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867On Davies' institutional definition of artSouthern Journal of Philosophy 29 (3): 371-382. 1991.This paper is a critique of Stephen Davies' institutional definition of art. I argue that Davies' definition suffers from a range of problems.
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779Analysis of Existing: Barry Miller's Approach to God, by Elmar J. Kremer: New York: Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. xiv + 143, AU$148 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (2): 409-410. 2015.Review of Kremer's book on Barry Miller's approach to God. (I have discussed Miller's argument from contingency in other publications.)
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230Reading Philosophy of Religion (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2010._Reading Philosophy of Religion_ combines a diverse selection of classical and contemporary texts in philosophy of religion with insightful commentaries. Offers a unique presentation through a combination of text and interactive commentary Provides a mix of classic and contemporary texts, including some not anthologized elsewhere Includes writings from thinkers such as Aquinas, Boethius, Hume, Plantinga and Putnam Divided into sections which examine religious language, the existence of God, reas…Read more
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2581From the Tristram Shandy Paradox to the Christmas Shandy Paradox: Reply to OderbergArs Disputandi 3 172-195. 2003.This paper is a response to David Oderberg's criticisms of a previous paper of mine. (Bibliographical details are provided in the article.)
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1279Weak agnosticism defendedInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 36 (3). 1994.Agnosticism has had some bad press in recent years. Nonetheless, I hope to show that agnosticism can be so formulated that it is no less philosophically respectable than theism and atheism. This is not a mere philosophical exercise; for, as it happens, the formulated position is--I think--the one to which I subscribe. I include a qualification here since it may be that the position to which I subscribe is better characterised as fallibilist atheism--but more of that anon
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1177OmnipotencePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (1). 2005.Recently, many philosophers have supposed that the divine attribute of omnipotence is properly understood as some kind of maximal power. I argue that all of the best known attempts to analyse omnipotence in terms of maximal power are multiply flawed. Moreover, I argue that there are compelling reasons for supposing that, on orthodox theistic conceptions, maximal power is not one of the divine attributes.
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2074Arguing About The Kalam Cosmological ArgumentPhilo 5 (1): 34-61. 2002.This paper begins with a fairly careful and detailed discussion of the conditions under which someone who presents an argument ought to be prepared to concede that the argument is unsuccessful. The conclusions reached in this discussion are then applied to William Lane Craig’s defense of what he calls “the kalam cosmological argument.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the chief contention of the paper is that Craig ought to be prepared to concede that “the kalam cosmological argument” is not a successful…Read more
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596Review of D. Jacquette, Meinongian logic (review)Mind 107 (428): 877-908. 1998.This is a review of *Meinongian Logic* (by Dale Jacquette).
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2034The Ontological Argument (Cambridge Classic Philosophical Arguments Series) (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2018.In this Introduction, we begin with two relatively uncontroversial matters: the broad contours of the history of discussion of ontological arguments, and the major topics that require discussion in connection with ontological arguments. We then move on to consideration of the much more difficult task of the characterisation of ontological arguments—i.e. the task of saying exactly what ontological arguments are and explaining how they differ from, say, cosmological, teleological, and moral argume…Read more
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1589Modal theistic argumentsSophia 32 (2): 17-24. 1993.This paper discusses a range of modal ontological arguments. It is claimed that these modal ontological arguments fail because they depend upon controversial assumptions about the nature of modal space.
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764Williams on Kaplan on the contingent analyticRatio 8 (2): 189-192. 1995.This paper is a reply to a prior work by C. J. F. Williams in which he criticised David Kaplan's account of the contingent analytic. In this paper, I take myself to be defending Kaplan's views against Williams' attack.
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6878Rowe's evidential arguments from evilIn Justin P. Mcbrayer (ed.), A Companion to the Problem of Evil, Wiley. pp. 49-66. 2013.This chapter discusses the two most prominent recent evidential arguments from evil, due, respectively, to William Rowe and Paul Draper. I argue that neither of these evidential arguments from evil is successful, i.e. such that it ought to persuade anyone who believes in God to give up that belief. In my view, theists can rationally maintain that each of these evidential arguments from evil contains at least one false premise.
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936The Philosophical Insignificance of Gödel's SlingshotMind 106 (421): 121-142. 1997.This paper is a critical examination of Stephen Neale's *The Philosophical Significance of Godel's slingshot*. I am sceptical of the philosophical significance of Godel’s Slingshot (and of Slingshot arguments in general). In particular, I do not believe that Godel’s Slingshot has any interesting and important philosophical consequences for theories of facts or for referential treatments of definite descriptions. More generally, I do not believe that any Slingshot arguments have interesting and i…Read more
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1253Salmon on the contingent a priori and the necessary a posterioriPhilosophical Studies 73 (1). 1994.This paper is an examination of the contingent a priori and the necessary a posteriori. In particular, it considers -- and assesses -- the criticisms that Nathan Salmon makes of the views of Saul Kripke.
