The traditional common consent argument for the existence of God has largely been abandoned—and rightly so. In this paper, I attempt to salvage the strongest version of the argument. Surprisingly,...

The sciences are characterized by what is sometimes called a “methodological naturalism,” which disregards talk of divine agency. In response to those who argue that this reflects a dogmatic materialism, a number of philosophers have offered a pragmatic defense. The naturalism of the sciences, they argue, is provisional and defeasible: it is justified by the fact that unsuccessful theistic explanations have been superseded by successful natural ones. But this defense is inconsistent with the history of the sciences. The sciences have (...) always exhibited what we call a domain naturalism. They have never invoked divine agency, but have always focused on the causal structure of the natural world. It is not the case, therefore, that the sciences once employed theistic explanations and then abandoned them. The naturalism of the sciences is as old as science itself. (shrink)

A miracle is defined as a violation of or intercession in the laws of nature. Some recent reports of UFO phenomena are such that UFOs may satisfy that definition. In this paper, we ask how Hume’s famous argument in “Of Miracles” relates to UFOs. We argue that his critique fails and that some well corroborated UFO reports are such that they justify a belief in miracles (qua violations of laws of nature).

Methodological naturalism has been defended on both intrinsic and pragmatic grounds. Both of these defenses agree that methodological naturalism is a principle of science according to which the scientist ought to eschew talk of causally efficacious disembodied minds. I argue that this is the wrong interpretation of methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism does not constrain the theories that scientists may conjecture, but how those theories may be justified. On this view, methodological naturalism is a principle of science according to which supernatural (...) methods of justification, such as faith, are eschewed. (shrink)

The Methods of Science and Religion is a philosophical analysis of the conflict between science and religion, which challenges the popular, contemporary view that science and religion are complementary worldviews. It exposes their methodological incompatibility and concludes that religious modes of investigation are unreliable.

According to Jonathan Berg’s Theory of Direct Belief, a belief about some individual is an unmediated dyadic relation between the believer and that individual. Berg’s thesis incorporates a Millian account of proper names, and invokes conversational implicature to explain well-known anti-substitution intuitions. In this critical note, I present a puzzle for the Theory of Direct Belief involving symmetrical substitution in false identity belief reports.

According to a Millian theory of names, co-referring names are intersubstitutable salva veritate in all contexts, including the that-clauses of belief reports. This leads the Millian to famously argue, among other things, that if Lois Lane believes that Superman can fly then she also believes that Clark Kent can fly. Although the Millian provides an ingenious account that explains our strong anti-substitution intuitions in such cases, this paper argues that the Millian account leads to a new problem of enlightenment in (...) identity reports. Specifically, a believer A may come to discover that two names refer to the same individual S, but whether A is enlightened about the identity of S will depend on the number of guises through which A holds contradictory beliefs about S. (shrink)

Animism Animism is a religious and ontological perspective common to many indigenous cultures across the globe. According to an oft-quoted definition from the Victorian anthropologist E. B. Tylor, animists believe in the “animation of all nature”, and are characterized as having “a sense of spiritual beings…inhabiting trees and rocks and waterfalls”. More recently, ethnographers and … Continue reading Animism →.

Childhood animism is a phenomenon that has been a focus of study in developmental psychology since Jean Piaget’s groundbreaking studies beginning in 1926. Young children see life, consciousness, and agency in many things that adults take to be lifeless, unconscious objects. If such animistic beliefs are innate in human beings, then what can we conclude about the rationality of animist belief? This chapter argues that the perceived “childishness” of animist belief, far from providing reason to doubt animism, may provide some (...) weak support. (shrink)

It is widely, if not universally, assumed by philosophers that it is impossible to justify the reliability of memory without recourse to the use of memory. This so-called “epistemic circularity” is supposed to infect all attempts to justify memory as a source of knowledge in a noncircular way. In this paper, we argue that advances in cognitive science radically upheave the traditional, folk-psychological conception of memory which epistemologists have hitherto been subjecting to analysis. With an updated view of the nature (...) of the diverse systems typically falling under the umbrella term “memory”, it can be shown that the epistemic circularity associated with the justification of memory no longer rears its ugly head. We show that it is possible to give a noncircular justification of memory. In so doing, we believe that we have solved a perennial problem in epistemology. (shrink)

Mainstream philosophy of religion has persistently failed to engage seriously or critically with animist beliefs and practices. The field that is now called "philosophy of religion" could quite easily be renamed "philosophy of theism" with few lecturers on the subject having to radically alter their lecture notes. It is the aim of this volume to rectify that failure and to present animism as a live option among the plethora of religious worldviews. Additionally, the volume will demonstrate how much wide and (...) fertile ground animism holds for philosophical reflection and exploration. The volume will contain four sections, which will address: 1. The very concept of animism, 2. Philosophical arguments concerning animist belief and practice, 3. The relationship between animism, naturalism, and the sciences, and 4. The wider cultural implications of taking animism seriously. The volume therefore seeks to give a relatively complete assessment of the conceptual, metaphysical, epistemological, and pragmatic issues surrounding the phenomenon of animism. This volume is intended to be the first authoritative scholarly volume on the issue of animism and its place in the philosophy of religion. Ambitiously, it aims to act as the cornerstone volume for future work on the subject and as a key text for courses engaging with the subject. (shrink)

Nobody cares about animism; well, nobody in philosophy departments at least. Search through the archives of a few of the leading philosophy journals and you will be hard-pressed to find the topic as much as mentioned. Incredibly, this lack of interest persists even within the very subdiscipline that should be most interested: Philosophy of religion. It is an almost paradoxical state of affairs. Most contemporary philosophers of religion find they spend their days debating the existence of a divine being—a god. (...) And let’s face it, this ain’t just any old god, but usually (even if tacitly) the god of Abraham. It may seem unlikely, but the sad truth is that religion in its various forms and with its various commitments is not really the study of philosophy of religion at all. What should be a mighty river of critical thought is, on the contrary, a little creek. Where we ought to find depth and breadth and various rapid tributaries, we find instead shallowness, narrowness, and a gentle trickle of progress in one direction. (shrink)

On what grounds can religious belief be maintained when the chances that one has happenedupon the one true religion are so very low and when it seems that all believers have an equallystrong sense that they are justified in their own beliefs? In answer to the problem, three popularapologetic strategies have often been presented, and in their simplest forms they run as follows:1. All religions are basically right.2. All religions are partly right.3. My religion is right, and the others are (...) wrong. As I argue, none of these approaches can cure the problem of religious diversity, which remains the most serious objection to the claim that there exist reliable religious belief-forming practices. (shrink)

There is an epistemological conflict between religion and science. While the claims of science are justified using epistemic methods whose reliability has been corroborated by other people and by other methods, the claims of religion are not justified in the same way. Different methods are used. This thesis offers both a comprehensive description of the distinctive epistemic methods of religion and a philosophical appraisal of the claim that such methods are knowledge-conferring. The methods explored are various and care has been (...) taken to sample a broad range of religious cultures. It is found that the same religious methods, when used to answer the same questions, generate different answers for different practitioners. Additionally, the results of religious methods fail to agree with the results of other epistemic methods when employed independently. This lack of independent agreement is the primary reason for the exclusion of religious methods from science. It is further argued that this lack of agreement is evidence that religious methods are unreliable, and the agreement generated by scientific methods is evidence for their reliability. (shrink)