Stevan Rakonjac

Alvin Plantinga wants to answer the following question: Is Christian belief intellectualy or rationaly acceptable? We will present the answer John Locke gives, based on his evidentialism, to the aforementioned question, as well as Plantinga’s critique of Locke’s evidentialist approach. Plantinga thinks that the question „Is Christian belief intellectualy or rationaly acceptable?” is best understood as meaning „Is Christian belief warranted?”. We will analyze Plantinga’s argument for the claim that Christian belief probably has warrant if it is true, which implies that we first have to show that Christian belief (probably) is false in order to show that it (probably) has no warrant. But than that means that we have to show that Christian belief is false in order to show that it is unacceptable, making it very hard, if not impossible, to show that Christian belief is unacceptable. We will then present one objection to Plantinga’s argument, „the Great Pumpkin Objection”. Relying on Linda Zagzebski’s analysis, we will claim that the Great Pupmpkin objection shows that Plantinga’s notion of „warrant” does not adequately capture the meaning of the relevant notion of „intellectual or rational acceptability” of beliefs, and that, hence, his conclusion about warrant of Christian belief are not necessary relevant for the claims about intellectual or rational acceptability of Christian belief. We will also analyze a solution given by Kyle Scott. He thinks that if we have, in addition to Plantinga’s argument showing that Christian belief is warranted if true, favouring evidence in support of Christian belief, which he thinks we obviously have, than Christian belief is acceptable. We will point out that Scott does not elaborate what makes adequate favouring evidence in support of some belief, and we will calim that adequate understanding of favouring evidence will, in some respects, be very similar to Locke’s evidentialism. If so, than Scott's proposal will reintroduce some elements of Locke’s evidentialism, and the question of whether there is favouring evidence in support of Christian belief will not have an obvious and easy answer

Different methodological approaches to empirical macroeconomics will be described and it will be explained that they represent different answers to the question from the title. Structural approaches require that macroeconometrical research should be explicitly founded on the (micro)economic theory in order to be able to measure the causal structure of the macroeconomic phenomena. Unstructural VAR approach suggest using econometric models to try to find out as much as possible about causal structure from the data, without prior restrictions from the theory. Problems with both are described

Both experiments and models are crucial in science. In this paper we will focus on the following questions about them: What are experiments and what are models? What is the relationship between them and how are they different? Are experiments and models equally good means for all scientific purposes, or do one of them have advantage over the other in some respects. Here we will offer a conceptual framework for dealing with these questions. First section will deal with Uskali Maki’s understanding of experiments and models, which highlits the concept of representation (Maki 2005). In the second section we will try to show that it is instead better to analyse experiments and models using the concepts of general phenomena and concrete phenomena, which will be introduced, as well as the concept of instantantiation. Using this conceptual framework, in the third section we will analyze experiments and models and make different claims about them than Maki does - Maki concludes that experiments and models are the same kind of thing, while we will point out to a nontrivial distinction between them. The distinction made here between eperiments and models is very similar to the one made between them on the basis of the „materials” of which they are made (Morgan 2005), but stating it in different terms and, we belive, more precisely . We will use our conceptual framework to try to show the adequacy of the distinction based on „materials” and to show that Wendy Parker does not succed in proving the opposite by the examples she give (sections 3.2 and 3.3). Using our conceptual framework, in sections 3.4 and 3.5, we will try to show that this difference in „materials” makes experiments better means for acquiring new knowledge about (unexplored) phenomena and for testing theories than models.

This paper will, to a large extent, be concerned with the meatontological position of David Chalmers. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 will respectively present Chalmers’ terminology, his argument based on a thought experiment and his classification of metaontological positions. In chapter 3 attempt will be made to show that there are some unjustified steps in Chalmers’ argumentation, because the conclusion that egzistential ontological claims are not supstantive is built into the definitions of the terms he uses. Chapter 5 will present some of Chalmers’ arguments against ontological realism, and it will be shown that they are not successful, or only partialy successful. In chapter 6 attempt will be made to show that opposed metaphysical claims lie at the heart of the disputes between opposed metaontological positions, at least as they are presented by Chalmers. The main purpose of this paper will be to explicate the role of some metaphysical assupmtions in metaontological analysis of David Chalmers.