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Mark T. Nelson

Westmont College
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University of Notre Dame
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1985
Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology
Philosophy of Religion
Meta-Ethics
Normative Ethics
  •  125
    Telling it like it is: Philosophy as Descriptive Manifestation
    American Philosophical Quarterly 42 (3): 2005. 2005.
    What do Ross’s The Right and the Good; Chisholm’s Theory of Knowledge; Kripke’s Naming and Necessity; and Audi’s The Architecture of Reason have in common? They all advance important philosophical positions, but not so much via analytic arguments as via formal schemas, distinctions, examples, and analogies. They use such formal schemas, etc, to describe the world so as to make some aspect of it manifest. That is, they simply try to ‘tell it like it is’. This ‘method of descriptive manifestat…Read more
    The Nature of IntuitionPhilosophical Methods, MiscArgumentMetaphilosophical Views, Misc
  •  160
    Promises and Material Conditionals
    Teaching Philosophy 16 (2): 155-156. 1993.
    Some beginning logic students find it hard to understand why a material conditional is true when its antecedent is false. I draw an analogy between conditional statements and conditional promises (especially between true conditional statements and unbroken conditional promises) that makes this point of logic less counter-intuitive.
    PromisesConditional AssertionPhilosophy of Education
  •  141
    John Hare God's call: Moral realism, God's commands, and human autonomy. (William B. Eerdmans, 2001). (review)
    Religious Studies 38 (2): 225-246. 2002.
    Moral Realism, MiscAutonomy, MiscPhilosophy of Religion
  •  106
    Commentary: Practical Wisdom and Theory
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 21 (3): 404-408. 2012.
    This paper is an ethical reflection on the real-life case of "Angela", a highly intelligent but severely anorexic young woman who wishes to refuse all but palliative treatment. It is part of CQHE's "Ethics Committees and Consultants at Work" series, in response to the essay, "Starving for Perfection."
  •  205
    Temporal Wholes and the Problem of Evil
    Religious Studies 29 (3). 1993.
    I borrow an idea from the fiction of C. S. Lewis that future outcomes may affect the value of past events. I explain and defend this idea via the concept of a "temporal whole", and then show its promise as a part of a theodicy, and its resonance with Christian theism in general.
    The Argument from Evil