This Savonarola of our century can fill a hall at the drop of a leaflet. But where the inflammatory friar of Florence was silenced by hanging and roasting at the stake, Chomsky's punishment is to be consigned to media oblivion in his own land.

In his recently published Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, & Naturalism 2011 Alvin Plantinga criticises Paul Draper’s evolutionary argument against theism as part of a larger project to show that evolution poses no threat to Christian belief. Plantinga focuses upon Draper’s probabilistic claim that the facts of evolution are much more probable on naturalism than on theism, and with regard to that claim makes two specific points. First, Draper’s probabilistic claim contradicts theism’s necessary falsehood; unless Draper wishes (...) to acknowledge that theism is necessarily true, his claim commits him to theism’s contingency and so sets him at odds with a mainstream that sees God’s existence as decidedly noncontingent. Second, Plantinga argues that Draper’s probabilistic claim is, even if true, overwhelmed by counterclaims about facts that are more likely on theism than naturalism. I argue this critique of Draper depends upon a serious error, and that Plantinga overlooks the full implications of his own presuppositions. Correcting these shortcomings shows that Plantinga’s own probabilistic-apologetics (e.g., the ‘Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism’) requires theism’s contingency no less than does Draper’s atheology. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief (2000) is the capstone to the latest stage in his views on the intellectual credibility of theism in general, and Christian theism in particular. While Plantinga’s stature in the community of Christian philosophers alone makes gaining familiarity with this text a good idea for contemporary analytic philosophers of religion, its vigorous, innovative defense of specifically Christian theism and daring suggestions for renovating the landscape of analytic philosophy of religion merit serious consideration. (...) I aim to provide a useful introduction to the book’s contents and critique some of its main claims. (shrink)

As an atheistic religious tradition, Buddhism conventionally stands in opposition to Christianity, and any bridge between them is considered to be riddled with contradictory beliefs on God the creator, salvific power and the afterlife. But what if a Buddhist could also be a Classical Theist? Showing how the various contradictions are not as fundamental as commonly thought, Tyler Dalton McNabb and Erik Baldwin challenge existing assumptions and argue that Classical Theism is, in fact, compatible with Buddhism. They draw parallels (...) between the metaphysical doctrines of both traditions, synthesize their ethical and soteriological commitments and demonstrate that the Theist can interpret the Buddhist's religious experiences, specifically those of emptiness, as veridical, without denying any core doctrine of Classical Theism. By establishing that a synthesis of the two traditions is plausible, this book provides a bold, fresh perspective on the philosophy of religion and reinvigorates philosophical debates between Buddhism and Christianity. (shrink)

The pattern of recourse to late medieval church courts suggests how late medieval Christians imagined their Church. Their choice of defendants, crimes, and punishments allowed them to define their communities. In the case of excommunication for debt, the use of procedural excommunications announced from the choir screen after the bidding prayers permitted the exclusion of debtors from the sacramental and economic community. Indeed, failure to pay one’s debts was as uncharitable as usury because the two communities were imperfectly distinguished – (...) until c. 1500. (shrink)

Tyler Dalton McNabb and Michael DeVito develop a thoroughly original and Orthodox model for how Christian belief, and, even specifically Eastern Christian belief, can be warranted. They do this by creatively bringing recent work on religious experience, in the context of the Divine Liturgy, into conversation with Alvin Plantinga’s well-known explication of Reformed Epistemology. What emerges is a distinctly Eastern Christian approach to warranted Christian belief, that modifies and, arguably, improves upon Plantinga’s original model.

In this study, Tyler Frick aims to display and commend the theological ontology that arises from a careful analysis of Karl Barth's understanding of divine action.

