C. S. Peirce develops a novel argument for belief in God in a 1908 paper he entitled “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God.”1 That essay has received a fair amount of attention in recent years,2 but Peirce’s overall argument remains somewhat obscure. There is still more work to be done in explicating its basic structure and determining whether the argument can withstand criticism. The purpose of this essay is to reconstruct Peirce’s argument in a way that reveals the (...) most pressing objections to which it is susceptible.Peirce’s overall argument consists of three interrelated sub-arguments. First, Peirce leads us through a meditative or contemplative process through which the belief in God’s reality is.. (shrink)

In this paper, the authors argue for two main claims: first, that the epistemic results of group deliberation can be superior to those of individual inquiry; and, second, that successful deliberative groups depend on individuals exhibiting deliberative virtues. The development of these group-deliberative virtues, the authors argue, is important not only for epistemic purposes but political purposes, as democracies require the virtuous deliberation of their citizens. Deliberative virtues contribute to the deliberative synergy of the group, not only in terms of (...) improving the quality of the group's present decisions, but also improving the background conditions for continued group deliberation. The authors sketch a preliminary schedule of these group-deliberative virtues modelled on Aristotle's conception of virtue as the mean between two extreme vices. The virtues discussed in this article include deliberative wit, friendliness, empathy, charity, temperance, courage, sincerity, and humility. (shrink)

This article elucidates a unique metaethical theory implicit in the work of several thinkers associated with the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. After positioning that theory within a broader landscape of metaethical positions endorsed by several prominent contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians, we address the concern that, when attending to the Euthyphro dilemma, the Restoration-inspired combination metaethical theory inevitably collapses into either an unalloyed divine command theory or an unalloyed natural law theory. In explaining how this sort of worry can be mitigated, (...) we offer reason to think that the nonreductive, combination metaethical theory in question constitutes potentially fertile territory for further scholarly work in Christian ethics. (shrink)

The statistics on plagiarism are staggering. No wonder, then, that many colleges and universities have started using plagiarism detection services (PDSs) such as Turnitin. But there are problems—and more problems than most critics have recognized. Whereas critics typically focus on legal issues related to intellectual property and privacy rights, I argue that unless we can reasonably suspect academic dishonesty, it’s morally problematic to require submission through a PDS. Even if we insist that the benefits of PDS use are worth the (...) costs of saddling students with an undeserved burden of proof, blanket PDS use—that is, using PDSs across the boardand without reasonable suspicion—is problematic because it conflicts with one of the aims of educational institutions: to cultivate students’ characters. Although blanket PDS use may in fact deter plagiarism, it doesn’t create an environment conducive to the formation of honor, and it may even be a hindrance. (shrink)

This paper examines Cornel West’s attempt to offer an alternative to the dominant liberal view concerning the proper role of religion in the democratic public square. Whereas mainstream liberals seek strategies to keep religion and public life separate, West seeks to dissolve the apparent tension between religion and democratic citizenship by reconstructing religion pragmatically such that it can be rendered compatible with democracy. I argue that West’s proposal fails to be a viable alternative precisely because the “prophetic pragmatism” underwriting his (...) view is unethical to the extent that it relies upon manipulative relationships with traditional religious believers in African-American churches. (shrink)

In this monograph, authors J. Caleb Clanton and Kraig Martin argue that two classical approaches to moral grounding (natural law theory and divine command theory), while commonly opposed, can nevertheless be combined into a "third way" through precepts derived from the Stone-Campbell tradition. As such, this work represents an attempt to show the rich potential the Stone-Campbell tradition has in contributing to important, long-standing metaethical and philosophical questions.

The years between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II are often seen as a golden age of philosophical thought in the United States, thanks in part to the early development of pragmatism. Together, the pragmatists and other classical American philosophers of the time period addressed many of the issues still under debate in philosophy today, and their influence is still evident. Yet many of their contributions to philosophy of religion have not yet received (...) the critical analysis they deserve. In Philosophy of Religion in the Classical American Tradition, J. Caleb Clanton reconstructs, evaluates, and extends a variety of views in philosophy of religion drawn from, inspired by, or developed in response to the classical American philosophical tradition. Problem-based and argument-driven, each chapter explores a salient issue in philosophy of religion by engaging with such thinkers as C. S. Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, John Dewey, and Edward Scribner Ames, as well as two prominent contemporary inheritors of the classical American philosophical tradition, Cornel West and Richard Rorty. Clanton addresses a wide variety of topics, including the reality of God, the veridicality of mystical experience, the problem of evil, the efficacy of petitionary prayer, religious naturalism, and the role of religion in the democratic public square. For scholars and teachers of philosophy and religious studies, Philosophy of Religion in the Classical American Tradition will serve as a valuable resource for engaging with the history of philosophy of religion in the United States. (shrink)

