-
82The paradoxes of confirmation - a surveyAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 8 (4). 1971.THE PARADOXES OF CONFIRMATION ARE CONSTITUTED BY THE CONTRADICTIONS ARISING FROM THE CONJUNCTION OF THREE PRINCIPLES OF CONFIRMATION - NICOD’S CRITERION, THE EQUIVALENCE CONDITION, AND WHAT THE PAPER CALLS THE SCIENTIFIC LAWS CONDITION. THE PAPER DISCUSSES IN DETAIL THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS PROVIDED BY ABANDONING ONE OF THE PRINCIPLES. IN THE END IT FINDS NICOD’S CRITERION FALSE, BUT FINDS THE EXPLANATIONS GIVEN BY H.G. ALEXANDER AND OTHERS OF WHY NICOD’S CRITERION IS FALSE THEMSELVES UNSATISFACTOR…Read more
-
54The Inevitable Implausibility of Physical DeterminismJournal of Consciousness Studies 22 (11-12): 43-59. 2015.I shall understand physical determinism as the doctrine that every physical event has a physical event as its necessary and sufficient cause. This paper seeks to show that no one would be justified in holding this doctrine unless it could be shown to make successful predictions; and that such predictions could only be obtained if we assume the doctrine to be false.
-
40Are We Bodies or Souls?Oxford University Press. 2019.What makes us human? Richard Swinburne presents new philosophical arguments, supported by modern neuroscience, for the view that we are immaterial souls sustained in existence by our brains.
-
23Pourquoi Hume et Kant ont eu tort de rejeter la théologie naturelleThéoRèmes 2 (1). 2012.La théologie naturelle faisait partie de la tradition philosophique occidentale jusqu’à ce que Hume et Kant affirment qu’il y a des limites fondamentales à l’intelligibilité, ou au moins au savoir possible, de ce qui dépasse l’expérience ; et donc qu’il ne peut exister d’arguments solides partant du monde naturel et concluant à l’existence de Dieu. Je défends que, bien que nos concepts doivent en effet être dérivés de notre expérience, ils peuvent avoir une application bien au-delà de notre expé…Read more
-
42Does God Permit Massive Deception?Philosophia Christi 15 (2): 265-270. 2013.This is a response to Cavin and Colombetti’s paper criticizing a claim of mine elsewhere, that God would not permit anyone to deceive the world by manufacturing evidence which made it probable that Jesus was God incarnate when that was not so. I analyze four different cases of A allowing B to hold a false belief, and I argue that only two of them constitute deception by A, one being “straightforward” deception and the other “tacit” deception. What I should have claimed earlier is that God would …Read more
-
63The Probability of the Resurrection of JesusPhilosophia Christi 15 (2): 239-252. 2013.God has major reasons for intervening in human history by becoming incarnate himself—to identify with our suffering, to provide atonement for our sins, and to reveal truths. Given there is at least a significant probability that there is a God, there is at least a modest probability that he would become incarnate and live a life and provide teaching appropriate to one who sought thereby to realize these goals. Jesus lived and taught in the appropriate way. If it was God incarnate who did so live…Read more
-
20Jesus and the Total Available EvidencePhilosophia Christi 16 (2): 419-422. 2014.Cavin and Colombetti correctly affirm that in judging the probability of a hypothesis we should take into account “the total available evidence.” However, they neglect their own affirmation when they claim that I make an unwarranted assumption that God would not massively deceive the human race, when they claim that I do not take into account any evidence favoring hypotheses incompatible with the traditional account of what happened to the body of Jesus, and when they claim that I do not take in…Read more
-
39Response to Keith Ward, Christ and the CosmosPhilosophia Christi 18 (2): 297-305. 2016.Keith Ward understands the Trinity as “one conscious being” and the divine “persons” as three necessary modes of divine action. But he does not give a good reason for supposing that there must be just three modes of divine action. I argue that by contrast all the theories of the Trinity developed from the Nicene Creed by patristic and medieval writers, are “social” theories, or “three persons” theories. I defend my a priori argument for the justification of a social theory—that three persons are…Read more
-
87The Argument to the Soul from Partial Brain TransplantsPhilosophia Christi 20 (1): 13-19. 2018.Suppose we transplant the left hemisphere of one person, Alexandra, into the skull of another person, Alex, from whom both cerebral hemispheres have been removed; and transplant Alexandra’s right hemisphere into the skull of another person, Sandra, both of whose cerebral hemispheres have been removed. Both of the resulting persons will then have some of Alexandra’s brain and probably almost all of her memories and character. But since at most only one of them can be Alexandra, being Alexandra mu…Read more
-
28Response to WarrantWarrant: The Current Debate.Warrant and Proper FunctionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (2): 415. 1995.
-
5The justification of inductionRevue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 165 (2): 183-184. 1974.
-
166The Argument from Design—a Defence: R. G. SWINBURNEReligious Studies 8 (3): 193-205. 1972.Mr Olding's recent attack on my exposition of the argument from design gives me an opportunity to defend the central theses of my original article. My article pointed out that there were arguments from design of two types—those which take as their premisses regularities of copresence and those which take as their premisses regularities of succession. I sought to defend an argument of the second type. One merit of such an argument is that there is no doubt about the truth of its premisses. Almost…Read more
-
An Introduction to Confirmation TheoryBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (3): 289-292. 1976.