Download or read book Naturalism Defeated written by James K. Beilby and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plantinga's argument is aimed at metaphysical naturalism or roughly the view that no supernatural beings exist. Naturalism is typically conjoined with evolution as an explanation of the existence and diversity of life. Plantinga's claim is that one who holds to the truth of both naturalism and evolution is irrational in doing so. More specifically, because the probability that unguided evolution would have produced reliable cognitive faculties is either low or inscrutable, one who holds both naturalism and evolution acquires a "defeater" for every belief he/she holds, including the beliefs associated with naturalism and evolution.
Download or read book Where the Conflict Really Lies written by Alvin Plantinga and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this long-awaited book, pre-eminent analytical philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.
Download or read book Darwinism Defeated written by Phillip E. Johnson and published by Regent College Publishing. This book was released on 1999-07 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Evolutionary Naturalism written by Michael Ruse and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1995-02-02 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a collection of essays on the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology by the well-known Canadian scholar, Michael Ruse. Much has been written newly for the collection, as the author explores themes of evolutionary naturalism, putting the theory of knowledge and of moral behaviour on a philosophical basis informed by contemporary evolutionary biology. Divided into three parts, the first set of essays considers issues in the history of science - Darwin, population biology, and the new paleontological theory of `punctuated equilibria' - attempting to find a path between the crude objectivity espoused by many working scientists, and the rank relativism of post-modernist critiques of science. The second set of essays turns directly to the theory of knowledge (epistemology), arguing that the fact that we are evolved beings rather than objects of special creation, must and does inform our thinking about the external world. The third set of essays, the most controversial, turns to questions of morality, arguing that ethical systems are ultimately no more than collective illusions put in place by our biology, because humans are essentially social animals. Written in a clear and non-technical fashion, this collection carries forward debate on a number of controversial issues, showing that the time has now come to take philosophy from the hands of academic theorists and to embrace fully the findings and consequences of modern science.
Download or read book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds written by Phillip E. Johnson and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 1997-07-07 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phillip E. Johnson provides an easy-to-understand guide on how to effectively engage the debate over creation and evolution.
Download or read book Teleosemantics written by Graham Macdonald and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006-09-28 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Teleosemantics seeks to explain meaning and other intentional phenomena in terms of their function in the life of the species. This volume of new essays from an impressive line-up of well-known contributors offers a valuable summary of the current state of the teleosemantics debate.
Download or read book A New Theist Response to the New Atheists written by Kevin Vallier and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-11 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to the intellectual movement of New Atheism, this volume articulates a "New Theist" response that has at its core a desire to engage in productive and depolarizing dialogue. To ensure this book is of interest to atheists and theists alike, a team of experts in the field of philosophy of religion offer an assessment of the strongest New Atheist arguments. The chapters address the most pertinent questions about God, including politics and morality, and each essay shows how a reflective theist might deal with points raised by the New Atheists. This volume is a serious academic engagement with the questions asked by New Atheism. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars working in the philosophy of religion and theology, as well as those engaged in religious studies generally.
Download or read book Warrant and Proper Function written by Alvin Plantinga and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1993 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author argues that what is crucial to turning true belief into knowledge is the 'proper functioning' of one's cognitive faculties, and this clears the way for the proposal that a belief is warranted whenever it is the product of properly functioning cognitive processes.
Download or read book The Nature and Normativity of Defeat written by Christoph Kelp and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-04 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Defeat is the loss of justification for believing something in light of new information. This Element mainly aims to work towards developing a novel account of defeat. It distinguishes among three broad views in the epistemology of defeat: scepticism, internalism, and externalism and argues that that sceptical and internalist accounts of defeat are bound to remain unsatisfactory. As a result, any viable account of defeat must be externalist. While there is no shortage of externalist accounts, the Element provides reason to think that extant accounts remain unsatisfactory. The Element also explains the constructive tasks of developing an alternative account of defeat and showing that it improves on the competition.
