Os primeiros seis parágrafos de O Desespero humano, de Kierkegaard, estão entre as passagens mais densas e difíceis de interpretar em toda sua obra. Nelas, ele expõe a natureza do eu em termos de relações e muitos têm interpretado isso como uma expressão da dialética de Hegel. Nesse artigo, leio aqueles parágrafos da lógica das relações de Peirce e mostro que Peirce nos permite entender Kierkegaard muito mais claramente do que Hegel. Além disso, apesar de tudo que Peirce e Hegel (...) têm em comum, Peirce o critica severamente com respeito à realidade da Segundidade. Analisando essa crítica e também o que Peirce e Kierkegaard dizem sobre a importância da dúvida vis-à-vis consciência, eu mostro que uma leitura Peirciana de Kierkegaard é bem mais frutífera do que a estruturaHegeliana que Kierkegaard conhecia. No final, eu reflito sobre a possibilidade de falar sobre um Kierkegaard semiótico e um Peirce existencialista. (shrink)

Persons who are dangerous and legally responsible, but who have not yet committed any currently recognised criminal offence, fall within the gap left between the domains of criminal justice and civil commitment. Many jurisdictions operate legal regimes that permit the detention of such persons in order to prevent the occurrence of anticipated criminal harms. These regimes often either fail to respect the principle of proportionality or contradictorily treat a dangerous offender as both legally responsible and not responsible at the same (...) time. In response to these problems, a number of preventive detention models have been proposed. Retributivist models seek to prevent the occurrence of anticipated criminal harms by requiring blame on the dangerous person’s part in order to warrant detention. However, these models are ill-equipped to deal with the problem of coextensiveness; i.e., they struggle to comprehensively reconcile proportionality in punitive sentencing with the period over which dangerous persons remain dangerous and during which one might therefore want them to be incapacitated. In order to achieve comprehensive incapacitation of dangerous persons for the duration of their dangerousness, retributivist models are forced to abandon their fidelity to proportionality in punitive sentencing, thereby losing themselves in the process. Accordingly, if the practice of preventive detention can be justified at all, such justification will not be of a retributivist character. (shrink)

The first handbook on the topic of religious epistemology introduces and discusses topics fundamental to the epistemology of religious belief.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose significant health, economic, and social challenges. Given that many of these challenges have moral relevance, the present studies investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is influencing moral decision-making and whether moralisation of behaviours specific to the crisis predict adherence to government-recommended behaviours. Whilst we find no evidence that utilitarian endorsements have changed during the pandemic at two separate timepoints, individuals have moralised non-compliant behaviours associated with the pandemic such as failing to physically distance themselves from (...) others. Importantly, our findings show that this moralisation predicts sustained individual compliance with government-recommended behaviours. (shrink)

Over the last decade, the increased use of work teams within organizations has been one of the most influential and far-reaching trends to shape the business world. At the same time, corporations have continued to struggle with increased unethical employee behavior. Very little research has been conducted that specifically examines the developmental aspects of employee ethical decision-making in a team environment. This study examines the impact of a team leader’s perceived integrity on his or her subordinates’ behavior. The results, which (...) came from a survey of 245 MBA students functioning for 2 years in a work team environment, indicate an interaction between leader integrity and team member ethical intentions. (shrink)

Mainstream addiction science is today widely marked by an antinomy between a neurologically determinist understanding of the human brain ‘hijacked’ by the biochemical allure of intoxicants and a liberal voluntarist conception of drug use as a free exercise of choice. Prominent defenders of both discourses strive, ultimately without complete success, to provide accounts that are both universal and value-neutral. This has resulted in a variety of conceptual problems and has undermined the utility of such research for those who seek to (...) therapeutically care for people presumed to suffer from addictions. This article contrasts these two contemporary discourses to two others that played vital historical roles in initiating both scientific and popular concern for addiction. These are the Puritan and civic republican discourses that dominated scholarly discussions of addiction in the early modern era. In each case, the place of values in these discussions is highlighted. By comparing them to their early modern historical antecedents, this article seeks to reflexively explore and develop more intellectually sound and therapeutically relevant alternatives to the troubled attempts at universality and value-neutrality now fettering debates in mainstream addiction science. (shrink)

If epistemology is roughly the study of knowledge, justification, warrant, and rationality, then religious epistemology is the study of how these epistemic concepts relate to religious belief and practice. This Element, while surveying various religious epistemologies, argues specifically for Plantingian religious epistemology. It makes the case for proper functionalism and Plantinga's AC models, while it also responds to debunking arguments informed by cognitive science of religion. It serves as a bridge between religious epistemology and natural theology.

