DOCSLIB.ORG

Contemporary Reformed Epistemology: the Epistemic Immediacy of Theistic Belief

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Dr. Michael Czapkay Sudduth June 27, 2001 Draft ABSTRACT: This chapter is part of a more detailed examination of the idea of immediate and non- inferential knowledge of God in the Reformed theological tradition. In the previous chapter I examined several prominent Reformed theological attempts to explain and defend the idea that the natural knowledge of God is immediate and not based on inference or argumentation. I concluded that such arguments at best establish a purely psychological thesis about the causal origin of belief in God which leaves open a variety of epistemic functions of inferential reasoning about God. In this chapter I consider some contemporary philosophical attempts to develop and defend the idea of immediate knowledge of God. Contemporary Reformed Epistemology: The Epistemic Immediacy of Theistic Belief Dr. Michael Sudduth The Reformed theologians examined in the previous chapter not only maintained that the source of belief in God is immediate, but that this psychologically basic theistic belief constitutes knowledge . The Reformed view of the natural knowledge of God is thus not merely a claim about psychological immediacy, but epistemic immediacy. Immediate knowledge of God has been denied by various epistemological traditions in Western philosophy, from medieval Aristotelianism to the janus-faced descendents of Enlightenment empiricism. I will refer to these epistemological traditions under the general rubric of classical evidentialism. 1[1] In 1[1] Here we need two important clarifications. First, evidentialism in the present sense should not be confused with what is commonly evidentialist apologetics . The latter advocates the use of theistic arguments to defend the faith and show that theism is reasonable. This is not the same as requiring evidence for one’s belief to be rational, justified, or constitute knowledge. For more on this distinction, see chapter eleven and my paper “Reformed Epistemology and Christian Apologetics” (Forthcoming, Religious Studies ). Secondly, I refer to the denial of immediate knowledge of God in long-standing epistemological tradition s (plural) because there are important distinctions between the sort of evidentialism one finds in medieval philosophy and the variety of evidentialisms proximately connected to the Enlightenment tradition. The sense in which medieval philosophers like Aquinas were evidentialists is closely connected to an understanding of knowledge as scientia , knowing the cause of a thing by way of a demonstrative syllogism. This is clearly compatible with affirming the immediate knowledge of God in other senses that have loomed large since the Enlightenment. Moreover, epistemological traditions that contrast to the Reformed position, classical evidentialism in its various has maintained that theistic belief is rational or constitutes knowledge only if a person bases his belief on evidence, has evidence for this belief, or at least that there is evidence available for it. But the tradition of evidentialism has come into sharp critical focus during the last 30 years or so, both in general epistemology and the philosophy of religion. Several prominent epistemologists have presented interesting and substantial challenges to evidentialism. In religious epistemology these challenges have come largely from Reformed epistemology ,2[2] the main representatives of which are William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Alvin Plantinga. Plantinga and Wolterstorff are both in the Reformed theological tradition, so their work establishes an important connection between contemporary epistemology and the Reformed theological tradition. In fact, both Plantinga and Wolterstorff have regarded their epistemological work as in some respects an attempt to develop with greater philosophical precision the insights of the Reformed thinkers we have examined in the previous chapter. Their critique of evidentialism has been closely tied to the defense of the proper basicality of belief in God, roughly, the idea that psychologically immediate theistic belief can be rational, justified, and even constitute knowledge, independent of whether there is any evidential case available for theism. draw on Enlightenment insights are thick with other epistemic concepts such as rationality and justification whose place in the medieval tradition is far from clear. So we should probably distinguish between pre-modern and modern evidentialism. The focus in this chapter will be on the latter with respect to rationality and knowledge. For views on the nature of evidentialism in relation to the medieval period, see Nicholas Wolterstorff, “The Migration of Theistic Arguments: From Natural Theology to Evidentialist Apologetics,” in Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment: New Essays in the Philosophy of Religion , ed. Robert Audi and William Wainwright (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); Arvin Vos, Aquinas, Calvin, and Contemporary Protestant Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), chapter three; Anthony Kenny, What is Faith? Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 43; Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), chapter two; Norman Kretzmann, The Metaphysics of Theism (Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 1-53. 2[2] The designation "Reformed epistemology” stems from similarities between the philosophical thesis of immediate knowledge of God and ideas about belief in God in the Reformed theological tradition. Although Plantinga and Wolterstorff belong to this theological tradition, Alston and others who advocate the proper basicality of theistic belief do not. The designation "Reformed epistemology" (coined by Plantinga to described to contemporary movement in philosophy of religion) is perhaps an unhappy and misleading one, but it is no more problematic than popular alternatives like "theistic foundationalism" and "anti-evidentialism." For a comparison of the contemporary Reformed epistemology movement with the Reformed theological tradition, see John Frame, “The New Reformed Epistemology” in Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987), pp. 382-400. As a first step toward a more thorough critical analysis of the epistemic immediacy thesis and its relationship to the role of natural theology, in this chapter I will develop the contrasting epistemologies of religious belief advocated by classical evidentialism on the one hand and Reformed epistemology on the other. More precisely, since Reformed epistemology developed largely as a critique of evidentialism, I will present the Reformed epistemology case against evidentialism. In the first two sections I’ll consider this in terms of the epistemic category of rationality or justification. In the remaining three sections, I’ll look at the idea of immediate knowledge of God. Although I will provide some periodic critical observations, I will reserve the following chapter for a thorough critical engagement of Reformed epistemology and evidentialism. I. Reformed Epistemology and the Critique of Classical Evidentialism Reformed epistemology initially developed as a critique of classical evidentialism. Roughly stated, evidentialism requires the possession or availability of adequate evidence for theistic belief to be rational, justified, or to constitute knowledge. 3[3] So, for instance, in one formulation the evidentialist position maintains that theistic belief is not rational unless it is based on adequate evidence. "Evidence" in this context is propositional evidence, reasons in the form of other (rational) beliefs or propositions that provide the right degree of support for the truth of theistic belief. The evidence must, of course, be theologically neutral (not presuppose theism), and it will be adequate evidence just if it either entails theism or makes theism probable. Given evidentialism, of course, natural theology has an important, indeed necessary, epistemic function. Reformed epistemology, however, attempts to show that evidentialism is crucially flawed and that theistic belief could possess certain positive epistemic statuses in the absence of evidence and argument, especially of the sort provided by natural theology. 3[3] Again, the focus here is modern and contemporary evidentialism: e.g., John Locke, David Hume, W.K. Clifford, Brand Blanshard, A.J. Ayer, Bertrand Russell, Anthony Flew, J.L. Mackie. Some evidentialists are thesists; others are not. Moreover, as I will explain below, rationality (or justification ) is distinct from knowledge in several respects. The evidentialist requirement may be and has been imposed on both or only one of these epistemic desiderata. If the Reformed epistemology critique of evidentialism is correct then, it would seem that natural theology is unnecessary for theistic belief to be rational or constitute knowledge. 4[4] Although this objection does not entail that the theistic arguments are in themselves bad or inappropriate, it does imply that a primary motive for engaging in the project of natural theology is unsound, and that the role of natural theology must be substantially rethought. Not surprisingly, many philosophers, including theistic ones, are uncomfortable with this move. It appears to generate an important weakening of the grounds for natural theology. Put more generally, it might be argued that if theistic belief can constitute immediate knowledge, there is little place left for inference or argumentation; at least as far as securing the
Recommended publications
  • Reformed Epistemology

