A sloppy, smug, conceptually muddled, and tendentious Christian apologist's comparison of narrowly selected texts from Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Paul, Luke, and Justin Martyr. Following Alasdair MacIntyre, Rowe defends the traditionist view according to which Spirit-enhanced ‘supernatural’ discourse is intelligible only to those on the inside of Christian faith. Rowe argues that morality and religion are abstractions. Rowe presents his translations of Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus, Paul, Luke, and Justin into modern English while also being committed to the (...) traditionist view that such translations are doomed to inaccuracy and distortion. His views invite relativism and skepticism about all kinds of inquiry, including MacIntyre’s traditioned approach. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the two most prominent recent evidential arguments from evil, due, respectively, to William Rowe and Paul Draper. I argue that neither of these evidential arguments from evil is successful, i.e. such that it ought to persuade anyone who believes in God to give up that belief. In my view, theists can rationally maintain that each of these evidential arguments from evil contains at least one false premise.

William Rowe has argued that if there is an infinite sequence of improving worlds then an essentially perfectly good being must actualize some world in the sequence and must not actualize any world in the sequence. Since that is impossible, there exist no perfectly good beings. I show that Rowe's argument assumes that the concept of a maximally great being is incoherent. Since we are given no reason to believe that the concept of a maximally great being (...) is incoherent we have no reason to believe Rowe's Argument from Improvability is sound. (shrink)

Preprinted in God and the Problem of Evil (Blackwell 2001), ed. William Rowe. In this article, we reply to Bill Rowe's "Evil is Evidence Against Theistic Belief" in Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell 2003).

The problem of evil is broadly considered to be one of the greatest intellectual threats to traditional brands of theism. And William Rowe’s 1979 formulation of the problem in “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” is the most cited formulation in the contemporary philosophical literature. In this paper, we explore how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be brought to bear on Rowe’s seminal formulation, arguing that our empirical findings raise significant questions (...) regarding the ultimate success of Rowe’s argument. Such a result would be quite notable within philosophy of religion, since this is considered one of the most formidable arguments against theism. However, further testing is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn. -/- In section 1, we elucidate Rowe’s formulation of the problem of evil and the intuitions that seem to underwrite it. In section 2, we explore how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be brought to bear on Rowe’s formulation, outlining our hypotheses and our methods for testing them before showcasing our results. In section 3, we discuss the philosophical import of our results–arguing that our results, when taken together, pose an initial challenge to Rowe’s seminal argument. (shrink)

A critique of Plantinga's free will defense. For an updated version of this critique, with a reply to objections from William Rowe and Alvin Plantinga, see my "The logical problem of evil: Plantinga and Mackie," in Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard‐Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, pp. 19-33.

A number of authors have developed evidential arguments from evil in the past thirty years. Perhaps the best known evidential arguments from evil are those presented in Rowe (1979) and Draper (1989). We shall spend most of this chapter examining these two arguments.

What we call “the evidential argument from evil” is not one argument but a family of them, originating (perhaps) in the 1979 formulation of William Rowe. Wykstra’s early versions of skeptical theism emerged in response to Rowe’s evidential arguments. But what sufficed as a response to Rowe may not suffice against later more sophisticated versions of the problem of evil—in particular, those along the lines pioneered by Paul Draper. Our chief aim here is to make an (...) earlier version of skeptical theism more responsive to the type abductive atheology pioneered by Draper. In particular, we suggest a moderate form of skeptical theism may be able to resist Draper’s abductive atheology. (shrink)

Preprinted in God and the Problem of Evil(Blackwell 2001), ed. William Rowe. Many people deny that evil makes belief in atheism more reasonable for us than belief in theism. After all, they say, the grounds for belief in God are much better than the evidence for atheism, including the evidence provided by evil. We will not join their ranks on this occasion. Rather, we wish to consider the proposition that, setting aside grounds for belief in God and relying (...) only on the background knowledge shared in common by nontheists and theists, evil makes belief in atheism more reasonable for us than belief in theism. Our aim is to argue against this proposition. We recognize that in doing so, we face a formidable challenge. It’s one thing to say that evil presents a reason for atheism that is, ultimately, overridden by arguments for theism. It’s another to say that it doesn’t so much as provide us with a reason for atheism in the first place. In order to make this latter claim seem initially more plausible, consider the apparent design of the mammalian eye or the apparent fine-tuning of the universe to support life. These are often proposed as reasons to believe in theism. Critics commonly argue not merely that these supposed reasons for theism are overridden by arguments for atheism but rather that they aren’t good reasons for theism in the first place. Our parallel proposal with respect to evil and atheism is, initially at least, no less plausible than this proposal with respect to apparent design and theism. (shrink)

Skeptical theism is a family of responses to arguments from evil. One important member of that family is Stephen Wykstra’s CORNEA-based criticism of William Rowe’s arguments from evil. A cornerstone of Wykstra’s approach is his CORNEA principle. However, a number of authors have criticized CORNEA on various grounds, including that it has odd results, it cannot do the work it was meant to, and it problematically conflicts with the so-called common sense epistemology. In this paper, I explicate and (...) defend a CORNEA principle. After sketching a brief argument for it, I show how it can be acquitted of these recent charges. (shrink)

This chapter will amount to a detailed exposition and exploration of one of the most prominent arguments against the existence of an unsurpassable world: the argument from addition. Endorsed by a variety of thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas, Alvin Plantinga, and William Rowe, the argument from addition uses the possibility of adding good things to a candidate unsurpassable world to argue that every world is surpassable. While widely endorsed, the argument has come under recent criticism. By carefully (...) working through a targeted version of the argument, I set out to establish the following: (i) that a world can always contain more good things; (ii) that a suitably restricted additive aggregation principle allows us to say that adding more good things in a certain way is an improvement, and (iii) that objections to the argument from widespread value incomparability fail. (shrink)

Skeptical theism is a family of responses to the evidential problem of evil. What unifies this family is two general claims. First, that even if God were to exist, we shouldn’t expect to see God’s reasons for permitting the suffering we observe. Second, the previous claim entails the failure of a variety of arguments from evil against the existence of God. In this essay, we identify three particular articulations of skeptical theism—three different ways of “filling in” those two claims—and describes (...) their role in responding to evidential arguments of evil due to William Rowe and Paul Draper. But skeptical theism has been subject to a variety of criticisms, several of which raise interesting issues and puzzles not just in philosophy of religion but other areas of philosophy as well. Consequently, we discuss some of these criticisms, partly with an eye to bringing out the connections between skeptical theism and current topics in mainstream philosophy. Finally, we conclude by situating skeptical theism within our own distinctive methodology for evaluating world views, what we call “worldview theory versioning.”. (shrink)

This paper argues that Kant’s most famous objection to the ontological argument -- that existence is not a real predicate -- is not, in fact, his most effective objection, and that his ”neglected objection’ to the argument deserves to be better known. It shows that Kant clearly anticipates William Rowe’s later objection that the argument begs the question, and discusses why Kant himself seems to have overlooked the force of this criticism in his attempt to demolish the traditional (...) proofs for God’s existence. (shrink)

Among the things that students of the problem of evil think about is whether explanatory versions of the evidential argument from evil are better than others, better than William Rowe’s famous versions of the evidential argument, for example. Some of these students claim that the former are better than the latter in no small part because the former, unlike the latter, avoid the sorts of worries raised by so-called “skeptical theists”. Indeed, Trent Dougherty claims to have constructed an (...) explanatory version that is “fundamentally immune to considerations pertaining to skeptical theism”. I argue that he has done no such thing. (shrink)

We argue that Michael Peterson's and William Hasker's attempts to show that God and gratuitous evil are compatible constitute miserable failures. We then sketch Peter van Inwagen's attempt to do the same and conclude that, to date, no one has shown his attempt a failure.

To meet the luck objection to incompatibilism, philosophers such as Timothy O’Connor, Randolph Clark, and William Rowe resurrected the Reidian notion of agent causation, which implies the “Substance-Causal Thesis” (SCT): some causes are fundamentally substances, not events. I examine an objection to SCT by C. D. Broad, developed by Carl Ginet, that substances cannot cause events because substances cannot explain why events happen when they do. The objection fails as it rests on a demand for contrastive explanations of (...) free actions. However, I show that a slightly different objection succeeds in showing SCT false. (shrink)

Reconciling the existence of a perfectly good God with the reality of evil in the world seems to be an impossible - or rather an unimaginable endeavour for some scholars. J. L. Mackie, for instance, maintains a logical incompatibility thesis, stating that three of the essential attributes of God, namely: omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence can not be consistently upheld like the theists maintain, in the face of the reality of evil and human suffering in the world. Scholars like William (...) Rowe, David Hume and J. S. Mill also contend that every instance or trace of evil and suffering in the actual human world makes the existence of the creator of the world who is also perfectly good at best, probable. However, some scholars have attempted to explain the compatibility of the existence of a perfectly good God with the reality of evil in the world. This very endeavour is known in philosophy of religion and theology as theodicy. There are four traditional types of theodicy: The Augustinian tradition, the Irananaean tradition, the Hickian Soul making tradition and process theodicy. Using the methods of analysis and critical argumentation, we attempt a critical re-evaluation of these theodicies in this paper. Our critical investigation reveals that these theodicies inhere some weaknesses which render them insufficient in the rationalisation of the compatibility of the existence of a perfectly good God with the reality of evil in the world. The problems with each of the theodicies are meticulously explained in the paper. (shrink)

En 1969 Harry Frankfurt publica su seminal artículo “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”. Allí ataca la necesidad del principio de posibilidades alternativas (PPA) para la adscripción de responsabilidad moral a los agentes cuando estos realizan una acción. Desde entonces, muchos han sido los intentos de defender el PPA y de mostrar su necesidad para la adscripción de la responsabilidad moral. En este ensayo se examina uno de esos intentos: el que se basa en la causalidad-agencial propuesta por Thomas Reid (1710-1796), (...) y que cuenta con William Rowe como uno de sus defensores dentro de la discusión contemporánea. Esto, con el objetivo de mostrar que, si bien esta defensa podría permitir la aparición de lo que se conoce como un “parpadeo” de libertad, ello no es suficiente para sustentar la atribución de responsabilidad moral. (shrink)

This article critically examines McTaggart’s Paradox, which argues for the unreality of time based on inherent contradictions in the A-series and B-series of temporal order. McTaggart’s assertion that time is unreal stems from the premise that genuine change, essential for time, occurs within the A-series, where events transition from future to present to past. He contends that this series is inherently contradictory, as it requires events to simultaneously possess mutually exclusive properties of past, present, and future. This paradoxical nature leads (...) McTaggart to conclude that time is an illusion. The article challenges McTaggart’s conclusions by advocating for Presentism, the view that only the present moment exists. Presentism is supported by common-sense views and phenomenological experiences of time, which emphasize the experiential privilege of the present. By focusing on the reality of the present moment, Presentism offers a coherent and intuitive understanding of temporal experience, countering McTaggart’s paradox. Additionally, the article explores arguments from philosophers such as Sydney Shoemaker and William Rowe, who challenge McTaggart’s linkage of time with change. Shoemaker proposes that time can exist without change, while Rowe critiques the necessity of change for the existence of time. Through a comprehensive evaluation of McTaggart’s premises and the phenomenological evidence supporting Presentism, this article aims to refute the paradox and affirm the reality of time as experienced through the ever-present ‘Presentness.’ Presentism is thus presented as a robust framework for understanding time, consistent with both philosophical reasoning and everyday temporal experience. (shrink)

William L. Rowe’s argument against divine freedom has drawn considerable attention from theist philosophers. One reply to Rowe’s argument that has emerged in the recent literature appeals to modified accounts of libertarian freedom which have the result that God may be free even if he necessarily actualizes the best possible world. Though in many ways attractive, this approach appears to lead to the damning consequence of modal collapse i.e., that the actual world is the only possible world. (...) But appearances can be deceiving, and in this paper I argue that the threat of modal collapse dissolves when we consider Alvin Plantinga’s critique of the purportedly Leibnizian notion that God can actualize any possible world, and incorporate the implications of this critique into the divine freedom debate. Developing a suggestion by Edward R. Wierenga, I argue first that the modal collapse objection fails within a Molinist context, and then I extend the discussion beyond that context to show that the objection also fails on the assumption that Molinism is false. (shrink)

I argue that Christian apophaticism provides the most powerful and economical response to the evidential argument from evil for the non-existence of God. I also reply to the objection that Christian apophaticism is incoherent, because it appears to entail the truth of the following contradiction: it is both possible and impossible to know God’s essential properties. To meet this objection, I outline a coherent account of the divine attributes inspired by the theology of the Greek Father’s and St. Gregory Palamas.

William L. Rowe cites Stephen Wykstra's skeptical theism as the most powerful objection to the evidential argument. Initially, I object to skeptical theism on the basis that skeptical theism leads to moral paralysis. I then will conclude that the skeptical theist has other resources that enable the formation of a moral code.

The version uploaded to this site is a late draft. The paper arises both from William L. Rowe's classic 1979 discussion of the problem of evil, argues that there exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse, and also from Steven Wykstra's response, in the course of which he argues for the following Condition of Reasonable Epistemic Access (CORNEA): "On (...) the basis of cognized situation s, human H is entitled to claim 'It appears that p' only if it is reasonable for H to believe that, given her cognitive faculties and the use she has made of them, if p were not the case, s would likely be different in some way discernible by her." My paper discusses CORNEA, and proposes a replacement principle. (shrink)

[Andrew Williams] It is difficult for prioritarians to explain the degree to which justice requires redress for misfortune in a way that avoids imposing unreasonably high costs on more advantaged individuals whilst also economising on intuitionist appeals to judgment. An appeal to hypothetical insurance may be able to solve the problems of cost and judgment more successfully, and can also be defended from critics who claim that resource egalitarianism is best understood to favour the ex post elimination of envy over (...) individual endowments. /// [Michael Otsuka] Inequality is intrinsically bad when and because it is unfair. It follows that the ideal of equality is not necessarily realised by a distribution of resources which is envy-free prior to the resolution of risks against which people have an equal opportunity to insure. Even if the upshot of such an ex ante envyfree distribution is just, it is not necessarily fair. (shrink)

This book is unique because it is the first single-author monograph which applies Bourdieu’s theory to management studies. It takes a theory-driven approach to develop models to describe service innovation. This will give the reader a full understanding of the variety of different theoretical concepts that Bourdieu created and used and how they can be applied to the study of management and innovation. Moreover, it is also the only book that links Bourdieu’s theory to his methodological approach, providing the reader (...) with a toolkit of methods to perform business ethnographies according to Bourdieu’s approach. The book acts as a primer for anyone wanting to learn how to model an organisational system from a Bourdieusian perspective. It contains all the information someone might need to begin to go out in the field and collect data. Consequently, the people that might want to read this publication include post-graduate students looking to learn business anthropology, as well as post-doctoral and other early career researchers. (shrink)

If death is a harm then it is a harm that cannot be experienced. The proponent of death's harm must therefore provide an answer to Epicurus, when he says that ‘death, is nothing to us, since when we are, death is not present, and when death is present, then we are not’. In this paper I respond to the two main ways philosophers have attempted to answer Epicurus, regarding the subject of death's harm: either directly or via analogy. The direct (...) way argues that there is a truth-maker (or difference-maker) for death's harm, namely in virtue of the intrinsic value the subject's life would have had if they had not died. The analogy argues that there are cases analogous to death, where the subject is harmed although they experience no pain as a result. I argue that both accounts beg the question against the Epicurean: the first by presupposing that one can be harmed while experiencing no displeasure as a result and the second by conflating a de re with a de dicto reading of death's harm. Thus, I argue, until better arguments are provided, one is best to agree with Epicurus and those who follow him that death is not a harm. (shrink)

The sense of form that provides the modern poet with a unique experience of the literary object has been crucial to various attempts to compare poetry to other cultural activities. In maintaining similar conceptions of the relationship between poetry and painting, Arthur Rimbaud and W. C. Williams establish a common basis for interpreting their creative work. And yet their poetry is more crucially concerned with the sudden emergence of visible "worlds" containing verbal objects that integrate a new kind of literary (...) text. This paper discusses the emergence of "aesthetic worlds" in the work of both poets and then examines how a common concern with Baroque form unites them in the phenomenological task of overcoming Cartesian dualism. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was, famously, not a fan of William Shakespeare. He wrote in 1946 that “Shakespeare's similes are, in the ordinary sense, bad.” But Wittgenstein’s opinion was not only one fueled by aesthetic dislike. This short website article argues that Wittgenstein sees in Shakespeare a fellow explorer of skepticism, but one willing to travel down dark alleys that Wittgenstein himself sought to avoid. (This article is a journalistic version of "To Not Understand, but Not Misunderstand: Wittgenstein on Shakespeare," in (...) Wittgenstein Reading, edited by Sascha Bru, Wolfgang Huemer, and Daniel Steuer [De Gruyter, 2013, 39-53].). (shrink)

This précis summarizes the main topics, arguments and conclusions of the book. Many interesting arguments and critiques have, of course, been omitted in order to make this summary appropriately brief.

Stecker's revised definition of art in Artworks: Definition, Meaning, Value is stated thus: "w is a work of art at t if and only if (a) w has form c which is a member of C and the maker of w intended it to fulfill a sub-set of functions f1 ... fn of F such that f1 ... fn are functions of c or (b) w is an object which achieves excellence in fulfilling a function in F" 1 where: w (...) is an artwork; t is a time; C is the set of central art forms at t; c is a member of the set C; F is the set of functions standardly or correctly regarded as belonging to C at t; f1 ... fn are members of the set F. (shrink)

We develop and apply a multi-dimensional account of explanatory depth towards a comparative analysis of inflationary and bouncing paradigms in primordial cosmology. Our analysis builds on earlier work due to Azhar and Loeb (2021) that establishes initial conditions fine-tuning as a dimension of explanatory depth relevant to debates in contemporary cosmology. We propose dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy as two further dimensions of depth in the context of problems with instability and trans-Planckian modes that afflict bouncing and inflationary approaches respectively. In (...) the context of the latter issue, we argue that the recently formulated trans-Planckian censorship conjecture leads to a trade-off for inflationary models between dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy. We conclude with the suggestion that explanatory preference with regard to the different dimensions of depth is best understood in terms of differing attitudes towards heuristics for future model building. (shrink)

This article gives two arguments for believing that our society is unknowingly guilty of serious, large-scale wrongdoing. First is an inductive argument: most other societies, in history and in the world today, have been unknowingly guilty of serious wrongdoing, so ours probably is too. Second is a disjunctive argument: there are a large number of distinct ways in which our practices could turn out to be horribly wrong, so even if no particular hypothesized moral mistake strikes us as very likely, (...) the disjunction of all such mistakes should receive significant credence. The article then discusses what our society should do in light of the likelihood that we are doing something seriously wrong: we should regard intellectual progress, of the sort that will allow us to find and correct our moral mistakes as soon as possible, as an urgent moral priority rather than as a mere luxury; and we should also consider it important to save resources and cultivate flexibility, so that when the time comes to change our policies we will be able to do so quickly and smoothly. (shrink)

According to a number of contemporary theorists, aesthetic reasons can invite or entice us but never compel us. In this paper, I develop a Kantian account of the normative force of aesthetic reasons. While Kant would likely agree that aesthetic reasons do not give rise to obligations, his account nevertheless gives us the resources for explaining how aesthetic reasons can still have more force than merely enticing reasons. This account appeals to the distinct normativity of aesthetic judgments on Kant's theory (...) and the way in which this kind of normativity structures aesthetic exchanges with other judging subjects. I argue that, in addition to the moral reasons we have for appreciating and preserving beauty, Kant’s account can accommodate distinctly aesthetic reasons for doing so that stem from our membership in aesthetic communities. (shrink)

A standard line in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that physical theories are equivalent only when they agree on their empirical content, where this empirical content is often understood as being encoded in the equations of motion of those theories. In this article, we question whether it is indeed the case that the empirical content of a theory is exhausted by its equations of motion, showing that (for example) considerations of boundary conditions play a key role in the empirical (...) equivalence (or otherwise) of theories. Having argued for this, we show that philosophical claims made by Weatherall (2016) that electromagnetism in the Faraday tensor formalism is equivalent to electromagnetism in the vector potential formalism, and by Knox (2011) that general relativity is equivalent to teleparallel gravity, can both be called into question. We then show that properly considering the role of boundary conditions in theory structure can potentially restore these claims of equivalence and close with some remarks on the pragmatics of adjudications on theory identity. (shrink)

This paper argues that the ubiquitous digital networks in which we are increasingly becoming immersed present a threat to our ability to exercise free will. Using process philosophy, and expanding upon understandings of causal autonomy, the paper outlines a thematic analysis of diary studies and interviews gathered in a project exploring the nature of digital experience. It concludes that without mindfulness in both the use and design of digital devices and services we run the risk of allowing such services to (...) direct our daily lives in ways over which we are increasingly losing control. (shrink)

This paper explains how to use a new software tool for argument diagramming available free on the Internet, showing especially how it can be used in the classroom to enhance critical thinking in philosophy. The user loads a text file containing an argument into a box on the computer interface, and then creates an argument diagram by dragging lines from one node to another. A key feature is the support for argumentation schemes, common patterns of defeasible reasoning historically know as (...) topics . Several examples are presented, as well as the results of an experiment in using the system with students in a university classroom. (shrink)

The question of the cognitive role of fictionality is this: what is the correct cognitive attitude to take to p, when it is fictional that p? We began by considering one answer to this question, implicit in the work of Kendall Walton, that the correct response to a fictional proposition is to imagine that proposition. However, this approach is silent in cases of fictional incompleteness, where neither p nor its negation are fictional. We argue that that Waltonians should embrace a (...) pluralistic account of the cognitive role of fictional incompleteness: in some cases of fictional incompleteness, we are permitted to resolve the incompleteness during our engagement with the target fiction, and in other cases, we are obliged not to resolve the incompleteness. But though pluralism is accommodated by Walton’s wider account of fictionality, it puts tension on his motivating idea that fictionality stands to the imagination as truth stands to belief. And so we develop a rival conception of the cognitive role of fictionality that is built around a different analogy: on this evidentialist approach, (known) fictionality stands to the imagination as evidence stands to credence. (shrink)

This paper explores the evolution of consciousness and subjectivity through a biological framework for understanding the universe. It posits that functional patterns in biological systems mirror cosmic mathematical principles, defining our objective reality. Similar to wave and Fibonacci patterns in different physical phenomena, biological patterns are intrinsic to all things and can be quantified using Dedre Gentner’s approach to analogy. For example, Earth’s ocean currents and the melting and freezing of Antarctica resemble the circulatory system and heart, while the production (...) of music from instruments is analogous to ribosomal protein synthesis. Shelves, tables, and chairs function like cytosol by holding objects in space, and a coffee cup mirrors red blood cell distribution. These analogies reveal a universal order rooted in biology’s functional patterns, essential for shaping the emergence and evolution of life. The paper traces the development of consciousness from its rudimentary cellular states to complex human cognition, highlighting the role of biologically-patterned environments in driving evolutionary changes. Organisms that recognized and organized according to these patterns evolved as “pattern recognition engines” crucial for survival—thus, Life (survival) being the primary measure of consciousness. Humans advanced this capacity, gaining cognitive freedom by insulating themselves from environmental constraints, but faced increased subjectivity complexity. Consciousness, while inherently subjective and necessary for cognitive development, evolves in humans to understand objective reality and its biological nature, so to understand and navigate complexities of subjectivity. Ultimately, the paper asserts consciousness is the ability to recognize and adhere to life-sustaining patterns and principles. Successful adherence deems them worthy of continued existence, while failure leads to demise. Parallels with historical concepts like Atman and Brahman in Hinduism suggest ancient recognition of the correspondence between human and universal patterns. This ancient understanding, coupled with modern scientific evidence, reveals the interconnectedness and intrinsic biological nature of reality. (shrink)

William Faulkner (1897-1962), one of the United States’ most renowned authors, was born on Sept. 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi. He initially focused on poetry, culminating in his first publication: "The Marble Faun" (1924). Subsequently, he transitioned to prose, producing novels such as "The Sound and the Fury" (1929), "As I lay Dying" (1930), "Light in August" (1932) and "Absalom, Absalom!" (1936), which are considered his most significant works. Like most of his oeuvre, these novels are set in (...) a fictional Southern region that Faulkner termed ‘Yoknapatawpha county.’ Nearly all works set in this fictional county are characterized by themes of race, incest, the American Civil War, and the decline of the antebellum South. Faulkner frequently employs diverse perspectives and techniques that directly represent the consciousness of his characters. Recognition for his literary achievements came relatively late in his career. The primary catalyst for this recognition was the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to him in 1949, when he had arguably passed the zenith of his writing career. Faulkner’s extensive oeuvre, which spans from 1924 to 1962, also encompasses lesser-known works, such as "Sanctuary" (1931) and "Intruder in the Dust" (1948). In addition to novels, Faulkner authored numerous short stories that are considered among the finest in American literature. These include the story translated here, “Dry September” originally published in 1931, in the January issue of Scribner’s magazine. Faulkner died July 6 in Byhalia, Mississippi, of a heart attack. -/- [In Dutch: William Faulkner (1897-1962), een van de beroemdste schrijvers uit de Verenigde Staten, werd geboren op 25 september 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. Hij begon aanvankelijk met het schrijven van poëzie, wat resulteerde in zijn eerste publicatie: "The Marble Faun" (1924). Kort daarna liet hij poëzie voor wat het was en stortte hij zich op het proza. Dit leidde tot romans als "The Sound and the Fury" (1929), "As I lay Dying" (1930), "Light in August" (1932) en "Absalom, Absalom!" (1936) die als zijn belangrijkste werken worden beschouwd. Net als het merendeel van zijn oeuvre spelen deze romans zich af in een fictioneel Zuiden dat door Faulkner ‘Yoknapatawpha county’ genoemd werd. Vrijwel alle werken die zich in deze fictieve streek afspelen, worden gekenmerkt door thema’s als ras, incest, de Amerikaanse burgeroorlog en de teloorgang van het oude Zuiden. Faulkner maakt vaak gebruik van verschillende perspectieven en technieken die direct het bewustzijn van zijn personages representeren. Pas relatief laat in zijn carrière kreeg hij erkenning voor zijn literaire verdiensten. De belangrijkste stimulans hiervoor was de Nobelprijs voor de litera¬tuur die hem werd toegekend in 1949, toen hij als schrijver eigenlijk al over zijn toppunt heen was. Faulkners omvangrijke oeuvre, dat ontstond in de periode van 1924 tot 1962, omvat ook minder bekende werken, zoals "Sanctuary" (1931) en "Intruder in the Dust" (1948). Naast romans schreef Faulkner echter ook nog een groot aantal korte verhalen die tot de absolute top van het Amerikaanse verhaal gerekend worden. Daartoe behoort ook het hier vertaalde verhaal ‘Septemberdroogte [Dry September]’, dat oorspronkelijk werd gepubliceerd in 1931, in het januarinummer van het tijdschrift "Scribner's". Faulkner stierf op 6 juli in Byhalia, Mississippi, aan een hartaanval.]. (shrink)

This paper proposes a semantics for free choice permission that explains both the non-classical behavior of modals and disjunction in sentences used to grant permission, and their classical behavior under negation. It also explains why permissions can expire when new information comes in and why free choice arises even when modals scope under disjunction. On the proposed approach, deontic modals update preference orderings, and connectives operate on these updates rather than propositions. The success of this approach stems from its capacity (...) to capture the difference between expressing the preferences that give rise to permissions and conveying propositions about those preferences. (shrink)

[This download contains the Table of Contents and Chapter 1.] This first book-length study of confabulation breaks ground in both philosophy and cognitive science.

مداخلة مترجمة عن الفرنسية للفيلسوف الفرنسي جيل دولوز.

We show that as a chain of confirmation becomes longer, confirmation dwindles under screening-off. For example, if E confirms H1, H1 confirms H2, and H1 screens off E from H2, then the degree to which E confirms H2 is less than the degree to which E confirms H1. Although there are many measures of confirmation, our result holds on any measure that satisfies the Weak Law of Likelihood. We apply our result to testimony cases, relate it to the Data-Processing Inequality (...) in information theory, and extend it in two respects so that it covers a broader range of cases. (shrink)

In the article, ‘Being Good in a World of Need: Some Empirical Worries and an Uncomfortable Philosophical Possibility,’ Larry Temkin presents some concerns about the possible impact of international aid on the poorest people in the world, suggesting that the nature of the duties of beneficence of the global rich to the global poor are much more murky than some people have made out. -/- In this article, I’ll respond to Temkin from the perspective of effective altruism—one of the targets (...) he attacks. I’ll argue that Temkin’s critique has little empirical justification, given the conclusions he wants to reach, and is therefore impotent. (shrink)

In celebration of Newton da Costa’s place in the history of paraconsistency, this paper considers the use and abuse of deliberate self-contradiction. Beginning with Parmenides, developed by Plato, and continued by Cicero, an ancient philosophical tradition used deliberately paraconsistent discourses to reveal the truth. In modern times, decisionism has used deliberate self-contradiction against Judeo-Christian revelation. • DOI:10.5007/1808-1711.2010v14n1p1.

In this paper, I argue that although Kant’s account of empirical schemata in the Critique of Pure Reason is primarily used to explain the shared content of intuitions and empirical concepts, it is also informed by methodological problems in natural history. I argue that empirical schemata, which are rules for determining the spatiotemporal form of objects, not only serve to connect individual intuitions with concepts, but also concern the very features of objects on the basis of which they were connected (...) and ordered in taxonomic systems based on similarity of form. I then suggest that Kant likely had scientific illustrations in mind in his discussion of empirical images in the Schematism chapter and that his account of schemata can help explain the epistemic function of these images in early modern science. (shrink)