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1Cognitive Science of Religion and the Cognitive Consequences of SinIn Hans van Eyghen, Rik Peels & Gijsbert van den Brink (eds.), New Developments in the Cognitive Science of Religion - The Rationality of Religious Belief, Springer. 2018.
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32Responsible Belief: A Theory in Ethics and Epistemology, by Rik Peels, New York, Oxford University Press, 2017: A Précis of Responsible Belief: A Theory in Ethics and Epistemology (review)International Journal of Philosophical Studies 26 (4): 601-643. 2018.It will not come as a surprise to the reader that in my book Responsible Belief: A Theory in Ethics and Epistemology (Peels 2017), I defend an account of responsible belief. That the International...
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31Response to Critics: The Influence Account of Responsible Belief DefendedInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 26 (4): 633-643. 2018.
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74Ten reasons to embrace scientismStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 63 11-21. 2017.
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16Samuel M. Powell. The Impassioned Life: Reason and Emotion in the Christian TraditionPhilosophy, Theology and the Sciences 4 (1): 124. 2017.
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21Epistemic Desiderata and Epistemic PluralismJournal of Philosophical Research 35 193-207. 2010.In this article I argue that Alston’s recent metaepistemological approach in terms of epistemic desiderata is not as epistemically plural as he claims it to be. After some preliminary remarks, I briefly recapitulate Alston’s epistemic desiderata approach. Next, I distinguish two ways in which one might consider truth to be an epistemic desideratum. Subsequently, I argue that only one truth-conducive desideratum can count as an epistemic desideratum. After this, I attempt to show that none of the…Read more
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55Epistemic Justification, Rights, and PermissibilityLogos and Episteme 3 (3): 405-411. 2012.Can we understand epistemic justification in terms of epistemic rights? In this paper, we consider two arguments for the claim that we cannot and in doing so, we provide two arguments for the claim that we can. First, if, as many think, William James is right that the epistemic aim is to believe all true propositions and not to believe any false propositions, then there are likely to be situations in which believing (or disbelieving) a proposition serves one of these goals, whereas suspending ju…Read more
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1IntroductionIn Hans van Eyghen, Rik Peels & Gijsbert van den Brink (eds.), New Developments in the Cognitive Science of Religion - The Rationality of Religious Belief, Springer. 2018.Introduction for 'New Developments in Cognitive Science of Religion - The Rationality of Religious Belief' forthcoming with Springer. We discuss the philosophical debate over Cognitive Science of Religion and give an outline of the book.
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87Is omniscience impossible?Religious Studies 49 (4): 481-490. 2013.In a recent paper, Dennis Whitcomb argues that omniscience is impossible. But if there cannot be any omniscient beings, then God, at least as traditionally conceived, does not exist. The objection is, roughly, that the thesis that there is an omniscient being, in conjunction with some principles about grounding, such as its transitivity and irreflexivity, entails a contradiction. Since each of these principles is highly plausible, divine omniscience has to go. In this article, I argue that Whitc…Read more
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1130The empirical case against introspectionPhilosophical Studies 173 (9): 2461-2485. 2016.This paper assesses five main empirical scientific arguments against the reliability of belief formation on the basis of introspecting phenomenal states. After defining ‘reliability’ and ‘introspection’, I discuss five arguments to the effect that phenomenal states are more elusive than we usually think: the argument on the basis of differences in introspective reports from differences in introspective measurements; the argument from differences in reports about whether or not dreams come in col…Read more
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7Perspectives on Ignorance From Moral and Social Philosophy (edited book)Routledge. 2016.This edited collection focuses on the moral and social dimensions of ignorance—an undertheorized category in analytic philosophy. Contributors address such issues as the relation between ignorance and deception, ignorance as a moral excuse, ignorance as a legal excuse, and the relation between ignorance and moral character. In the _moral_ realm, ignorance is sometimes considered as an excuse; some specific kind of ignorance seems to be implied by a moral character; and ignorance is closely relat…Read more
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108Epistemic Desiderata and Epistemic PluralismJournal of Philosophical Research 35 193-207. 2010.In this article I argue that Alston’s recent meta-epistemological approach in terms of epistemic desiderata is not as epistemically plural as he claims it to be. After some preliminary remarks, I briefly recapitulate Alston’s epistemic desiderata approach. Next, I distinguish two ways in which one might consider truth to be an epistemic desideratum. Subsequently, I argue that only one truth-conducive desideratum can count as an epistemic desideratum. After this, I attempt to show that none of th…Read more
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1137Against Doxastic CompatibilismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (1): 679-702. 2014.William Alston has argued that the so-called deontological conception of epistemic justification, on which epistemic justification is to be spelled out in terms of blame, responsibility, and obligations, is untenable. The basic idea of the argument is that this conception is untenable because we lack voluntary control over our beliefs and, therefore, cannot have any obligations to hold certain beliefs. If this is convincing, however, the argument threatens the very idea of doxastic responsibilit…Read more
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75Sin and Human Cognition of GodScottish Journal of Theology 64 (4): 390-409. 2011.In this paper I argue that the effects of sin for our cognition of God primarily consist in a lack of knowledge by acquaintance of God and the relevant ensuing propositional knowledge. In the course of my argument, I make several conceptual distinctions and offer analyses of 1Cor 13:9-12 and Rom 1:18-23. As it turns out, we have ample reason to think that sin has had and still has profound consequences for our cognition of God, but there is no reason to think that sin has taken away all knowledg…Read more
