Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

One might think that its seeming to you that p makes you justified in believing that p. After all, when you have no defeating beliefs, it would be irrational to have itseem to you that p but not believe it. That view is plausible for perceptual justification, problematic in the case of memory, and clearly wrong for inferentialjustification, I propose a view of rationality and justified belief that deals happily with inference and memory. Appearances are to be evaluated as 'sound' or'unsound.' Only a sound appearance can give rise to a justified belief, yet even an unsound appearance can 'rationally require' the subject to form the belief. Some of our intuitions mistake that rational requirement for the beliefs being justified. The resulting picture makes it plausible that there are also unsound perceptual appearances. I suggest that to have a sound perceptually basic appearance that p, one must see that p.

Whether God exists is a metaphysical question. But there is also a neglected evaluative question about God's existence: Should we want God to exist? Very many, including many atheists and agnostics, appear to think we should. Theists claim that if God didn't exist things would be far worse, and many atheists agree; they regret God's inexistence. Some remarks by Thomas Nagel suggest an opposing view: that we should want God not to exist. I call this view anti-theism. I explain how such view can be coherent, and why it might be correct. Anti-theism must be distinguished from the argument from evil or the denial of God's goodness; it is a claim about the goodness of God's existence. Anti-theists must claim that it's a logical consequence of God's existence that things are worse in certain respects. The problem is that God's existence would also make things better in many ways. Given that God's existence is likely to be impersonally better overall, anti-theists face a challenge similar to that facing nonconsequentialists. I explore two ways of meeting this challenge.

The riddle posed by the double nature of the ego certainly lies beyond [the limits of science]. On the one hand, I am a real individual man, born by a mother anddestined to carrying out real and psychical acts (far too many, I may think, if boarding a subway during an hour). On the other hand, I am "vision" open toreason, a self-penetrating light, immanent sense-giving consciousness, or how ever you may call it, and as such unique. (Weyl, Address, 3)