Philosophy 693: Advanced Topics in Philosophy of Religion Keith DeRose and Dean Zimmerman Office Hours: Keith TBD; Dean Friday 12:30-2:30 and by appointment
Texts: Readings will be made available on Sakai
Required work: Term paper, 15-25 pages. Due January 1 (unless that conflicts with current departmental policy… I will look into this!)
Topics and Some Potential Readings (we are open to suggestions!):
Conditionals Keith DeRose, “The Conditionals of Deliberation”, Mind 119 (2010), pp. ?? Keith DeRose, “Can it Be That it Would Have Been Even Though it Might Not Have Been?”, Philosophical Perspectives 13 (1999), pp. 385-413
Middle Knowledge R. M. Adams, “Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil”, American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1977), pp. 109-117 R. M. Adams, “An Anti-Molinist Argument”, Philosophical Perspectives 5 (Philosophy of Religion), James Tomberlin (ed) (Atascadero, Calif: Ridgeview, 1991), pp. 343-354 Thomas Flint, Divine Providence: The Molinist Account (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998) Thomas Flint, “A New Anti-Anti-Molinist Argument”, Religious Studies 35 (1999), pp. 299-305 Alfred Freddoso, trans. and introduction to Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, Part IV of Concordia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988) David Hunt, “Simple Foreknowledge and Divine Providence” Faith and Philosophy 10 (1993), pp. 394-414 Ken Perszyk (ed.), Molinism: The Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) Dean Zimmerman, “Yet Another Anti-Molinist Argument”, in Metaphysics and the Good, ed. by L. M. Jorgensen and Samuel Newlands (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 33-94 William Hasker, “Middle Knowledge: A Refutation Revisited”, Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995), pp. 223-236 William Hasker, “A New Anti-Molinist Argument”, Religious Studies 35 (1999), pp. 291-7 William Hasker, “Are Alternative Pasts Plausible? A Reply to Thomas Flint”, Religious Studies 36 (2000), pp. 103-5
Simple Foreknowledge David Hunt, “Simple Foreknowledge and Divine Providence” Faith and Philosophy 10 (1993), pp. 394-414 ‘The Providential Usefulness of “Simple Foreknowledge”’, in Reason, Metaphysics and Mind: New Essays on the Philosophy of Alvin Plantinga, ed. by Kelly James Clark and Michael Rea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 174-96
Foreknowledge and the Open Future A. N. Prior, “It Was to Be”, in Prior, Papers in Logic and Ethics (London: Duckworth, 1976), pp. 97-108 A. N. Prior, Time and Modality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), Ch. X John MacFarlane, “Future Contingents and Relative Truth”, The Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2003), pp. 321-36 Sven Rosenkranz, “In Defence of Ockhamism”, Philosophia 40 (2012), pp. 617-31 Alexander Pruss, “Probability and the Open Future View”, Faith and Philosophy 27 (2010), pp. 190-196 Alan Rhoda, “Probability, Truth, and the Openness of the Future: a Reply to Pruss”, Faith and Philosophy 27 (2010), pp. 197-204 Patrick Todd, “Future Contingents are all False! On Behalf of a Russellian Open Future” Mind 125, pp. 775-798.
Choice of a World Alvin Plantinga, “Self-Profile”, in Alvin Plantinga, James Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen (eds) (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985), esp. pp. 42-55 William Rowe, Can God Be Free? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) Alex Pruss, “Divine Creative Freedom”, Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 7