•  1178
    The Real Conflict Between Science and Religion: Alvin Plantinga’s Ignoratio Elenchi
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5 (2): 87--110. 2013.
    By focussing on the logical relations between scientific theories and religious beliefs in his book Where the Conflict Really Lies, Alvin Plantinga overlooks the real conflict between science and religion. This conflict exists whenever religious believers endorse positive factual claims to truth concerning the supernatural. They thereby violate an important rule of scientific method and of common sense, according to which factual claims should be endorsed as true only if they result from validat…Read more
  •  99
    The problem of polytheisms: a serious challenge to theism
    with Raphael Lataster
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 81 (3): 233-246. 2017.
    Theistic and analytic philosophers of religion typically privilege classical theism and monotheism by ignoring or underestimating the great threat of polytheism. We develop an argument from infinitely many alternatives, which decisively demonstrates that if a monotheistic or polytheistic god-model obtains, it will almost certainly be polytheistic. Probabilistic calculations are performed in order to illustrate the difficulties faced by the monotheistic proponent. After considering possible objec…Read more
  •  91
    The Concept of Intentionality
    Philosophy Research Archives 12 293-328. 1986.
    In this paper an attempt is made to reconstruct the development of Husserl’s conception of intentionality from 1891 up to 1900/01. It is argued that Husserl’s concept of intentionality in the Logical Investigations took shape under the influence of problems originating in two different fields: the philosophy of perception and philosophical semantics. This multiple origin of the concept of intentionality of 1900/01 is then adduced as an explanation of tensions within the text of the Investigation…Read more
  •  88
    Can Philosophy be a Rigorous Science?
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 65 155-176. 2009.
    It is difficult to imagine that a Royal Institute of Physics would organize an annual lecture series on the theme ‘conceptions of physics’. Similarly, it is quite improbable that a Royal Institute of Astronomy would even contemplate inviting speakers for a lecture series called ‘conceptions of astronomy’. What, then, is so special about philosophy that the theme of this lecture series does not appear to be altogether outlandish? Is it, perhaps, that philosophy is the reflective discipline par ex…Read more
  •  84
    How Are We to Interpret Heidegger’s Oeuvre? A Methodological Manifesto
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (3): 573-586. 2001.
    One may have different objectives in interpreting texts. If a judge interprets a statute in order to obtain a satisfactory solution to a case, his aim may be called “applicative”. But if a historian of science wants to reconstruct the meaning of obscure passages of Ptolemy’s “Hypotheses planetarum”, his objectives are purely historical and theoretical.The paper argues that these different aims, applicative and historical ones, require different methodologies of interpretation, and imply differen…Read more
  •  76
    Heidegger and ethics
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 42 (3 & 4). 1999.
    Heidegger denied that his enquiries were concerned with ethics. Heidegger and Ethics questions this self-understanding and reveals a form of ethics in Heidegger’s thinking that is central to his understanding of metaphysics and philosophy. In our technological age, metaphysics has, according to Heidegger, become real- ity; philosophy has come to an end. Joanna Hodge argues that there has been a concomitant transformation of ethics that Heidegger has failed to identify. Today, technological relat…Read more
  •  73
    Paul Churchland's philosophical work enjoys an increasing popularity. His imaginative papers on cognitive science and the philosophy of psychology are widely discussed. Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (1979), his major book, is an important contribution to the debate on realism. Churchland provides us with the intellectual tools for constructing a unified scientific Weltanschauung. His network theory of language implies a provocative view of the relation between science and common …Read more
  •  70
    Peacocke on concepts
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 37 (2). 1994.
    No abstract
  •  66
    Husserl and the Origins of Analytical Philosophy
    European Journal of Philosophy 2 (2): 165-184. 1994.
  •  64
    What is a natural conception of the world?
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 9 (3). 2001.
    Continental philosophers such as Heidegger and Nicolai Hartmann and analytic philosophers such as Ryle, Strawson, and Jennifer Hornsby may be interpreted as using competing intellectual strategies within the framework of one and the same research programme, the programme of developing a natural conception of the world. They all argue that the Manifest Image of the world (to use Sellars's terminology) is compatible with, or even more fundamental than, the Scientific Image. A comparative examinati…Read more
  •  64
    The end of plasticity
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 40 (3): 291-306. 1997.