In this essay, I seek to enhance eschatological perspectives on work through specific engagement with Qoheleth’s theology of time in Eccl. 2–3. I suggest that prior to a perceptual transformation in the first of the book’s so-called carpe diem passages, Qoheleth is dissatisfied with his labour because he construes it temporally-speaking within a chronology characterised by competition. Within such a construal, death poses the ultimate obstacle to the enjoyment of labour, because it strips away the promise of an immortal inheritance (...) produced by human hands. What transforms Qoheleth’s relationship to labour is a new understanding of time as kairos, defined as the opportune time in which God unexpectedly intervenes in human work ‘under the sun’ and does something paradigmatically new. Under this ‘kairological’ perspective, Qoheleth assumes a posture of receipt, declaring present labour as a gift from God, with internal as well as external goods for the worker. Qoheleth’s ‘accipe diem work ethic’ draws the eschatological ultimacy of life and peace into present labour, re-orienting eschatological understandings of work that fall prey to competitive-chronological notions of progress. (shrink)

This article reflects on Paul’s Christology in the Epistle to the Philippians and the operative notion of humility that is both implicit and explicit in his paraenesis. Through a theological exegesis of the famous Christ-hymn in particular, three consequential aspects of humility come to the fore: its grounding in Christ’s love, as well as its definition by and distinction from Christ’s own humility. Humility thus has a Christological foundation in a twofold sense because Christ not only exemplifies this virtue but (...) constitutes the moral nature that defines those who belong to him. When the shape of humility is discerned in this light and explicated in relation to the theological virtues, it is understood as a form of eschatological belonging that finds concrete expression in faith working through love. (shrink)

Inspired by Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), we develop an argument—the “Scriptural Argument Against Dogmatic Protestantism” (SAADP)—that Protestants who accept the doctrine of sola scriptura cannot reasonably hold that Catholic and Eastern churches are in doctrinal error. If sola scriptura is true and Catholic and Eastern Churches have fallen into error, it is improbable that any Protestant can reliably form true beliefs about controversial points of Christian doctrine, including sola scriptura or suggestions that Catholic and Eastern Christians are (...) in error. We evaluate potential responses to SADDP, considering how SAADP should affect ecumenical doctrinal debates. (shrink)

Modern concepts of vocation often refer to some ambiguous understanding of personal occupation or religious life. These interpretations appear to be in tension with the Christian understanding of vocation as the call of God given to a community to a certain way of living. Christian physicians live into this communal vocation when they remain present to the suffering as a sign of God’s faithfulness. This vocational practice of medicine is threatened by a distorted understanding of the body that (...) stems from what Max Weber called the “disenchantment” of the world. By bringing an understanding of the medicine that stems from Weber’s disenchantment into conversation with the language and beliefs of the church, this essay will seek to explore practices that might serve to re-enchant an understanding of the body and the practice of medicine as a form of Christian vocation. (shrink)

