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Philo

Volume 11, Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2008

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Displaying: 1-6 of 6 documents


articles

1. Philo: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
David Macarthur

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This paper is a critical discussion of Quine’s naturalist credos: (1) physicalism; (2) there is no first philosophy; (3) philosophy is continuous with science; and (4) the only responsible theory of the world as a whole is scientific theory. The aim is to show that Quine’s formulations admit of two readings: a strong reading (often Quine’s own) which is compatible with reductive forms of naturalism but implausible; and a mild reading which is plausible but suggestive of more liberal forms of naturalism. The paper ends by claiming that naturalism is a normative doctrine that is inconsistent by its own lights.
2. Philo: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Franklin Mason

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Presentism—the thesis that only those things that are present exist—seems to face an insurmountable barrier in the Special Theory ofRelativity (STR). For the STR entails that simultaneity, and so the present, are relative to inertial frame. But if the present is the real and the present is relative, so too is in the real relative. But this cannot be. The real is absolute. But what is the Presentist to do? I suggest that she craft an alternative to the STR that is empirically equivalent to it but makes rooms for a present, and a real, that are absolute.
3. Philo: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Edmund Wall

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There would appear to be enormous philosophical differences between some influential exponents in contemporary natural law ethics. It would appear that there are deep and irresolvable philosophical differences between Ralph McInerny, on the one side, and Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and John Finnis, on the other, with regard to both the contents of the basic goods of natural law, and as to whether there is an objective hierarchy among the basic goods themselves. The second of these apparently unbridgeable philosophical differences seems to account for the apparent differences between them on the starting point of morality. All of these putative philosophical differences seem to depend on what appear to be very different approaches by the two camps toward ultimate ends in ethics. I argue that the philosophical differences between the two camps on these fundamental matters are not considerable, and that whatever philosophical differences do exist lack philosophical support from either of the two sides.
4. Philo: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Paul Kabay

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Quentin Smith has recently explored and defended two different atheistic accounts of the origin of the universe. Both have been proposed as alternatives to the traditional theistic account. The first postulates that a zero-dimensional timeless point is the cause of the universe. The second postulates that the universe is self-caused, in the sense that each of its instantaneous parts is caused by some other instantaneous part, and the existence of the parts logically entails the existence of the whole. I offer a number of reasons why these attempts at explanatory atheism are not altogether satisfactory. In reply to the first I argue that it is implausible to think that a nomologically simple entity could cause something with the physical properties of the big bang. In reply to the second I argue that the existence of the parts of the universe does not logically entail the universe as a whole, and so we cannot understand the universe to be self-caused.
5. Philo: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Daniel Murphy

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Quentin Smith has argued that quantum-cosmological theory is incompatible with theism. The two claims that Smith argues render theism inconsistent with Hawking’s theory are that of the initial creation of the universe by God and His continued conservation of it. His primary argument is that divine decision and Hawking’s wave function entail contradictory probabilities that the universe begin to exist and continue to evolve in a certain way. I attempt to refute the argument by providing a schema that accommodates probabilities conditioned on divine decision as well as those conditioned on the wave function with respect to these two issues.

discussion

6. Philo: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Michael Almeida

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In a recent article in Philo I critique William Rowe’s new evidential argument from evil. Richard Carrier claims I advance an argument for theism in that article and proposes a counterexample to that argument. I show that Carrier’s counterexample fails for reasons that are fairly obvious. I then offer help. The best chance for a counterexample to the argument I offer comes from the possibility of cryptid creatures. But it is not difficult to show that counterexamples from cryptic creatures also fail. I conclude that these critical observations present no interesting problem for the defeat of Rowe’s new argument.