Preface.--Novius organum.--The world as habit.--Cosmogony.--Vertebrate evolution.--On phyletic affinities.--The difficulties of evolution.--"Extruding the subject."--Affection and conation.--The illusion of immediate experience.--The biogenic psychoses.--The social psychosis.--The nature of man.

William James and the Reinstatement of the Vague. By William Joseph Gavin. Anti‐foundationalism Old and New. Edited by Tom Rockmore and Beth Singer.

Like the first edition, the second edition of _Readings in the Philosophy of Religion_ covers topics in a point-counterpoint manner, specifically designed to foster deep reflection. Unique to this collection is the section on the divine attributes. The book’s focus is on issues of fundamental human concern—God’s suffering, hell, prayer, feminist theology, and religious pluralism. All of these are shown, in a lengthy introduction, to relate to the standard issues in philosophical theology—omnipotence, omniscience, immutability, goodness, and eternity. For this second (...) edition, each major section ends with an extended reflection by a philosopher who shows how to think through the issues raised in the preceding essays. Also included are a new section on the ontological argument with classical discussions by Anselm and Gaunilo, along with a new essay by Laura Garcia; a new section on religious language; new essays on the free will defense, theodicies, and feminist theology; and a new version of the cosmological argument that does not rely on the principle of sufficient reason. (shrink)

Prior work has demonstrated that young children in the US and the Ecuadorian Amazon preferentially remember information about the dangerousness of an animal over both its name and its diet. Here we explore if this bias is present among older children and adults in Fiji through the use of an experimental learning task. We find that a content bias favoring the preferential retention of danger and toxicity information continues to operate in older children, but that the magnitude of the bias (...) diminishes with age and is absent in adults. We also find evidence that fitness costs likely impact the types of mistakes that participants make in their attributions of dangerousness and poisonousness. These results suggest that natural selection has shaped the way in which we learn and make inferences about unfamiliar animal species over ontogeny, and that future research is needed on how content biases may vary across the life course. (shrink)

This open access book addresses the question of how God can providentially govern apparently ungovernable randomness. Medieval theologians confidently held that God is provident, that is, God is the ultimate cause of or is responsible for everything that happens. However, scientific advances since the 19th century pose serious challenges to traditional views of providence. From Darwinian evolution to quantum mechanics, randomness has become an essential part of the scientific worldview. An interdisciplinary team of Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars—biologists, physicists, philosophers (...) and theologians—addresses questions of randomness and providence. (shrink)

The title of this volume -- Logic, God and Metaphysics -- is carefully chosen and, at the same time, descriptive of its main focus. In the twentieth century, the interests of most philosophers and theologians have fallen into only one of the three areas indicated -- logic, god or metaphysics. Since much of Anglo-American philosophy in this century has been analytic and antimetaphysical because of the influence of positivism, there have been few attempts at continuing metaphysical inquiry. In the early (...) part of the century, the logical atomists combined logic and metaphysics by arguing that the structure of reality is mirrored isomorphically in the structure of a formal, logically perfect, truth-functional language, but their effort was short-lived. Alfred North Whitehead and process philosophers have focused upon god and metaphysics but usually by adopting terminology and distinctions which are unique to certain systems -- making rigorous, logical analysis difficult or impossible. The papers included in this volume are illustrative of the application of careful, rigorous logical analysis to do critical philosophy of religion and what has been called constructive metaphysics. (shrink)

The West has long had an ambivalent attitude toward the philosophical traditions of the East. Voltaire claimed that the East is the civilization "to which the West owes everything", yet C.S. Peirce was contemptuous of the "monstrous mysticism of the East". And despite the current trend toward globalizations, there is still a reluctance to take seriously the intellectual inheritance of South and East Asia. Oriental Enlightenment challenges this Eurocentric prejudice. J. J. Clarke examines the role played by the ideas (...) of Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism in the intellectual life of the West and how these ideas, far more than exotic distractions, or even instruments of colonial domination, have been the means towards serious self-questioning and self-renewal, used to dispute and even to undermine Western orthodoxies. (shrink)