Launonen and Mullins argue that if Classical Theism is true, human cognition is likely not theism-tracking, at least, given what we know from cognitive science of religion. In this essay, we develop a model for how classical theists can make sense of the findings from cognitive science, without abandoning their Classical Theist commitments. We also provide an argument for how our model aligns well with the Christian doctrine of general revelation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ST. AUGUSTINE'S NOVELISTIC CONVERSION Tyler Graham Syracuse University In his famous biography of St. Augustine, Peter Brown attempts to explainwhat set the Confessions "apart from the intellectual tradition to which Augustine belonged" (Augustine ofHippo 169). While he concedes that "the Confessions are a masterpiece ofstrictly intellectual autobiography" (167), he concludes that it is more important to realize that they "are, quite succinctly, the story of Augustine's 'heart,' or (...) of his 'feelings'—his affectus"(169). He continues to explain that "in the Confessions, however, the evocation of Augustine's feelings forms part of the wider study of the evolution ofhis will" (172). Thus, Brown suggests that Augustine's central anthropological concern is to determine the origin and/or causes ofhuman desire (i.e. the "evolution of will"). Augustine's "exhaustive analysis ofhis motives" (as Brown describes it) is linked to his lifetime struggle to explain the complex interaction between his free will and a divine will (grace) to transform his "sinful" desires and create a "new heart" within him. In Brown's view, the Confessions reflect Augustine's struggle to discover whether desire originates in God or man. We can agree with Brown that this theological agenda is important to Augustine, for it will resurface in all of his theological struggles stretching from his pre-Christian engagement with the Manichees to his final battle with Pelagius. Nevertheless, I will argue in this paper that the Confessions reflect another important dimension to Augustine's morphology ofdesire. Regardless 136Tyler Graham of its divine or human source, Augustine's desires often begin with the imitation of another person. In portraying examples of his life up to and including his famous conversion in the year 386 (Book VIII), Augustine consistently shows that his desires have been copies or imitations ofvarious models whom he has chosen to follow. Writers such as Brown have considered the importance ofdesire (or the will) in the Confessions, and critics like Geoffrey Harpham (whom we will address later) have examined Augustine's interest in mimesis during various scenes in the book. Yet, with the exception ofAvitol Wohlman, no one (to my knowledge) has adequately considered the combination of the two: mimetic desire. In the first book ofthe Confessions, Augustine recounts his childhood, and, by the eighth chapter, he has already introduced a theme which will haunt the entire work: the link between desire and language. My desires were internal; adults were external to me and had no means ofentering into my soul. So I threw my limbs about and uttered sounds, signs resembling my wishes. (1:8) Language is born as a result ofthe need to express desire. For Augustine, words, gestures, and all utterances connect the "internal" wants to the "external" object ofcommunication (in this case, adults). In fact, ifAugustine links desire with the soul (external adults could not "enter his soul"), then language becomes the bridge between souls: it communicates desire from soul to soul. When Augustine reaches boyhood, and he begins to learn the accepted modes of articulation, the link between language and desire remains: "By groans and various sounds and various movements of parts of my body I would endeavor to express the intentions ofmy heart to persuade people to bow to my will" (1:13). Language communicates desire, but it also seeks to transform and generate desire. Beyond simply explaining his wishes, Augustine's language is persuasive, seeking to get others to "bow to my will." Whereas some people would like to remember their childhood as a time of innocence, joy, and peace, Augustine depicts his early life as "sinful," unhappy, and fraught with tears and conflicting interests. For an infant ofthat age, could itbe reckoned good to use tears in trying to obtain what it would have been harmful to get?.. The feebleness of infant limbs is innocent, not the infant's mind. (1:11) St. Augustine 's Novelistic Conversion137 Although he does notrememberbis own infancy, Augustine extrapolates from his analysis ofother children. I have personally watched and studied a jealous baby. He could not yet speak and, pale with jealousy and bitterness, glared at his brother sharing his mother's milk. Who is unaware ofthis fact ofexperience? Envy among infants is universal... (shrink)

The legacies of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth remain influential for contemporary theologians, who have increasingly put them into conversation on debated questions over analogy and the knowledge of God. However, little explicit dialogue has occurred between their theologies of God. This book offers one of the first extended analyzes of this fundamental issue, asking how each theologian seeks to confess in fact and in thought God's qualitative distinctiveness in relation to creation. Wittman first examines how they understand the correspondence (...) and distinction between God's being and external acts within an overarching concern to avoid idolatry. Second, he analyzes the kind of relation God bears to creation that follows from these respective understandings. Despite many common goals, Aquinas and Barth ultimately differ on the subject matter of theological reason with consequences for their ability to uphold God's distinctiveness consistently. These mutually informative issues offer some important lessons for contemporary theology. (shrink)

I argue that Alvin Plantinga’s theory of warrant is plausible and that, contrary to the Pandora’s Box objection, there are certain serious world religions that cannot successfully use Plantinga’s epistemology to demonstrate that their beliefs could be warranted in the same way that Christian belief can be warranted. In arguing for, I deploy Ernest Sosa’s Swampman case to show that Plantinga’s proper function condition is a necessary condition for warrant. I then engage three objections to Plantinga’s theory of warrant, (...) each of which attempts to demonstrate that his conditions for warrant are neither necessary nor sufficient. Having defended the plausibility of Plantinga’s theory of warrant, I present and expand his key arguments to the effect that naturalism cannot make use of it. These arguments provide the conceptual tools that are needed to argue for : that there are certain world religions that cannot legitimately use Plantinga’s theory of warrant to demonstrate that their beliefs could be warranted in the same way that Christian belief can be warranted. (shrink)

In this paper, informed by Vatican 2 and one of its premier modern day scholars, Gerald O'Collins, we will argue (1), that while the Christian evangelist should proclaim that Jesus is the only way to God, she should nonetheless be open to the possibility that Christ is saving those in non-Christian traditions as non-explicit or anonymous Christians, and, (2), that other serious religious traditions can be interpreted as doctrinally consistent with (or something nearby) the Nicene Christian tradition. (...) In conclusion, these theses will lead us to argue that in the Christian's approach to evangelism, her first step in persuading her non-Christian counterpart should be to emphasize the commonality that exists between the Christian tradition and the relevant non-Christian tradition. The evangelist then, should not see her main task as developing arguments against her interlocuter's religious tradition (though, this has its place), but rather her focus should be on proclaiming an additional truth that her interlocuter can accept alongside many of her already held religious commitments. (shrink)

