Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 1, Metaphysics, 1987
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Metaphysics. by Peter Van Inwagen Review By: Timothy O'connor the Philosophical Review, Vol
Philosophical Review Metaphysics. by Peter van Inwagen Review by: Timothy O'Connor The Philosophical Review, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 314-317 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2185999 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 03:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.44.77.146 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 03:49:57 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BOOK REVIEWS such issues as the completeness of quantum mechanics and whetherit is a local theory.Part of the problem has been in figuringout what is meant by 'completeness' and 'locality'.A lot of hard work has also been done in designing and performingexperiments to test quantum mechanics and compare it to rival theories. Shimony has made importantcontributions to all aspects of this endeavor-for example, his proof that quantum mechanical nonlocality,what he refersto as passion-at-a-distance,cannot be exploited for the purposes of sending signals at velocitiesgreater than the velocityof light (2:134-36). -
Department of Philosophy the University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-4619 Russell's China Teapot Peter Van Inwagen
Department of Philosophy The University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-4619 [email protected] Russell’s China Teapot Peter van Inwagen St Thomas Aquinas has presented five well-known arguments for the existence of God, but he has also presented—although not, of course, endorsed—two arguments that might be described as “arguments to the contrary” or as “objections to belief in God.” Summa Theologiae, I, q.2, a.3 (the “Five Ways” article, the article whose topic is indicated by the heading “Whether God exists”) opens with those two arguments. The first, Objection 1, is a version of the argument from evil—the argument that since the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of God, God does not exist. The second Objection is as follows: Objection 2. It is, moreover, superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, without supposing God to exist. For all natural things can be accounted for by one principle, which is nature; and all voluntary things can be accounted for by one principle, which is human reason or will. Hence, there is no need to suppose that God exists. Here is a formulation of the essential point of this argument in language the modern mind may find more congenial than Thomas’s talk of “principles”: 2 The only reason we could have for believing in God would be that it was necessary to postulate his existence to account for some observed fact or facts. -
The Revelation of God, East and West: Contrasting Special Revelation in Western Modernity with the Ancient Christian East
Open Theology 2017; 3: 565–589 Analytic Perspectives on Method and Authority in Theology Nathan A. Jacobs* The Revelation of God, East and West: Contrasting Special Revelation in Western Modernity with the Ancient Christian East https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2017-0043 Received August 11, 2017; accepted September 11, 2017 Abstract: The questions of whether God reveals himself; if so, how we can know a purported revelation is authentic; and how such revelations relate to the insights of reason are discussed by John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, G. W. Leibniz, and Immanuel Kant, to name a few. Yet, what these philosophers say with such consistency about revelation stands in stark contrast with the claims of the Christian East, which are equally consistent from the second century through the fourteenth century. In this essay, I will compare the modern discussion of special revelation from Thomas Hobbes through Johann Fichte with the Eastern Christian discussion from Irenaeus through Gregory Palamas. As we will see, there are noteworthy differences between the two trajectories, differences I will suggest merit careful consideration from philosophers of religion. Keywords: Religious Epistemology; Revelation; Divine Vision; Theosis; Eastern Orthodox; Locke; Hobbes; Lessing; Kant; Fichte; Irenaeus; Cappadocians; Cyril of Alexandria; Gregory Palamas The idea that God speaks to humanity, revealing things hidden or making his will known, comes under careful scrutiny in modern philosophy. The questions of whether God does reveal himself; if so, how we can know a purported revelation is authentic; and how such revelations relate to the insights of reason are discussed by John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, G. -
European Journal for Philosophy of Religion
EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION VOLUME 4 NUMBER 4 WINTER 2012 ARTICLES David S. ODERBERG Survivalism, Corruptionism, and Mereology 1 Dale JACQUETTE Anselm’s Metaphysics of Nonbeing 27 Erik J. WIELENBERG An Inconsistency in Craig’s Defence of the Moral Argument 49 Andrei A. BUCKAREFF Omniscience, the Incarnation, and Knowledge de se 59 T. Ryan BYERLY Infallible Divine Foreknowledge Cannot Uniquely Threaten Human Freedom, But Its Mechanics Might 73 T. J. MAWSON On Determining How Important It Is Whether or Not There Is a God 95 Jerome GELLMAN A Theistic, Universe-Based, Theodicy of Human Suffering and Immoral Behaviour 107 Anders KRAAL Hedenius’ Soteriological Argument from Evil 123 Peter JONKERS Redefining Religious Truth as a Challenge for Philosophy of Religion 139 Louis CARUANA Science, Religion and Common Sense 161 DISCUSSIONS AND REPLIES John BISHOP In Quest of Authentic Divinity: Critical Notice of Mark Johnston’s ‘Saving God: Religion after Idolatry’ 175 BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES Timothy O’Connor. Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency Reviewed by Sho Yamaguchi 193 Georg Gasser (ed.). Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? Reviewed by Joshua Farris 196 Timothy Yoder. Hume on God: Irony, Deism and Genuine Theism Reviewed by Dan O’Brien 201 Earl Stanley B. Fronda. Wittgenstein’s (Misunderstood) Religious Thought Reviewed by Klaus von Stosch 206 Neil Spurway (ed.). Theology, Evolution and the Mind Reviewed by Aku Visala 208 SURVIVALISM, CORRUPTIONISM, AND MEREOLOGY DAVID S. ODERBERG University of Reading Abstract. Corruptionism is the view that following physical death, the human being ceases to exist (until Resurrection) but their soul persists in the afterlife. -
Article Review Justice, Rights and Wrongs
ECCLESIOLOGY Ecclesiology 8 (2012) 235–240 brill.nl/ecso Article Review Justice, Rights and Wrongs Nicholas Sagovsky Liverpool Hope University, Hope Park, Liverpool, L16 9JD, UK [email protected] Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice, Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, NJ and Woodstock, UK: Princeton University Press, 2008) xiv + 400 pp. £35.00. ISBN 978-0-691-12967-9 (hbk). Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Justice, Rights and Wrongs is a major contribution to the contemporary debate about justice. It is, however, more narrowly focused than the broad brush title would suggest. Wolterstorff’s aim is to show the secure grounds on which a belief in natural rights can be the foun- dation for an understanding of justice: ‘I think of a social order as just’, he writes, ‘insofar as its members enjoy the goods to which they have rights.’ What he does not discuss is how to specify those rights, and how ‘natural rights’ can be deployed in a strategy for justice. The argument is in three parts. First, Wolterstorff examines ‘the archeol- ogy of rights’ to defend the claim that a belief in natural rights is not the product of the possessive individualism associated with the Enlightenment, nor is it the lineal descendent of the nominalism of William of Ockham. He follows Brian Tierney in tracing the line of descent of the notion of ius back to canon lawyers who pre-date Ockham. From there, he traces the pre- history of the notion of ‘right’ back to the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament and the early Christian writers. In his second section, Wolterstorff argues that the eudaimonism (belief in the ‘good life’ or ‘human flourishing’), which was central to the thinking of classical philosophers like Aristotle, could never have provided the basis for contemporary belief in universal natural rights. -
Following the Argument Where It Leads
Following The Argument Where It Leads Thomas Kelly Princeton University [email protected] Abstract: Throughout the history of western philosophy, the Socratic injunction to ‘follow the argument where it leads’ has exerted a powerful attraction. But what is it, exactly, to follow the argument where it leads? I explore this intellectual ideal and offer a modest proposal as to how we should understand it. On my proposal, following the argument where it leaves involves a kind of modalized reasonableness. I then consider the relationship between the ideal and common sense or 'Moorean' responses to revisionary philosophical theorizing. 1. Introduction Bertrand Russell devoted the thirteenth chapter of his History of Western Philosophy to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. He concluded his discussion with a rather unflattering assessment: There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better: If he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times (1945: 463). The extent to which this is a fair assessment of Aquinas is controversial.1 My purpose in what follows, however, is not to defend Aquinas; nor is it to substantiate the charges that Russell brings against him. -
Taking Monism Seriously
Philos Stud DOI 10.1007/s11098-015-0620-0 Taking monism seriously David M. Cornell1 Ó The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Monism is the view that there is only a single material object in exis- tence: the world. According to this view, therefore, the ordinary objects of common sense—cats and hats, cars and stars, and so on—do not actually exist; there is only the world. Because of this, monism is routinely dismissed in the contemporary literature as being absurd and obviously false. It is simply obvious that there is a plurality of material things, thus it is simply obvious that monism is false, or so the argument goes. I call this the common sense argument against monism and in this paper I offer a response. I argue that providing the monist can make his view consistent with the appearance that there is a multiplicity of material things, then it is not rationally acceptable to reject monism solely on the basis of that appearance. Through an appeal to a particular type of property—distributional properties—I sketch out a plausible story of how monism is perfectly consistent with the appearance of plurality, and thus nullify the common sense argument. There may be any number of arguments that serve to undermine monism, but the common sense argument is not one of them. Monism deserves to be taken more seriously than that. Keywords Monism Á Mereology Á Common sense Á Properties Á Distributional properties & David M. Cornell [email protected] 1 Department of History, Politics, and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University, Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamund Street West, Manchester M15 6LL, UK 123 D. -
TOWARDS a CRITIQUE of the SUBJECT by EDWARD J
TOWARDS A CRITIQUE OF THE SUBJECT by .. EDWARD J. ECHEVERRIA I. Introduction: Some central elements of the problem-situation 1. Nicholas Wolterstorff has written a small book entitled, Reason within the bounds of Religion. 1 The title is a reversal of Immanuel Kant's famous book, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Ver nunft. Kant employed a transcendental-critical project in his attempt to specify the boundaries of practical and theoretical reason. He entrusted reason with the capacity to reflect on its own limitations and positive possibilities. A central interest in specifying these boundaries was Kant's search for certainty and universal validity; a status required for these boundaries to possess the title of scientific. Kant wanted a critical reason that would steer a course through the domgatism of the ratio nalist and the skepticism of the empiricist. Yet, strangely enough, the inability of reason to recognize its limitations was not something that reason could easily shed. Reason was naturally clothed in dialectical illusions. Hence, a critique of these illusions was demanded in the form of what Kant called transcendental dialectic. The latter formed the second part of a transcendental logic. The brief sketch I have just given forms only a small part of what is involved in Kant's project. Of particular importance for our study of Wolterstorff's book is Kant's demand that reason be self-critical. Wolterstorff also asks reason (more specifically, science) to be self critical. It is in his case with reference to the dogmatism of religion and science. 2 Yet Wolterstorff's demand, in distinction to Kant's, is limited in one very crucial respect: it is a critique of science and not of thought as such. -
Evil and Van Inwagen
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers Volume 20 Issue 2 Article 8 4-1-2003 Evil and Van Inwagen Jeff Jordan Follow this and additional works at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy Recommended Citation Jordan, Jeff (2003) "Evil and Van Inwagen," Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers: Vol. 20 : Iss. 2 , Article 8. Available at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol20/iss2/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers by an authorized editor of ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. EVIL AND VAN INWAGEN Jeff Jordan A proposition employed in many versions of the evidential argument from evil is that every evil is necessary, or God does not exist. This proposition is so widely accepted that we might dub it the "Standard Claim". In several articles Peter van Inwagen has argued that the Standard Claim is false. Van Inwagen's argument depends upon what we might call the UNo Minimum Claim". In this note I argue that the No Minimum Claim is either false or implausible. Theists and nontheists both typically hold that the existence of God is incompatible with the occurrence of any evil which God need not permit in order to bring about a greater good, or to prevent an equally bad or worse evil from occurring. Indeed this view is so widely accepted and so rarely questioned that we will dub it the "Standard Claim." Expressed briefly, the Standard Claim asserts that every evil is necessary, or God does not exist. -
