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  1. Conservation Laws and the Philosophy of Mind: Opening the Black Box, Finding a Mirror.J. Brian Pitts - 2019 - Philosophia 48 (2):673-707.
    Since Leibniz's time, Cartesian mental causation has been criticized for violating the conservation of energy and momentum. Many dualist responses clearly fail. But conservation laws have important neglected features generally undermining the objection. Conservation is _local_, holding first not for the universe, but for everywhere separately. The energy in any volume changes only due to what flows through the boundaries. Constant total energy holds if the global summing-up of local conservation laws converges; it probably doesn't in reality. Energy conservation holds (...)
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  • Infinity, Causation, and Paradox.Alexander R. Pruss - 2018 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
    Alexander R. Pruss examines a large family of paradoxes to do with infinity - ranging from deterministic supertasks to infinite lotteries and decision theory. Having identified their common structure, Pruss considers at length how these paradoxes can be resolved by embracing causal finitism.
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  • The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment.Alexander R. Pruss - 2006 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    The Principle of Sufficient Reason says that all contingent facts must have explanation. In this 2006 volume, which was the first on the topic in the English language in nearly half a century, Alexander Pruss examines the substantive philosophical issues raised by the Principle Reason. Discussing various forms of the PSR and selected historical episodes, from Parmenides, Leibnez, and Hume, Pruss defends the claim that every true contingent proposition must have an explanation against major objections, including Hume's imaginability argument and (...)
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  • Philosophical Perspectives on Infinity.Graham Robert Oppy - 2006 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    This book is an exploration of philosophical questions about infinity. Graham Oppy examines how the infinite lurks everywhere, both in science and in our ordinary thoughts about the world. He also analyses the many puzzles and paradoxes that follow in the train of the infinite. Even simple notions, such as counting, adding and maximising present serious difficulties. Other topics examined include the nature of space and time, infinities in physical science, infinities in theories of probability and decision, the nature of (...)
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  • (1 other version)A Universe of Explanations.Ghislain Guigon - 2008 - In Dean W. Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. pp. 345-375.
    This article defends the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) from a simple and direct valid argument according to which PSR implies that there is a truth that explains every truth, namely an omni-explainer. Many proponents of PSR may be willing to bite the bullet and maintain that, if PSR is true, then there is an omni-explainer. I object to this strategy by defending the principle that explanation is irreflexive. Then I argue that proponents of PSR can resist the conclusion that (...)
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  • Metaphysical Rationalism.Shamik Dasgupta - 2014 - Noûs 50 (2):379-418.
    The Principle of Sufficient Reason states that everything has an explanation. But different notions of explanation yield different versions of this principle. Here a version is formulated in terms of the notion of a “grounding” explanation. Its consequences are then explored, with particular emphasis on the fact that it implies necessitarianism, the view that every truth is necessarily true. Finally, the principle is defended from a number of objections, including objections to necessitarianism. The result is a defense of a “rationalist” (...)
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  • Guide to Ground.Kit Fine - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical grounding: understanding the structure of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 37--80.
    A number of philosophers have recently become receptive to the idea that, in addition to scientific or causal explanation, there may be a distinctive kind of metaphysical explanation, in which explanans and explanandum are connected, not through some sort of causal mechanism, but through some constitutive form of determination. I myself have long been sympathetic to this idea of constitutive determination or ‘ontological ground’; and it is the aim of the present paper to help put the idea on a firmer (...)
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  • Viciousness and the structure of reality.Ricki Leigh Bliss - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (2):399-418.
    Given the centrality of arguments from vicious infinite regress to our philosophical reasoning, it is little wonder that they should also appear on the catalogue of arguments offered in defense of theses that pertain to the fundamental structure of reality. In particular, the metaphysical foundationalist will argue that, on pain of vicious infinite regress, there must be something fundamental. But why think that infinite regresses of grounds are vicious? I explore existing proposed accounts of viciousness cast in terms of contradictions, (...)
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  • (1 other version)Two Criticisms of the Cosmological Argument.William L. Rowe - 1970 - The Monist 54 (3):441-459.
