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Paul Draper [61]Paul Robert Draper [1]
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Paul Draper
Purdue University
  1. Pain and pleasure: An evidential problem for theists.Paul Draper - 1989 - Noûs 23 (3):331-350.
  2. Diagnosing bias in philosophy of religion.Paul Draper & Ryan Nichols - 2013 - The Monist 96 (3):420-446.
    Work in philosophy of religion exhibits at least four symptoms of poor health: it is too partisan, too polemical, too narrow in its focus, and too often evaluated using criteria that are theological or religious instead of philosophical. Our diagnosis is that, because of the emotional and psychosocial aspects of religion, many philosophers of religion suffer from cognitive biases and group influence. We support this diagnosis in two ways. First, we examine work in psychology on cognitive biases and their affective (...)
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  3.  87
    In Defense of the Requirement of Total Evidence.Paul Draper - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (1):179-190.
    According to the Requirement of Total Evidence, when assessing the credibility of hypotheses, we should endeavor to take into account all of the relevant evidence at our disposal instead of just some proper part of that evidence. In "The Fine-Tuning Argument and the Requirement of Total Evidence," Peter Fisher Epstein offers two alleged counterexamples to this requirement. I show that, on at least one very natural interpretation of the requirement, his alleged counterexamples are not genuine. I close by explaining why (...)
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  4. Probabilistic arguments for multiple universes.Kai Draper, Paul Draper & Joel Pust - 2007 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (3):288–307.
    In this paper, we discuss three probabilistic arguments for the existence of multiple universes. First, we provide an analysis of total evidence and use that analysis to defend Roger White's "this universe" objection to a standard fine-tuning argument for multiple universes. Second, we explain why Rodney Holder's recent cosmological argument for multiple universes is unconvincing. Third, we develop a "Cartesian argument" for multiple universes. While this argument is not open to the objections previously noted, we show that, given certain highly (...)
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  5. God, science and naturalism.Paul Draper - 2005 - In William J. Wainwright (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion. Oxford University Press.
    It is widely claimed in recent years that science and theology can and do interact harmoniously. This chapter, however, explores some areas of potential conflict. Specifically, it asks whether the relationship between science and metaphysical naturalism is sufficiently close to cause trouble in the marriage of science to theistic religion, trouble that supports a decision to divorce even if it does not logically require it. Several popular positions about “methodological naturalism” are examined. While metaphysical naturalists claim there are no supernatural (...)
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  6.  95
    The skeptical theist.Paul Draper - 1996 - In Daniel Howard-Snyder (ed.), The Evidential Argument From Evil. Indiana University Press. pp. 175--92.
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  7.  82
    Atheism and agnosticism.Paul Draper - 2017 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  8. Cosmic fine-tuning and terrestrial suffering: Parallel problems for naturalism and theism.Paul Draper - 2004 - American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (4):311-321.
  9. The limitations of pure skeptical theism.Paul Draper - 2013 - Res Philosophica 90 (1):97-111.
    Michael Bergmann argues directly from our ignorance about actual and merely possible goods and evils and the broadly logical relations that hold betweenthem to the conclusion that “noseeum” arguments from evil against theism like William L. Rowe’s are unsuccessful. I critically discuss Bergmann’s argument in the first part of this paper. Bergmann also suggests that our ignorance about value and modality undermines the Humean argument from evil against theism that I defended in a 1989 paper. I explain in the second (...)
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  10.  36
    Meet the new skeptical theism, same as the old skeptical theism.Paul Draper - 2014 - In Trent Dougherty & Justin McBrayer (eds.), Skeptical theism: New essays. Oxford, UK: pp. 164-177.
  11. Evolution and the problem of evil.Paul Draper - 2014 - In Michael C. Rea & Louis P. Pojman (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology. Belmont, CA, USA: pp. 271-282.
     
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  12. Seeking but not believing: Confessions of a practicing agnostic.Paul Draper - 2002 - In Daniel Howard-Snyder & Paul K. Moser (eds.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 197--214.
     