    Paul Churchland has become famous for holding three controversial and interrelated doctrines which he put forward in early papers and in his first book. Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (1979): eliminative materialism, the doctrine of the plasticity of perception, and a general network theory of language. In his latest book, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul (1995), Churchland aims to make some results of connectionist neuroscience available to the general public and explor…Read more
  •  58
    Psychologism and the Prescriptive Function of Logic
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 29 (1): 13-33. 1987.
    Husserl and Frege did not criticize psychologism on the ground that it deduced the norms of logic from non-normative premises (naturalistic fallacy), as is often supposed. Rather, their refutation of psychologism assumes that such a deduction is possible. Husserl compared the rules of logic to those of technology, on the supposition that they have a purely theoretical basis. This conception of logic is critically examined, and it is argued (contra Follesdal) that Frege held a similar view.
  •  57
    Shifting Position? (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (4): 885. 1998.
  •  55
    In his book Mind and World (1994), John McDowell defends the Kantian position that the content of experience is conceptual. Without this Kantian assumption, he argues, it would be impossible to understand how experience may rationally constrain thought. But McDowell's Kantianism is either false or empty, and his view of the relation between mind and world cannot be stated without transcending the bounds of sense. McDowell's arguments supporting the Kantian thesis, which are very different from K…Read more
  •  54
    In his book Mind and World (1994), John McDowell defends the Kantian position that the content of experience is conceptual. Without this Kantian assumption, he argues, it would be impossible to understand how experience may rationally constrain thought. But McDowell's Kantianism is either false or empty, and his view of the relation between mind and world cannot be stated without transcending the bounds of sense. McDowell's arguments supporting the Kantian thesis, which are very different from K…Read more
  •  46
    Heidegger’s Grand (Pascalian) Strategy
    The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 2 49-64. 1999.
    In writings published after the Second World War, Martin Heidegger reinterpreted the ontological concepts by means of which he had characterized human existence in Sein und Zeit (1927), and he claimed that his new definitions revealed the real meaning of these “existentialia.” One might wonder what justifies or explains Heidegger’s surprising procedure. According to the solution to this problem proposed here, Sein und Zeit and the later works belong together as the two stages of a unified grand …Read more
  •  45
  •  44
    Herman Philipse puts forward a powerful new critique of belief in God. He examines the strategies that have been used for the philosophical defence of religious belief, and by careful reasoning casts doubt on the legitimacy of relying on faith instead of evidence, and on probabilistic arguments for the existence of God
  •  40
    Postmodernism in philosophy holds that traditional philosophy has come (or should come) to an end, and that it must be succeeded by something else, such as “thinking” (Heidegger), empirical science (Quine), linguistic therapy (Wittgenstein), or an “attempt to prevent the conversation of the West from attaining the secure path of science” (Rorty). Clearly, the claim to be postmodern presupposes a view of traditional philosophy, of its characteristics, and of its genesis. In this essay, such a vie…Read more
  •  38
    How to succeed in being simple-minded
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 41 (4). 1998.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  38
    In Schriften, die nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg erschienen, deutete Martin Heidegger die ontologischen Begriffe, mit denen er in Sein und Zeit die menschliche Existenz charakterisiert hatte, um. Er behauptete, daß seine neuen Definitionen die wahre Bedeutung dieser ‚Existenzialien’ offenlegten. Man kann sich fragen, was dieses überraschende Vorgehen Heideggers rechtfertigt beziehungsweise erklärt. Der hier vorgeschlagenen Lösung zufolge gehören Sein und Zeit und die späteren Werke zusammen als zwei…Read more
  •  37
    Transcendental idealism
    In Barry Smith & David Woodruff Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, Cambridge University Press. pp. 239-322. 1995.
  •  26
    The Incompatibility of Science and Religion: An Argument for Atheism
    In William Desmond, John Steffen & Koen Decoster (eds.), Beyond Conflict and Reduction: Between Philosophy, Science, and Religion, Leuven University Press. pp. 117--134. 2001.
  •  24
    Questions of method: Heidegger and Bourdieu
    Revue Internationale de Philosophie 2 275-298. 2002.
  •  23
    Religion is relevant to all of us, whether we are believers or not. This book concerns two interrelated topics. First, how probable is God's existence? Should we not conclude that all divinities are human inventions? Second, what are the mental and social functions of endorsing religious beliefs? The answers to these questions are interdependent. If a religious belief were true, the fact that humans hold it might be explained by describing how its truth was discovered. If all religious beliefs a…Read more