In this essay, we put forth a novel solution to Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, utilizing recent work done by Duncan Pritchard on radical skepticism. Key to the success of Plantinga’s argument is the doubting of the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties. We argue (viz. Pritchard and Wittgenstein) that the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties constitutes a hinge commitment, thus is exempt from rational evaluation. In turn, the naturalist who endorses hinge epistemology can deny the key premise in Plantinga’s argument (...) and avoid the dilemma posed on belief in the conjunction of naturalism and evolution. (shrink)

In an effort to promote more theoretically incisive research regarding the specifically sociological aspects of addiction, this article critically discusses three prominent theoretical paradigms for the study of addiction - neurology, learning theory and symbolic interaction. Neurological theories and learning theories are found to inadequately provide for the role of culturally transmitted meanings in the addiction process. While symbolic interactionist theories have been centrally concerned with meaning, they have failed to theorize how issues of meaning might figure in the addict's (...) inevitable subjective estrangement from his or her drug-related activities. This stems from their failure to appreciate the reality of non-symbolic meaning, or meaningful experience that manifests pre-reflectively, at the level of our immediate bodily encounter with reality. The article concludes by suggesting that sociological students of addiction adopt a more thoroughly praxiological orientation to meaningful experience, so as to overcome the analytic limitations inherent in the antinomy between biological reductionism and disembodied cognitivism. (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?

The problem of divine hiddenness, currently a much-discussed topic in analytic philosophy of religion, can be summarized in the question, ‘Why is God not more obvious or apparent?’ Sometimes the problem is used to undermine theistic belief. Here we seek to add a unique contribution to the growing debate on this theme from the perspective of Reformed epistemology, particularly Alvin Plantinga's construal; moreover, we do so in a way that is theologically relevant. We conclude, with assistance from Scripture and from (...) Plantinga, that the problem of divine hiddenness is not a problem for the Reformed epistemologist. (shrink)

Pierre Klossowski's career in philosophy is a brief but significant intervention into the manner in which the connections between desire, identity, and meaning are thought. Although Klossowski's influence on much of what is called French “post-structuralism” or “post-modernism” is frequently noted, Klossowski's development of the motif of the simulacrum is rarely traced in its proper context. Through readings of the texts of the Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as his own ruminations on the polytheism of (...) the ancient Roman cult of Diana, Klossowski constructs a critique not only of the identity of the self but also of the supposed unity of reason and rational signs. Klossowski's critique demonstrates how meaningful discourse is produced from the basis of incommunicable affects, which project images in consciousness that, only then, are able to take the form of iterable simulacra. Our “gregarious” discourse in language is, thus, formed only indirectly from the affects and acquires its supposed unity only as it fails to express those affects. (shrink)

We aim to further develop and evaluate the prospects of a uniquely Islamic extension of the Standard Aquinas/Calvin model. One obstacle is that certain Qur’an passages such as Surah 8:43–44 apparently suggest that Muslims have reason to think that Allah might be deceiving them. Consistent with perfect/maximally good being theology, Allah would allow such deceptions only if doing so leads to a greater good, so such passages do not necessarily give Muslims reason to doubt Allah’s goodness. Yet the possibility of (...) deception of the faithful threatens to provide a subjective defeater for the (epistemic) reliability of their cognitive faculties. (‘Even if Allah can be morally good while deceiving, how do you know you aren’t being deceived for a greater good on a more macro level, such as about the nature of the Qur’an?’) Similar in structure to Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), this defeater threatens to undermine all of a Muslims warrant claims. We consider and evaluate the reply that there are other Qur’anic passages and/or additional conceptual resources in the Islamic tradition that provide grounds for thinking that God’s faithfulness or truthfulness is more centrally and securely embedded in a Muslim’s noetic structure than such doubts. Specifically, we will argue that under certain conditions, there exists a subjective defeater for some Muslims that, unlike McNabb’s approach, isn’t based off of the proper function condition but Plantinga’s truth aimed condition. (shrink)

C-Inductive arguments are arguments that increase the probability of a hypothesis. This can be contrasted with what is called a P-Inductive argument. A P-inductive argument is an argument that shows the overall probability of a hypothesis to be more probable than not. In this paper, we put forth a C-inductive argument for the truth of the Catholic hypothesis (CH). Roughly, we take CH to be the hypothesis that the core creedal beliefs found within the Catholic Tradition are true. Specifically, we (...) argue that we would expect the Miracle of Fátima on CH, but, we wouldn’t expect it as much on ~CH. In order to establish this thesis, we first discuss the basics of confirmation theory. Second, we give the historical context of the Miracle of Fátima. Third, we briefly survey and then reject two possible non-supernatural explanations of the apparent miracle. Doing this will help make plausible that the Miracle of Fátima is actual evidence that a hypothesis needs to predict. Fourth, we give the details as to why we should expect the Miracle of Fátima more on CH than ~CH. Finally, we argue that miracles that occur in Protestant contexts, generally don’t carry the same evidential weight for a Protestant hypothesis as the Miracle of Fátima carries for CH. (shrink)