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961Leftow on God and NecessityEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 6 (3): 5-16. 2014.This paper is a critical examination of some of the major themes of Brian Leftow's book *God and Necessity*.
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889Pruss, motivational centrality, and probabilities attached to possibility premises in modal ontological argumentsEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (2): 65-85. 2012.This paper is a critique of a paper by Alex Pruss. I argue that Pruss's attempt to motivate acceptance of the key possiblity premise in modal ontological arguments fails.
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897Colonizing the galaxiesSophia 39 (2): 117-142. 2000.Paper presented in East-West Symposium on Science, Philosophy and Religion, Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy Meeting with Australasian Association of Philosophy Annual Conference, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, July 1999.
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801Judging theistic argumentsSophia 37 (2): 30-43. 1998.This paper is a response to an earlier paper by Mark Nelson in which he argues for the claim that the best judges of the merits of arguments for the existence of God are theists whose belief in God is properly basic. I criticise Nelson's argument, and pursue some questions about the significance of the conclusion for which he argues.
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1377Objection to a simplified ontological argumentAnalysis 71 (1): 105-106. 2011.This paper offers a short extension of the dialogue between Anselm and the Fool that is contained in "The Ontological Argument Simplified" by Gary Matthews and Lynne Rudder Baker. My extension of the dialogue ends with the Fool proclaiming that "what looks like an argument of elegant simplicity turns out to be no argument at all".
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945Countable fusion not yet proven guilty: it may be the Whiteheadian account of space whatdunnitAnalysis 57 (4): 249-253. 1997.I criticise a paper by Peter Forrest in which he argues that a principle of unrestricted countable fusion has paradoxical consequences. I argue that the paradoxical consequences that he exhibits may be due to his Whiteheadean assumptions about the nature of spacetime rather than to the principle of unrestricted countable fusion.
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1006Response to GettingsAnalysis 60 (4): 363-367. 2000.This article is a reply to Michael Gettings' criticisms of a previous paper of mine on Godel's ontological argument. (All relevant bibliographical details may be found in the article.) I provide a patch to my previous -- faulty -- attempt to provide a parody of Godel's ontological argument on the model of Gaunilo's parody of Anselm's Proslogion 2 argument.
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2225Godelian ontological argumentsAnalysis 56 (4): 226-230. 1996.This paper aims to show that Godel's ontological argument can be parodied in much the same kind of way in which Gaunilo parodied Anselm's Proslogion argument. The parody in this paper fails; there is a patch provided in "Reply to Gettings" (Analysis 60, 4, 2000, 363-7).
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2621Theism in Western PhilosophyIn Charles Taliaferro, Victoria S. Harrison & Stewart Goetz (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Theism, Routledge. pp. 11. 2012.This chapter provides a quick sketch of the history of western philosophy of religion as it bears on theism.
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773On behalf of the foolAnalysis 71 (2): 304-306. 2011.This paper responds to a previous paper by Gary Matthews and Lynne Rudder Baker. Their paper, in turn, was a response to my reply to an even earlier paper of theirs. (The relevant bibliographical details are in this paper.) They claim to have a new, improved, simple ontological argument. I argue that the new, simple ontological argument is not, in any way, improved.
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6309Arguments for the existence of GodOxford Bibliographies Online. 2012.This is the text of my OBO entry on arguments for the existence of God.
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550Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (4): 519-521. 1999.Book review.
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2477Uncaused BeginningsFaith and Philosophy 27 (1): 61-71. 2010.I defend the view that it is possible for reality to have a contingent initial state under the causal relation even though it is impossible for any other (non-overlapping) parts of reality to have no cause. I claim that, while there are good theoretical and commonsense grounds for maintaining that it is simply not possible for non-initial parts of reality to have no cause, these good grounds do not require one to claim that it is impossible that reality has an uncaused initial state.
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1017Norms of assertionIn Dirk Greimann & Geo Siegwart (eds.), Truth and Speech Acts: Studies in the Philosophy of Language, Routledge. pp. 5--226. 2012.This chapter discusses norms of assertion. I defend the view that the sole constitutive norm of assertion is that you should not assert what you do not believe. I also discuss the views of some--e.g. Grice, Williamson--who have defended the stronger view that the sole constitutive norm of assertion is that you should not assert what you do not know.
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2290Minimalism and truthNoûs 31 (2): 170-196. 1997.This paper canvasses the various dimensions along which theories of truth may disagree about the extent to which truth is minimal.
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546Review of "Bangs, crunches, shrieks, whispers" by J Earman (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (2): 352-4. 1998.Positive review of John Earman's *Bangs, Crunches, Shrieks, Whispers*.
Areas of Specialization
| Philosophy of Religion |
Areas of Interest
| Epistemology |
| Metaphysics |
| Philosophy of Language |