Results for 'Brian C. Porter'

985 found
Order:
  1. A Probabilistic Defense of Proper De Jure Objections to Theism.Brian C. Barnett - 2019
    A common view among nontheists combines the de jure objection that theism is epistemically unacceptable with agnosticism about the de facto objection that theism is false. Following Plantinga, we can call this a “proper” de jure objection—a de jure objection that does not depend on any de facto objection. In his Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga has produced a general argument against all proper de jure objections. Here I first show that this argument is logically fallacious (it makes subtle probabilistic fallacies (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  2. What Is Epistemology?Brian C. Barnett - 2021 - In Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology. Rebus Community.
    This chapter defines "epistemology," introduces the key epistemological questions, and briefly outlines how the field has evolved over time. It serves as the introduction to the edited collection, Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology (a volume in the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook series edited by Christina Hendricks).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  3. Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers.Brian C. Ribeiro - 2021 - Boston: BRILL.
    Brian C. Ribeiro’s _Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers_ invites us to view the Pyrrhonist tradition as involving all those who share a commitment to the activity of Pyrrhonizing and develops fresh, provocative readings of Sextus, Montaigne, and Hume as radical Pyrrhonizing skeptics.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4.  59
    Beyond Civility & Incivility.Brian C. Barnett - 2024 - Current Events in Public Philosophy Series (Apa Blog).
    In this first installment of a three-part series, I focus on the critique of civility. In so doing, I do not defend incivility. In fact, part of my critique of civility extends equally to incivility. My position is that we must move our normative discourse beyond both the thesis of civility and the antithesis of incivility to a synthesis that reframes the discussion in terms of nonviolence.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5.  54
    Ahimsic Communication: An Alternative to Civility.Brian C. Barnett - 2024 - Current Events in Public Philosophy Series (Apa Blog).
    When it comes to contentious conversations, the call for civility is commonplace. Rarely do we hear a call for nonviolence in communication. This is unfortunate, since nonviolence is a better standard than civility (a standard I critiqued in part one of this three-part series). Part of the problem is that a framework for communicative nonviolence has not (to my knowledge) been fully developed. Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi, the “father of nonviolence,” is widely known for nonviolence, but primarily in the realm of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6.  38
    The Power of Ahimsic Communication.Brian C. Barnett - 2024 - Current Events in Public Philosophy Series (Apa Blog).
    In parts one and two of this three-part series, I developed a framework for ahimsic (nonviolent) communication (AC) as an alternative to the standard communicative norm of civility. The framework presented for AC offers various categories of resistance to violence, including nonviolent forms of negotiation, compromise, protest, verbal force, verbal distraction, argumentation, and communicative satyagraha (Gandhian nonviolence applied to communication). I also provided a range of real-life examples of successful AC resistance, including the stories of Derek Black, Daryl Davis, James (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. The Analysis of Knowledge.Brian C. Barnett - 2021 - In Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology. Rebus Community. pp. Chapter 1.
    According to the traditional analysis of propositional knowledge (which derives from Plato's account in the Meno and Theaetetus), knowledge is justified true belief. This chapter develops the traditional analysis, introduces the famous Gettier and lottery problems, and provides an overview of prospective solutions. In closing, I briefly comment on the value of conceptual analysis, note how it has shaped the field, and assess the state of post-Gettier epistemology.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Higher-Order Defeat in Realist Moral Epistemology.Brian C. Barnett - 2019 - In Michael Klenk (ed.), Higher Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology. New York: Routledge. pp. 117-135.
    On an optimistic version of realist moral epistemology, a significant range of ordinary moral beliefs, construed in realist terms, constitute knowledge—or at least some weaker positive epistemic status, such as epistemic justification. The “debunking challenge” to this view grants prima facie justification but claims that it is “debunked” (i.e., defeated), yielding the final verdict that moral beliefs are ultima facie unjustified. Notable candidate “debunkers” (i.e., defeaters) include the so-called “evolutionary debunking arguments,” the “Benacerraf-Field Challenge,” and persistent moral disagreement among epistemic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Gandhi's Philosophy of Nonviolence: Essential Selections.Brian C. Barnett - manuscript
    A concise open-access textbook intended for an undergraduate audience, which brings together essential selections from Gandhi on nonviolence with supplementary materials, including: a preface; boxes providing examples, historical notes, extended explanations, and related philosophical work; overviews of post-Gandhian developments in nonviolence; diagrams, tables, and photos; discussion questions; reading and viewing suggestions; and a glossary.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  10. Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology.Brian C. Barnett (ed.) - 2021 - Rebus Community.
    Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology engages first-time philosophy readers on a guided tour through the core concepts, questions, methods, arguments, and theories of epistemology—the branch of philosophy devoted to the study of knowledge. After a brief overview of the field, the book progresses systematically while placing central ideas and thinkers in historical and contemporary context. The chapters cover the analysis of knowledge, the nature of epistemic justification, rationalism vs. empiricism, skepticism, the value of knowledge, the ethics of belief, Bayesian epistemology, social (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Review of T.J. Mawson's Monotheism and the Meaning of LIfe. [REVIEW]Brian C. Barnett - 2020 - Religious Studies Review 46 (2):215.
    This review provides a brief summary and analysis of T.J. Mawson's monograph, Monotheism and the Meaning of Life (part of the Cambridge Elements series, edited by Chad Meister and Paul Moser).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. Addiction, Identity, Morality.Brian D. Earp, Joshua August Skorburg, Jim A. C. Everett & Julian Savulescu - 2019 - AJOB Empirical Bioethics 10 (2):136-153.
    Background: Recent literature on addiction and judgments about the characteristics of agents has focused on the implications of adopting a ‘brain disease’ versus ‘moral weakness’ model of addiction. Typically, such judgments have to do with what capacities an agent has (e.g., the ability to abstain from substance use). Much less work, however, has been conducted on the relationship between addiction and judgments about an agent’s identity, including whether or to what extent an individual is seen as the same person after (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  13. Changing use of formal methods in philosophy: late 2000s vs. late 2010s.Samuel C. Fletcher, Joshua Knobe, Gregory Wheeler & Brian Allan Woodcock - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5-6):14555-14576.
    Traditionally, logic has been the dominant formal method within philosophy. Are logical methods still dominant today, or have the types of formal methods used in philosophy changed in recent times? To address this question, we coded a sample of philosophy papers from the late 2000s and from the late 2010s for the formal methods they used. The results indicate that the proportion of papers using logical methods remained more or less constant over that time period but the proportion of papers (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  14. How Dualists Should (Not) Respond to the Objection from Energy Conservation.Alin C. Cucu & J. Brian Pitts - 2019 - Mind and Matter 17 (1):95-121.
    The principle of energy conservation is widely taken to be a se- rious difficulty for interactionist dualism (whether property or sub- stance). Interactionists often have therefore tried to make it satisfy energy conservation. This paper examines several such attempts, especially including E. J. Lowe’s varying constants proposal, show- ing how they all miss their goal due to lack of engagement with the physico-mathematical roots of energy conservation physics: the first Noether theorem (that symmetries imply conservation laws), its converse (that conservation (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  15. Ethical issues for robotics and autonomous systems.John McDermid, Vincent C. Müller, Tony Pipe, Zoe Porter & Alan Winfield - 2019 - UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems Network.
    There are unusual challenges in ethics for RAS. Perhaps the issue can best be summarised as needing to consider “technically informed ethics”. The technology of RAS raises issues that have an ethical dimension, and perhaps uniquely so due to the possibility of moving human decision-making which is implicitly ethically informed to computer systems. Further, if seeking solutions to these problems – ethically aligned design, to use the IEEE’s terminology – then the solutions must be technically meaningful, capable of realisation, capable (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Beyond sacrificial harm: A two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology.Guy Kahane, Jim A. C. Everett, Brian D. Earp, Lucius Caviola, Nadira S. Faber, Molly J. Crockett & Julian Savulescu - 2018 - Psychological Review 125 (2):131-164.
    Recent research has relied on trolley-type sacrificial moral dilemmas to study utilitarian versus nonutili- tarian modes of moral decision-making. This research has generated important insights into people’s attitudes toward instrumental harm—that is, the sacrifice of an individual to save a greater number. But this approach also has serious limitations. Most notably, it ignores the positive, altruistic core of utilitarianism, which is characterized by impartial concern for the well-being of everyone, whether near or far. Here, we develop, refine, and validate a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   47 citations  
  17. Does encouraging a belief in determinism increase cheating? Reconsidering the value of believing in free will.Thomas Nadelhoffer, Jason Shepard, Damien L. Crone, Jim A. C. Everett, Brian D. Earp & Neil Levy - 2020 - Cognition 203 (C):104342.