If you were to take a time machine and travel back to the 1980s, Catholic epistemology would look drastically different than it does today, at least in analytic circles. One of those drastic changes relates to whether Catholic epistemology is consistent with Reformed epistemology. Another issue relates to whether St. Thomas Aquinas was a classical evidentialist. In this paper, I survey recent developments in Catholic epistemology. I do this by first looking at Gregory Stacey's recent work arguing the Catholic Church's (...) teaching on faith is best situated in a Reformed epistemological framework. I then engage decades old objections to Reformed epistemology from a Catholic perspective. I respond to these objections partly by surveying recent work by Catholic epistemologists. The paper then takes a turn to look at the recent scholarship on Aquinas' epistemology. I show that there is now an emerging consensus that Aquinas belongs not to a hard evidentialist camp as it was previously thought, but rather an externalist friendly tradition. (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)

In The Problem of Political Authority, Michael Huemer argues that the contractarian and consequentialist groundings of political authority are unsuccessful, and, in fact, that there are no adequate contemporary accounts of political authority. As such, the modern state is illegitimate and we have reasons to affirm political anarchism. We disagree with Huemer’s conclusion. But we consider Huemer’s critiques of contractarianism and consequentialism to be compelling. Here we will juxtapose, alongside Huemer’s critiques, a theistic account of political authority from Nicholas Wolterstorff’s (...) book The Mighty and the Almighty. We think that Wolterstorff’s model does better than contractarianism and consequentialism at answering Huemer’s critiques. We also think that an abductive basis for God’s existence emerges from the inadequate authority accounts that Huemer surveys. (shrink)

The present study concerns the issue of meaning in contemporary continental philosophy. In particular, it develops the two accounts of meaning offered by Heidegger and Levinas, each of whom presents us with a differing break from Husserl. As a first attempt to name the difference between these three thinkers, one could say that Husserl gives us an epistemological notion of meaning; whereas Heidegger gives us an ontological account, and Levinas gives us an ethical account. We will refine and reformulate this (...) division in relation to the issues of each chapter. ;We will thus see how both Heidegger and Levinas develop their separate notions in relation to Husserl's own revolutionary approach to the question of meaning. Whereas Husserl both replaced the term "experience" with the term "intuition" and gave a compelling account of the "prepredicative" roots of the meaningful, Heidegger advances the articulation of such a prepredicative realm of meaning even further than Husserl. He did so, however, in a way that ends up displacing Husserl's notion of intuition. This is the move from Husserl's account of phenomenological intuition to Heidegger's own notion of a more hermeneutic phenomenology . ;I will show how Heidegger articulates an account of meaning as that upon which any projection of understanding takes shape. Meaning becomes a quasi-transcendental, non-subjective notion of that which makes possible the disclosure of any "world." Levinas, on the other hand, offers an account of meaning---in intended opposition to Heidegger---as located primarily in the ethical exposure at the heart of language: in the "face-to-face" relation of Same and Other. He further develops his notion of meaning in terms of the notion of the saying and the said. Both Heidegger and Levinas give us a non-intentional account of the meaningful. For Heidegger it takes the form of a non-intentional background that makes possible both the "worldhood of the world" and the possibilities of Dasein . For Levinas, the meaningful is thought in terms of an interpersonal, quasi-ethical face to face relation between persons exposed to the vulnerability, obligation, and height of an "Other" in what he calls the "saying.". (shrink)

This paper provides an account of the paradoxes of teaching democracy, the paradoxes of being a citizen in a liberal democracy, and the insights that can be gained from the model of citizenship that T.H. Green promoted. Green thought citizenship was predicated on the twin foundations of the community and the common good. Freedom for Green means individual self-determination coupled with recognition of the dependency relations between individuals and the community. Green is noteworthy not only as a theorist but also (...) as an active contributor to the development of public schools in England. A consideration of his arguments provides a model for educating citizens, addresses the paradoxes of democracy in education, and reveals elements of his philosophy that are relevant to educational issues today. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga over the decades has developed a particular theory of warrant that would allow certain beliefs to be warranted, even if one lacked propositional arguments or evidence for them. One such belief that Plantinga focuses on is belief in God. There have been, however, numerous objections both to Plantinga's theory of warrant and to the religious application that he makes of it. In this article I address an objection from both of these categories. I first tackle an objection that (...) attempts to show that proper function isn't a necessary condition for warrant. After tackling this, I move on to interact with the Pandora's Box Objection. This objection argues that Plantinga's epistemology is weakened by the fact that all sorts of serious religious beliefs could be warranted by using his system. (shrink)