    Reformed Epistemology

    Reformed Epistemology Matthew Jacoby Bertrand Russell, the famous twentieth century philosopher, sceptic, and atheist, was once asked what he would do if he died and it turned out that God did exist after all. What would he say to God who would now call him to account for not believing? His answer was simple: "not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!" Certainly many people feel the same way. They feel that they could not be held accountable for believing something that is not perceptually obvious or logically necessary. How can God hide so irretrievably from the senses of mankind and then hold us accountable for not believing in his existence? Another famous atheist, W. K. Clifford, went further than this. Working on a Kantian model for rationality and ethics Clifford insisted that, in the absence of evidence, belief in the existence of God is not only irrational but also immoral. The Christian is confronted here by a serious challenge. The challenge is to show that belief in God is rational and specifically by producing evidence. Now in most cases Christians will respond to this by immediately summoning up in their minds all the available evidence for God's existence that they feel is at least persuasive enough to give them a few moments of credibility. And this is very often how Christians deal with the situation precisely because they feel that almost everything in life is proof that God exists. But the Christian quickly realises that what is so evident to him or her is not at all obvious to the objector.
  • Monitoring Science and Technology Symposium: Unifying Knowledge

    Monitoring Science and Technology Symposium: Unifying Knowledge

    Toward a Unified Knowledge-based Society for Sustainability—Developing a Synthesis on the Methodological Level Alec A. Schaerer Abstract—The debates on development manifest an increasing concern for sustainability, but as yet little awareness of the hierarchy in the ideas through which humans contribute to the problem. This gap is widened by a widespread but nevertheless unnecessary acceptance of unreasonable elements such as paradoxes, or the general fragmentation in knowledge, or allegedly general limits to it. First the character of such impediments is assessed, partly in theoretical considerations and partly through examples. This analysis reveals the root of a widespread self-limitation in thinking. Understanding its structure allows to synthesize an approach in which the problems do on principle not arise. It is conceptually precise but nevertheless universally applicable within the chosen query perspective, and hence useful for unifying knowledge toward a general sustainability of development. Outlining the Problem in unison that certainty and completeness of view are unattainable ideals. Are we thus left only with the ‘choice’ The contemporanean social sciences describe an as- of more measurements and more rules? Since these al- tonishing feature: in the known period of history, there ways stem from mere perspectives and can never cover has never been as much activity in international relations all cases, they can never warrant ultimate objectivity. as now; and yet since a few decades the common of Somebody will always attack them, feeling sufficiently mortals feels increasingly insecure (see for example Beck justified by being limited. Is strife and conflict therefore [1992], [1999], Frank [2002], Landes [1999], Monbiot inescapably our lot? Acting out this belief produces more [2000], Stiglitz [2002]).
  • The Epistemology of Religious Diversity in Contemporary

    The Epistemology of Religious Diversity in Contemporary

    The Epistemology of Religious Diversity in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion AMIR DASTMALCHIAN Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue and University of Geneva This is the draft version of: Dastmalchian, A. (2!"#), %The &'istemology of Religious Diversity in Contem'orar) Philosophy of Religion’ in Philosophy Compass, vol. 8, iss*e 3, pages .-/#!-. 0http:/1onlinelibrar).wile).com1doi/"!.1"""1'hc3.1 !!41a2stract5 0http:/1'hilosophy/com'ass.com1sections1'hilosophy/of/religion5 The '*2lished version a''ears 3ith two s*''lements, a teaching and learning (*ide, and a video a2stract. ABSTRACT Religious diversit) is a 7e) topic in contemporar) 'hilosoph) of religion. One wa) religious diversit) has 2een of interest to 'hilosophers is in the e'istemological 9*estions it gives rise to. In other words, religious diversit) has 2een seen to 'ose a challenge for religious 2elief. In this st*d) four a''roaches to dealin( with this challenge are disc*ssed. These a''roaches corres'ond to four well/7nown 'hilosophers of religion, namel), Richard Swin2*rne, Alvin +lantinga, :illiam Alston, and ;ohn Hic7. The st*d) is concl*ded 2) s*ggestin( four factors 3hich sha'e one,s res'onse to the challenge religious diversit) poses to religious belief. ". INTRODUCTION %Religious diversit), is the term *sed to refer to the e=istence of a multit*de of religious traditions. Religious diversit) is now one of the ma>or s*2>ects of the 'hilosoph) of religion with most recent introd*ctor) te=t2ooks either coverin( the topic in detail or a'ologisin( for its a2sence. :hat has emerged from the literat*re on this topic can 2e s'lit into first-order reflections on religious diversit) and second-order reflections on religious diversit).
  • Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes Technical Guide for Forest Service Land and Resource Management, Planning, and Decisionmaking

    Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes Technical Guide for Forest Service Land and Resource Management, Planning, and Decisionmaking