Download or read book Warranted Christian Belief written by Alvin Plantinga and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-27 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the third volume in Alvin Plantinga's trilogy on the notion of warrant, which he defines as that which distinguishes knowledge from true belief. In this volume, Plantinga examines warrant's role in theistic belief, tackling the questions of whether it is rational, reasonable, justifiable, and warranted to accept Christian belief and whether there is something epistemically unacceptable in doing so. He contends that Christian beliefs are warranted to the extent that they are formed by properly functioning cognitive faculties, thus, insofar as they are warranted, Christian beliefs are knowledge if they are true.
Download or read book The Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism written by Jim Slagle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary discussions in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind are dominated by the presupposition of naturalism. Arguing against this established convention, Jim Slagle offers a thorough defence of Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism (EAAN) and in doing so, reveals how it shows that evolution and naturalism are incompatible. Charting the development of Plantinga's argument, Slagle asserts that the probability of our cognitive faculties reliably producing true beliefs is low if ontological naturalism is true, and therefore all other beliefs produced by these faculties, including naturalism itself, are self-defeating. He critiques other well-known epistemological approaches, including those of Descartes and Quine, and deftly counters the many objections against the EAAN to conclude that metaphysical naturalism should be rejected on the grounds of self-defeat. By situating Plantinga's argument within a wider context and showing that science and evolution cannot entail naturalism, Slagle renders this most common metaphysical view irrational. As such, the book advocates an important reconsideration of contemporary thought at the intersection of philosophy, science and religion.
Download or read book Alvin Plantinga and Christian Apologetics written by Keith A. Mascord and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The distinguished American philosopher Alvin Plantinga has had a career-long interest in the defense of Christian belief. There hasn't been a major contemporary challenge to such belief that Plantinga has not, in some way, addressed. This book draws together those contributions, highlighting particularly Plantinga's groundbreaking work in the areas of epistemology and the problem of evil. Historical and biographical background information is included to give perspective to Plantinga's work. His theory that both theistic and Christian belief is warranted and basic is explored and critiqued, and an assessment is offered as to the significance of Plantinga's work for apologetic theory and practice.
Download or read book Reasons Justification and Defeat written by Jessica Brown and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditionally, the notion of defeat has been central to epistemology, practical reasoning, and ethics. Within epistemology, it is standardly assumed that a subject who knows that p, or justifiably believes that p, can lose this knowledge or justified belief by acquiring a so-called 'defeater', whether that is evidence that not-p, evidence that the process that produced her belief is unreliable, or evidence that she has likely misevaluated her own evidence. Within ethics and practical reasoning, it is widely accepted that a subject may initially have a reason to do something although this reason is later defeated by her acquisition of further information. However, the traditional conception of defeat has recently come under attack. Some have argued that the notion of defeat is problematically motivated; others that defeat is hard to accommodate within externalist or naturalistic accounts of knowledge or justification; and still others that the intuitions that support defeat can be explained in other ways. This volume presents new work re-examining the very notion of defeat, and its place in epistemology and in normativity theory at large.
Download or read book Evidence and Religious Belief written by Kelly James Clark and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-28 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fundamental question in philosophy of religion is whether religious belief must be based on evidence in order to be properly held. In recent years two prominent positions on this issue have been staked out: evidentialism, which claims that proper religious belief requires evidence; and Reformed epistemology, which claims that it does not. Evidence and Religious Belief contains eleven chapters by prominent philosophers which push the discussion in new directions. Thevolume has three parts. The first part explores the demand for evidence: some chapters object to it while others seek to restate it or find space for compromise between Reformed epistemology and evidentialism. The second part explores ways in which beliefs are related to evidence; that is, ways in which theevidence for or against religious belief that is available to a person can depend on that person's background beliefs and other circumstances. The third part contains chapters that discuss actual evidence for and against religious belief. Evidence for belief in God includes the so-called common consent of the human race and the way that such belief makes sense of the moral life; evidence against it includes profound puzzles about divine freedom which suggest that it is impossible for a beingto be morally perfect.