    In this paper I wish to consider two major criticisms that have been advanced against the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God, criticisms which many philosophers regard as constituting a decisive refutation of that argument. Before stating and examining these objections it will be helpful to have before us a version of the Cosmological Argument The Cosmological Argument has two distinct parts. The first part is an argument to establish the existence of a necessary being. The second part is (...)
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  • (1 other version)The Pseudo-Problem of Creation in Physical Cosmology.Adolf Grünbaum - 1989 - Philosophy of Science 56 (3):373 - 394.
    According to some cosmologists, the big bang cosmogony and even the (now largely defunct) steady-state theory pose a scientifically insoluble problem of matter-energy creation. But I argue that the genuine problem of the origin of matter-energy or of the universe has been fallaciously transmuted into the pseudo-problem of creation by an external cause. A fortiori, it emerges that the initial "true" and "false" vacuum states of quantum cosmology do not vindicate biblical divine creation ex nihilo at all.
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  • Philosophy of religion: an introduction.William L. Rowe - 2001 - Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
    The book falls into four segments. In the first (Chapter 1), the particular conception of deity that has been predominant in western civilization—the theistic idea of God—is explicated and distinguished from several other notions of the divine. The second segment considers the major reasons that have been advanced in support of the belief that the theistic God exists. In chapters 2 through 4 the three major arguments for the existence of God are discussed, arguments which appeal to facts supposedly available (...)
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  • The Hume-Edwards principle and the cosmological argument.Alexander R. Pruss - 1998 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43 (3):149-165.
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  • Brute facts.Hud Hudson - 1997 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 75 (1):77 – 82.
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  • Turtles all the way down: Regress, priority and fundamentality.Ross P. Cameron - 2008 - Philosophical Quarterly 58 (230):1-14.
    I address an intuition commonly endorsed by metaphysicians, that there must be a fundamental layer of reality, i.e., that chains of ontological dependence must terminate: there cannot be turtles all the way down. I discuss applications of this intuition with reference to Bradley’s regress, composition, realism about the mental and the cosmological argument. I discuss some arguments for the intui- tion, but argue that they are unconvincing. I conclude by making some suggestions for how the intuition should be argued for, (...)
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  • Paradoxical hypodoxes.Alexandre Billon - 2019 - Synthese 196 (12):5205-5229.
    Most paradoxes of self-reference have a dual or ‘hypodox’. The Liar paradox (Lr = ‘Lr is false’) has the Truth-Teller (Tt = ‘Tt is true’). Russell’s paradox, which involves the set of sets that are not self-membered, has a dual involving the set of sets which are self-membered, etc. It is widely believed that these duals are not paradoxical or at least not as paradoxical as the paradoxes of which they are duals. In this paper, I argue that some paradox’s (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.J. E. C., David Hume & Bruce M'Ewen - 1907 - Philosophical Review 16 (3):338.
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  • On What Matters: Volume Three.Derek Parfit - 2011 - Oxford University Press UK.
    Derek Parfit presents the third volume of On What Matters, his landmark work of moral philosophy. Parfit develops further his influential treatment of reasons, normativity, the meaning of moral discourse, and the status of morality. He engages with his critics, and shows the way to resolution of their differences.
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  • On What Matters: Two-Volume Set.Derek Parfit - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    This is a major work in moral philosophy, the long-awaited follow-up to Parfit's 1984 classic Reasons and Persons, a landmark of twentieth-century philosophy. Parfit now presents a powerful new treatment of reasons and a critical examination of the most prominent systematic moral theories, leading to his own ground-breaking conclusion.
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  • Paradoxes and Hypodoxes of Time Travel.Peter Eldridge-Smith - 2007 - In Jan Lloyd Jones (ed.), Art and Time. Australian Scholarly Publishing. pp. 172--189.
    I distinguish paradoxes and hypodoxes among the conundrums of time travel. I introduce ‘hypodoxes’ as a term for seemingly consistent conundrums that seem to be related to various paradoxes, as the Truth-teller is related to the Liar. In this article, I briefly compare paradoxes and hypodoxes of time travel with Liar paradoxes and Truth-teller hypodoxes. I also discuss Lewis’ treatment of time travel paradoxes, which I characterise as a Laissez Faire theory of time travel. Time travel paradoxes are impossible according (...)
