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67St. Anselm's Ontological Argument as Expressive: A Wittgensteinian ReconstructionPhilosophical Investigations 37 (2): 130-151. 2013.We offer a reading of Anselm's Ontological Argument inspired by Wittgenstein which focuses on the fact that the “argument” occurs in a prayer addressed to God, making it a strange argument since as a prayer it seems to presuppose its conclusion. We reconstruct the argument as expressive. Within the religious perspective, the issues are to be focused on the right object not to present an argument for the existence of God. While this sort of reading lets us understand much about the argument, it a…Read more
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1973Poe's law, group polarization, and the epistemology of online religious discourseSocial Semiotics 22 (4). 2012.Poe's Law is roughly that online parodies of religious extremism are indistinguishable from instances of sincere extremism. Poe's Law may be expressed in a variety of ways, each highlighting either a facet of indirect discourse generally, attitudes of online audiences, or the quality of online religious material. As a consequence of the polarization of online discussions, invocations of Poe's Law have relevance in wider circles than religion. Further, regular invocations of Poe's Law in critical…Read more
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2593An Atheistic Argument from UglinessEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7 (1): 209-217. 2015.The theistic argument from beauty has what we call an 'evil twin', the argument from ugliness. The argument yields either what we call 'atheist win', or, when faced with aesthetic theodicies, 'agnostic tie' with the argument from beauty.
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131Modest EvidentialismInternational Philosophical Quarterly 46 (3): 327-343. 2006.Evidentialism is the view that subjects should believe neither more than nor contrary to what their current evidence supports. I will critically present two arguments for the view. A common source of resistance to evidentialism is that there are intuitive cases where subjects should believe contrary to their evidence. I will present modest evidentialism as the view that subjects should believe in accord with what their evidence supports, but that this norm may be overridden under certain conditi…Read more
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47Skeptical Theism: New Essays (review)International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 7 (3): 207-211. 2017._ Source: _Page Count 5
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102Pragmatic Invariantism and External World SkepticismSouthwest Philosophy Review 26 (1): 35-42. 2010.Simply stated, Pragmatic Invariantism is the view that the practical interests of a person can influence whether that person’s true belief constitutes knowledge. My primary objective in this article is to show that Pragmatic Invariantism entails external world skepticism. Toward this end, I’ll first introduce a basic version of Pragmatic Invariantism (PI). Then I’ll introduce a sample skeptical hypothesis (SK) to the framework. From this I will show that it is extremely important that the phenom…Read more
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189Tu Quoque Arguments and the Significance of HypocrisyInformal Logic 28 (2): 155-169. 2008.Though textbook tu quoque arguments are fallacies of relevance, many versions of arguments from hypocrisy are indirectly relevant to the issue. Some arguments from hypocrisy are challenges to the authority of a speaker on the basis of either her sincerity or competency regarding the issue. Other arguments from hypocrisy purport to be evidence of the impracticability of the opponent’s proposals. Further, some versions of hypocrisy charges from impracticability are open to a counter that I will te…Read more
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60The Ad Hominem argument against'Knowledge is true belief': a reply to MartensEuropean Journal of Analytic Philosophy 7 (1): 5-10. 2011.
Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
American Pragmatism |
Informal Logic |