    United States Department of Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes Agriculture Forest Service Technical Guide for Forest Pacific Northwest Research Station Service Land and Resource General Technical Report Management, Planning, and PNW-GTR-788 Decisionmaking June 2009 Stewart D. Allen, Denise A. Wickwar, Fred P. Clark, Robert R. Dow, Robert Potts and Stephanie A. Snyder The Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is dedicated to the principle of multiple use management of the Nation’s forest resources for sus- tained yields of wood, water, forage, wildlife, and recreation. Through forestry research, cooperation with the States and private forest owners, and manage- ment of the national forests and national grasslands, it strives—as directed by Congress—to provide increasingly greater service to a growing Nation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual’s income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, DC 20250-9410, or call (800) 795- 3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
  • JUSTIFIED BELIEF AS RESPONSIBLE BELIEF Richard

    JUSTIFIED BELIEF AS RESPONSIBLE BELIEF Richard

    JUSTIFIED BELIEF AS RESPONSIBLE BELIEF Richard Foley The concepts of justified, warranted, and epistemically rational belief, along with the notion of knowledge, form the core subject matter of epistemology. Despite their centrality, these concepts are used in the literature in strikingly different ways and often with little regard for how they interrelate. In what follows, I will be making recommendations for how to understand and distinguish these three concepts. The account I will be developing situates the concept of epistemically rational belief into a well-integrated and philosophically respectable general theory of rationality; it links the concept of warranted belief with the theory of knowledge; and it insists that the concept of justified belief should be relevant to the assessments of each other's beliefs that we are most interested in making in our everyday lives, namely, assessments where the focus is not so much on whether one has fulfilled all the prerequisites of knowledge but rather on whether one has been a responsible believer. These are the conclusions I will be moving towards, but the place to begin is with a quick history of recent epistemology. In his influential 1963 article, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”,1 Edmund Gettier designed a pair of counterexamples to show that knowledge cannot be defined as justified true belief. Gettier pointed out that one can be justified in believing a falsehood from which one deduces a truth , in which case one has a justified true belief but does not have knowledge. His article started a search for a fourth condition of knowledge, which could be added to justification, truth, and belief to produce an adequate analysis of knowledge.
  • Plantinga-Reason and Belief in God-F&Rscan

    Plantinga-Reason and Belief in God-F&Rscan

    WARNING OF COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS1 The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) governs the maKing of photocopies or other reproductions of the copyright materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, library and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than in private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user maKes a reQuest for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. The Yale University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order, if, in its judgement fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. 137 C.F.R. §201.14 2018 „Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God ALVIN PLANTINGA AND NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF, EDITORS UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS NOTRE DAME LONDON Copyright ® 1983 by University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Faith and rationality. 1. Faith and reason—Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Religion—Philosophy—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Plantinga, Alvin. II. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. BT50.F34 1983 204.1 83-14843 ISBN 0-268-00964-3 ISBN 0-268-00965-1 (pbk.) Manufactured in the United States of America Contents Introduction • Nicholas Wolterstorff 1 Reason and Belief in God • Alvin Plantinga 16 The Stranger • George I. Mavrodes 94 Christian Experience and Christian Belief • William P Alston 103 - Can Belief in God Be Rational If It Has No Foundations? • Nicholas Wolterstorff 135 Turning • George I.
  • Without Evidence Or Argument: a Defense of Reformed Epistemology Dr

    Without Evidence Or Argument: a Defense of Reformed Epistemology Dr

    Without Evidence or Argument: A Defense of Reformed Epistemology Dr. Kelly James Clark Dr. Kelly James Clark, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, earned his doctorate at University of Notre Dame where he studied with Alvin Plantinga, the most prominent defender of Reformed epistemology. Dr. Clark is author of numerous books and articles in the philosophy of religion and epistemology including When Faith Is Not Enough, Philosophers Who Believe and Return to Reason (a defense of Reformed Epistemology). Suppose a stranger, let’s call him David, sends you a note that declares that your wife is cheating on you. No pictures are included, no dates or times, no names. Just the assertion of your wife’s unfaithfulness. You have had already fifteen good, and so far as you know, faithful years with your wife. Her behavior hasn’t changed dramatically in the past few years. Except for David’s allegation, you have no reason to believe there has been a breach in the relationship. What should you do? Confront her with what you take to be the truth, straight from David’s letter? Hire a detective to follow her for a week and hope against hope the letter is a hoax? Or do you simply remain secure in the trust that you have built up all those years? Suppose, even worse, that your son Clifford comes home after taking his first philosophy course in college. He persuades you of the truth of the so-called “problem of other minds.” How do you know that other minds and, therefore, other people exist? How do you know that people are not simply cleverly constructed robots with excellent makeup jobs? How do you know that behind the person facade lies a person -- someone with thoughts, desires and feelings? You can’t experience another person’s feelings; you can’t see another person’s thoughts (even if you cut off the top of their head and peered into their brain); and even Bill Clinton can’t really feel another person’s pain.
  • The Epistemology of Religion

