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44There must have been a first generationThink 18 (53): 7-13. 2019.I argue, from premises accepted by every educated person, that there must have been a first human generation, contrary to what Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett have prominently claimed.Export citation.
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33Belief Policies (review)Philosophical Review 106 (3): 448. 1997.Unfortunately, the book's weaknesses outweigh its strengths. Chief among the weaknesses is its spotty attention to relevant and important literature, both historical and contemporary. Even though Helm writes at length about assent, and even though he discusses Augustine, he completely ignores John Henry Newman, whose Grammar of Assent deserves at least a mention. Helm devotes more than a chapter to the relation between belief and the will and another chapter to fideism, yet he never mentions Lou…Read more
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32Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious ExperiencePhilosophical Review 102 (3): 430. 1993.
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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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12Closing the ‘Is’-‘Ought’ GapCanadian Journal of Philosophy 28 (3): 349-365. 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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8Normative Objections to TheismIn Graham Oppy (ed.), A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy, Wiley. 2019.I discuss several normative – in particular, moral – objections to theism. These objections arise for theism independently of the doctrines associated with particular sectarian religious traditions, and independently of particular metaethical positions such as divine‐command theory. The objections stem mainly from theistic attempts to solve the problem of evil, that is, to explain why a perfect God permits, or why a perfect God might permit, the suffering that our world contains.
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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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4Linda Martin Alcoff, Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 16 (6): 385-387. 1996.
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1On God and Our Ultimate PurposeFree Inquiry 31 35-37. 2011.William Lane Craig often defends theism by arguing that human life is meaningful only if it has ultimate significance, and it has ultimate significance only if God exists to give human life ultimate purpose. Developing an idea from Thomas Nagel, I rebut Craig's argument. I contend that the concept of ultimate purpose is incoherent, and hence ultimate significance is impossible even if God exists. Ultimate significance is a fantasy that shouldn't draw anyone to theism.
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C. Stephen Evans, Faith Beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account (review)Philosophy in Review 20 98-99. 2000.
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Theism as Theory: Issues in the Epistemology of Religious BeliefDissertation, Cornell University. 1992.This essay in epistemology focuses on issues associated with belief in God, understood as belief in the existence of the God of orthodox monotheism and in the truth of related theistic claims. What type of belief is belief in God, and under what general conditions is such belief epistemically justified? I consider various answers to these questions, I offer some answers of my own, and I suggest some consequences of the latter for several important issues in the epistemology of religion. ;I defen…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 |