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25Our Errant Epistemic AimPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (4): 869-876. 1995.Often the first issue addressed by a theory of justified belief is the aim, goal, purpose, or objective of epistemic justification. What, in short, is the point of epistemic justification? Or, to put it a bit differently, why value justification: why is it worth having or pursuing? Prominent epistemologists, including both externalists and internalists, have proposed the following answer: the ultimate aim of epistemic justification is to maximize true belief and minimize false belief. This answe…Read more
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108Cornea and ClosureFaith and Philosophy 24 (1): 83-86. 2007.Could our observations of apparently pointless evil ever justify the conclusion that God does not exist? Not according to Stephen Wykstra, who several years ago announced the “Condition of Reasonable Epistemic Access,” or “CORNEA,” a principle that has sustained critiques of atheistic arguments from evil ever since. Despite numerous criticisms aimed at CORNEA in recent years, the principle continues to be invoked and defended. We raise a new objection: CORNEA is false because it entails intolera…Read more
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74Anselmian atheismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (1). 2005.On the basis of Chapter 15 of Anselm's Proslogion, I develop an argument that confronts theology with a trilemma: atheism, utter mysticism, or radical anti-Anselmianism. The argument establishes a disjunction of claims that Anselmians in particular, but not only they, will find disturbing: (a) God does not exist, (b) no human being can have even the slightest conception of God, or (c) the Anselmian requirement of maximal greatness in God is wrong. My own view, for which I argue briefly, is that …Read more
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32Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious ExperiencePhilosophical Review 102 (3): 430. 1993.
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4Linda Martin Alcoff, Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 16 (6): 385-387. 1996.
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148Closing the ‘Is’-‘Ought’ GapCanadian Journal of Philosophy 28 (3): 349-366. 1998.In a dense and fascinating article of some ten years ago, Toomas Karmo adds his voice to the chorus of philosophers who deny the possibility of soundly deriving ‘ought’ from ‘is.’ According to Karmo, no derivation containing an ethical conclusion and only non-ethical premises can possibly be sound, where ‘sound’ describes a deductively valid derivation all of whose premises are true. He also suggests that the only valid derivations of ‘ought’ from ‘is’ will be trivial ones. His argument has, to …Read more
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830The impossibility of local skepticismPhilosophia 34 (4): 453-464. 2006.According to global skepticism, we know nothing. According to local skepticism, we know nothing in some particular area or domain of discourse. Unlike their global counterparts, local skeptics think they can contain our invincible ignorance within limited bounds. I argue that they are mistaken. Local skepticism, particularly the kinds that most often get defended, cannot stay local: if there are domains whose truths we cannot know, then there must be claims outside those domains that we cannot k…Read more
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1037Agnosticism, Skeptical Theism, and Moral ObligationIn Justin McBrayer Trent Dougherty (ed.), Skeptical Theism: New Essays, Oxford University Press. 2014.Skeptical theism combines theism with skepticism about our capacity to discern God’s morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil. Proponents have claimed that skeptical theism defeats the evidential argument from evil. Many opponents have objected that it implies untenable moral skepticism, induces appalling moral paralysis, and the like. Recently Daniel Howard-Snyder has tried to rebut this prevalent objection to skeptical theism by rebutting it as an objection to the skeptical part of sk…Read more
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381On Gellman's Attempted RescueEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 2 (1). 2010.In "Ordinary Morality Implies Atheism" (2009), I argued that traditional theism threatens ordinary morality by relieving us of any moral obligation to prevent horrific suffering by innocent people even when we easily can. In the current issue of this journal, Jerome Gellman attempts to rescue that moral obligation from my charge that theism destroys it. In this reply, I argue that his attempted rescue fails
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6C. Stephen Evans, Faith Beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account (review)Philosophy in Review 20 (2): 98-99. 2000.
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133Anselmian AtheismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (1): 225-239. 2007.On the basis of Chapter 15 of Anselm's Proslogion, I develop an argument that confronts theology with a trilemma: atheism, utter mysticism, or radical anti‐Anselmianism. The argument establishes a disjunction of claims that Anselmians in particular, but not only they, will find disturbing: (a) God does not exist, (b) no human being can have even the slightest conception of God, or (c) the Anselmian requirement of maximal greatness in God is wrong. My own view, for which I argue briefly, is that …Read more
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616Questioning the QuestionIn Tyron Goldschmidt (ed.), The Puzzle of Existence: Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?, Routledge. pp. 252-271. 2013.Why is there something rather than nothing? Apparently many people regard that question as a challenge to naturalism because they think it’s too fundamental or too sweeping for natural science to answer, even in principle. I argue, on the contrary, that the question has a simple and adequate naturalistic answer: ‘Because there are penguins.’ I then diagnose various confusions underlying the suspicion that the question can’t have such an answer and, more generally, that the question, or else some…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |