-
The Afterlife in JudaismIn Benjamin Matheson & Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 107-27. 2017.
-
19Ex Nihilo Nihil FitIn Sara Bernstein & Tyron Goldschmidt (eds.), Non-Being: New Essays on the Metaphysics of Nonexistence, Oxford University Press. pp. 187-204. 2021.Could there have been no concrete beings? Could there have been no contingent beings? If there could have been no such beings, why then are there any? This chapter argues that various modal metaphysics rule out the possibility of there being nothing at all. It concludes that the most prominent pictures of the nature of possibility entail the existence of something, and thus answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing.
-
32The Routledge companion to Jewish philosophy (edited book)Routledge. 2025.The Routledge Companion to Jewish Philosophy is a deep and broad reference that brings diverse perspectives to bear on the key topics, problems, and debates in Jewish philosophy and philosophical theology. The 37 chapters were written by an international team of experts from different traditions in philosophy and beyond and appear in print for the first time in this Companion. The chapters are divided into ten major sections: I. God II. Humanity III. From God to Us IV. From Us to God V. Jewish M…Read more
-
242Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2017.Idealism is a family of metaphysical views each of which gives priority to the mental. The best-known forms of idealism in Western philosophy are the versions developed by George Berkeley and Immanuel Kant. Although idealism was once a dominant view in Western philosophy, it has suffered almost total neglect over the last several decades. The contemporary debate has focused almost exclusively on physicalism and dualism, though the alternative views of panpsychism and neutral monism are beginning…Read more
-
127Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing? By Bede Rundle (review)Heythrop Journal 52 (2): 307-308. 2011.
-
68What’s So Bad about Worshipping Other Gods?Journal of Analytic Theology 10 39-53. 2022.Many religious traditions teach that we should worship God, and philosophers have explored the requirement to worship God, and what might make God worthy of worship. These religious traditions also prohibit worshipping other gods. This essay explores, from a Jewish perspective, what it might mean to worship other gods, what the rationale behind the prohibition might be, and why the prohibition might be so grave.
-
167Commanding BeliefRatio 28 (2): 163-174. 2014.This essay shows three things: first, that we cannot comply with a command from God to believe in God; second, that God cannot command us to believe in God; and, third, that the divine command theory is false. The third conclusion follows from the second, and the second follows from the first. The essay focuses on an argument from the medieval Jewish philosopher, Hasdai Crescas. It also draws from, and is something of a sequel to, an argument from Brown and Nagasawa published previously in this …Read more
-
124God, existence, and fictional objects: the Case for Meinongian theism: John-Mark L. Miravalle. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, 186 pp, $102.60International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 88 (1): 133-136. 2020.
-
153Non-Being: New Essays on the Metaphysics of Nonexistence (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2021.Nonexistence is ubiquitous, yet mysterious. This volume explores some of the most puzzling questions about non-being and nonexistence, from metaphysics to ethics and beyond: the contributors offer answers from diverse philosophical perspectives, drawing on analytic, continental, Buddhist, and Jewish philosophical traditions.
-
93John-Mark L. Miravalle: God, existence, and fictional objects: the case for meinongian theism: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, 186 pp, $102.60International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 87 (1): 131-134. 2020.
-
1A proof of Exodus : Yehuda HaLevy and Jonathan Edwards walk into a barIn Samuel Lebens, Dani Rabinowitz & Aaron Segal (eds.), Jewish Philosophy in an Analytic Age, Oxford University Press, Usa. 2019.
-
227Divine Contractions: Theism Gives Birth to IdealismReligious Studies. forthcoming.The first part of the paper presents three little arguments from theism to idealism. The second part employs these arguments to make sense of a puzzling doctrine of Jewish mysticism: the doctrine of divine contraction (heb. tzimtzum).
-
81Ontological ArgumentsCambridge University Press. 2020.Proving the existence of God is a perennial philosophical ambition. An armchair proof would be the jackpot. Ontological arguments promise as much. This Element studies the most famous ontological arguments from Anselm, Descartes, Plantinga, and others besides. While the verdict is that ontological arguments don't work, they get us entangled in fun philosophical puzzles, from philosophy of religion to philosophy of language, from metaphysics to ethics, and beyond.
-
93The Blackwell Companion To Natural Theology. Edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland. Pp xiii, 683. Oxford, Wiley‐Blackwell, 2009, £95.00 (review)Heythrop Journal 59 (3): 627-628. 2018.
-
131Arguing About Gods. By Graham Oppy. Pp xix, 449. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, £60.00/£24.99 (review)Heythrop Journal 59 (3): 624-625. 2018.
-
60Trent Dougherty and Justin P. McBrayer : Skeptical Theism: New Essays. Oxford University Press 2014European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (2): 231-234. 2017.
-
53This Was From God: A Contemporary Theology of Torah and History. By Jerome Yehuda Gellman. Pp. 222. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2016. $72 (HBK).Journal of Analytic Theology 6 727-33. 2018.ㅤ
-
3284Applied Ethics: An Impartial IntroductionHackett Publishing Company. 2021.This book is devoted to applied ethics. We focus on six popular and controversial topics: abortion, the environment, animals, poverty, punishment, and disability. We cover three chapters per topic, and each chapter is devoted to a famous or influential argument on the topic. After we present an influential argument, we then consider objections to the argument, and replies to the objections. The book is impartial, and set up in order to equip the reader to make up her own mind about the controver…Read more
-
The Argument From NumbersIn Jerry L. Walls Trent Dougherty (ed.), Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God: The Plantinga Project, Oxford University Press. pp. 59-75. 2018.
-
1The Necessity of IdealismIn K. Pearce & T. Goldschmidt (eds.), Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics, Oxford University Press. pp. 34-49. 2017.This chapter formulates a version of idealism and argues for it. Sections 2 and 3 explicate this version of idealism: the world is mental through-and-through. Section 2 spells this out precisely and contrasts it with rival views. Section 3 draws a consequence from this formulation of idealism: idealism is necessarily true if true at all. Sections 4 and 5 make the case for idealism. Section 4 is defensive: it draws from the conclusion of section 3 to reply to a central, perhaps the central, anti-…Read more
-
309The Promise of a New PastPhilosophers' Imprint 17 1-25. 2017.In light of Jewish tradition and the metaphysics of time, we argue that God can and will change the past. The argument makes for a new answer to the problem of evil and a new theory of atonement.
-
111Existence Puzzles and Probabilistic ExplanationJournal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (3): 469-482. 2016.
-
131Shifting the Focus While Conserving Commitments in Research EthicsJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 42 (2): 103-113. 2017.The papers in this volume are largely about research ethics and cover questions of consent, reproduction, pediatric research, ethical codes, and clinical relationships. Half the papers have this common aspect: they are conservative—in the sense of supporting the standard, prevailing, or popular view—but they shift the focus—supporting the standard views in terms of moral factors generally neglected by the literature. The volume provides a diverse set of papers for the reader: variously addressin…Read more
-
161The Rainbow of Experiences, Critical Trust and God: A Defense of Holistic Empiricism. By Kai-man Kwan (review)Faith and Philosophy 29 (4): 472-478. 2012.
-
1550Judaism, Reincarnation, and TheodicyFaith and Philosophy 30 (4): 393-417. 2013.The doctrine of reincarnation is usually associated with Buddhism, Hinduism and other Eastern religions. But it has also been developed in Druzism and Judaism. The doctrine has been used by these traditions to explain the existence of evil within a moral order. Traversing the boundaries between East and West, we explore how Jewish mysticism has employed the doctrine to help answer the problem of evil. We explore the doctrine particularly as we respond to objections against employing it in a theo…Read more
Rochester, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
1 more
| Metaphysics |
| Philosophy of Religion |
| 17th/18th Century Philosophy |
| Applied Ethics |
| Jewish Philosophy |
| Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
| Philosophy of Mind |
| Meta-Ethics |
| Normative Ethics |