Online research in philosophy

Representationism is the view that the phenomenal character of an experience supervenes on its representational content. Synaesthesia is a condition in which the phenomenal character of the experience produced in a subject by stimulation of one sensory modality contains elements characteristic of a second, unstimulated sensory modality. After reviewing some of the recent psychological literature on synaesthesia and one of the leading versions of representationism, I argue that cases of synaesthesia, as instances of what I call the extra qualia (...) problem, are counterexamples to externalist versions of representationism. (shrink)

Editors have a responsibility to retract seriously flawed articles from their journals. However, there appears to be little consistency in journals’ policies or procedures for this. In a qualitative study, we therefore interviewed editors of science journals using semi-structured interviews to investigate their experience of retracting articles. We identified potential barriers to retraction, difficulties in the process and also sources of support and encouragement. Our findings have been used as the basis for guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics.

Gray argues that my three earlier counterexamples fail to refute representational theories of phenomenal character. I maintain that, despite Gray's arguments, each example does in fact work against the particular representational theory at which it is targeted. Further, I question whether my internalism regarding phenomenal character and Gray's externalism regarding modularity are in genuine conflict with one another.

Wager has argued that synaesthesia provides material for a counterexample to representational theories of the phenomenal character of experience. He gives a series of three cases based on synaesthesia; he requires the second and third cases to bolster the doubtfulness of the first. Here I further endorse the problematic nature of the first case and then show why the other two cases do not save his argument. I claim that whenever synaesthesia is a credible possibility its phenomenal character can (...) be understood in terms of misrepresentation. (shrink)

The Many Gods Objection (MGO) is widely viewed as a decisive criticism of Pascal’s Wager. By introducing a plurality of hypotheses with infinite expected utility into the decision matrix, the wagerer is left without adequate grounds to decide between them. However, some have attempted to rebut this objection by employing various criteria drawn from the theological tradition. Unfortunately, such defenses do little good for an argument that is supposed to be an apologetic aimed at atheists and agnostics. The purpose (...) of this paper is to offer a defensive strategy of a different sort, one more suited to the Wager’s apologetic aim and status as a decision under ignorance. Instead of turning to criteria independent of the Wager, it will be shown that there are characteristics already built into its decision theoretic structure that can be used to block many categories of theological hypotheses including MGO’s more outrageous “cooked-up” hypotheses and “philosophers’ fictions”. (shrink)

In his new book on Pascal's Wager, Jeff Jordan argues that only the ‘Jamesian’ version of the wager argument, as he sees it presented in William James' essay The Will to Believe , constitutes a sound pragmatic argument in favour of theism, whereas Pascal's original wager argument is doomed to fail on various grounds. This article argues that Jordan's theory is untenable. The many-gods objection is used as an example: it is demonstrated that the Jamesian Wager (...) argument too is powerless to rebut this objection. (shrink)

Pascal’s Wager holds that one has pragmatic reason to believe in God, since that course of action has infinite expected utility. The mixed strategy objection holds that one could just as well follow a course of action that has infinite expected utility but is unlikely to end with one believing in God. Monton (2011. Mixed strategies can’t evade Pascal’s Wager. Analysis 71: 642–45.) has argued that mixed strategies can’t evade Pascal’s Wager, while Robertson (2012. Some mixed strategies (...) can evade Pascal’s Wager: a reply to Monton. Analysis 72: 295–98.) has argued that Monton is mistaken. We show that Monton is correct, highlight the crucial assumptions that he relies on, and shed some light on the role of mixed strategies in decision theory. (shrink)

The mixed strategy response to Pascal’s Wager avoids Pascal’s conclusion by noting that there are ways to obtain infinite expected utility other than believing in God. We can, for instance, flip a coin and believe in God if the coin lands heads. Bradley Monton has recently argued that rationality requires us to apply mixed strategies repeatedly until we believe in God, and thus that mixed strategies do not evade the Wager. I offer three mixed strategies meet the requirements (...) of rationality but avoid Monton’s result. (shrink)