This paper retraces some of the contrast between Aquinas and Scotus with respect to the metaphysical foundations of morality in order to highlight how subtle differences pertaining to the relationship between the divine will and the divine intellect can tip a thinker toward either an unalloyed natural law theory (NLT) or something that at least starts to move in the direction of divine command theory (DCT). The paper opens with a brief consideration of three distinct elements in Aquinas’s work that (...) might tempt one to view him in a DCT light, namely: his discussion of the divine law in addition to the natural law; his position on the so-called immoralities of the patriarchs; and some of his assertions about the divine will in relation to justice. We then respond to each of those considerations. In the second and third of these cases, following Craig Boyd, we illustrate how Aquinas’s conviction that the divine will follows the ordering of the divine intellect can help inform the interpretive disputes in question. We then turn our attention to Scotus’s concern about the freedom of the divine will, before turning to his discussion of the natural law in relation to the Decalogue as a way of stressing how his two-source theory of the metaphysical foundations of morality represents a clear departure from Aquinas in the direction of DCT. (shrink)

God and Morality in the Christian Tradition provides a scholarly overview from multiple contributors regarding questions of morality in regards to the Christian religious standpoint.

This book addresses heated debate among political thinkers concerned with the role of religious reasoning in the deliberation and justification of public policy and voting. The author critically examines various arguments drawn from mainstream liberal political theory, political theology, and American pragmatism, and offers a unique proposal for thinking through this issue.

There is a tension between Robert Talisse's rejection of Deweyan democracy and his project of formulating a workable Peircean conception of democracy. If he follows Rawls in taking reasonable pluralism to be a permanent condition, then his Peircean conception of democracy is undermined. But, if he does not commit to the permanence of reasonable pluralism, then his rejection of Deweyan democracy is problematic. Since he chooses the latter interpretation, Talisse must bite the bullet and recognize that Peircean epistemic perfectionists cannot (...) yet bid a definitive farewell to Deweyan democracy. (shrink)

Scholars of the classical American philosophical tradition have not written much about prayer, despite the fact that almost every single one of the major figures of this tradition acknowledged its significance. The gap in the literature is notable in the case of George Santayana, who discusses prayer in several of his major works. And of all the classical American philosophers, Santayana may have the most fully developed treatment of prayer, particularly as it relates to the problem of petitionary prayer. Yet (...) his account of payer has not received much attention. This is surprising since, on the one hand, many of Santayana’s other views on religion and spirituality have been widely commented on, and, on the other hand, prayer has been a prominent topic in philosophy of religion in recent decades. And it makes sense for scholars of the classical American tradition nowadays to consider Santayana’s views about prayer, at the least because this tradition concerns itself with the problems of ordinary people, and to most Americans–and even to some atheist Americans–prayer seems to matter a great deal. Santayana’s treatment of prayer can be organized into two phases. First, he offers a twofold case against the common view that petitionary prayer is materially efficacious–that is, the view that petitionary prayer can do something to affect whether God brings about a desired state of affairs that would not have otherwise obtained had the request for it not been made. (shrink)

William Rowe’s criticism of the cosmological argument takes aim at the argument’s reliance on the principle of sufficient reason. In this short paper, I outline out how C. S. Peirce’s insights regarding abductive reasoning might be useful in defending the cosmological argument against Rowe’s worry concerning the principle of sufficient reason and the role it plays in the argument.

Extending recent appropriations of Charles S. Peirce's work in political theory, we argue that the same epistemic norms that justify democracy offer a plausible basis for justifying multiculturalist policies aimed at protecting at-risk cultural groups. Because this epistemic argument is compatible with a full range of reasonable comprehensive doctrines, it fully accommodates the fact of reasonable pluralism, thereby skirting the Rawlsian objection to which the multiculturalisms of Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka fall prey.

