Epistemic Humility, Arguments from Evil, and Moral Skepticism
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ABSTRACT Ut Omnes Unum Sint: Examining the Presence of The
ABSTRACT Ut Omnes Unum Sint: Examining the Presence of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition at a Baptist University Carmen M. Galvan Director: Dr. Barry Hankins, Ph.D. of History This research collected firsthand accounts of faith and teaching from both Catholic and non-Catholic faculty at Baylor University in order to prove that Baylor has intentionally sought and hired additional Roman Catholic faculty in order to strengthen the university’s religious identity. The appeal of Catholics was found to be the Catholic intellectual tradition, which holds that faith be integrated with learning in all aspects of academia. The research revealed four major commonalities of Baylor’s Catholic hiring: 1) the university hiring process, 2) the integration of faith and learning in the classroom, 3) the positive and/or negative experiences faculty have had at Baylor, and 4) the faculty’s perspective of Baylor 2012 and its future. UT OMNES UNUM SINT: EXAMINING THE PRESENCE OF THE CATHOLIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITION AT A BAPTIST UNIVERSITY By Carmen M. Galvan Waco, Texas May 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ……………………………………………………………………………. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS …………………………………………………………… iv DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………………... v Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………. 1 Purpose of Thesis A Rift of Religion 2. METHODOLOGY …………………………………………………………… 12 Selection Process Data Collection, Coding, and Analysis 3. HIRING OF ROMAN CATHOLICS AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY………… 21 Administrative Interviews Commitment to Faith 4. CATHOLIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITION AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY .. 32 Tradition of Faith in the Classroom Catholic Faculty in a Baptist Environment Conclusion BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………….... 45 ii PREFACE “But you’re Catholic … why are you going to a Baptist university?” Right after my choice of major, this question of spiritual identity was one of the most common I heard as an entering freshman at Baylor University. -
Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 69.3 (2010): 193–204
1 On Plantinga on Belief in Naturalism1 Troy Cross Introduction Naturalism, according to Alvin Plantinga, is the thesis “that there is no such person as God or anything at all like God” (2011b, 435; see also, 2002a, 1; 2011a, vix), and one could be forgiven for thinking that what Plantinga calls his “Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism”, or “EAAN”, which he has refined and defended for over two decades, is an argument against that thesis (1991, 1993, 2002a, 2002b, 2011a, 2011b). But that would be a mistake. The conclusion of the EAAN is not about the truth of naturalism but about the rationality of believing naturalism to be true: it is that one cannot rationally and reflectively believe that contemporary evolutionary theory is correct about our origins while also believing that neither God nor anything like God exists.2 The difference between truth and rational belief is important here. Consider Moore’s paradoxical sentence: “I don’t believe it’s raining but as a matter of fact it is” (Moore, 209). Nothing prevents that sentence, or others like it, from being true. If you 1 For instructive conversations on this topic I am indebted to John Bang, George Bealer, Mark Bedau, Eliyah Cohen, Bryan Cross, Augie Faller, Emma Handte, Elad Gilo, Nick Gigliotti, John Hare, Jordan Horowitz, Paul Hovda, Alexander Pruss, Margaret Scharle, Derek Schiller, Mackenzie Sullivan, and Carol Voeller. I also wish to thank audiences at Reed College and the University of Nebraska Omaha where I presented early versions of some of this material. Anthony Nguyen gave me many helpful comments on a draft. -
St. Thomas Summer Seminars in Philosophy of Religion And
Recent PhDs and current graduate students in philosophy, theology, or religious studies are invited to apply to participate in the 2010 St. Thomas Summer Seminar in Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology. The 2010 St. Thomas Summer Seminar in Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology June 15—July 2, 2010 University of Saint Thomas, Saint Paul, Minnesota TOPICS AND SPEAKERS ORGANIZED BY THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF DISAGREEMENT Dean Zimmerman Alvin Plantinga (Notre Dame) and Roger White (M.I.T.) and (Rutgers) Richard Feldman (Rochester) Thomas Kelly (Princeton) Michael Rota SCIENCE AND RELIGION REDUCTIONISM AND THE (University of St. Thomas) Alvin Plantinga (Notre Dame) and PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY Elliott Sober (UW-Madison) Alan Love (University of Minnesota) THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT WRITING FOR AUDIENCES Alexander Pruss (Baylor) and OUTSIDE THE ACADEMY Peter van Inwagen (Notre Dame) Peter Kreeft (Boston College) THE PROBLEM OF EVIL Peter van Inwagen (Notre Dame) and Evan Fales (University of Iowa) http://www.stthomas.edu/philosophy/templeton/project.html Twenty participants will be selected; each will receive a stipend of $2,800 and will be provided with accommodations and meals for the duration of the seminar. CONTACT APPLICATION DEADLINE: Dr. Michael Rota Applications must be received by December 1, 2009 St. Thomas Philosophy of Religion Project For information on how to apply, go to http://www.stthomas.edu/philosophy/templeton/project.html. Department of Philosophy, JRC 241 University of St. Thomas This program is funded by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation. 2115 Summit Avenue Saint Paul, MN 55105-1096 Email: [email protected] . -