    The Epistemology of Religion

    The Epistemology of Religion Peter Forrest Contemporary epistemology of religion may conveniently be treated as a debate over whether evidentialism applies to the belief-component of religious faith, or whether we should instead adopt a more permissive epistemology. Here by ‘evidentialism’ I mean the initially plausible position that a belief is justified only if "it is proportioned to the evidence". Evidentialism implies that it is not justified to have a full religious belief unless there is conclusive evidence for it. It follows that if the known arguments for there being a God, including any arguments from religious experience, are at best probable ones, no one would be justified in having full belief that there is a God. And the same holds for other religious beliefs, such as the Christian belief that Jesus was God incarnate. Likewise, it would not be justified to believe even with less than full confidence if there is not a balance of evidence for belief. • 1. Simplifications • 2. The Rejection of Enlightenment Evidentialism • 3. Evidentialism Defended • 4. Natural Theology • 5. The Relevance of Newman • 6. Wittgensteinian Fideism • 7. Reformed Epistemology • 8. Religious Experience, Revelation and Tradition • Bibliography • Other Internet Resources • Related Entries 1. Simplifications Epistemology is confusing because there are several sorts of items to be evaluated and several sorts of evaluation. Since the topic of this article is the epistemology of religion not general epistemology I shall simplify matters by assuming that what is being evaluated is something related to faith, namely individual religious beliefs, and that the way of evaluating religious beliefs is as justified or unjustified.
  • Reidianism in Contemporary English-Speaking Religious Epistemology

    Reidianism in Contemporary English-Speaking Religious Epistemology

    REIDIANISM IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH-SPEAKING RELIGIOUS EPISTEMOLOGY PETER BYRNE King’s College London Abstract. This paper explores the main contours of recent work in English- speaking philosophy of religion on the justification of religious belief. It sets out the main characteristics of the religious epistemologies of such writers as Alston, Plantinga, and Swinburne. It poses and seeks to answer the question of how far any or all of these epistemologies are indebted or similar to the epistemology of the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Thomas Reid. It concludes that while there are some links to Reid in recent writing, contemporary approaches depart from Reid’s views on the specific topic of the justification of religious belief. INTRODUCTION My aim in this paper is to present a survey of the contemporary debate as to ‘positive epistemic status’ and religious belief highlighting (as much as I can) the use of Reid and Scottish philosophy in contemporary philosophy of religion. There is a great deal that can be done by way of fulfilling this aim, since Reid is referred to frequently by important protagonists in contemporary English-speaking religious epistemology – though only Reid: I have come across no mention in this literature to other Scottish philosophers (except of course for David Hume). The most important figures in debates about the rationality and justification of religious belief in the last 20 years have been William Alston, Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne. Nicholas Wolterstorff also deserves a mention here, but though he is not in any sense a follower of Plantinga, his work tends (unfairly) to be regarded as a supplement EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 3/2 (AUTUMN 2011), PP.
  • The Non-Foundational Epistemology of Nicholas Wolterstorff