A fundamental question in philosophy of religion is whether religious belief must be based on evidence in order to be properly held. In recent years two prominent positions on this issue have been staked out: evidentialism, which claims that proper religious belief requires evidence; and Reformed epistemology, which claims that it does not. Evidence and Religious Belief contains eleven chapters by prominent philosophers which push the discussion in new directions. The volume has three parts. The first part explores the demand (...) for evidence: some chapters object to it while others seek to restate it or find space for compromise between Reformed epistemology and evidentialism. The second part explores ways in which beliefs are related to evidence; that is, ways in which the evidence for or against religious belief that is available to a person can depend on that person's background beliefs and other circumstances. The third part contains chapters that discuss actual evidence for and against religious belief. Evidence for belief in God includes the so-called common consent of the human race and the way that such belief makes sense of the moral life; evidence against it includes profound puzzles about divine freedom which suggest that it is impossible for a being to be morally perfect. (shrink)

When looking at a scene, observers feel that they see its entire structure in great detail and can immediately notice any changes in it. However, when brief blank fields are placed between alternating displays of an original and a modified scene, a striking failure of perception is induced: identification of changes becomes extremely difficult, even when changes are large and made repeatedly. Identification is much faster when a verbal cue is provided, showing that poor visibility is not the cause of (...) this difficulty. Identification is also faster for objects mentioned in brief verbal descriptions of the scene. These results support the idea that observers never form a complete, detailed representation of their surroundings. In addition, results also indicate that attention is required to perceive change, and that in the absence of localized motion signals it is guided on the basis of high-level interest. (shrink)

A large chorus of voices has grown around the claim that theistic belief is epistemically suspect since, as some cognitive scientists have hypothesized, such beliefs are a byproduct of cognitive mechanisms which evolved for rather different adaptive purposes. This paper begins with an overview of the pertinent cognitive science followed by a short discussion of some relevant epistemic concepts. Working from within a largely Williamsonian framework, we then present two different ways in which this research can be formulated into an (...) argument against theistic belief. We argue that neither version works. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * Introduction * The Cognitive Science of Religion * The Internal Witness: The Sensus Divinitatis * Reformed Epistemology * Reformed Epistemology and Cognitive Science * Obstinacy in Belief * The External Witness: The Order of the Cosmos * The External Witness and the Cognitive Science of Religion * Conclusion * Notes * Bibliography.

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Hegel’s account of ‘recognition’ (Anerkennung) in the 1802-3 System of Ethical Life as a critique of Fichte’s account of recognition in the 1796-7 Foundations of Natural Right. In the first three sections of the paper I argue that Fichte’s account of recognition in the domain of right is not concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. I then turn, in section four, to a discussion of Hegel’s critique and transformation of Fichte’s conception (...) of recognition. Hegel’s transformation consists, I argue, in the claim that a comprehensive account of recognition in the domain of right must be concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. (shrink)

A substantial portion of the developed world's population is increasingly dependent on machines to make their way in the everyday world. For certain privileged groups, computers, cell phones, PDAs, Blackberries, and IPODs, all permitting the faster processing of information, are commonplace. In these populations, even exercise can be automated as persons try to achieve good physical fitness by riding stationary bikes, running on treadmills, and working out on cross-trainers that send information about performance and heart rate.

Naturalism admits of no single, simple definition (usually depending on the naturalist's commitment to science). After distinguishing ontological or metaphysic naturalism from methodological naturalism, I discuss the historical development of ontological naturalism, as well as arguments for or against naturalism. I then take moral goodness and badness as a case study of the problems and prospects for ontological naturalism.

