In das paper 1 consider the reliability condition in Alvin Platinga’s proper functionalist account of epistemic warrant I begin by reviewing m some detail the features of the reliability condition as Platinga has articulated a From there, 1 consider what is needed to ground or secure the sort of reliability which Plantinga has m mind, and argue that what is needed is a significant causal condition which has generally been overlooked Then, after identifying eight versions of the relevant sort of (...) reliability, I exam me each alternative as to whether as requirement, along with Platinga’s other proposed conditions, would give us a satisfactory account of epistemic warrant I conclude that there is bale to no hope of formulating a reliability condition that would yield a satisfactory analysts of the sort Plantinga desires. (shrink)

In das paper 1 consider the reliability condition in Alvin Platinga’s proper functionalist account of epistemic warrant I begin by reviewing m some detail the features of the reliability condition as Platinga has articulated a From there, 1 consider what is needed to ground or secure the sort of reliability which Plantinga has m mind, and argue that what is needed is a significant causal condition which has generally been overlooked Then, after identifying eight versions of the relevant sort of (...) reliability, I exam me each alternative as to whether as requirement, along with Platinga’s other proposed conditions, would give us a satisfactory account of epistemic warrant I conclude that there is bale to no hope of formulating a reliability condition that would yield a satisfactory analysts of the sort Plantinga desires. (shrink)

Two recently published collections of essays—Free Will and Theism, edited by Kevin Timpe and Daniel Speak, and Free Will and Classical Theism, edited by the late Hugh McCann—represent the state of the art in current analytic philosophy and analytic theology with respect to issues at the intersection of the metaphysics of free will and Christian theism that have vexed philosophers and theologians throughout Christian history. Despite a marked imbalance of incompatibilist authors over compatibilist authors in both volumes, the essays in (...) these collections advance the discussion in significant ways, and I indicate some of those ways. (shrink)

In this essay I consider how God is related to possible worlds from a classically evangelical and Reformed perspective, contending that God’s essential perfections determine what is genuinely possible. I then consider briefly three views that take God to be a significant delimiter of possible worlds and offer some defense of one of those views, the view that there are many genuinely possible worlds that are equally and unsurpassably good and that God might have chosen to actualize. I conclude by (...) noting two significant implications of my position, one epistemological and the other concerning the problem of evil. (shrink)

In das paper 1 ccmstder the rehabday condaton in Atm PlanungaS's proper functionabst account of eptstemtc warrant I begm by reviewing m some detail the features of the rehabdity condition as Planunga lias aruculated a From there, 1 consider what is needed to ground or secure the sort of rehability whzch Plantinga has m mind, and argue that what is needed is a significant causai condam which has generally been overlooked Then, after identifying eight verstons of the relevant sort of (...) reltabdity, I exam me each alternative as to whether as requirement, along with PlanungaSs other proposed conditions, would give us a sausfactory account of epis tenuc warrant I conclude that there is bale to no hope of formulatmg a rehabilay condaion that would yield a sattsfactory analysts of the sort Plantinga destres. (shrink)

Is the existence of God a reasonable metaphysical hypothesis? So asks A. C. Ewing in his important posthumous work, Value and Reality. Thus the topic of the book is theistic religion, not in its entirety, but rather merely in its intellectual part. That it does have such a part, and further that it makes claims ‘to objective truth in the field of metaphysics’, is defended on the grounds that a fictional ‘story’ about God has what religious or ethical impact it (...) may have because, or at least mainly because, it is taken precisely not as fictional, but as expressing an objective theological truth; and that a story, or an account, can constitute a good reason for one's acting in a certain way only if the account is, in fact, objectively true. Bearing on both points is Ewing's observation that ‘emotion, at least except in pathological cases, requires some objective belief about the real, true or false, to support it for long, and if it exists without knowledge or rationally founded belief with which it is in agreement, it is to be condemned as irrational or unfitting, as it would be unfitting to rejoice at something disastrous or be angry with an inanimate thing’. The claim is not, we are told, that religious statements are literal as distinguished from symbolic. The door would seem to be left open, in fact, to their all being symbolic. What is essential is that some of them symbolise distinctively metaphysical truths, or truths ‘going beyond the realm of science’ and ‘throwing some light on the general nature of the real’. We should indeed distinguish, Ewing notes, ‘belief in’ from ‘belief that’. Yet the former is not possible without the latter. ‘Unless I believe that God exists I cannot believe in God’. So in Ewing's opinion, statements of metaphysics—if not concerning God, then at least concerning certain general aspects of reality—are most important for religion as a whole, and are, in being true, conceptually necessary to its validity, or to its ‘fittingness’. (shrink)

This is the first book to offer the best essays, articles, and speeches on ethics and intelligence that demonstrate the complex moral dilemmas in intelligence collection, analysis, and operations. Some are recently declassified and never before published, and all are written by authors whose backgrounds are as varied as their insights, including Robert M. Gates, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; John P. Langan, the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, (...) Georgetown University; and Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and recipient of the Owens Award for contributions to the understanding of U.S. intelligence activities. Creating the foundation for the study of ethics and intelligence by filling in the gap between warfare and philosophy, this is a valuable collection of literature for building an ethical code that is not dependent on any specific agency, department, or country. (shrink)

