-
140Tennant on knowabilityAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (4). 1999.The knowability paradox threatens metaphysical or semantical antirealism, the view that truth is epistemic, by revealing an awful consequence of the claim [i] that all truths are knowable. Various attempts have been made to find a way out of the paradox.
-
64Destiny and Deliberation: Essays in Philosophical TheologyOxford University Press UK. 2011.Jonathan Kvanvig presents a compelling new work in philosophical theology on the universe, creation, and the afterlife. Organised thematically by the endpoints of time, the volume begins by addressing eschatological matters and the doctrines of heaven and hell and ends with an account of divine deliberation and creation. Kvanvig develops a coherent theistic outlook which reconciles a traditional, high conception of deity, with full providential control over all aspects of creation, with a concep…Read more
-
116The confusion over foundationalismPhilosophia 16 (3-4): 345-354. 1986.Foundationalism came under attack in two areas in the first half of this century. First, some doubted whether the foundations were adequate to support the entire structure of knowledge, and second, the doctrine of the Agiven@ came under serious attack. = However, many epistemologists were not convinced that foundationalism was to be abandoned even if the criticisms were granted. According to these epistemologist, far from having shown that foundationalism itself was at fault, the critics of foun…Read more
-
11Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion Volume (edited book)Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2010.Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion is an annual volume offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this longstanding area of philosophy that has seen an explosive growth of interest over the past half century. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board, it publishes exemplary papers in any area of philosophy of religion.
-
4The Analogy Argument for a Limited Account of OmniscienceInternational Philosophical Quarterly 29 (2): 129-137. 1989.
-
The valueof know ledgeis external to itIn Duncan Pritchard & Ram Neta (eds.), Arguing About Knowledge, Routledge. pp. 37. 2008.
-
123Contrastivism and closureSocial Epistemology 22 (3). 2008.This paper argues for a solution to a problem that contrastivism faces. The problem is that contrastivism cannot preserve closure, in spite of claims to the contrary by its defenders. The problem is explained and a response developed
-
The Swamping Problem is one of the central problems in the new valuedriven approach to epistemology that has arisen recently. Issues concerning epistemic value, however, are not new. We can find them first in Plato’s dialogue Meno, where Socrates and Meno have a discussion about what type of guide one should prefer if one wants to get to Larissa. The first suggestion is that one should want a guide who knows the way, but Socrates notes that a guide with true opinions will work just as well. Meno…Read more
-
48Theories of Providence and CreationRes Philosophica 90 (1): 49-67. 2013.Einstein was notoriously confident that God doesn’t play dice with the universe. Perhaps it is a confidence born of a deeper modal presumption: that Godcouldn’t play dice with the universe. If so, such confidence almost certainly disappoints. Even if God doesn’t play dice with the universe, he might. Thus arises the issue here addressed: what implications does this datum have for a proper understanding of divine providence? My interest is in theories that aim to present complete theories of prov…Read more
-
3``Norms of Assertion"In Jessica Brown & Herman Cappellan (eds.), Assertion, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2010.
-
22CredulismInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16 (2). 1984.Some recent philosophers of religion have addressed the question of how, and whether it is possible, that the religious experiences some persons have had can give reasons for believing that God exists. Swinburne, for example, claims that what he calls the principle of credulity implies that the religious experiences of those that have them do provide evidence for others that God exists. He formulates the principle as follows: 1 (1) if it seems (epistemically) to a subject that x is present, then…Read more
-
661Religious Pluralism and the Buridan's Ass ParadoxEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (1): 1-26. 2009.The paradox of ’Buridan’s ass’ involves an animal facing two equally adequate and attractive alternatives, such as would happen were a hungry ass to confront two bales of hay that are equal in all respects relevant to the ass’s hunger. Of course, the ass will eat from one rather than the other, because the alternative is to starve. But why does this eating happen? What reason is operative, and what explanation can be given as to why the ass eats from, say, the left bale rather than the right bal…Read more
-
58Epistemic JustificationIn Sven Bernecker & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 25--36. 2010.
-
Every religion offers both hope and fear. They offer hope in virtue of the benefits promised to adherents, and fear in virtue of costs incurred by adversaries. In traditional Christianity, the costs incurred are expressed in terms of the doctrine of hell, according to which each person consigned to hell receives the same infinite punishment. This strong view of hell involves four distinct theses. First, it maintains that those in hell exist forever in that state (the Existence Thesis) and that a…Read more
-
136A critique of van Fraassen’s voluntaristic epistemologySynthese 98 (2): 325-348. 1994.Van Fraassen's epistemology is forged from two commitments, one to a type of Bayesianism and the other to what he terms voluntarism. Van Fraassen holds that if one is going to follow a rule in belief-revision, it must be a Bayesian rule, but that one does not need to follow a rule in order to be rational. It is argued that van Fraassen's arguments for rejecting non-Bayesian rules is unsound, and that his voluntarism is subject to a fatal dilemma arising from the non-monotonic character of reason…Read more
-
``Virtue Epistemology"In Sven Bernecker & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge. 2010.
-
21Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 2, Epistemology, ed. James E. Tomberlin (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (3): 700-703. 1991.
-
1``Divine Hiddenness: What is the Problem?"In Daniel Howard-Snyder & Paul Moser (eds.), The Hiddenness of God, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 149-163. 2001.
-
1``The Epistemic Paradoxes"In Edward Craig (ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge. 1998.
-
22In Defense of CoherentismJournal of Philosophical Research 22 299-306. 1997.Alvin Plantinga and John Pollock both think that coherentism is a mistaken theory of justification, and they do so for different reasons. In spite of these differences, there are remarkable connections between their criticisms. Part of my goal here is to show what these connections are. I will show that Plantinga’s construal of coherentism presupposes Pollock’s arguments against that view, and I will argue that coherentists need not breathe their last in response to the contentions of either. Co…Read more
-
128``Propositionalism and the Perspectival Character of Justification"American Philosophical Quarterly 40 (1): 3-18. 2003.The flight from foundationalism in the earlier part of this century left several options in its wake. Distress over the possibility of foundationalist replies to the regress problem, coupled with consternation over the thought of circular reasoning mysteriously becoming acceptable as the circle gets large led to the attraction of holistic theories of a coherentist variety. Yet, such coherentisms seemed to leave the belief system cut off from the world, and perhaps a better idea was to abandon th…Read more
-
``Truth-Tracking and the Value of Knowledge"In Kelly Becker (ed.), New Essays on Sensitivity and Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2012.
-
493The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of UnderstandingCambridge University Press. 2003.Epistemology has for a long time focused on the concept of knowledge and tried to answer questions such as whether knowledge is possible and how much of it there is. Often missing from this inquiry, however, is a discussion on the value of knowledge. In The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding Jonathan Kvanvig argues that epistemology properly conceived cannot ignore the question of the value of knowledge. He also questions one of the most fundamental assumptions in epistemology, …Read more
St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Religion |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |