Modal Structuralism and Theism
In Fiona Ellis (ed.), New Models of Religious Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming)
Abstract
Drawing an analogy between modal structuralism about mathematics
and theism, I oer a structuralist account that implicitly denes theism in
terms of three basic relations: logical and metaphysical priority, and epis-
temic superiority. On this view, statements like `God is omniscient' have
a hypothetical and a categorical component. The hypothetical component
provides a translation pattern according to which statements in theistic
language are converted into statements of second-order modal logic. The
categorical component asserts the logical possibility of the theism struc-
ture on the basis of uncontroversial facts about the physical world. This
structuralist reading of theism preserves objective truth-values for theistic
statements while remaining neutral on the question of ontology. Thus, it
oers a way of understanding theism to which a naturalist cannot object,
and it accommodates the fact that religious belief, for many theists, is an
essentially relational matter.
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2016-11-01
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Recent downloads (6 months)
77 ( #8,821 of 58,427 )
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