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210The Skeptical Theist ResponseIn Chad Meister & James K. Dew Jr (eds.), God and the Problem of Evil, Intervaristy Press. pp. 173-184. 2017.
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416A Skeptical Theist ViewIn Chad Meister & James K. Dew Jr (eds.), God and the Problem of Evil, Intervaristy Press. pp. 99-127. 2017.
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278Towards a Sensible EvidentialismIn William Rowe & William J. Wainwright (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, Harcourt College Publishers. pp. 426-437. 1989.
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The Interdependence of History of Science and Philosophy of Science: Toward a Meta-Theory of Scientific RationalityDissertation, University of Pittsburgh. 1978.
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1545Skeptical TheismIn Chad V. Meister & Paul K. Moser (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil, Cambridge University Press. pp. 85-107. 2017.Skeptical theism is a family of responses to the evidential problem of evil. What unifies this family is two general claims. First, that even if God were to exist, we shouldn’t expect to see God’s reasons for permitting the suffering we observe. Second, the previous claim entails the failure of a variety of arguments from evil against the existence of God. In this essay, we identify three particular articulations of skeptical theism—three different ways of “filling in” those two claims—and descr…Read more
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122Cornea, Carnap, and Current Closure BefuddlementFaith and Philosophy 24 (1): 87-98. 2007.Graham and Maitzen think my CORNEA principle is in trouble because it entails “intolerable violations of closure under known entailment.” I argue that the trouble arises from current befuddlement about closure itself, and that a distinction drawn by Rudolph Carnap, suitably extended, shows how closure, when properly understood, works in tandem with CORNEA. CORNEA does not obey Closure because it shouldn’t: it applies to “dynamic” epistemic operators, whereas closure principles hold only for “sta…Read more
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53Toward a Historical Meta-Method for Assessing Normative Methodologies: Rationability, Serendipity, and the Robinson Crusoe FallacyPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980. 1980.How can the philosopher use history of science to assess normative methodologies? This paper distinguishes the "intuitionist" meta-methodologies from the "rationability" meta-methodology. The rationability approach is defended by showing that it does not lead to anarchistic conclusions drawn by Feyerabend, Lakatos, and Kuhn; rather, these conclusions are the result of auxiliary assumptions about the nature of rational norms. By freeing the rationability meta-method from these assumptions, the sp…Read more
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75"Facing mecca: Ultimism, religious skepticism, and Schellenberg's" meta-evidential condition constraining assentPhilo 14 (1): 85-100. 2011.Schellenberg’s Wisdom to Doubt uses a “meta-evidential condition constraining assent” that I dub MECCA. On MECCA, my total current evidence E may be good evidence for H, yet not justify my believing H, due to meta-evidential considerations giving me reason to doubt whether E is “representative” of the total evidence E* that exists. I argue that considerations of representativeness are implicit in judging that E is good evidence, rendering this description incoherent, and that Schellenberg’s spec…Read more
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185Rowe's noseeum arguments from evilIn Daniel Howard-Snyder (ed.), The Evidential Argument From Evil, Indiana University Press. pp. 126--50. 1996.
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33Curried Lakatos or, How Not to Spice up the Norm-Ladenness ThesisPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982. 1982.Using Currie's critique as a foil, this paper reconstructs Lakatos's thesis that historiography of science is laden with normative assumptions about scientific rationality. It is argued that this thesis comprises both a heuristic claim and a constitutive claim. The Received Critique of Lakatos fails to see that "internal history" and "rational reconstruction" receive a special meaning (by which they designate "rational preconstructions") when used in the context of the heuristic claim. Currie av…Read more
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1227The Foundations of Skeptical TheismFaith and Philosophy 29 (4): 375-399. 2012.Some skeptical theists use Wykstra’s CORNEA constraint to undercut Rowe-style inductive arguments from evil. Many critics of skeptical theism accept CORNEA, but argue that Rowe-style arguments meet its constraint. But Justin McBrayer argues that CORNEA is itself mistaken. It is, he claims, akin to “sensitivity” or “truth-tracking” constraints like those of Robert Nozick; but counterexamples show that inductive evidence is often insensitive. We here defend CORNEA against McBrayer’s chief countere…Read more
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244Not Done in a Corner': How To Be a Sensible Evidentialist About Jesus.”Philosophical Books 43 81-135. 2002.
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68Review of J. L. Schellenberg, The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (7). 2008.
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584The Humean obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering: On avoiding the evils of “appearance”International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16 (2). 1984.
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7Progress and Rationality in Science by Gerard Radnitzky; Gunnar Andersson (review)Isis 72 291-292. 1981.
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1686Skeptical Theism, Abductive Atheology, and Theory VersioningIn Justin McBrayer Trent Dougherty (ed.), Skeptical Theism: New Essays, Oxford University Press. 2014.What we call “the evidential argument from evil” is not one argument but a family of them, originating (perhaps) in the 1979 formulation of William Rowe. Wykstra’s early versions of skeptical theism emerged in response to Rowe’s evidential arguments. But what sufficed as a response to Rowe may not suffice against later more sophisticated versions of the problem of evil—in particular, those along the lines pioneered by Paul Draper. Our chief aim here is to make an earlier version of skeptical the…Read more
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6Progress and Rationality in Science. Gerard Radnitzky, Gunnar AnderssonIsis 72 (2): 291-292. 1981.