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2894The Rationality of Religious BeliefsThink 14 (40): 109-117. 2015.Many highly educated people think religious belief is irrational and unscientific. If you ask a philosopher, however, you'll likely get two answers: most religious belief is rational in some respects and irrational in other respects. In this essay I explain why they think religious belief is rational. In a sequel essay I explain why they think the very same beliefs are irrational
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934Rationally held ‘P, but I fully believe ~P and I am not equivocating’Philosophical Studies 173 (2): 309-313. 2016.One of Moore’s paradoxical sentence types is ‘P, but I believe ~P’. Mooreans have assumed that all tokens of that sentence type are absurd in some way: epistemically, pragmatically, semantically, or assertively. And then they proceed to debate what the absurdity really is. I argue that if one has the appropriate philosophical views, then one can rationally assert tokens of that sentence type, and one can be epistemically reasonable in the corresponding compound belief as well
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225A presentation and analysis of the twin-earth thought experiments.
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4195Plato’s Response to the Third Man Argument in the Paradoxical Exercise of the ParmenidesAncient Philosophy 16 (1): 47-64. 1996.An analysis of the Third Man Argument, especially in light of Constance Meinwald's book Plato's Parmenides. I argue that her solution to the TMA fails. Then I present my own theory as to what Plato's solution was.
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690In this essay (for undergraduates) I introduce three of the famous semantic paradoxes: the Liar, Grelling’s, and the No-No. Collectively, they seem to show that the notion of truth is highly paradoxical, perhaps even contradictory. They seem to show that the concept of truth is a bit akin to the concept of a married bachelor—it just makes no sense at all. But in order to really understand those paradoxes one needs to be very comfortable thinking about how lots of interesting sentences talk ab…Read more
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Epistemology |
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
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Epistemology |
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
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