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  13. The Why and the How of Renewal in Philosophy of Religion.Paul Draper & John L. Schellenberg - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (1):1-20.
    In this paper, we aim to get clear about why renewal is needed in philosophy of religion and how to achieve it. We begin with a fundamental distinction between someone’s perspective in the field and the perspective of the field, arguing that any philosopher of religion is responsible to both. Then we identify eight problems that should prevent the status quo in philosophy from appearing acceptable to anyone who takes the perspective of the field, as well as seven practical suggestions (...)
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  14. Probabilistic arguments from evil.Paul Draper - 1992 - Religious Studies 28 (3):303 - 317.
  15. James Beilby (ed.), Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. [REVIEW]Paul Draper - 2004 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 55 (1):65-68.
  16. Simplicity and natural theology.Paul Draper - 2016 - In Michael Bergmann & Jeffrey E. Brower (eds.), Reason and Faith: Themes From Swinburne. Oxford, UK: pp. 48-63.
    My project is to examine and critically discuss the role of simplicity in Swinburne’s probabilistic natural theology. After describing that role and the details of his theory of simplicity, I challenge Swinburne’s view that the criterion of simplicity is a fundamental criterion for evaluating causal explanations, proposing instead that what is right about that criterion can be derived from a more fundamental criterion of “coherence.” I close by exploring the implications of my proposal for Swinburne’s natural theology.
     
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  17. The problem of evil.Paul Draper - 2008 - In Thomas P. Flint & Michael C. Rea (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Oxford University Press.
    This article focuses on questions about evil which are both theological and doxastic, and more specifically alethic – i.e., questions about whether what we know about evil can be used to establish the falsity or probable falsity of the belief or proposition that God exists. Such a focus is natural for agnostics. More generally, it is natural for anyone who is engaged in genuine inquiry about whether or not God exists. A specific concept of God is employed – it is (...)
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  18. Explanation and the problem of evil.Paul Draper & Trent Dougherty - 2013 - In Daniel Howard Snyder & Justin McBrayer (eds.), A Companion to the Problem of Evil. pp. 71-87.
     
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  19. Confirmation theory and the core of CORNEA.Paul Draper - 2014 - In Trent Dougherty & Justin McBrayer (eds.), Skeptical theism: New essays. Oxford, UK: pp. 132-141.
    Long before skeptical theism was called “skeptical theism,” Stephen Wykstra (1984) defended a version of it based on an epistemological principle he called CORNEA. In this paper, I use elementary confirmation theory to analyze CORNEA’s core. This enables me to show precisely what is right about Wykstra’s very influential defense of skeptical theism and, perhaps more importantly, precisely what is wrong with it. A key premise of that defense is that, on the assumption that God exists, we wouldn’t expect to (...)
     
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  20. Philosophy of religion: A vision for the field.Paul Draper - 2019 - In Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion. New York and London: pp. 1-7.
  21.  18
    Renewing Philosophy of Religion: Exploratory Essays.Paul Draper & J. L. Schellenberg (eds.) - 2017 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    This book is animated by a shared conviction that philosophy of religion needs to change: thirteen new essays suggest why and how. The first part of the volume explores possible changes to the focus of the field. The second part focuses on the standpoint from which philosophers of religion should approach their field. In the first part are chapters on how an emphasis on faith distorts attempts to engage non-western religious ideas; on how philosophers from different traditions might collaborate on (...)
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  22. Where skeptical theism fails, skeptical atheism prevails.Paul Draper - 2016 - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 7:63-80.
    I define an ‘evidential argument from evil’ as an attempt to show that something we know about evil, while not provably incompatible with theism, is evidence against theism in the precise sense that it lowers the epistemic probability of theism being true. Such arguments must show that, for some statement e about evil that we know to be true, the antecedent probability of e given the denial theism – Pr(e/~G) – is greater than the antecedent probability of e given theism (...)
     
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  23. Darwin's argument from evil.Paul Draper - 2012 - In Yujin Nagasawa (ed.), Scientific Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 49-70.
  24. A critique of the Kalam cosmological argument.Paul Draper - 2014 - In Michael C. Rea & Louis P. Pojman (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, 7th edition. Belmont, CA, USA: pp. 189-194.
  25. God, evil, and the nature of light.Paul Draper - 2017 - In Chad Meister & Paul Moser (eds.), Cambridge companion to the problem of evil. pp. 65-84.
    Scientific debates about the nature of light have nothing to do with the philosophical problem of evil if you focus on the subject matter of those debates, but quite a bit to do with it if you focus on the structure of the reasoning in those debates. Some theories of light have been shown to be improbable, at least other evidence held equal, by comparing them to incompatible theories, both with respect to how well they fit certain data and (at (...)
     