    The Non-Foundational Epistemology of Nicholas Wolterstorff

    THE NON-FOUNDATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY OF NICHOLAS WOLTE ASTOR FF A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF MCMASTER DIVINITY COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFlLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF ARTS (CHRISTIAN STUDIES) MCMASTER UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, ONTARIO BY STUART J. HARSEVOORT, B.A. MAY 2004 MA (Christian Studies) McMASTER UNIVERSITY Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: The Non-Foundational Epistemology of Nicholas Wolterstorff AUTHOR: Stuart Harsevoort SUPERVISOR: Dr. Kurt Richardson NUMBER OF PAGES: 121 McMASTER DIVINITY COLLEGE Upon the recommendation of an oral examination committee and vote of the faculty, this thesis-project by Stuart Harsevoort ' ' is hereby accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA (Christian Studies) Date: April 21, 2004 Abstract: Nicholas Wolterstorff, working within the context of Reformed Epistemology, has come to an understanding of knowledge which more accurately reflects the process of knowledge and belief that people experience than the foundational system to which he responds. He reacts to Immanuel Kant and John Locke, using arguments put forward by Thomas Reid, and building on these arguments with his own understanding. Kant, Wolterstorff argues, had put distance between a person and what she could perceive about and attribute to God. Since she cannot have an experience of God, she experience5 what Wolterstorff calls the 'Kantian agony1-she cannot discuss God without first discussing God's existence. Locke, Wolterstorff argues, had put distance between a person and what she could believe. Locke, to whom Wolterstorff responds quite extensively, had argued that a person must use reason to govern her beliefs, and base her system of knowledge on propositions which can be known with certainty.
  • The Idea of Perfect Man

    The Idea of Perfect Man

    Open Journal of Philosophy, 2016, 6, 319-334 http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojpp ISSN Online: 2163-9442 ISSN Print: 2163-9434 The Idea of Perfect Man Mohammad Reza Najjarian Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran How to cite this paper: Najjarian, M. R. Abstract (2016). The Idea of Perfect Man. Open Jour- nal of Philosophy, 6, 319-334. Different religions have one belief in common in that man is not self-existent. It http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2016.64032 means that his life is basically dependent on an independent central power. This concept was suggested by early religions in the form of the belief that nature has Received: January 5, 2016 powers, but more advanced religions have a belief in a metaphysical being, who is the Accepted: September 26, 2016 Published: October 13, 2016 creator of the world. Besides human desire for perfection is a common subject that connects different religions to each other although there exist various interpretations Copyright © 2016 by author and about perfection and perfect man. The basis of the western new thought is human- Scientific Research Publishing Inc. ism, in which human is a self-centered one and is not dependent on any greater This work is licensed under the Creative force; however, in the eastern thought, man and the world are under God’s centrality, Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). moving toward a spiritual goal and a superior world. This article aims at the position http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ of the perfect man, as a creature on the earth, in the worlds of Darwinism, Marxism, Open Access Nietzcheism, Freudism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Mazdaism, Manichaeis, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
  • Dynamic Preference Logic Meets Iterated Belief Change

    Dynamic Preference Logic Meets Iterated Belief Change

    Dynamic Preference Logic meets Iterated Belief Change: Representation Results and Postulates Characterization Marlo Souzaa,1, Renata Vieirab, Alvaro´ Moreirac aInstitute of Mathematics and Statistics, Federal University of Bahia - UFBA Av. Adhemar de Barros, S/N, Ondina - Salvador-BA, Brazil bFaculty of Informatics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul - PUCRS Av. Ipiranga, 6681 - Porto Alegre-RS, Brazil cInstitute of Informatics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul- UFRGS Av. Bento Gon¸calves, 9500 - Porto Alegre-RS, Brazil Abstract AGM’s belief revision is one of the main paradigms in the study of belief change operations. Recently, several logics for belief and information change have been proposed in the literature and used to encode belief change operations in rich and expressive semantic frameworks. While the connections of AGM-like operations and their encoding in dynamic doxastic logics have been studied before by the work of Segerberg, most works on the area of Dynamic Epistemic Logics (DEL) have not, to our knowledge, attempted to use those logics as tools to investigate mathematical properties of belief change operators. This work investigates how Dynamic Preference Logic, a logic in the DEL family, can be used to study properties of dynamic belief change operators, focusing on well-known postulates of iterated belief change. Keywords: Dynamic Epistemic Logic, Dynamic Preference Logic, Belief Revision 1. Introduction arXiv:2101.01676v1 [cs.LO] 5 Jan 2021 Belief Change is the multidisciplinary area that studies how a doxastic agent comes to change her mind after acquiring new information. The most influential approach to Belief Change in the literature is the AGM paradigm [1].