This article reconstructs and evaluates Josiah Royce’s treatment of the problem of evil. I begin with an explanation of how Royce understands Job’s situation in the biblical account to be representative of the human predicament with respect to God and evil . Next, I assess Royce’s account of three relatively familiar responses to the problem of evil he means to reject , and then I provide an analysis of his own proposal for addressing the problem . In the final section (...) of the paper, I raise four objections to Royce’s idealist theodicy. (shrink)

William of Ockham is often thought to be the medieval progenitor of divine command theory. This paper contends that the origin of a thoroughgoing and fully reductive DCT position is perhaps more appropriately laid at the feet of Andrew of Neufchateau. We begin with a brief recapitulation of an interpretive dispute surrounding Ockham in order to highlight how there is enough ambiguity in his work about the metaphysical foundations of morality to warrant suspicion about whether he actually stands at the (...) origin of DCT. We then show how all such ambiguity is jettisoned in the work of Andrew, who explicitly rejects a position similar to one plausibly attributable to Ockham and also articulates a fully reductive DCT. (shrink)

In this reply I respond to the article "Can Peircean Epistemic Perfectionists Bid Farewell to Deweyan Democracy?" by J. Caleb Clanton and Andrew T. Forcehimes, in this journal issue.

J. Caleb Clanton’s excellent new book is a must read for scholars studying the “classical” American philosophical tradition and for philosophers of religion more generally. In each of the six main chapters, Clanton reconstructs and assesses an argument in the philosophy of religion made by one philosophers that belong to the classic American tradition. Clanton’s approach is analytical and precise but not overly technical. His careful reconstructions of each argument constitute an invaluable scholarly contribution, and his insightful (...) criticisms of each argument warrant the close attention of his philosophical peers. Clearly, Clanton’s book is the fruit of long hours spent “thinking with” the... (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that mammalian chromosomes contain discretecis‐acting loci that control replication timing, mitotic condensation, and stability of entire chromosomes. Disruption of the large non‐coding RNA gene ASAR6 results in late replication, an under‐condensed appearance during mitosis, and structural instability of human chromosome 6. Similarly, disruption of the mouse Xist gene in adult somatic cells results in a late replication and instability phenotype on the X chromosome. ASAR6 shares many characteristics with Xist, including random mono‐allelic expression and asynchronous replication timing. (...) Additional “chromosome engineering” studies indicate that certain chromosome rearrangements affecting many different chromosomes display this abnormal replication and instability phenotype. These observations suggest that all mammalian chromosomes contain “inactivation/stability centers” that control proper replication, condensation, and stability of individual chromosomes. Therefore, mammalian chromosomes contain four types ofcis‐acting elements, origins, telomeres, centromeres, and “inactivation/stability centers”, all functioning to ensure proper replication, condensation, segregation, and stability of individual chromosomes. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

Vaesen infers unique properties of mind from the appearance of specific cultural innovation – a correlation without causal direction. Shifts in habitat, population density, and group dynamics are the only independently verifiable incentives for changes in cultural practices. The transition from Acheulean to Late Stone Age technologies requires that we consider how population and social dynamics affect cultural innovation and mental function.

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

v. 1. Nicomachean ethics. Politics. The Athenian Constitution. Rhetoric. On Poetics.--v. 2. Logic.--v. 3. Physics. Metaphysics. On the soul. Short physical treaties.--v. 4. On the heavens. On generation and corruption. Meteorology. Biological treatises.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is the most likely site where egocentric spatial relationships are represented in the brain. PPC cells receive visual, auditory, somaesthetic, and vestibular sensory inputs; oculomotor, head, limb, and body motor signals; and strong motivational projections from the limbic system. Their discharge increases not only when an animal moves towards a sensory target, but also when it directs its attention to it. PPC lesions have the opposite effect: sensory inattention and neglect. The PPC does not seem (...) to contain a “map” of the location of objects in space but a distributed neural network for transforming one set of sensory vectors into other sensory reference frames or into various motor coordinate systems. Which set of transformation rules is used probably depends on attention, which selectively enhances the synapses needed for making a particular sensory comparison or aiming a particular movement. (shrink)

Orthologic is defined by weakening the axioms and rules of inference of the classical propositional calculus. The resulting Lindenbaum-Tarski quotient algebra is an orthoimplication algebra which generalizes the author's implication algebra. The associated order structure is a semi-orthomodular lattice. The theory of orthomodular lattices is obtained by adjoining a falsity symbol to the underlying orthologic or a least element to the orthoimplication algebra.

Providing an original and systematic treatment of foundational issues in philosophy of religion, J. L. Schellenberg's new book addresses the structure of..