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34Ultimate ExplanationsContemporary Pragmatism 2 (2): 35-48. 2005.Nicholas Rescher accepts the Principle of Sufficient Reason. In his Nature and Understanding, he gives two candidates for an ultimate explanation: a virtuously circular explanations of facts by laws and laws by facts, and an explanation of the world in terms of optimalism. I argue that the first of these depends on the second, and that the second could be improved by switching to a weaker optimalism or to a theistic explanation
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19          Kant has claimed that lying is always wrong, even in response to a question from a murderer about the whereabouts of his intended victim. Christine Korsgaard has argued that although Kant’s second and third formulations in terms of respect for the humanity in persons and in terms of the Kingdom of Ends of the Categorical Imperative (CI) commit him to this claim, the first formulation in terms of universalizability does..
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537Being Sure and Being Confident That You Won’t Lose ConfidenceLogos and Episteme 7 (1): 45-54. 2016.There is an important sense in which one can be sure without being certain, i.e., without assigning unit probability. I will offer an explication of this sense of sureness, connecting it with the level of credence that a rational agent would need to have to be confident that she won’t ever lose her confidence. A simple formal result then gives us an explicit formula connecting the threshold α for credence needed for confidence with the threshold needed for being sure: one needs 1−(1−α) to be sur…Read more
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154The ontological argument and the motivational centres of livesReligious Studies 46 (2): 233-249. 2010.Assuming S₅, the main controversial premise in modal ontological arguments is the possibility premise, such as that possibly a maximally great being exists. I shall offer a new way of arguing that the possibility premise is probably true
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20I argue against psychological theories of identity that claim that in cases where one’s personality and memories are moved into the brain of another, we move with them. I am not entirely convinced by my arguments here, I must confess, but I think they deserve some thought.
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60Omniscience, Weak PSR, and MethodPhilo 6 (1): 33-48. 2003.Adhering to the traditional concept of omniscience lands Gale in the incoherence Grim’s Cantorian arguments reveal in talk of “all propositions.” By constructing variants and extensions of Grim’s arguments, I explain why various ways out of the incoherence are unacceptable, why theists would do better to adopt a certain revisionary concept of omniscience, and why the Cantorian troubles are so deep as to be troubles as well for Gale’s Weak PSR. I conclude with some brief reflections on method, su…Read more
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134Śamkara's principle and two ontomystical argumentsInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 49 (2): 111-120. 2001.
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22The Divine Belief Theory of Truth: Might It Work?In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), God, Truth, and Other Enigmas, De Gruyter. pp. 141-152. 2015.
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71From restricted to full omniscience: ALEXANDER R. PRUSSReligious Studies 47 (2): 257-264. 2011.Some, notably Peter van Inwagen, in order to avoid problems with free will and omniscience, replace the condition that an omniscient being knows all true propositions with a version of the apparently weaker condition that an omniscient being knows all knowable true propositions. I shall show that the apparently weaker condition, when conjoined with uncontroversial claims and the logical closure of an omniscient being's knowledge, still yields the claim that an omniscient being knows all true pro…Read more
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103The actual and the possibleIn Richard M. Gale (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 317--33. 2002.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Two Interrelated Problems Lewis's Solution Inductive Paradox Identity versus Counterpart Theory Platonism: The Main Realist Alternative to Lewis An Aristotelian Alternative Leibniz's Account A Combined Account.
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11          Despite the fact that the strength of argument is clearly on the pro-life side—nobody except a handful of academics would question the grave wrongness of abortion were pregnancy never inconvenient—somehow ordinary intelligent people, like our students, often remain unconvinced. There are many reasons for this, of course. For instance, a number of students have had their children aborted while many know others who have had abortions, and one does not want to condemn onesel…Read more
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296Not Out of Lust but in Accordance with Truth: Theological and Philosophical Reflections on Sexuality and RealityLogos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 6 (4): 51-80. 2003.
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241A gödelian ontological argument improvedReligious Studies 45 (3): 347-353. 2009.Gödel's ontological argument is a formal argument for a being defined in terms of the concept of a positive property. I shall defend several versions of Gödel's argument, using weaker premises than Anderson's (1990) version, and avoiding Oppy's (1996 and 2000) parody refutations