Jonathan L. Kvanvig

The heart of the epistemological interest of Zagzebski’s book is found in the tasks of clarifying the natures of justification and knowledge in terms of the intellectual virtues. It is in virtue of undertaking this task that Zagzebski presents a version of virtue epistemology. Though the book has several interesting features apart from this task, I want to argue that in its fundamental tasks, the book is a failure. In particular, I will argue that Zagzebski’s virtue account of justification is irreparably inadequate

Philosophical reflection concerning heaven and hell has focused on the place of such doctrines in the great monotheistic religions emanating from the religion of the ancient people of Israel--Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The philosophical issues that arise concerning these doctrines is not limited to such traditions, however. Consider, for example, the doctrine of hell. Any religion promises certain benefits to its adherents, and these benefits require some contrast that befalls, or might befall, those who fail to adhere to the religion in question.

LEMKE has recently taken issue (see ANALYSIS 46.3, June 1986, pp. 138-44) with my claim that no counterfactual causal account of the basing relation is plausible (see ANALYSIS 45.3, June 1985, pp. 153-8). Intuitively, a counterfactual causal account claims that belief is based on evidence if and only if the evidence either causes the belief or would have caused it had the actual cause been absent. This intuitive formulation accounts only for counterfactual causes of level one: events which would have been a cause had only the actual cause been absent. As I argued, there is as much support for allowing counterfactual causes having a higher cardinality: events which would have been a cause had the actual cause and some other counterfactual causes been absent.

THE DOCTRINE OF omniscience has been understood in two ways. Roughly, it has been taken either as the claim that God knows all that is true (Geach, Kvanvig 1986) or as the claim that God knows all that can be known (Swinbume; Mavrodes). The first construal I shall call the traditional construal, and the second I shall call a limited construal. Though the traditional construal would seem to be the natural one to hold, considerations of the analogy between the best construals of the doctrine of omnipotence have suggested to some that a limited construal is prefera)1e. In particular, some have claimed that one should be careful to construe the doctrine of omnipotence, not as the..

representations, for the unconditioned transcendent surpasses every possible conception of a being, including even the conception of a Supreme Being... It is the religious function of atheism ever to remind us that the religious act has to do with the unconditioned transcendent, and that the representations of the Unconditioned are not objects concerning whose existence.., a discussion would be possible. The word >God= involves a double meaning: it connotes the unconditioned transcendent, the ultimate, and also an object somehow endowed with qualities and actions. The first is not figurative or symbolic, but is rather in the strictest sense what it is said to be. The second, however, is really symbolic, figurative. = Tillich=s view on transcendence is a quite radical view. However, his view serves to illustrate two things: (i) the importance of the concept of transcendence in discussions about God, and (ii) the implications for religious language resulting from God..

The best defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation implies that traditional Christianity has a special stake in the knowability paradox, a stake not shared by other theistic perspectives or by non-traditional accounts of the Incarnation. Perhaps, this stake is not even shared by antirealism, the view most obviously threatened by the paradox. I argue for these points, concluding that these results put traditional Christianity at a disadvantage compared to other viewpoints, and I close with some comments about the extent of the burden incurred