Bálint Békefi

Some have argued that animals pose a problem for substance dualism. Across the animal kingdom we find gradual, continuous development of mental capacities, so any suggestion of a sharp dividing line between creatures with and without immaterial minds seems arbitrary. This paper aims to resolve this problem by distinguishing its two aspects: the problem of diverse mental capacities and the problem of vagueness. With respect to the former, it is argued that the best dualist accounts of embodiment in the human case already imply that mental capacities correlate with neural complexity. The implication of vast unexercised capacities in lower animals can be avoided if we allow that minds or souls can differ in their capacities. With respect to the problem of vagueness, the paper points out that the vagueness of consciousness is contested, and defending it comes at the cost of precluding the identification of any particular instance of a borderline case. Therefore, there is no reason to think there are borderline conscious animals. Taken together, these responses aim to resolve dualism’s animal problem.

Substance dualism claims that humans, and presumably some animals, have an immaterial mind or soul. But where does this soul come from? This paper defends the traducian answer – the unfashionable view that souls are passed on by the parents through procreation. The defence is comparative: the paper argues that traducianism’s two main alternatives – emergent and creationist dualism – both endorse assumptions on the basis of which an at least equally plausible traducian model can be constructed. Two of the three traducian models proposed turn out also to be versions of emergentism or creationism. After reconstructing traducianism based on its paradigmatic historical representatives, the paper develops the comparison first with emergentism, then with creationism. Finally, two objections to traducianism are considered. The objection from the origin of the first soul is argued to fail, but the objection from monozygotic twinning appears to hold some weight for those not already committed to life beginning at conception. Thus, traducianism’s plausibility is higher than usually thought, but it partly depends on one’s broader positions.

Brian Cutter argues that if substance dualism is true, then we “should have at least middling credence” that an artificial general intelligence would have a soul. He presents two arguments, one based on the sufficiency of human-like functional organization for a physical system’s being fit to be ensouled, and another by way of analogy with attributing souls to aliens. This paper develops objections to both arguments. The missing-integrity objection contends that functional human-likeness is insufficient for fitness for ensoulment. The system’s physical parts and functional capacities should also be difficult to decouple, but this isn’t true for AI systems ordinarily conceived. The mimicry objection argues that our knowledge of how AI systems are engineered defeats the justification for their ensoulment in a way that is disanalogous with aliens. The paper concludes that Cutter has not given us reason to increase our credence in AI ensoulment.

This paper develops an internal critique of Graham Oppy’s metaphilosophy of religion – his theories of argumentation, worldview comparison, and epistemic justification. First, it presents Oppy’s views and his main reasons in their favor. Second, it argues that Oppy is committed to two claims – that only truth-conducive reasons can justify philosophical belief and that such justification depends entirely on one’s judgments about the theoretical virtues of comprehensive worldviews – that jointly entail the unacceptable conclusion that philosophical beliefs cannot be justified. Third, it briefly argues that of his two claims, it is his thoroughgoing coherentism that should be rejected.

In a recent article, Bernáth and Tőzsér (2021) defend what they call the Bias Argument, a new skeptical argument from expert peer disagreement. They argue that the best contrastive causal explanation for disagreement among leading experts in philosophy is that they adopt their positions in a biased way. But if the leading experts are biased, non-experts either are also biased or only avoid bias through epistemic inferiority. Recognizing this is expected to prompt one to decrease one‘s confidence in one‘s philosophical beliefs. This paper argues that some beliefs are immune to a key premise of the Bias Argument. To show this, the paper develops the concepts of self-favoring theories, decisive support, and standing-incommensurable disagreements. A plausible example of a self-favoring theory, dubbed Mere Reformed Protestantism, is sketched. Many disagreements over self-favoring theories and over beliefs decisively supported by self-favoring theories are shown to be standing-incommensurable. It is then argued that when non-experts are in standing-incommensurable disagreements with experts, the standards of assessing expertise are themselves controverted. This result undercuts the move in the Bias Argument from expert bias to non-expert bias. Finally, a couple reservations about the role of self-favoring theories in philosophy are addressed.

Cornelius Van Til and Alvin Plantinga represent two strands of American Protestant philosophical thought influenced by Dutch neo-Calvinism. This paper compares and synthetizes their models of knowledge in non-Christians given the noetic effects of sin and non-Christian worldview commitments. The paper argues that Van Til’s distinction between the partial realization of the antithesis in practice and its absolute nature in principle correlates with Plantinga’s insistence on prima facie–warranted common-sense beliefs and their ultimate defeasibility given certain metaphysical commitments. Van Til endorsed more radical claims than Plantinga on epistemic defeat in non-Christian worldviews, the status of the sensus divinitatis, and conceptual accuracy in knowledge of the world. Finally, an approach to the use of evidence in apologetics is developed based on the proposed synthesis. This approach seeks to make more room for evidence than is generally recognized in Van Tilianism, while remaining consistent with the founder’s principles.

In this paper I introduce the transcendental argument for Christian theism in the context of Reformed theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til’s thought. I then present the critique proffered by Barry Stroud against ambitious transcendental arguments, and survey various formulations of transcendental arguments in the literature, seeking how the objection bears upon them. I argue that Adrian Bardon’s (2005) interpretation is the most helpful in understanding the Stroudian objection. From this interpretation, two types of possible rebuttals are deduced. Proceeding to survey the responses offered by Van Tillians to this objection in the recent literature, I discern two general strategies pursued in these responses, which map onto the previously deduced types of rebuttals: the Biblical justification strategy and the objection-undermining strategy. I argue that all the specific attempts to answer Stroud which I examine here (those of Butler, Bosserman, and Fluhrer) are inadequate and that these two strategies, in general, face serious problems. I conclude with considering the options before the proponent of the transcendental argument for Christian theism and with offering a new objection to the argument, which focuses on its inconsistency with the implications of Christian theism itself.