From Restricted to Full Omniscience
Religious Studies, Page 1 of 8. f Cambridge University Press 2010 doi:10.1017/S0034412510000144 From restricted to full omniscience ALEXANDERR.PRUSS Baylor University, One Bear Place #97273, Waco, TX 76798-7273 e-mail: [email protected] Abstract: Some, notably Peter van Inwagen, in order to avoid problems with free will and omniscience, replace the condition that an omniscient being knows all true propositions with a version of the apparently weaker condition that an omniscient being knows all knowable true propositions. I shall show that the apparently weaker condition, when conjoined with uncontroversial claims and the logical closure of an omniscient being’s knowledge, still yields the claim that an omniscient being knows all true propositions. Introduction Peter van Inwagen has argued that God does not know what we shall freely do.1 But van Inwagen does not embrace open-future views on which there is no fact of the matter about what we shall freely do. There is such a fact, but on van Inwagen’s view, God does not know it. Nonetheless, van Inwagen holds that God is omniscient, because, roughly speaking, God knows every true proposition that can be known. I shall show, however, that the statement that God knows every knowable truth, as well as the precise statement of van Inwagen’s ‘tentative’ account, have the consequence that God knows every true proposition, as long as we assume that God’s knowledge is closed under conjunction and tautological consequence, together with some uncontroversial claims and, in the case of van Inwagen’s account, the non-triviality claim that the account requires an om- niscient being to now know some contingent truths. -
Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy
NEWSLETTER | The American Philosophical Association Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy FALL 2019 VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 1 FROM THE EDITORS ARTICLES Carlos A. Sánchez and Lori Gallegos Omar Rivera de Castillo Approaching Racial Embodiment, CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Aesthetics, and Liberation in José Carlos Maríategui’s Seven Essays SPECIAL CLUSTER Alejandro Vallega Stephanie Rivera Berruz América Tropical, On the Force of Latinx Philosophy Conference Latino/a/x Thought Allison Wolf Sergio Rodrigo Lomelí Gamboa Dying in Detention as an Example of Oppression The Marxism of José Revueltas: A Struggle Against Orthodoxy Alan Chavoya Arturo Aguirre Moreno A Negative Path Towards Anti-Racist Immigration Policy Thinking about Exile: Community, Violence, and Law Jorge M. Valadez Susana Nuccetelli Immigration and International Justice Book Excerpt: Marx on Bolívar Eric Bayruns Garcia BOOK REVIEW Are Our Racial Concepts Necessarily Essentialist Due to Our Cognitive Nature? Linda Martín Alcoff: Rape and Resistance Reviewed by Juan J. Colomina-Alminana Damían Bravo Zamora CONTRIBUTORS Epistemic Humility Now! VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 1 FALL 2019 © 2019 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ISSN 2155-9708 APA NEWSLETTER ON Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy CARLOS A. SÁNCHEZ AND LORI GALLEGOS DE CASTILLO, CO-EDITORS VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 1 | FALL 2019 Sergio Lomeli Gamboa’s “Jose Revueltas’ Marxism: A FROM THE EDITORS Struggle Against Orthodoxy” is an excellent introduction into the thought of this brilliant Mexican thinker. Known Carlos Alberto Sánchez mostly for his fictional writing, Revueltas is also one of SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY Marx’s most original readers and a fierce critic of “Orthodox Marxism.” Gamboa’s reading here seeks not only to locate Lori Gallegos de Castillo Revueltas in the center of Mexico’s philosophical landscape TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY of the last century, but also at the center of Mexico’s cultural and political life. -
The Consequence of the Consequence Argument∗
The Consequence of the Consequence Argument∗ Marco Hausmann Abstract The aim of my paper is to compare three alternative formal reconstructions of van Inwagen's famous argument for incompati- bilism. In the first part of my paper, I examine van Inwagen's own reconstruction within a propositional modal logic. I point out that, due to the expressive limitations of his propositional modal logic, van Inwagen is unable to argue directly (that is, within his formal framework) for incompatibilism. In the second part of my paper, I suggest to reconstruct van Inwagen's argument within a first-order predicate logic. I show, however, that even though this reconstruction is not susceptible to the same objection, this reconstruction can be shown to be inconsistent (given van Inwagen's own assumptions). At the end of my paper, I suggest to reconstruct van Inwagen's argument within a quantified counterfactual logic with propositional quantifiers. I show that within this formal framework van Inwagen would not only be able to argue directly for incompatibilism, he would also be able to argue for crucial assumptions of his argument. Keywords: free will, determinism, consequence argument, counter- factual logic 1 Introduction Incompatibilism, as I understand it, is the view that there is no free will if determinism is true. Peter van Inwagen has developed a much discussed argument for incompatibilism. His argument runs as follows: ∗This paper won the SOPhiA 2019 Best Paper Award at the Salzburg Conference for Young Analytic Philosophy, September 18{20, 2019. Kriterion { Journal of Philosophy, 2020, 34(4): 45{70. http://www.kriterion-journal-of-philosophy.org c 2020 The author 46 KRITERION { Journal of Philosophy, 2020, 34(4): 45{70 If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences " of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. -