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  • Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation.Michael Strevens - 2008 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    Approaches to explanation -- Causal and explanatory relevance -- The kairetic account of /D making -- The kairetic account of explanation -- Extending the kairetic account -- Event explanation and causal claims -- Regularity explanation -- Abstraction in regularity explanation -- Approaches to probabilistic explanation -- Kairetic explanation of frequencies -- Kairetic explanation of single outcomes -- Looking outward -- Looking inward.
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  • (1 other version)Two criticisms of the cosmological argument.W. L. Rowe - 1984 - In J. Houston (ed.), Is it reasonable to believe in God? Edinburgh: Handsel Press. pp. 441-459.
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  • (1 other version)A universe of explanations.Ghislain Guigon - 2015 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 9.
    This chapter explores an objection to explanatory universalism, the doctrine that the principle of sufficient reason is true or everything has an explanation. This objection is a direct argument to the conclusion that the PSR yields the existence of an omni-explainer, i.e. something that explains everything. The objection crucially relies on the assumption that explanation is dissective in its explanandum place, and its conclusion conflicts with the irreflexivity of explanation. So the chapter considers two responses to the mentioned objection. The (...)
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  • Infinite Regress Arguments.Ross P. Cameron - 2018 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment.Alexander Pruss - 2007 - Religious Studies 43 (4):500-503.
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  • Non-standard Analysis.Gert Heinz Müller - 2016 - Princeton University Press.
    Considered by many to be Abraham Robinson's magnum opus, this book offers an explanation of the development and applications of non-standard analysis by the mathematician who founded the subject. Non-standard analysis grew out of Robinson's attempt to resolve the contradictions posed by infinitesimals within calculus. He introduced this new subject in a seminar at Princeton in 1960, and it remains as controversial today as it was then. This paperback reprint of the 1974 revised edition is indispensable reading for anyone interested (...)
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  • Scientific explanation.James Woodward - 1979 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 30 (1):41-67.
    Issues concerning scientific explanation have been a focus of philosophical attention from Pre- Socratic times through the modern period. However, recent discussion really begins with the development of the Deductive-Nomological (DN) model. This model has had many advocates (including Popper 1935, 1959, Braithwaite 1953, Gardiner, 1959, Nagel 1961) but unquestionably the most detailed and influential statement is due to Carl Hempel (Hempel 1942, 1965, and Hempel & Oppenheim 1948). These papers and the reaction to them have structured subsequent discussion concerning (...)
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  • (1 other version)The Existence of God.Richard Swinburne - 1981 - Philosophical Quarterly 31 (122):85-88.
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  • The existence of God.Richard Swinburne - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious experience. He claims that while none (...)
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  • The Existence of God.Richard Swinburne - 1979 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious experience. He claims that while none (...)
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  • A demonstration of the being and attributes of God and other writings.Samuel Clarke (ed.) - 1998 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Samuel Clarke was by far the most gifted and influential Newtonian philosopher of his generation, and A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, which constituted the 1704 Boyle Lectures, was one of the most important works of the first half of the eighteenth century, generating a great deal of controversy about the relation between space and God, the nature of divine necessary existence, the adequacy of the Cosmological Argument, agent causation, and the immateriality of the soul. Together with (...)
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  • (1 other version)Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects.Bertrand Russell - 1927 - Routledge.
    Why. I. Am. Not. a. Christian. This lecture was delivered on March 6,1927, at Battersea Town Hall under the auspices of the South London Branch of the National Secular Society. AS YOUR Chairman has told you, the subject about which I am ...
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  • Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction.William L. Rowe - 1979 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 10 (3):204-204.
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  • What Else Science Requires of Time.Bradley Dowden - 2022 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    What Else Science Requires of Time This article is one of the two supplements of the main Time article. Table of Contents What are Theories of Physics? The Core Theory Relativity Theory Quantum Theory The Standard Model Big Bang Cosmic Inflation Eternal Inflation and the Multiverse Infinite Time 1. What are Theories of Physics? The … Continue reading What Else Science Requires of Time →.
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  • (1 other version)The Pseudo-Problem of Creation in Physical Cosmology.Adolf Grünbaum - 1989 - Epistemologia 12 (1):3.
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