Download or read book Epistemic Defeat written by Jan Constantin and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-06-21 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A number of well-developed theories shed light on the question, under what circumstances our beliefs enjoy epistemic justification. Yet, comparatively little is known about epistemic defeat—when new information causes the loss of epistemic justification. This book proposes and defends a detailed account of epistemic defeaters. The main kinds of defeaters are analyzed in detail and integrated into a general framework that aims to explain how beliefs lose justification. It is argued that defeaters introduce incompatibilities into a noetic system and thereby prompt a structured re-evaluation process that makes a justified reinstatement of the defeated belief impossible. The account is then applied to the topic of disagreement, where it is used in an argument for conciliationism, as well as a new explanation for higher-order defeat. Throughout the book, the notion of defeat is the center of attention, while a number of new issues are discussed at the intersections of defeat and justification. Specifically, new problems are raised for broadly internalist accounts of defeat, a fully descriptive reliabilist account of defeat is provided, and the case for normative defeat is revisited.
Download or read book Dictionary of Christianity and Science written by Zondervan, and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive reference work on science and Christian belief How does Christian theology relate to scientific inquiry? What are the competing philosophies of science, and do they "work" with a Christian faith based on the Bible? No reference work has covered this terrain sufficiently--until now. Featuring entries from over 140 international contributors, the Dictionary of Christianity and Science is a deeply-researched, peer-reviewed, fair-minded work that illuminates the intersection of science and Christian belief. In one volume, you get reliable summaries and critical analyses of over 450 relevant concepts, theories, terms, movements, individuals, and debates. You will find answers to your toughest questions about faith and science, from the existence of Adam and Eve to the age of the earth, evolution and string theory. FEATURES INCLUDE: Over 450 entries that will help you think through some of today's most challenging scientific topics, including climate change, evolution, bioethics, and much more Essays from over 140 leading international scholars, including Francis Beckwith, Michael Behe, Darrell Bock, William Lane Craig, Hugh Ross, Craig Keener, Davis Young, John Walton, and many more Multiple-view essays on controversial topics allow you to understand and compare differing Christian viewpoints Learn about flesh-and-blood figures who have shaped the interaction of science and religion: Augustine, Aquinas, Bacon, Darwin, and Stephen Hawking are just the beginning Fully cross-referenced, entries include references and recommendations for further reading Advance Praise: "Every Christian studying science will want a copy within arm’s reach." --Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary "This is an invaluable resource that belongs in every Christian's library. I will be keeping my copy close by when I’m writing." --Lee Strobel, Elizabeth and John Gibson chair of apologetics, Houston Baptist University "Sparkles with passion, controversy, and diverse perspectives."--Karl Giberson, professor of science and religion, Stonehill College "An impressive resource that presents a broad range of topics from a broad tent of evangelical scholars."--Michael R. Licona, Houston Baptist University "I am certain that this dictionary will serve the church for many years in leading many to demonstrate that modern science can glorify our Creator and honor his creation." --Denis O. Lamoureux, University of Alberta "'Dictionary' is too humble a label for what this is! I anticipate that this will offer valuable guidance for Christian faithfulness." --C. John Collins, Covenant Theological Seminary Get answers to the difficult questions surround faith and science! Adam and Eve | the Age of the Earth | Climate Change | Evolution | Fossil Record | Genesis Flood | Miracles | Cosmology | Big Bang theory | Bioethics | Darwinism Death | Extraterrestrial Life | Multiverse | String theory | and much, much more
Download or read book Why Read Moby Dick written by Nathaniel Philbrick and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “brilliant and provocative” (The New Yorker) celebration of Melville’s masterpiece—from the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, Valiant Ambition, and In the Hurricane's Eye One of the greatest American novels finds its perfect contemporary champion in Why Read Moby-Dick?, Nathaniel Philbrick’s enlightening and entertaining tour through Melville’s classic. As he did in his National Book Award–winning bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick brings a sailor’s eye and an adventurer’s passion to unfolding the story behind an epic American journey. He skillfully navigates Melville’s world and illuminates the book’s humor and unforgettable characters—finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and, indeed, to all times. An ideal match between author and subject, Why Read Moby-Dick? will start conversations, inspire arguments, and make a powerful case that this classic tale waits to be discovered anew. “Gracefully written [with an] infectious enthusiasm…”—New York Times Book Review