Epistemic Trust and Liberal Justification
EPISTEMIC TRUST AND LIBERAL JUSTIFICATION Definitive version published in The Journal of Political Philosophy 21 (2012): 179-199 Michael Fuerstein Saint Olaf College Department of Philosophy [email protected] 1. Introduction Reason-giving has arguably become the central concern of liberalism.1 A vast portion of contemporary liberal theorists endorse some version of the view that our political arrangements and uses of power must be justifiable to all citizens by good reasons.2 Call this the liberal principle of justification (LPJ). The motivation for LPJ has normally been given in moral terms. The obligation to provide good reasons to a universal audience – or at any rate to have good reasons available in principle – derives from an equal respect for the autonomy of all persons as rational beings. Reason-giving is seen as an essential route to securing free consent, and free 1 For valuable feedback I am grateful to Akeel Bilgrami, Alvin Goldman, Philip Kitcher, Joseph Raz, Daniel Viehoff, and several anonymous reviewers. I also benefited from an audience at the 2009 Workshop on the Epistemic Benefits of Free Speech and Openness at the University of Copenhagen, the members of Alvin Goldman’s Social Epistemology Seminar at Rutgers University, and an audience of my colleagues at Saint Olaf College. Portions of this paper, and especially Section Four, draw on Chapter Three of my Ph.D. thesis, “The Scientific Public: Inquiry in Democratic Society” (Columbia University, 2009). 2 Some prominent variations on the theme are Cohen 1989, Habermas 1996, Larmore 1987, Rawls 1993, Waldron 1987. 1 Epistemic Trust and Liberal Justification consent is understood to be essential to the legitimacy of state action.3 That is a crude sketch, at any rate, of how the argument goes. -
On Two Problems of Divine Simplicity by Alexander Pruss
7 On Two Problems of Divine Simplicity Alexander R. Pruss I. INTRODUCTION The doctrine of divine simplicity claims that there is no ontological composition in God of any sort, whether of matter and form, or of essence and accident, or of this attribute and that attribute considered as ontologically distinct. The doctrine is a traditional part of Christianity and Judaism, and can be argued to be a reasonable development of the monotheistic ideal of seeing a single entity at the root of reality. Thus Maimonedes (1956: Part I, Chapter 50) wrote that ‘[t]hose who believe that God is One, and has many attributes, declare the unity with their lips, and assume plurality in their thoughts’, which he said was as bad as the case of Christians with their doctrine of the Trinity. While I disagree that the doctrine of the Trinity would violate the basic ideals of monotheism, Maimonedes may be right that the denial of the doctrine of simplicity would. However it is not my point here to argue for the doctrine of divine simplicity, but to defend it against two major objections. For, divine simplicity, like the complementary doctrine of the Trinity, does lead to intellectual difficulties. I want to consider two objections in particular, and argue that thinking in terms of an account of divine simplicity that was introduced by Graham Oppy (2003), and later independently developed by Bergmann and Brower (forthcoming)¹ as well as Pruss I am grateful to the audience for the discussion at my presentation at the Society of Christian Philosophers satellite session at the American Catholic Philosophical Association annual meeting in 2003. -
A Measure of Change Brittany A
University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations Spring 2019 Time: A Measure of Change Brittany A. Gentry Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Gentry, B. A.(2019). Time: A Measure of Change. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/5247 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Time: A Measure of Change By Brittany A. Gentry Bachelor of Arts Houghton College, 2009 ________________________________________________ Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2019 Accepted by Michael Dickson, Major Professor Leah McClimans, Committee Member Thomas Burke, Committee Member Alexander Pruss, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School ©Copyright by Brittany A. Gentry, 2019 All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Michael Dickson, my dissertation advisor, for extensive comments on numerous drafts over the last several years and for his patience and encouragement throughout this process. I would also like to thank my other committee members, Leah McClimans, Thomas Burke, and Alexander Pruss, for their comments and recommendations along the way. Finally, I am grateful to fellow students and professors at the University of South Carolina, the audience at the International Society for the Philosophy of Time conference at Wake Forest University, NC, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on various drafts of portions of this dissertation. -