Disproof of heaven? -- Brain and gods -- The rational stance -- Reason and belief in God -- Against naturalism -- Atheism, inference, and IQ -- Atheism, autism, and intellectual humility -- Googling God -- Inference, intuition, and rationality.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, naturalism has become one of the most prominent philosophical orthodoxies in the Western academy. Yet naturalism is more often assumed than defended. The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism offers a systematic introduction that defines, discusses and defends philosophical naturalism. Essays tackle naturalism’s role in existing cultural conversations, from Libertarianism to Confucianism, and provide detailed examinations of philosophical concepts like metaphysics, realism, feminism, science, free will, and ethics as viewed through a naturalist lens. With contributions (...) from an international array of established and emerging scholars from across the humanities, the collection encapsulates contemporary debates in the field. The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism provides an enlightening and accessible guide for self-identified naturalists and philosophy students who are new to naturalism alike. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the social trinitarian account in Richard Swinburne's "The Christian God." After setting out the route Swinburne follows in reaching his conclusions about the Godhead, I endeavour to show two things: (i) that his account does not avoid the charge of tritheism and thus is not faithful to key elements in the Christian creeds; (ii) the philosophical moves behind his conclusions are not compelling if, as we can, we challenge his assumptions about divine necessity. A (...) better account of divine necessity takes us away from Swinburne's version of trinitarianism/tritheism. (shrink)

Mechanical devices implanted in the body present implications for broad themes in religious thought and experience, including the nature and destiny of the human person, the significance of a person's embodied experience, including the experiences of pain and suffering, the person's relationship to ultimate reality, the divine or the sacred, and the vocation of medicine. Community-constituting convictions and narratives inform the method and content of reasoning about such conceptual questions as whether a moral line should be drawn between therapeutic or (...) enhancement interventions and/or between somatic and neural/cognitive interventions. By attending to these broader community-forming concepts, it is possible to identify three general orienting themes in religious perspectives on incorporated mechanical devices, which we shall designate as perspectives of “appropriation,” “ambivalence,” and “resistance.”. (shrink)

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, naturalism has become one of the most prominent philosophical orthodoxies in the Western academy. Yet naturalism is more often assumed than defended. The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism offers a systematic introduction that defines, discusses and defends philosophical naturalism. Essays tackle naturalism's role in existing cultural conversations, from Libertarianism to Confucianism, and provide detailed examinations of philosophical concepts like metaphysics, realism, feminism, science, free will, and ethics as viewed through a naturalist lens. With contributions (...) from an international array of established and emerging scholars from across the humanities, the collection encapsulates contemporary debates in the field. The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism provides an enlightening and accessible guide for self-identified naturalists and philosophy students who are new to naturalism alike. (shrink)

In May 2010, philosophers, family and friends gathered at the University of Notre Dame to celebrate the career and retirement of Alvin Plantinga, widely recognized as one of the world's leading figures in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion. Plantinga has earned particular respect within the community of Christian philosophers for the pivotal role that he played in the recent renewal and development of philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Each of the essays in this volume engages with some (...) particular aspect of Plantinga's views on metaphysics, epistemology, or philosophy of religion. Contributors include Michael Bergman, Ernest Sosa, Trenton Merricks, Richard Otte, Peter VanInwagen, Thomas P. Flint, Eleonore Stump, Dean Zimmerman and Nicholas Wolterstorff. The volume also includes responses to each essay by Bas van Fraassen, Stephen Wykstra, David VanderLaan, Robin Collins, Raymond VanArragon, E. J. Coffman, Thomas Crisp, and Donald Smith. (shrink)

Jung was fascinated by the east. Through his commentaries on such texts as the I Ching and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and through his essays on such topics as Zen, meditation and the symbolism of the mandala, Jung attempted to build a bridge of understanding between western psychology and the ancient ideas and practices of eastern religion. By doing so he hoped to relate traditional eastern thought to modern western concerns. John Clarke's latest book seeks to uncover (...) Jung's dialogue with the east. The book will appeal to all those who wish to broaden their understanding of Jung's thought as well as to those who value eastern ways of thinking and who believe that by engaging with it westerners have much to gain both intellectually and spiritually. (shrink)

Interventional cardiologists are commonly faced with patients who prefer percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) rather than coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). Many prefer PCI even when CABG is recommended. Doctors may wonder whether (as the cardiac surgeons suspect) they consciously or unconsciously influence patients to choose PCI. We consider reasons why patient preferences in this context are not irrational.