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10Introduction to Monist Alternatives to PhysicalismJournal of Consciousness Studies 19 (9-10): 7-18. 2012.This Introduction to a Journal of Consciousness Studies Special Issue on Monist Alternatives to Physicalism summarises some of the basic problems of Physicalism and common fallacies in arguments for its defence that are found in the philosophical and scientific literature. It then introduces six monist alternatives: 1) a form of emergent panpsychism developed by William Seager; 2) a novel introduction to the process philosophy of A.N. Whitehead by Anderson Weekes; 3) a review of current developm…Read more
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43There's Something About Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument (edited book)MIT Press. 2004.The arguments presented in this comprehensive collection have important implications for the philosophy of mind and the study of consciousness.
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41Immortality without boredomRatio 22 (3): 261-277. 2009.In this paper we address Bernard Williams' argument for the undesirability of immortality. Williams argues that unavoidable and pervasive boredom would characterise the immortal life of an individual with unchanging categorical desires. We resist this conclusion on the basis of the distinction between habitual and situational boredom and a psychologically realistic account of significant factors in the formation of boredom. We conclude that Williams has offered no persuasive argument for the nec…Read more
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Introduction : Alternative conceptions of divinity and contemporary analytic philosophy of religionIn Andrei A. Buckareff & Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), Alternative Concepts of God: Essays on the Metaphysics of the Divine, Oxford University Press. 2016.
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Modal panentheismIn Andrei A. Buckareff & Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), Alternative Concepts of God: Essays on the Metaphysics of the Divine, Oxford University Press. 2016.
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55Evil And The Problem Of Impermanence In Medieval Japanese PhilosophyEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (3): 195-226. 2022.. The problem of evil is widely considered a problem only for traditional Western monotheists who believe that there is an omnipotent and morally perfect God. I argue, however, that the problem of evil, more specifically a variant of the problem of evil which I call the ‘problem of impermanence’, arises even for those adhering to the philosophical and religious traditions of the East. I analyse and assess various responses to the problem of impermanence found in medieval Japanese literature. I a…Read more
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7Reply To Oliver Wiertz, Masahiro Morioka And Francesca GrecoEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (3): 255-262. 2022.Oliver Wiertz, Masahiro Morioka and Francesca Greco have responded to my paper, ‘Evil and the Problem of Impermanence in Medieval Japanese Philosophy’. Here, I reply to each of them individually, focusing on specific points raised in critically addressing my approach to the problem of impermanence.
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27Global Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion: From Religious Experience to the Afterlife (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2024.Leading scholars representing the world's five great religious traditions--Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--discuss fundamental philosophical questions on revelation and religious experience; analysis of faith; science and religion; the foundation of morality; and life and the afterlife.
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63A Panpsychist Dead EndAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 95 (1): 25-50. 2021.Panpsychism has received much attention in the philosophy of mind in recent years. So-called constitutive Russellian panpsychism, in particular, is considered by many the most promising panpsychist approach to the hard problem of consciousness. In this paper, however, I develop a new challenge to this approach. I argue that the three elements of constitutive Russellian panpsychism—that is, the constitutive element, the Russellian element and the panpsychist element—jointly entail a ‘cognitive de…Read more
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187Introduction to There's Something About MaryIn Peter Ludlow, Yujin Nagasawa & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), There's Something About Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument, Mit Press. 2004.Mary is confined to a black-and-white room, is educated through black-and-white books and through lectures relayed on black-and white television. In this way she learns everything there is to know about the physical nature of the world. She knows all the physical facts about us and our environment, in a wide sense of 'physical' which includes everything in completed physics, chemistry, and neurophysiology, and all there is to know about the causal and relational facts consequent upon all this, i…Read more
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234Panpsychism and Priority CosmopsychismIn Godehard Brüntrup & Ludwig Jaskolla (eds.), Panpsychism: Contemporary Perspectives, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 113-129. 2016.A contemporary form of panpsychism says that phenomenality is prevalent because all physical ultimates instantiate phenomenal or protophenomenal properties. According to priority cosmopsychism, an alternative to panpsychism that we propose in this chapter, phenomenality is prevalent because the whole cosmos instantiates phenomenal or protophenomenal properties. It says, moreover, that the consciousness of the cosmos is ontologically prior to the consciousness of ordinary individuals like us. Sin…Read more
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11Guest Editors’ IntroductionEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11 (2). 2019.no abstract.
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7Proxy Consent and CounterfactualsBioethics 22 (1): 16-24. 2008.When patients are in vegetative states and their lives are maintained by medical devices, their surrogates might offer proxy consents on their behalf in order to terminate the use of the devices. The so‐called ‘substituted judgment thesis’ has been adopted by the courts regularly in order to determine the validity of such proxy consents. The thesis purports to evaluate proxy consents by appealing to putative counterfactual truths about what the patients would choose, were they to be competent. T…Read more
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17Guest editorial preface: special issue on pantheism and panentheismInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 85 (1): 1-3. 2019.