Marketing Fragment 6 X 10.5.T65
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-85531-0 - Alvin Plantinga Edited by Deane-Peter Baker Frontmatter More information Alvin Plantinga Few thinkers have had as much impact on contemporary philosophy as has Alvin Plantinga. The work of this quintessential analytic philosopher has in many respects set the tone for the debate in the fields of modal metaphysics and epistemology, and he is arguably the most important philosopher of religion of our time. In this volume, a distinguished team of today’s leading philoso- phers address the central aspects of Plantinga’s philosophy – his views on nat- ural theology, his responses to the problem of evil, his contributions to the field of modal metaphysics, the controversial evolutionary argument against naturalism, his model of epistemic warrant and his view of epistemic defeat, his argument for warranted Christian belief, his response to the challenge of religious pluralism, and his recent work on mind-body dualism. Also included is an appendix containing Plantinga’s often referred to, but previously unpub- lished, lecture notes entitled “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments,” with a substantial preface to the appendix written by Plantinga specifically for this volume. Deane-Peter Baker is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophy and Ethics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). He is the author of Tayloring Reformed Epistemology: Charles Taylor, Alvin Plantinga and the De Jure Challenge to Christian Belief. © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-85531-0 - Alvin Plantinga Edited by Deane-Peter Baker Frontmatter More information Contemporary Philosophy in Focus Contemporary Philosophy in Focus offers a series of introductory volumes to many of the dominant philosophical thinkers of the current age. -
NATURAL THEOLOGY, EVIDENCE, and EPISTEMIC HUMILITY Trent Dougherty & Brandon Rickabaugh Baylor University
NATURAL THEOLOGY, EVIDENCE, AND EPISTEMIC HUMILITY Trent Dougherty & Brandon Rickabaugh Baylor University Abstract. One not infrequently hears rumors that the robust practice of natural theology reeks of epistemic pride. Paul Moser’s is a paradigm of such contempt. In this paper we defend the robust practice of natural theology from the charge of epistemic pride. In taking an essentially Thomistic approach, we argue that the evidence of natural theology should be understood as a species of God’s general self-revelation. Thus, an honest assessment of that evidence need not be prideful, but can be an act of epistemic humility, receiving what God has offered, answering God’s call. Lastly, we provide criticisms of Moser’s alternative approach, advancing a variety of philosophical and theological problems against his conception of personifying evidence. I. INTRODUCTION One not infrequently hears rumors that the robust practice of natural theol- ogy — “proving” God’s existence and that the being so proven to exist has vari- ous important properties — reeks of epistemic pride. Paul Moser seems to be particularly apt to report a malodorous scent wafting from the pages of the likes of, say, Thomas Aquinas, Richard Swinburne, and, especially, that scoundrel Wil- liam Lane Craig.1 Moser often describes natural theology as “the height of human arrogance”2 and “prideful cognitive glory,”3 and the obtaining of such evidence of 1 Moser’s recommendation for Craig’s vast project of natural theology is that it, like all traditional natural theology, should be abandoned, so as not to “insult the intelligence or the rationality of the unconvinced theorists” (Moser 2014: 81). -
The Ontological Argument and the Motivational Centres of Lives
Religious Studies (2010) 46, 233–249 f Cambridge University Press 2010 doi:10.1017/S0034412509990400 The ontological argument and the motivational centres of lives ALEXANDERR.PRUSS Department of Philosophy, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97273, Waco, TX 76798-7273 e-mail: [email protected] Abstract: Assuming S5, the main controversial premise in modal ontological arguments is the possibility premise, such as that possibly a maximally great being exists. I shall offer a new way of arguing that the possibility premise is probably true. Introduction Alvin Plantinga’s maximally great being (MGB) argument (Plantinga (1978), chapter 10) is, essentially: (1) Necessarily, if x is a maximally great being, then x exists in all possible worlds and is perfectly good, omnipotent, omniscient and creator of any and all contingent beings in every world.1 [Premise] (2) It is possible that there exists a maximally great being. [Premise] (3) Therefore, there exists a being that is perfectly good, omnipotent, omniscient and creator of any and all contingent beings in every world. [From (1) and (2) by S5] Assuming a modal logic that includes S5, the argument is valid. The main con- troversial premise is the possibility premise (2). I will now offer a new way to make the possibility premise epistemically probable. If it is epistemically prob- able, then the conclusion of the argument is also epistemically probable, and hence probably there is a maximally great being. For brevity, I shall stipulate the term ‘creator’ for ‘creator of all contingent beings, if there are any’. Thus, a MGB is trivially a creator in worlds where there are no contingent beings.