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  26. Cumulative cases.Paul Draper - 2010 - In Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper & Philip L. Quinn (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion. Malden, MA, USA: pp. 414-424.
    Three types of cumulative cases for theism are examined: incremental cases (like Richard Swinburne's), distributive cases (like William Lane Craig's), and emergent cases (like Basil Mitchell's).
     
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  27. Irreducible complexity and Darwinian gradualism: A reply to Michael J. Behe.Paul Draper - 2002 - Faith and Philosophy 19 (1):3-21.
    In Darwin’s Black Box, Michael J. Behe argues that, because certain biochemical systems are both irreducibly complex and very complex, it is extremely unlikely that they evolved gradually by Darwinian mechanisms, and so extremely likely that they were intelligently designed. I begin this paper by explaining Behe’s argument and defending it against the very common but clearly mistaken charge that it is just a rehash of William Paley’s design argument. Then I critically discuss a number of more serious objections to (...)
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  28. The argument from evil.Paul Draper - 2008 - In Paul Copan & Chad V. Meister (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues. Blackwell.
     
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  29. Probabilistic arguments from evil.Paul Draper - 1992 - Religious Studies 28 (3):303-317.
     
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  30. Panpsychotheism.Paul Draper - 2019 - In Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion. New York and London: Routledge. pp. 160-177.
    Merotheism is the view that God is a proper part of nature. Monopsychism is the view that there is exactly one mind or subject of consciousness. This chapter explores the idea of combining these two views. I call the resulting position "panpsychotheism" (all-minds-[are]-God-ism). The goal of this chapter is not the unrealistic one of showing that this position is true. I do, however, hope to show that panpsychotheism is not obviously false, and that it has some important advantages over other (...)
     
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  31. Faith without God.Paul Draper - 2011 - Philo 14 (1):59-65.
    This paper summarizes J.L. Schellenberg’s trilogy on the philosophy of religion. In the first book, Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, Schellenberg analyzes basic concepts in the philosophy of religion. In the second, The Wisdom to Doubt, he rejects theism but defends skepticism about both naturalism and a very general religious position that he calls “ultimism.” And in the third book, The Will to Imagine, Schellenberg argues that rationality requires ultimistic faith.
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  32. Natural selection and the problem of evil.Paul Draper - 2007 - In God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence.
    This chapter appeals to natural selection in order to show that the failure of many humans and animals to flourish is strong evidence against the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect God. Treating theism and naturalism as hypotheses that aim to explain certain features of our world, Draper sets out to test each hypothesis against various known facts, including facts about human and animal suffering. After demonstrating that, prior to such testing, naturalism is more probable than theism in (...)
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  33. Christian theism and life on earth.Paul Draper - 2012 - In Alan Padgett & James Stump (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity. pp. 306-316.
    Some facts about life on earth appear to support theism. For example, the complexity, value, and fragility of intelligent life on earth make its existence surprising on what many consider to be the most plausible atheistic hypotheses; yet it is just the sort of thing one would expect to exist if theism were true. Theism does not, however, appear to fit as well with certain other facts about life, especially facts about the history and condition of life on earth. This (...)
     
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  34.  85
    Evil and the Proper Basicality of Belief in God.Paul Draper - 1991 - Faith and Philosophy 8 (2):135-147.
    Alvin Plantinga claims that certain beliefs entailing God's existence can be properly basic. He uses this claim to suggest two distinct replies to evidential arguments from evil against theism. In "Reason and Belief in God" he offers what he calls his "highroad" reply, and in a more recent article he suggests what I call his "modest" reply. First I show that Plantinga's highroad reply fails, because it relies on a faulty analysis of probability on total evidence. Then I reformulate his (...)
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  35.  41
    In defense of sensible naturalism.Paul Draper - 2007 - In God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence.
    This paper critiques Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. Plantinga argues that, since unplanned evolution is not likely to produce trustworthy cognitive faculties, evolutionary naturalists cannot rationally believe anything--including naturalism itself. This paper contends that this argument rests on a crucial but faulty inference from the premise that the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable given unplanned evolution is low or inscrutable. The conclusion that evolutionary naturalists cannot rationally believe in unplanned evolution does not follow from this "probability thesis." (...)
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  36.  50
    Critical Study of Wandering in Darkness: Narratives and the Problem of Suffering, by Eleonore Stump. [REVIEW]Paul Draper - 2011 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 7.
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  37. Collins on cannons and cosmology.Paul Draper & Quentin Smith - 2008
    In "A Cosmological Argument for a Self-Caused Universe ," one of us (Smith) argued that the universe explains its own existence because (i) its existence is entailed by (and so explained by) the existence of the infinitely many instantaneous universe states that compose it, and (ii) each of those states is caused by (and so explained by) infinitely many earlier universe states.[1] Moreover, (ii) is true even if the universe is finitely old because, given standard Big Bang cosmology (Friedmann cosmology), (...)
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  38.  67
    Review of Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, by Alvin Plantinga. [REVIEW]Paul Draper - 2012 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 6.
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  39. God and perceptual evidence.Paul Draper - 1992 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 32 (3):149 - 165.
  40.  71
    Review of World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism, by Michael C. Rea. [REVIEW]Paul Draper - 2005 - Disputatio 1 (18):179-184.
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  41.  60
    Review of Probability in the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Jake Chandler and Victoria S. Harrison. [REVIEW]Paul Draper - 2013 - Faith and Philosophy 30 (4):470-476.
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  42. A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, 2nd ed.Paul Draper, Charles Talliaferro & Phillip L. Quinn (eds.) - 2010 - Wiley-Blackwell.
     
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  43.  35
    Collins' case for cosmic design.Paul Draper - 2008 - In God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence.
    Robin Collins argues that three facts implicate a designer of the universe--that life depends upon the precise tuning of physical constants, that the laws of physics show evidence of beauty, and that the universe is intelligible. But Collins' case is pervaded by vague arguments which shift between defending theism specifically and defending a more generic design hypothesis. This provides the appearance of having all of the advantages of the generic design hypothesis, such as greater initial plausibility, while masking the implication (...)
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  44.  61
    Review of The Will to Imagine: A Justification of Skeptical Religion, by J. L. Schellenberg. [REVIEW]Paul Draper - 2012 - Philosophical Review 121 (2):291-293.
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  45. Craig's case for God's existence.Paul Draper - 2003 - In Stan W. Wallace (ed.), Does God Exist? The Antony Flew/William Lane Craig Debate. pp. 141-154.
  46.  2
    Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion.Paul Draper (ed.) - 2017 - New York: Routledge.
    While orthodox religion by its very nature is conservative, philosophy at its best is inherently radical. It challenges authority, tradition, and the whole idea of "dogma." For this reason, philosophy of religion can be explosively controversial. It is bound to disturb those who peddle incontrovertible truth and fascinate those who seek spiritual truth and are willing to follow the argumentwherever it leads. This volume is designed for such seekers. It brings together an international team of leading philosophers of religion to (...)
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  47.  45
    Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion.Paul Draper - 2017 - New York and London: Routledge.
    The main focus of this book is on philosophy of religion-in-general instead of on the philosophy of a particular religion or family of religions. For example, in the first of four main parts of the book, J. L. Schellenberg and Robert McKim write chapters on future progress in religion. Hopefully, their efforts will jump-start work in the field on this important but neglected topic. The next part of the book (as well as the book's final chapter) addresses the issue of (...)
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  48. David Hume.Paul Draper - 2009 - In Graham Robert Oppy & Nick Trakakis (eds.), Medieval Philosophy of Religion: The History of Western Philosophy of Religion, Volume 2. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 249-261.
     
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  49.  52
    God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence.Paul Draper (ed.) - 2008 - The Secular Web.
  50.  3
    Wine and Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking.Paul Draper - 2007 - Wiley-Blackwell.
    In Wine & Philosophy, philosophers, wine critics, and winemakers share their passion for wine through well-crafted essays that explore wine’s deeper meaning, nature, and significance Joins Food & Philosophy and Beer & Philosophy in in the "Epicurean Trilogy Essays are organized thematically and written by philosophers, wine writers, and winemakers Chapters include, “The Art & Culture of Wine”; “Tasting & Talking about Wine”; “Wine & Its Critics”; “The Beauty of Wine”; “The Metaphysics of Wine”; and “The Politics & Economics of (...)
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