In our 2021 paper, “Houston: Do we have a problem?”, we argued that contra popular belief, there is no conflict between existence of ETI and theism in general and Christian theism in particular. In this paper we argue further that the existence of ETI, especially ETI who are sophisticated enough to travel space, is evidence for theism. That is, ETI confirms the hypothesis that God exists over its naturalist competitor.

The testimony that Jesus rose from the dead or that St. Francis miraculously received stigmata is supposed to vindicate Christianity over other religious traditions. Similarly, the rainbow bodies of important spiritual exemplars in Tibetan Buddhism can be taken to justify the Buddhist tradition over its counterparts. What should we believe when the evidence suggests that the competing miracle claims contained in two different religious contexts both happened? One of David Hume's arguments against miracles is that the competing testimonies in diverse (...) religious traditions cancel each other out. In this paper, we argue against Hume. Specifically, we argue that there is logical space for thinking that Buddhist and Christian miracle claims are not competing but can be understood as consistent. (shrink)

Baldwin and McNabb explore how non-Christian religious traditions can utilize Plantinga’s epistemology. This book pays particular attention to the question, if there are believers from differing religious traditions that can rightfully utilize his epistemology, does this somehow prevent a Plantingian’s creedal-specific belief from being warranted?

"Debating Christian Religious Epistemology introduces core questions in the philosophy of religion by bringing five competing viewpoints on the knowledge of God into critical dialogue with one another."--.

In Confucian thought, there exists a functional view of rituals in which the participation in ritualistic practices brings about human flourishing. Call this the Confucian Ritual Principle (CRP). Utilizing contemporary psychology, in this paper, we argue for CRP. After linking rituals to human flourishing, we argue that on the hypothesis that Christianity is true, we would expect God to establish highly ritualistic and dogmatic liturgies. Put slightly differently, we argue that we should expect what we call 'high church' on the (...) Christian hypothesis. We then move to engage two objections to our argument. First, we respond to an argument that low church traditions are compatible with CRP. Second, we respond to an objection that argues against the ritual thesis, based on the flourishing of low church traditions. (shrink)

Would the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life conflict in any way with Christian belief? We identify six areas of potential conflict. If there be no conflict in any of these areas—and we argue ultimately there is not—we are confident in declaring that there is no conflict, period. This conclusion underwrites the integrity of theological explorations into the existence of ETI, which has become a topic of increasing interest among theologians in recent years.

Kant sometimes compares human beings with animals and angels and grants human beings a middle position. But contrary to what one might expect, his transcendental philosophy does not apply well to animals or angels. The question of whether we share perception with animals has no good answer in his system that has to be taken as a single piece and does not allow for introducing steps of empirical, real developments. Differently from Kant, McDowell does compare human beings with animals, but (...) he is not a transcendental philosopher and his attempts to find support in Kant are problematic. Although McDowell says that concepts go "all the way out" and Kant says the categories go "all the way down," which sounds similar, Kant talks of a priori categories, not empirical concepts. Burge is definitely not a transcendental philosopher like Kant. Up front he strongly relies on empirical studies, especially animal perception. Nevertheless, his quest into mental content introduces first-person perspectives that have a metaphysical flavor, and this makes - at least to me - comparisons with Kant tempting again. (shrink)

Many real-world agents recognise that they impose harms by choosing to emit carbon, e.g., by flying. Yet many do so anyway, and then attempt to make things right by offsetting those harms. Such offsetters typically believe that, by offsetting, they change the deontic status of their behaviour, making an otherwise impermissible action permissible. Do they succeed in practice? Some philosophers have argued that they do, since their offsets appear to reverse the adverse effects of their emissions. But we show that (...) they do not. In practice, standard carbon offsetting does not reverse the harms of the original action, nor does it even benefit the same group as was harmed. Standard moral theories hence deny that such offsetting succeeds. Indeed, we show that any moral theory that allows offsetting in this setting faces a dilemma between allowing any wrong to be offset, no matter how grievous, and recognising an implausibly sharp discontinuity between offsettable actions and non-offsettable actions. The most plausible response is to accept that carbon offsetting fails to right our climate wrongs. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett distinguishes real patterns from bogus patterns by appeal to compressibility. As information theorists have shown, data are compressible if and only if those data exhibit a pattern....