    A key source of support for the view that challenging people’s beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = 268, N (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  18.  25
    Stepping Beyond the Newtonian Paradigm in Biology. Towards an Integrable Model of Life: Accelerating Discovery in the Biological Foundations of Science.Plamen L. Simeonov, Edwin Brezina, Ron Cottam, Andreé C. Ehresmann, Arran Gare, Ted Goranson, Jaime Gomez-­‐Ramirez, Brian D. Josephson, Bruno Marchal, Koichiro Matsuno, Robert S. Root-­Bernstein, Otto E. Rössler, Stanley N. Salthe, Marcin Schroeder, Bill Seaman & Pridi Siregar - 2012 - In Plamen L. Simeonov, Leslie S. Smith & Andrée C. Ehresmann (eds.), Integral Biomathics: Tracing the Road to Reality. Springer. pp. 328-427.
    The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. (8 other versions)Stepping Beyond the Newtonian Paradigm in Biology. Towards an Integrable Model of Life: Accelerating Discovery in the Biological Foundations of Science.Plamen L. Simeonov, Edwin Brezina, Ron Cottam, Andreé C. Ehresmann, Arran Gare, Ted Goranson, Jaime Gomez-­‐Ramirez, Brian D. Josephson, Bruno Marchal, Koichiro Matsuno, Robert S. Root-­Bernstein, Otto E. Rössler, Stanley N. Salthe, Marcin Schroeder, Bill Seaman & Pridi Siregar - 2012 - In Plamen L. Simeonov, Leslie S. Smith & Andrée C. Ehresmann (eds.), Integral Biomathics: Tracing the Road to Reality. Springer. pp. 328-427.
    The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. Explanation, Idealisation and the Goldilocks Problem.Brian Weatherson - 2012 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (2):461-473.
    Michael Strevens’s book Depth is a great achievement.1 To say anything interesting, useful and true about explanation requires taking on fundamental issues in the metaphysics and epistemology of science. So this book not only tells us a lot about scientific explanation, it has a lot to say about causation, lawhood, probability and the relation between the physical and the special sciences. It should be read by anyone interested in any of those questions, which includes presumably the vast majority of readers (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  21. Stalnaker on sleeping beauty.Brian Weatherson - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 155 (3):445-456.
    The Sleeping Beauty puzzle provides a nice illustration of the approach to self-locating belief defended by Robert Stalnaker in Our Knowledge of the Internal World (Stalnaker, 2008), as well as a test of the utility of that method. The setup of the Sleeping Beauty puzzle is by now fairly familiar. On Sunday Sleeping Beauty is told the rules of the game, and a (known to be) fair coin is flipped. On Monday, Sleeping Beauty is woken, and then put back to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  22. (1 other version)Qing (情) and Emotion in Early Chinese Thought.Brian Bruya - 2001 - Ming Qing Yanjiu 2001:151-176.
    In a 1967 article, A. C. Graham made the claim that 情 qing should never be translated as "emotions" in rendering early Chinese texts into English. Over time, sophisticated translators and interpreters have taken this advice to heart, and qing has come to be interpreted as "the facts" or "what is genuine in one." In these English terms all sense of interrelationality is gone, leaving us with a wooden, objective stasis. But we also know, again partly through the work of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  23. Consciousness and the physical world: edited proceedings of an interdisciplinary symposium on consciousness held at the University of Cambridge in January 1978.Brian David Josephson & V. S. Ramachandran (eds.) - 1980 - New York: Pergamon Press.
    Edited proceedings of an interdisciplinary symposium on consciousness held at the University of Cambridge in January 1978. Includes a foreword by Freeman Dyson. Chapter authors: G. Vesey, R.L. Gregory, H.C. Longuet-Higgins, N.K. Humphrey, H.B. Barlow, D.M. MacKay, B.D. Josephson, M. Roth, V.S. Ramachandran, S. Padfield, and (editorial summary only) E. Noakes. A scanned pdf is available from this web site (philpapers.org), while alternative versions more suitable for copying text are available from https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245189. -/- Page numbering convention for the pdf version (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  24. Humeans Aren’t Out of their Minds.Brian Weatherson - 2007 - Noûs 41 (3):529–535.
    Humeanism is “the thesis that the whole truth about a world like ours supervenes on the spatiotemporal distribution of local qualities.” (Lewis, 1994, 473) Since the whole truth about our world contains truths about causation, causation must be located in the mosaic of local qualities that the Humean says constitute the whole truth about the world. The most natural ways to do this involve causation being in some sense extrinsic. To take the simplest possible Humean analysis, we might say that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  25. Complex Organisation and Fundamental Physics.Brian D. Josephson - 2018 - Streaming Media Service, Cambridge University.
    The file on this site provides the slides for a lecture given in Hangzhou in May 2018, and the lecture itself is available at the URL beginning 'sms' in the set of links provided in connection with this item. -/- It is commonly assumed that regular physics underpins biology. Here it is proposed, in a synthesis of ideas by various authors, that in reality structures and mechanisms of a biological character underpin the world studied by physicists, in principle supplying detail (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. Illusions of Commutativity: The Case for Conditional Excluded Middle Revisited.Patrick Todd, Brian Rabern & Wolfgang Schwarz - manuscript
    The principle of Conditional Excluded Middle has been a matter of longstanding controversy in both semantics and metaphysics. The principle suggests (among other things) that for any coin that isn't flipped, there is a fact of the matter about how it would have landed if it had been flipped: either it would have landed heads, or it would have landed tails. This view has gained support from linguistic evidence indicating that ‘would’ commutes with negation (e.g., ‘not: if A, would C’ (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  27. Review: Brian Leftow, God and Necessity. [REVIEW]C. A. McIntosh - 2014 - Philosophy in Review 34 (3-4):142-146.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  28. Interests without History: Some Difficulties for a Negative Aristotelianism.Brian O'Connor - 2017 - European Journal of Philosophy 25 (3):854-860.
    This paper focuses on 3 features of Freyenhagen's Aristotelian version of Adorno. (a) It challenges the strict negativism Freyenhagen finds in Adorno. If we have morally relevant interests in ourselves, it is implicit that we have a standard by which to understand what is both good and bad for us (our interests). Because strict negativism operates without reference to what is good, it seems to be detached from real interests too. Torture, it is argued, is, among other things, a violation (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  29. Layman’s Lapse: On an Incomplete Moral Argument for Theism.Richard Brian Davis & W. Paul Franks - 2013 - Philo 16 (2):170-179.
    C. Stephen Layman contends that an argument supporting theism over naturalism can be constructed based on three defensible, non–question-begging premises about the moral order. Previous critics of Layman’s argument have challenged the truth of these premises. We stipulate them arguendo but go on to show that there is a deeper problem: a fourth premise introduced to complete the argument—the “completion premise,” as we call it—is true only if we assume that God exists or we concede that there is no afterlife. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. Evil and Agent-Causal Theism.Richard Brian Davis - 2019 - In W. Paul Franks (ed.), Explaining Evil: Four Views. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 11-28.
    In this chapter, I attempt to show that evil exists only if what I call Agent Causal Theism (ACT) is true. According to ACT, human beings are immaterial, conscious agents endued (by God) with a power of self-motion: the power to think, decide, and act for ends in light of reasons, but without being externally caused to do so (even by God himself). By contrast, I argue that there is no space for evil in the worldviews of naturalistic Darwinism or (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  31. In Defence of the ACA's Medicaid Expansion.Ishani Maitra & Brian Weatherson - 2013 - Public Affairs Quarterly 27 (3):267-288.
    The only part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hereafter, ‘the ACA’) struck down in National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) et al. v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al. was a provision expanding Medicaid. We will argue that this was a mistake; the provision should not have been struck down. We’ll do this by identifying a test that C.J. Roberts used to justify his view that this provision was unconstitutional. We’ll defend that test against (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  32. Are Generational Welfare Trades Always Unjust?Walter Veit, Julian Savulescu, David Hunter, Brian D. Earp & Dominic Wilkinson - 2020 - American Journal of Bioethics 20 (9):70-72.
    In their thoughtful article, Malm and Navin (2020) raise concerns about a potentially unjust generational welfare tradeoff between children and adults when it comes to chicken pox. We share their c...
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  33. Reply to holtz.Robert C. Koons - unknown
    In "The Compatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism" (Dec. 2003) , Brian Holtz offers two objections to my argument in "The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism" (in Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal , edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, Routledge, 2000). His responses are: (1) my argument can be deflected by adopting a pragmatic or empiricist "definition" of "truth", and (2) the extra-spatiotemporal cause of the simplicity of the laws need not be God, or any other (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Immigration and Libertarianism: Open Borders versus Directionalism.J. C. Lester - 2021 - MEST Journal 9 (2).