Current events force upon Americans not only the duties of a citizen of a nation at war but also the conceptual challenge of understanding the nature of citizenship. In Aristotle and the Rediscovery of Citizenship Susan Collins argues that contemporary liberal political theory, based on presuppositions about the priority of the individual to the state, is incapable of responding to such an intellectual challenge. At least since the publication of John Rawls’ Political Liberalism (1993), contemporary liberal political theory has (...) struggled to articulate an account of liberal citizenship which captures the obligations inherent in citizenship consistent with the individual freedom inherent in liberalism. But Collins argues that it is only through a return to Aristotle, who does not share liberal presuppositions, that we can understand the limitations of the liberal notion of citizenship adequately. To understand two crucial issues—the relationship of the right to the good and the nature of civic education—Collins claims we “must begin from Aristotle’s treatment of law and the education to moral virtue in his Nicomachean Ethics. This treatment opens the way to his direct investigation of the meaning and limits of citizenship in the Politics” (3). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dieu comme soi-même: connaissance de soi et connaissance de Dieu selon Thomas d’Aquin: l’herméneutique d’Ambroise Gardeil by Camille de BelloyThomas M. Osborne Jr.Dieu comme soi-même: connaissance de soi et connaissance de Dieu selon Thomas d’Aquin: l’herméneutique d’Ambroise Gardeil. By Camille de Belloy, O.P. Paris: Vrin, 2014. Pp. 297. €32.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-2-7116-2605-2.This book is a discussion of La Structure de l’âme et l’expérience mystique (1927) by Ambroise Gardeil (...) (1859–1931). In this two-volume work of mystical theology, Gardeil explains the material cause of the experiential knowledge that comes from the gift of wisdom, which is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. La Structure is the third book in a trilogy that focuses on the supernatural knowledge of God, beginning with apologetics in La Crédibilité et l’apologétique (1st ed. 1908), and continuing with the nature of revelation in Le Donné révélé et la théologie (1st ed. 1910). In La Structure, Gardeil develops the thesis that there is an analogy between experiential self-knowledge and the mystical experiential knowledge of God. In the course of his inquiry, Gardeil touches upon philosophical and theological problems concerning self-knowledge, intentionality, the structure of the mind (mens), God’s indwelling in the souls of the just, and the relationship between faith and the gift of wisdom. De Belloy’s new volume is on Gardeil’s presentation of this analogy and its reception by his contemporaries.De Belloy considers largely the issues that surround self-knowledge, the structure of the soul, and mystical experience. He draws together material from Gardeil’s own sources, Gardeil’s contemporaries, and subsequent Thomistic scholarship. He sheds light on the issues themselves, the historical context, and different hermeneutical strategies in Thomism. According to De Belloy, this twentieth-century Thomistic and largely Dominican discussion is important for contemporary philosophers and theologians. To shed light on the context, De Belloy considers a lengthy three-part “Examen de conscience” in Revue Thomiste (1928–29), in which Gardeil responded to published and unpublished comments by his fellow Dominicans Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (a former student), Marie-Dominique Roland-Gosselin (Le Saulchoir), and Albino González Menéndez-Reigada, as well as a young student, Jean Daujat. De Belloy remarks that Maritain’s discussion of Gardeil in The Degrees of Knowledge to some extent attempts to harmonize the substance of Gardeil’s work with Garrigou-Lagrange’s critical comments. De Belloy emphasizes the interaction between Gardeil and Roland-Gosselin, and at the end of his volume, includes their previously unpublished correspondence.Although De Belloy often notes the difficulty of reading Gardeil’s neo-Scholastic prose, it seems to me that the non-native French reader will find Gardeil more accessible than De Belloy, especially when the latter draws on writers such as Henri Bergson and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Moreover, De Belloy’s discussion is easier to follow if one has already read and is familiar with the four parts of Gardeil’s La Structure. In part 1, Gardeil addresses the structure of mind or spirit (mens), and in particular considers Augustine’s [End Page 472] three main, threefold divisions of the soul in De Trinitate (mens, notitia, amor; memoria [sui], intelligentia, voluntas; memoria [Dei], intelligentia, amor) and Aquinas’s own interpretation and appropriation of these divisions. In part 2, Gardeil describes the way in which sanctifying grace, a created quality that is distinct from the infused virtues, causes the soul’s conformity to God’s essence. In part 3, he discusses God’s presence within the souls of the just and agrees with previous Thomists that God is especially present to the just as an object of faith and love. In part 4, he applies the previous discussion to the structure of mystical knowledge. This last part is the culmination of the entire work, as it addresses the analogy between self-knowledge and the knowledge of God that was defended by earlier Dominican Thomists such as John of St. Thomas (1589–1644) and Thomas de Vallgornera (c. 1595–1665).Part... (shrink)