You’re imagining, in the course of a different game of make-believe, that you’re a bank robber. You don’t believe that you’re a bank robber. You are moved to point your finger, gun-wise, at the person pretending to be the bank teller and say, “Stick ‘em up! This is a robbery!”.

Tyler Burge, Christopher Peacocke; Our Entitlement to Self-Knowledge, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 96, Issue 1, 1 June 1996, Pages 117–158, h.

In this paper, I argue that no theory of consciousness can simultaneously respect four initially plausible metaphysical claims – namely, ‘first-person realism’, ‘non-solipsism’, ‘non-fragmentation’, and ‘one world’ – but that any three of the four claims are mutually consistent. So, theories of consciousness face a ‘quadrilemma’. Since it will be hard to achieve a consensus on which of the four claims to retain and which to give up, we arrive at a landscape of competing theories, all of which have pros (...) and cons. I will briefly indicate which kinds of theories correspond to the four horns of the quadrilemma. (shrink)

Spacetime as we know and love it is lost in most approaches to quantum gravity. For many of these approaches, as inchoate and incomplete as they may be, one of the main challenges is to relate what they take to be the fundamental non-spatiotemporal structure of the world back to the classical spacetime of GR. The present essay investigates how spacetime is lost and how it may be regained in one major approach to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity.

The media attention and subsequent scientific backlash engendered by the claim, announced by spokespeople for the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements project, that 80% of the human genome has a “biochemical function” highlights the need for a clearer understanding of function concepts in biology. This article provides an overview of two major function concepts that have been developed in the philosophy of science – the “causal role” concept and the “selected effects” concept – and their relevance to ENCODE. Unlike some previous (...) critiques, the ENCODE project is not considered problematic because it employed a causal role definition of function, but because of how this concept was misused. In addition, several unique challenges that arise when dealing with transposable elements, but which were ignored by ENCODE, are highlighted. These include issues surrounding TE-level versus organism-level selection, the origins versus the persistence of elements, and accidental versus functional organism-level benefits. Finally, some key questions are presented that should be addressed in any studies aiming to ascribe functions to major portions of large eukaryotic genomes, the majority of which is made up of transposable elements. (shrink)

Imaginative immersion refers to a phenomenon in which one loses oneself in make-believe. Susanna Schellenberg says that the best explanation of imaginative immersion involves a radical revision to cognitive architecture. Instead of there being an attitude of belief and a distinct attitude of imagination, there should only be one attitude that represents a continuum between belief and imagination. -/- We argue otherwise. Although imaginative immersion is a crucial data point for theorizing about the imagination, positing a continuum between belief and (...) imagination is neither necessary nor sufficient for explaining the phenomenon. In addition, arguing against Schellenberg’s account reveals important but underappreciated lessons for theorizing about the imagination and for interpreting boxological representations of the mind. (shrink)

Tyler Burge presents an original study of the most primitive ways in which individuals represent the physical world. By reflecting on the science of perception and related psychological and biological sciences, he gives an account of constitutive conditions for perceiving the physical world, and thus aims to locate origins of representational mind.

Dennett [1991] proposes a novel ontological account of the propositional attitudes—real patterns. Despite its name, the degree to which this account is committed to realism remains unclear. In this paper, I propose an alternative criterion of pattern instantiation, one that assesses the difficultly of faithfully interpreting a physical system as instantiating a particular pattern. Drawing on formal measures of simplicity and similarity, I argue that, for well-instantiated patterns, our interpretation will be computable by using a short program. This approach preserves (...) the flexibility of Dennett’s original, while offering substantially stronger realist commitments. (shrink)

Utility, rights, and holistic standards all point toward some modest steps to limit or check the predatory activity of carnivores relative to their victims. At the very least, we should limit current subsidies to nature’s carnivores. Policing nature need not be absurdly costly or violate common-sense intuitions.

