experienced throughout evolutionary history provides some conceptual difficulties for theists who maintain that God is an all-good loving creator who chose to employ the processes associated with evolution to bring about life on this planet. Some theists vexed by this and other problems posed by the interface between religion and science have turned to process theology which provides a picture of a God who is dependent upon creation and unable to unilaterally intervene in the affairs of the world and avert suffering. In the present paper I seek to critique process theism, focusing on divine action and the aforementioned problem posed by evolutionary suffering. I show that the promise of a more compelling account of a loving God who suffers with creation advanced by the process theist is illusory. Rather, the process God is less dynamic than promised. And on such an account the freedom of both God and the world are significantly more circumscribed than one may find in other forms of theism.

In their recent book, Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment, Michael Bishop and J.D. Trout have challenged Standard Analytic Epistemology (SAE) in all its guises and have endorsed a version of the "replacement thesis"--proponents of which aim at replacing the standard questions of SAE with psychological questions. In this article I argue that Bishop and Trout offer an incomplete epistemology that, as formulated, cannot address many of the core issues that motivate interest in epistemological questions to begin with, and so is not a fit replacement.

Broadly characterized, the philosophy of action encompasses a host of problems about the nature and scope of human action and agency, including, but not limited to, intention and intentional action, the ontology of action, reason-explanations of action, motivation and practical reason, free will and moral responsibility, mental agency, social action, controlling attitudes, akrasia and enkrasia, and many other issues. Philosophy of Action: 5 Questions is a collection of short interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the most influential and prominent scholars in this philosophical field. We hear their views on philosophy of action, its aim, scope, use, the future, and how their work fits in these respects.