Saving God from "Saving God." | Books and Culture | a Christian Review
8/13/12 Saving God from "Saving God." | Books and Culture | A Christian Review Print this page Close this page The following article is located at: http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2012/mayjun/savinggod.html Saving God from "Saving God." Is traditional supernaturalism idolatrous? Andrew Chignell and Dean Zimmerman | posted 4/24/201 2 1. Princeton philosopher Mark Johnston was educated by Jesuits and briefly considered taking priestly orders before opting for a PhD in philosophy instead. He went on to make important contributions to several subfields of philosophy— metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of perception. But his work, like that of most analytic philosophers, has appeared mainly in professional journals, and is too technical for most of those outside the guild. Johnston's Saving God, together with its sequel Surviving Death, marks a bold and very public return to the theological questions that he seemed to have left behind upon entering philosophy. It's not clear what roused him from his technical slumbers, though one gets a hint when Saving God begins with a deliciously dismissive critique of the "undergraduate atheisms" of Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and company. It soon becomes clear, however, that Johnston is just as intent upon demolishing the traditional forms of religion targeted by these "New Atheists"; what they lack, he suggests, is sufficient philosophical firepower to carry out the job. They also lack the religious sensitivity to see that there might be a deeper truth in the traditional monotheisms that goes beyond -
Full Dissertation
Animal Suffering in an Unfallen World: A Theodicy of Non-Human Evolution Submitted by Bethany Noël Sollereder to the University of Exeter as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology In October 2014 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. !2 Abstract The publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 raised a host of theological issues. Chief amongst them is the question of how a good, loving, and powerful God could create through an evolutionary process that involved so much suffering, pain, and violence. The traditional Christian answers for suffering in the natural world are not plausible in an evolutionary world. We cannot blame natural evil on human sin, since earth history shows that non- human suffering long preceded humans. Nor can we say that God allows suffering because it allows opportunity for moral choice, spiritual closeness with God, and the development of virtue, as none of these apply to the non-human realm. A new approach is needed to address the question of suffering and violence amongst non-human animals. In this dissertation, I address the question of evolutionary suffering with a multi-disciplinary approach of biblical studies, philosophical theology, and systematic theology to build a compound theodicy. -
Against Monism∗ Analysis 67 (2007): 1–7
Against Monism∗ Analysis 67 (2007): 1–7. Final version at: Theodore Sider http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/ toc/anal/67/293 Abstract Jonathan Schaffer distinguishes two sorts of monism. Existence monists say that only one object exists: The World. Priority monists admit the existence of The World’s parts, but say that their features are derivative from the properties of The World. Both have trouble explaining the features of statespace, the set of possibilities available to The World. 1. Monism and pluralism Let’s agree to take ontology seriously. We must then take monism seriously. According to monism, there exists only one (nonabstract1) object: the entire world.2 To be sure, monism clashes with what we ordinarily think and say. But so do other revisionary ontologies that we ought to take seriously. Consider nihilism, the thesis that the only objects that exist are the partless elementary particles of physics.3 Although the nihilist says that tables and chairs do not exist, she is quick to add that there do exist “particles arranged tablewise”, “particles arranged chairwise”, and so on.4 Here are three reasons to take nihilism seriously, despite its revisionary nature. (1) Nihilism is not refuted by mere perception. If there were no tables, only particles arranged tablewise, ∗Thanks to Dave Chalmers, John Hawthorne, Jonathan Schaffer (whose paper “From Nihilism to Monism” sparked my interest in the topic), and especially Frank Arntzenius for discussion of the connection between fundamental properties and statespaces. 1I have no particular de nition of ‘abstract’ in mind; but I mean to count spacetime points, tropes, etc., as concrete.