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757Hume’s Law Violated?Journal of Value Inquiry 48 (3): 449-455. 2014.Introduction: Prinz’s SentimentalismMany ethicists claim that one cannot derive an ought from an is. In others words, they think that one cannot derive a statement that has prescriptive force from purely descriptive statements. This thesis plays a crucial role in many theoretical and practical ethical arguments. Since, according to many, David Hume advocated a view along these lines, this thesis has been called ‘Hume’s Law’. In this paper, I adopt this widespread terminology, whether or not Hume…Read more
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126Does doxastic responsibility entail the ability to believe otherwise?Synthese 190 (17): 3651-3669. 2013.Whether responsibility for actions and omissions requires the ability to do otherwise is an important issue in contemporary philosophy. However, a closely related but distinct issue, namely whether doxastic responsibility requires the ability to believe otherwise, has been largely neglected. This paper fills this remarkable lacuna by providing a defence of the thesis that doxastic responsibility entails the ability to believe otherwise. On the one hand, it is argued that the fact that unavoidabi…Read more
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58Degree-sentences, i.e. sentences that seem to refer to things that allow of degrees, are widely used both inside and outside of philosophy, even though the metaphysics of degrees is much of an untrodden field. This paper aims to fill this lacuna by addressing the following four questions: [A] Is there some one thing, such that it is degree sensitive? [B] Are there things x, y, and z that stand in a certain relation to each other, viz. the relation that x has more y than z? [C] In those cases in …Read more
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48The Effects of Sin upon Human Moral CognitionJournal of Reformed Theology 4 (1): 42-69. 2010.This article provides an elaborate defense of the thesis that we have no reason to think that sin has any direct effects upon our moral cognition. After a few methodological comments and conceptual distinctions, the author treats certain biblical passages on humans' evil hearts, the function of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 and 3, Paul's comments on the moral situation of the Gentiles in Romans 2, and Paul's ideas on the Gentiles' futility of mind as found in Ephesians …Read more
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188Responsible belief and epistemic justificationSynthese 194 (8): 2895-2915. 2017.For decades, philosophers have displayed an interest in what it is to have an epistemically justified belief. Recently, we also find among philosophers a renewed interest in the so-called ethics of belief: what is it to believe responsibly and when is one’s belief blameworthy? This paper explores how epistemically justified belief and responsible belief are related to each other. On the so-called ‘deontological conception of epistemic justification’, they are identical: to believe epistemically …Read more
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214Believing at Will is PossibleAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (3): 1-18. 2015.There are convincing counter-examples to the widely accepted thesis that we cannot believe at will. For it seems possible that the truth of a proposition depend on whether or not one believes it. I call such scenarios cases of Truth Depends on Belief and I argue that they meet the main criteria for believing at will that we find in the literature. I reply to five objections that one might level against the thesis that TDB cases show that believing at will is possible, namely that mind-reading is…Read more
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617A Modal Solution to the Problem of Moral LuckAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 52 (1): 73-88. 2015.In this article I provide and defend a solution to the problem of moral luck. The problem of moral luck is that there is a set of three theses about luck and moral blameworthiness each of which is at least prima facie plausible, but that, it seems, cannot all be true. The theses are that (1) one cannot be blamed for what happens beyond one’s control, (2) that which is due to luck is beyond one’s control, and (3) we rightly blame each other for events that are due to luck. I suggest that the resp…Read more
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12S.J. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics, Grand Rapids/Cambridge 2006: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 310 pagina’s. ISBN 0-8028-6313-2 (review)Philosophia Reformata 73 (1): 115-118. 2008.
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41Is science like a crossword puzzle? Foundherentist conceptions of scientific warrantCanadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (1): 82-101. 2016.This paper argues that the crossword puzzle analogy is great for scientific rationality, but not scientific warrant. It provides a critical analysis of foundherentist conceptions of scientific warrant, especially that of Susan Haack, and closely related positions, such as non-doxastic coherentism. Foundherentism takes the middle ground between foundationalism and coherentism. The main idea is that warrant, including that of scientific theories, is like warrant of crossword entries: the degree to…Read more
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25Divine foreknowledge and eternal damnation: The theory of middle knowledge as solution to the soteriological problem of evilNeue Zeitschrift für Systematicsche Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 48 (2): 160-75. 2006.Traditionally, Christians have hold the two following beliefs: the belief that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good on the one hand and the belief that God has actualized a possible world in which some people freely reject Christ and are damned eternally, while others freely accept Him and are saved on the other. The combination of these two beliefs seems to result in a contradiction. This serious and well-known problem is called the soteriological problem of evil. In this article t…Read more
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164What Kind of Ignorance Excuses? Two Neglected IssuesPhilosophical Quarterly 64 (256): 478-496. 2014.The philosophical literature displays a lively debate on the conditions under which ignorance excuses. In this paper, I formulate and defend an answer to two questions that have not yet been discussed in the literature on exculpatory ignorance. First, which kinds of propositional attitudes that count as ignorance provide an excuse? I argue that we need to consider four options here: having a false belief, suspending judgement on a true proposition, being deeply ignorant of a truth, and having a …Read more
Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Religion |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |