August 2006 Archives

Mark your calendars and assure your transportation -- SLU's Graduate Student Conference is right around the corner. Robert Audi is the keynote speaker, and Prosblogion's own Trent Dougherty will be presenting a paper co-authored with Ted Poston.

Here's the scoop; more below the fold:

2006 Saint Louis University Philosophy Graduate
Student Conference
Sponsored by the Saint Louis University Philosophy Department and the Graduate School
The Epistemology of Religious Belief
Sept. 21 & 22, 2006

Keynote Address by Robert Audi, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy and David E. Gallo Professor of Business Ethics (University of Notre Dame)

Panel Discussion with Robert Audi, Ph.D., John Greco, Ph.D. (Saint Louis University), and Eleonore Stump, Ph.D. (Saint Louis University)

Thursday, Sept. 21: Humanities Building, Room 142

3:30 p.m. Welcoming Reception

4:00 p.m. Keynote Address - Dr. Robert Audi: “The Dimensions and
Normative Authority of Religious Experience”

5:15 p.m. Break

5:30 p.m. Panel Discussion: The Epistemology of Religious Belief
Robert Audi, Ph.D., John Greco, Ph.D., and Eleonore Stump, Ph.D.

Thrice in the past two days, I've come across articles in the journal Philo. I regret to say that before this, I wasn't aware of the journal and have missed out on some good stuff--perhaps because USD doesn't subscribe to it (I hope to change this). This got me thinking about what other good stuff I may be missing out of ignorance. So I thought I'd post about my ignorance and ask the rest of you to help me rid myself of at least some of it. (I'm inclinded, however, to think that I'm not the only ignorant in these matters--though perhaps I am.)

I regularly read just about everything in Faith and Philosophy (though I'd love to see their website more up to date and offer electronic availability of contents) and Religious Studies. I also regularly read, though with slightly less comprehensiveness, Philosphia Christi (which could also use a web-update of contents) and the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Of course, good philosophy of religion stuff can often be found in many of the discipline's main (for lack of a better word--I can't think of exactly the property I mean here) journals, such as the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

Are there any places that the rest of you regularly go to keep up with the literature in philosphy of religion that I may be missing? (I'm at home rather than USD's library, so perhaps I'm temporally forgetting some that I regularly check. If so, apologies in advance.)

A slightly different question is about the relative quality of these journals. Any thoughts on this would also be appreciated, though I realize that there are a host of questions/issues that this immediately raises. Neverthless, I'm inclined to think that for most of us there is a correlation between our evaluation of a journal's overall level of quality and the regularity with which we tend to read it (assuming that we're not ignorant of it and that we're interested in the journal's field, etc...).

In a new issue of Religious Studies, Gordon Knight has an interesting article on universalism and open theism that many PBers may be interested in ("Universalism for Open Theists," 42 (2006):213-223).

Here is the central thrust of his argument:

I will argue that belief in the openness of God makes a hard case even worse. Furthermore, while this problem is perhaps most vivid in the case of open theism, it also can be generalized for all theists who accept a non-Molinist account of foreknowledge and who accept a libertarian conception of freedom of the will. On the other hand, this very same commitment to liberatarian freedom also precludes non-Molinists from accepting the sort of necessary universalism recently advocated by Talbott. The solution, I will argue, lies in adopting a version of contingent universalism that is able to avoid the moral problems of the [traditional] doctrine of hell while at the same time not doing violence to the strong conception of libertarian freedom to which open theists (among others) are committed (214).

A few comments below the fold.

I don't think so. Let me explain.

To say that God freely creates is to say that he could have refrained from creating and that he could have created a different sort of world, one with different initial and boundary conditions.

To say that God is timeless is to say that he undergoes no change in any respects whatsoever. In other words, it is to say that God is absolutely immutable.

Given these two assumptions (and assuming, of course, that there is a God who has in fact freely created), we can, I think, derive a contradiction:

Over the next couple of days I'll be making some system changes to the site. You'll notice that the look has already changed to accommodate some forthcoming features. If you hate/love the look, or experience any hiccups, let me know in the comments or by e-mail.

[Update] Thanks to those who have emailed me comments! Having beta testers is a great aid. I will be adding back the recent comments function so that readers can easily track ongoing converstations. I've also added the papers blog, a link to which can be found to the right. If you are interested in adding papers contact me for directions. I've also added a number of new ways to syndicate the blog. I think I've worked out all the bugs in the theme but let me know if you get errors or find it hard to read.

In conjunction with the APA Pacific Division Meeting in San Francisco, California - April 4-5, 2007.

The mini-conference will examine specific models of God - that is, accounts of the nature or essence of the divine - both those that have arisen out of religious contexts and those developed within philosophical debates. The objective is to address the large question of the most philosophically satisfying way to conceive the nature of God.

This question is vitally important in the philosophy of religion. The model of God one assumes affects (for example) the fate of the traditional arguments for and against the existence of God, the coherence of theistic belief, and, for theists, the practice and tenor of the religious life. It is no surprise, then, that in the last century, and especially in the last 25 years, there has been an explosion of work on the topic - from Whitehead's Process and Reality (1929), to, for example, Joshua Hoffman and Gary Rosenkrantz's The Divine Attributes (2002).

But no APA conference has been devoted to this specific topic during the years when work on it has so proliferated. The mini-conference thus will encourage fruitful, philosophically sophisticated face-to-face exchanges between proponents of the major models of God: classical and neo-classical theists, open theists, process theists, pantheists, panentheists, Ground-of-being theists, environmental theists, polytheists, theists writing from a feminist perspective, and others.

Just a heads up to let folks know that Peter van Inwagen's latest work on the argument from evil is finally available in print as The Problem of Evil. The book is the product of van Inwagen's 2003 Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of St Andrews. If you'd like to get a feel for what van Inwagen thinks of the argument from evil you might check out his appearance last year on Philosophy Talk.

Maybe some enterprising contributor with more time than your humble host would like to coordinate an online reading group for this book.

The discipline is open, so it would be nice to see this go to a philosopher.

The University of Kentucky invites applications for the newly created Cottrill-Rolfes Chair in Catholic Studies. The College of Arts and Sciences seeks an outstanding academic with an expertise in the history, literature, anthropology, sociology, politics, theology, culture, institutional, or intellectual traditions of Roman Catholicism. The successful candidate will join a department that is appropriate to his/her academic field. Appointment will begin in August 2007. The successful candidate will be a distinguished scholar with a research and teaching record that is commensurate with an endowed chair. Salary and benefits are commensurate with those of an endowed chair. The endowment also provides a substantial research fund. Interested candidates should send (1) letter of interest, (2) a complete CV, (3) outline of current research agenda, and (4) three letters of reference to: Professor Ron Formisano, Chair of the Cottrill-Rolfes Search, College of Arts and Sciences, 1715 Patterson Office Tower, Lexington, KY, 40506-0027, USA. Review of applications will begin November 1, 2006, and will continue until the position is filled. The University of Kentucky is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse faculty, staff, and student body. Candidates from under-represented groups are encouraged to apply.

One of the books I regularly teach in my Intro class is Plantinga's God, Freedom , and Evil. For the last few times that I've read it, a question about TWD (transworld depravity) keeps coming up--though fortunately the question hasn't come up in class. I'm hoping some of you can help me out.

More below the fold.

Reader Annie Mizera emails to ask if we have any suggestions for reading material on the divine attributes.

The topic: I'm interested in what I think of as 'the big three' characteristics of a monotheistic god: omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence. I'm interested in the justification for believing that a god such as the Christian God possesses these characteristics, specifically omnibenevolence. I'm very interested in philosophical reasons for crediting God with being perfectly good, in addition to being omniscient and omnipotent. Please let me know if you need more information or if this is unclear.

Uncertainty about what the original autographs said is no argument against inerrantism about what the original autographs said, not just because whether the original has errors is independent of whether we know what the original said. Kenny Pearce offers some Bayesian probabilistic reasons for concluding that a doctrine of inerrancy might still make a difference epistemically about particularly propositions despite uncertainty about whether the original autographs teach those propositions. He applies this to doctrinal issues that inerrantists who accept some principle of sola scriptura might nevertheless dispute, and then he applies it to science and evolution. I don't really know any Bayesian probability, so I can't really evaluate this in those terms, but what he's saying seems right to me in general.

February 22-24, 2007
Azusa Pacific University

Theology and Ontology

Plenary Speakers:
Michael Rea, University of Notre Dame
Robert Koons, University of Texas
Timothy O’Connor, University of Indiana

Plenary Respondent:
Ted Sider, Rutgers University

I just got back from the Princeton Seminar on Thomism and Analytic Philosophy, and it was great! My thanks to the Witherspoon Institute and the Templeton Foundation for making it possible.

I had the privilege of being surrounded for a week by excellent colleagues--including our own Tim Pawl--who share my commitment to the enduring value of Thomism and Analytic Philosophy. It's just hard for me to say how impressed I was with the other participants. I am enheartened to see such talented people working in various areas in Philosophy (epistemologists were about as rare, though, as is (the kind of) epistemology (I'm interested in) itself is in Aquinas).

It will be very interesting to see the influence of Thomisitc metaphysical realism on contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of mind (if they can get a place at the table and a voice in the conversation). If the Seminar is offered again next year, I *highly* recommend applying.

About two years ago Trent and I floated an idea here about belief and divine hiddenness. We received terrific feedback from the readers here and we finally worked the idea into a paper. We received notice from Religious Studies yesterday that the paper is accepted for publication. There’s also hope that paper will be accompanied with a response by John Schellenberg. In a few days I’ll have a link to the paper on my website. Thanks for all the great feedback!

The evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) alleges that naturalism is self-defeating. The reason is that the naturalist in virtue of accepting naturalism (N) and evolution (E) has a defeater to the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable (R). When (R) is defeated, (N) is likewise defeated; since, presumably, the justification for (N) depends on argument which depends on (R) being reasonable. One of the key steps in the argument is to explain how (R) gets defeated in virtue of accepting (N) & (E). Plantinga’s claim, as I recall, is that (R) gets defeated by the fact that Pr(R/N & E) (i.e., the probability that R is true given only N & E are true) is low or inscrutable. This, however, can’t be the argument because I don’t have a defeater that I exist given only that the probability that I exist is low or inscrutable on N & E. The reason that I don’t have a defeater in this case is that I know that I exist and that once my background knowledge is added the probability that I exist given N & E and everything else I know is close to (if not) 1.

I think this problem is instructive for illustrating a flaw in the EAAN. The flaw is that the EAAN neglects the contribution of background knowledge.

Here. Collins is the head of the Human Genome Project and author of the recent book The Language of God.

It's a subscription site, but you can read the article if you watch a brief ad. It's quite a lengthy and substantive interview, so it's worth putting up with the few seconds' worth of adverts.

Excerpt below the fold.

Alaska was great. I had time to unpack, do laundry, and re-pack: leaving today for the Princeton Seminar on Thomism and Analytic Philosophy put on by the Witherspoon Institute. It should be awesome.

In my previous post it was indeed Hugh of St. Victor to whom Chisholm was referring. The reference is Chisholm's 2nd edition of Theory of Knowledge p. 133 and his reference is to Maurice De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy (1935), p. 214. Here's the mention:

"Thus, Hugh of St. Victor held, in the twelfth century, that in addition to the oculis carnis, by means of which we know the physical world, and the oculis rationis, by means of which we know our own states of mind, there is also an oculis contemplationis, by means of which we know the truths of religion."

One thing that is interesting about Chisholm's comments on the oculis contemplationis is that when in the 3rd edition of Theory of Knowledge he is explicitly discussing his epistemic principles (p. 73) he mentions that some people will want more, some fewer epistemic principles--Chisholm only provides them for memory and perception. He explicitly mentions the "religious intuitionist" who "adds that certain other thoughts and feelings justify us in believing that there is a persona God."

Now what I find interesting about this is that the person who likes Plantinga's use of the Aquinas/Calvin model don't need to embed that in his wider externalist epistemology. In fact, if I'm reading Chisholm correctly here, there remains the possibility--though it might be a hard programme--to argue for an additional epistemic principle to "insert" right onto the standard Chisholmian principle (I'd want to insert a principle having to do with rational insight anyway).

Frankly, I find this a plausible approach to "perceiving God" and plan to try to pursue it a bit when I get the chance.

Given the recent discussion of materialism and the afterlife some readers might be interested in Lynne Rudder Baker's review of Nancey Murphy's Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? is a welcome book. Nancey Murphy defends a version of physicalism for Christians. She characterizes the physicalism that she endorses as the thesis that "we are our bodies -- there is no additional metaphysical element such as a mind or soul or spirit." Nevertheless, biology does not tell the whole story: We are "complex physical organisms, imbued with the legacy of thousands of years of culture, and, most importantly, blown by the Breath of God's Spirit; we are Spirited bodies." (ix) Murphy takes her main opponent to be a soul- or mind-body dualist.