    To explain the correct libertarian approach to immigration, a thought-experiment posits a minimal-state libertarian UK and then the introduction of several relevant anti-libertarian policies with their increasingly disastrous effects. It is argued that the reverse of these imagined policies, as far as is politically possible, must be the correct way forward. This framing is intended to counter the tendency for many articles to misapply libertarian principles to the current messy situation on the mistaken assumption that a state need only stop (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. Benardete Paradoxes, Causal Finitism, and the Unsatisfiable Pair Diagnosis.Joseph C. Schmid & Alex Malpass - forthcoming - Mind.
    We examine two competing solutions to Benardete paradoxes: causal finitism, according to which nothing can have infinitely many causes, and the unsatisfiable pair diagnosis (UPD), according to which such paradoxes are logically impossible and no metaphysical thesis need be adopted to avoid them. We argue that the UPD enjoys notable theoretical advantages over causal finitism. Causal finitists, however, have levelled two main objections to the UPD. First, they urge that the UPD requires positing a ‘mysterious force’ that prevents paradoxes from (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  36. Fiat and Bona Fide Boundaries.Barry Smith & Achille C. Varzi - 2000 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (2):401-420.
    There is a basic distinction, in the realm of spatial boundaries, between bona fide boundaries on the one hand, and fiat boundaries on the other. The former are just the physical boundaries of old. The latter are exemplified especially by boundaries induced through human demarcation, for example in the geographic domain. The classical problems connected with the notions of adjacency, contact, separation and division can be resolved in an intuitive way by recognizing this two-sorted ontology of boundaries. Bona fide boundaries (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   89 citations  
  37. The aloneness argument against classical theism.Joseph C. Schmid & R. T. Mullins - 2022 - Religious Studies 58 (2):1-19.
    We argue that there is a conflict among classical theism's commitments to divine simplicity, divine creative freedom, and omniscience. We start by defining key terms for the debate related to classical theism. Then we articulate a new argument, the Aloneness Argument, aiming to establish a conflict among these attributes. In broad outline, the argument proceeds as follows. Under classical theism, it's possible that God exists without anything apart from Him. Any knowledge God has in such a world would be wholly (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  38. Benardete paradoxes, patchwork principles, and the infinite past.Joseph C. Schmid - 2024 - Synthese 203 (2):51.
    Benardete paradoxes involve a beginningless set each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. Such paradoxes have been wielded on behalf of arguments for the impossibility of an infinite past. These arguments often deploy patchwork principles in support of their key linking premise. Here I argue that patchwork principles fail to justify this key premise.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  39. Existential risk and equal political liberty.J. Joseph Porter & Adam F. Gibbons - 2024 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 3 (2):1-26.
    Rawls famously argues that the parties in the original position would agree upon the two principles of justice. Among other things, these principles guarantee equal political liberty—that is, democracy—as a requirement of justice. We argue on the contrary that the parties have reason to reject this requirement. As we show, by Rawls’ own lights, the parties would be greatly concerned to mitigate existential risk. But it is doubtful whether democracy always minimizes such risk. Indeed, no one currently knows which political (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  40. The fruitful death of modal collapse arguments.Joseph C. Schmid - 2021 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 91 (1):3-22.
    Modal collapse arguments are all the rage in certain philosophical circles as of late. The arguments purport to show that classical theism entails the absurdly fatalistic conclusion that everything exists necessarily. My first aim in this paper is bold: to put an end to action-based modal collapse arguments against classical theism. To accomplish this, I first articulate the ‘Simple Modal Collapse Argument’ and then characterize and defend Tomaszewski’s criticism thereof. Second, I critically examine Mullins’ new modal collapse argument formulated in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  41. Branching actualism and cosmological arguments.Joseph C. Schmid & Alex Malpass - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (7):1951-1973.
    We draw out significant consequences of a relatively popular theory of metaphysical modality—branching actualism—for cosmological arguments for God’s existence. According to branching actualism, every possible world shares an initial history with the actual world and diverges only because causal powers (or dispositions, or some such) are differentially exercised. We argue that branching actualism undergirds successful responses to two recent cosmological arguments: the Grim Reaper Kalam argument and a modal argument from contingency. We also argue that branching actualism affords a response (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  42. Symmetry's revenge.Joseph C. Schmid - 2023 - Analysis 83 (4):723-731.
    James Henry Collin recently developed a new symmetry breaker favouring the ontological argument’s possibility premiss over that of the reverse ontological argument. The symmetry breaker amounts to an undercutting defeater for the reverse possibility premiss based on Kripkean cases of a posteriori necessity. I argue, however, that symmetry re-arises in two forms. First, I challenge the purported asymmetry in epistemic entitlements to the original and reverse possibility premisses. Second, relevantly similar Kripkean cases equally undercut the original possibility premiss.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  43. Fortune.Tyler Porter - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89 (3):1139-1156.
    Abstract: In this paper I argue that luck and fortune are distinct concepts that apply to different sets of events. I do so by suggesting that lucky events are best understood as significant events that are either modally fragile or improbable (depending on whether you accept a modal account or a probability account of luck), whereas fortunate events are best understood as significant events that are outside of our control. I call this the Pure Control Account of Fortune. I show (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  44. Are There “Aesthetic” Judgments?David C. Sackris & Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (8):2985-3003.
    In philosophy of aesthetics, scholars commonly express a commitment to the premise that there is a distinctive type of judgment that can be meaningfully labeled “aesthetic”, and that these judgments are distinctively different from other types of judgments. We argue that, within an Aristotelian framework, there is no clear avenue for meaningfully differentiating “aesthetic” judgment from other types of judgment, and, as such, we aim to question the assumption that aesthetic judgment does in fact constitute a distinctive kind of judgment (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  45. Existential inertia and the Aristotelian proof.Joseph C. Schmid - 2020 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 89 (3):201-220.
    Edward Feser defends the ‘Aristotelian proof’ for the existence of God, which reasons that the only adequate explanation of the existence of change is in terms of an unchangeable, purely actual being. His argument, however, relies on the falsity of the Existential Inertia Thesis, according to which concrete objects tend to persist in existence without requiring an existential sustaining cause. In this article, I first characterize the dialectical context of Feser’s Aristotelian proof, paying special attention to EIT and its rival (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  46. Evolution and Development: Conceptual Issues.Alan C. Love - 2024 - Cambridge University Press.
    The intersection of development and evolution has always harbored conceptual issues, but many of these are on display in contemporary evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). These issues include: (1) the precise constitution of evo-devo, with its focus on both the evolution of development and the developmental basis of evolution, and how it fits within evolutionary theory; (2) the nature of evo-devo model systems that comprise the material of comparative and experimental research; (3) the puzzle of how to understand the widely used (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  47. Grim Reaper Paradoxes and Patchwork Principles: Severing the Case for Finitism.Troy Dana & Joseph C. Schmid - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.
    Benardete paradoxes involve infinite collections of Grim Reapers, assassins, demons, deafening peals, or even sentences. These paradoxes have recently been used in arguments for finitist metaphysical theses such as temporal finitism, causal finitism, and discrete views of time. Here we develop a new finite Benardete-like paradox. We then use this paradox to defend a companions in guilt argument that challenges recent applications of patchwork principles on behalf of the aforementioned finitist arguments. Finally, we develop another problem for those applications by (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. Heidegger's "Metametaphysics": Heidegger on Modernity and Postmodernity.Allen Porter - 2023 - Interpretation 50 (1):81-108.
    Methodologically rigorous description, analysis, and critique of postmodern phenomena presuppose a rigorous theory of postmodernity, for which the philosophy of Martin Heidegger holds great untapped promise. This essay explicates the basic content of Heidegger’s “metametaphysics,” since for Heidegger a “metaphysics” is the epochally prevailing projection of the meaning of being in general, and he offers a theory of Western metaphysics. I begin with Heidegger’s analysis of the “regional ontologies” of the sciences in his 1927 magnum opus Being and Time, since (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  49. Stage One of the Aristotelian Proof: A Critical Appraisal.Joseph C. Schmid - 2021 - Sophia 60 (4):781-796.
    What explains change? Edward Feser argues in his ‘Aristotelian proof’ that the only adequate answer to these questions is ultimately in terms of an unchangeable, purely actual being. In this paper, I target the cogency of Feser’s reasoning to such an answer. In particular, I present novel paths of criticism—both undercutting and rebutting—against one of Feser’s central premises. I then argue that Feser’s inference that the unactualized actualizer lacks any potentialities contains a number of non-sequiturs.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  50. On Knowing One's Own Language.Barry C. Smith - 1998 - In C. Macdonald, Barry C. Smith & C. J. G. Wright (eds.), Knowing Our Own Minds: Essays in Self-Knowledge. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 391--428.
    We rely on language to know the minds of others, but does language have a role to play in knowing our own minds? To suppose it does is to look for a connection between mastery of a language and the epistemic relation we bear to our inner lives. What could such a connection consist in? To explore this, I shall examine strategies for explaining self-knowledge in terms of the use we make of language to express and report our mental states. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
1 — 50 / 985