According to structuralism, all natural properties are individuated by their roles in causal/nomological structures. According to quidditism, at least some natural properties are individuated in some other way. Because these theses deal with the identities of natural properties, this distinction cuts to the core of a serious metaphysical dispute: Are the intrinsic natures of all natural properties essentially causal/nomological in character? I'll argue that the answer is ‘no’, or at least that this answer is more plausible than many critics of (...) quidditism have recognized. In section 1, I distinguish between two versions of quidditism. Bare quidditism holds that worlds with distinct properties and isomorphic structures must be qualitatively identical in the following sense: inhabiting one world would be indistinguishable from inhabiting the other. In contrast, qualitative quidditism allows such worlds to have qualitative differences. In section 2, I discuss an epistemological position that allows us to bett... (shrink)

The concept of artificial intelligence is not new nor is the notion that it should be granted legal protections given its influence on human activity. What is new, on a relative scale, is the notion that artificial intelligence can possess citizenship—a concept reserved only for humans, as it presupposes the idea of possessing civil duties and protections. Where there are several decades’ worth of writing on the concept of the legal status of computational artificial artefacts in the USA and elsewhere, (...) it is surprising that law makers internationally have come to a standstill to protect our silicon brainchildren. In this essay, it will be assumed that future artificial entities, such as Sophia the Robot, will be granted citizenship on an international scale. With this assumption, an analysis of rights will be made with respect to the needs of a non-biological intelligence possessing legal and civic duties akin to those possessed by humanity today. This essay does not present a full set of rights for artificial intelligence—instead, it aims to provide international jurisprudence evidence aliunde ab extra de lege lata for any future measures made to protect non-biological intelligence. (shrink)

This Element provides an opinionated introduction to the metaphysics of laws of nature. The first section distinguishes between scientific and philosophical questions about laws and describes some criteria for a philosophical account of laws. Subsequent sections explore the leading philosophical theories in detail, reviewing the most influential arguments in the literature. The final few sections assess the state of the field and suggest avenues for future research.

ABSTRACT:Workplace transgressions elicit a variety of opinions about their meaning and what is required to address them. This diversity in views makes it difficult for managers to identify a mutually satisfactory response and to enable repair of the relationships between the affected parties. We develop a conceptual model for understanding how to bridge these diverging perspectives and foster relationship repair. Specifically, we argue that effective relationship repair is dependent on the parties’ reciprocal concern for others’ viewpoints and collective engagement in (...) the justice repair process. This approach enhances our understanding of the interdependency between justice and reconciliation/reintegration, while also providing theoretical insight into the processes underlying restorative conferencing, innovations that promise to help managers heal damaged organizational bonds. (shrink)

In all probability, future generations will outnumber us by thousands or millions to one. In the aggregate, their interests therefore matter enormously, and anything we can do to steer the future of civilization onto a better trajectory is of tremendous moral importance. This is the guiding thought that defines the philosophy of longtermism. Political science tells us that the practices of most governments are at stark odds with longtermism. But the problems of political short-termism are neither necessary nor inevitable. In (...) principle, the state could serve as a powerful tool for positively shaping the long-term future. In this chapter, we make some suggestions about how to align government incentives with the interests of future generations. First, in Section II, we explain the root causes of political short-termism. Then, in Section III, we propose and defend four institutional reforms that we think would be promising ways to increase the time horizons of governments: 1) government research institutions and archivists; 2) posterity impact assessments; 3) futures assemblies; and 4) legislative houses for future generations. Section IV concludes with five additional reforms that are promising but require further research: to fully resolve the problem of political short-termism we must develop a comprehensive research program on effective longtermist political institutions. (shrink)

Non‐Humean theories of natural necessity invoke modally‐laden primitives to explain why nature exhibits lawlike regularities. However, they vary in the primitives they posit and in their subsequent accounts of laws of nature and related phenomena (including natural properties, natural kinds, causation, counterfactuals, and the like). This article provides a taxonomy of non‐Humean theories, discusses influential arguments for and against them, and describes some ways in which differences in goals and methods can motivate different versions of non‐Humeanism (and, for that matter, (...) Humeanism). In short, this article provides an introduction to non‐Humeanism concerning the metaphysics of laws of nature and natural necessity. (shrink)