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7Miracles: A Very Short IntroductionOxford University Press. 2017.Jesus turned water into wine, Mohammad split the moon into two, and Buddha walked and spoke immediately upon birth. According to recent statistics, even in the present age of advanced science and technology, most people believe in miracles. In fact, newspapers and television regularly report alleged miracles, such as recoveries from incurable diseases, extremely unlikely coincidences, and religious signs and messages on unexpected objects. In this book the award-winning author and philosopher Yu…Read more
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29Maximal God: A New Defence of Perfect Being TheismOxford University Press. 2017.Yujin Nagasawa presents a new, stronger version of perfect being theism, the conception of God as the greatest possible being. Nagasawa argues that God should be understood, not as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, but rather as a being that has the maximal consistent set of knowledge, power, and benevolence.
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344Daniel Dombrowski. A Platonic Philosophy of Religion: A Process Perspective. State University of New York Press, 2005. / Daniel Dombrowski. Rethinking the Ontological Argument: A Neoclassical Theistic Response. Cambridge University Press, 2006 (review)European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (1): 177--181. 2009.
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5Externalism and the Memory ArgumentDialectica 56 (4): 335-346. 2002.Paul Boghossian's‘Memory Argument’allegedly shows, using the familiar slow‐switching scenario, that externalism and authoritative self‐knowledge are incompatible. The aim of this paper is to undermine the argument by examining two distinct externalist responses. I demonstrate that the Memory Argument equivocates on the notion of forgetting.
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20Consciousness in the Physical World: Perspectives on Russellian Monism (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2015.Consciousness in the Physical World collects historical selections, recent classics, and new pieces on Russellian monism, a unique alternative to the physicalist and dualist approaches to the problem of consciousness.
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31Alternative Concepts of God: Essays on the Metaphysics of the Divine (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2016.According to traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic theism, God is an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect agent. This volume shows that philosophy of religion needs to take seriously alternative concepts of the divine, and demonstrates the considerable philosophical interest that they hold.
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109Formulating the explanatory gapAmerican Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers. forthcoming.The American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers. Harman
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10Thomas versus Thomas: A new approach to Nagel's bat argumentInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 46 (3): 377-395. 2003.i l l ustrat es t he di ffi cul t y of providing a purely physical characterisation of phenomenal experi ence wi t ha vi vi d exampl e about a bat ’ s sensory apparatus. Whi l e a number of obj ect i ons have al ready been made to Nagel.
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55Daniel A. Dombrowski. A Platonic Philosophy of Religion: A Process Perspective (review)European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (1). 2009.
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20The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife (edited book)Palgrave Macmillan. 2017.This unique Handbook provides a sophisticated, scholarly overview of the most advanced thought regarding the idea of life after death. Its comprehensive coverage encompasses historical, religious, philosophical and scientific thinking. Starting with an overview of ancient thought on the topic, The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife examines in detail the philosophical coherence of the main traditional notions of the nature of the afterlife including heaven, hell, purgatory and rebirth. In additi…Read more
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676Divine omniscience and experience: A Reply to AlterArs Disputandi 3. 2003.According to one antitheist argument, the necessarily omniscient, necessarily omnipotent, and necessarily omnibenevolent Anselmian God does not exist, because if God is necessarily omnipotent it is impossible for Him to comprehend fully certain concepts, such as fear, frustration and despair, that an omniscient being needs to possess. Torin Alter examines this argument and provides three elaborate objections to it. I argue that theists would not accept any of them because they con ict with tradi…Read more
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67A further reply to Beyer on omniscienceSophia 46 (1): 65-67. 2007.I provide a further response to Jason A. Beyer’s objections to the alleged inconsistency between God’s omniscience and His other attributes.
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21The knowledge argument against dualismTheoria 68 (3): 205-223. 2002.Paul Churchland argues that Frank Jackson
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24The grounds of worshipReligious Studies 42 (3): 299-313. 2006.Although worship has a pivotal place in religious thought and practice, philosophers of religion have had remarkably little to say about it. In this paper we examine some of the many questions surrounding the notion of worship, focusing on the claim that human beings have obligations to worship God. We explore a number of attempts to ground our supposed duty to worship God, and argue that each is problematic. We conclude by examining the implications of this result, and suggest that it might be …Read more
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University of OklahomaDepartment of PhilosophyProfessor of Philosophy and Kingfisher College Chair of Philosophy of Religion and Ethics
Norman, Oklahoma, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
Philosophy of Mind |
Applied Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
The Meaning of Life |