In "To Bet The Impossible Bet", Harmon Holcomb III argues: (i) that Pascal's wager is structurally incoherent; (ii) that if it were not thus incoherent, then it would be successful; and (iii) that my earlier critique of Pascal's wager in "On Rescher On Pascal's Wager" is vitiated by its reliance on "logicist" presuppositions. I deny all three claims. If Pascal's wager is "incoherent", this is only because of its invocation of infinite utilities. However, even if infinite (...) utilities are admissible, the wager is defeated by the "many gods" and "many wagers" objections. Moreover, these objections do not rely on mistaken "logicist" presuppositions: atheists and agnostics traditionally and typically hold that they have no more--or at any rate, hardly any more--reason to believe in the traditional Christian God than they have to believe in countless alternative deities. (shrink)

Among recent objections to Pascal’s Wager, two are especially compelling. The first is that decision theory, and specifically the requirement of maximizing expected utility, is incompatible with infinite utility values. The second is that even if infinite utility values are admitted, the argument of the Wager is invalid provided that we allow mixed strategies. Furthermore, Hájek (Philosophical Review 112, 2003) has shown that reformulations of Pascal’s Wager that address these criticisms inevitably lead to arguments that are philosophically (...) unsatisfying and historically unfaithful. Both the objections and Hájek’s philosophical worries disappear, however, if we represent our preferences using relative utilities (generalized utility ratios) rather than a one-place utility function. Relative utilities provide a conservative way to make sense of infinite value that preserves the familiar equation of rationality with the maximization of expected utility. They also provide a means of investigating a broader class of problems related to the Wager. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has shown that the success of Pascal’s wager rests on precarious grounds. To avoid notorious problems, it must appeal to considerations such as what probability we assign to the existence of various gods and what religion we think provides the greatest happiness in this life. Rational judgments concerning these matters are subject to change over time. Some claim that the wager therefore cannot support a steadfast commitment to God. I argue that this conclusion does not follow. (...) By drawing upon the line of reasoning employed in getting married, I explain how unstable considerations can provide a sufficient rational foundation for a stable commitment. (shrink)

Doctors and dentists have traditionally used antibiotic prophylaxis in certain patient groups in order to prevent infective endocarditis (IE). New guidelines, however, suggest that the risk to patients from using antibiotics is higher than the risk from IE. This paper analyses the relative risks of prescribing and not prescribing antibiotic prophylaxis against the background of Pascal’s Wager, the infamous assertion that it is better to believe in God regardless of evidence, because of the prospective benefits should He exist. Many (...) doctors seem to believe the parallel proposition that it is better to prescribe antibiotics, regardless of evidence, because of the prospective benefit conferred upon the patient. This has been called the “no lose philosophy” in medicine: better safe than sorry, even if the evidence inconveniently suggests that following this mantra is potentially more likely to result in sorry than safe. It transpires that, just as Pascal’s Wager fails to convince because of a lack of evidence to support it and the costs incurred by trying to believe, so the “belts and braces” approach of prescribing antibiotic prophylaxis is unjustifiable given the actual evidence of potential risk and benefit to the patient. Ultimately, there is no no-lose if your clinical decisions, like Pascal’s Wager, are based on faith rather than evidence. (shrink)

Only one traditional objection to Pascal's wager is telling: Pascal assumes a particular theology, but without justification. We produce two new objections that go deeper. We show that even if Pascal's theology is assumed to be probable, Pascal's argument does not go through. In addition, we describe a wager that Pascal never considered, which leads away from Pascal's conclusion. We then consider the impact of these considerations on other prudential arguments concerning what one should believe, and on the (...) more general question of when and why belief formation ought to be based solely on the evidence. (shrink)

“Pascal's Wager” is the name given to an argument due to Blaise Pascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in God. The name is somewhat misleading, for in a single paragraph of his Pensées, Pascal apparently presents at least three such arguments, each of which might be called a ‘wager’ — it is only the final of these that is traditionally referred to as “Pascal's Wager”. We find in it the extraordinary confluence of (...) several important strands of thought: the justification of theism; probability theory and decision theory, used here for almost the first time in history; pragmatism; voluntarism (the thesis that belief is a matter of the will); and the use of the concept of infinity. (shrink)

Pragmatist responses to radical skepticism do not receive much attention in contemporary analytic epistemology. This observation is my motivation for undertaking a search for a coherent pragmatist reply to radical doubt, one that can compete, in terms of clarity and sophistication, with the currently most popular approaches, such as contextualism and relevant alternatives theory. As my point of departure I take the texts of C. S. Peirce and William James. The Jamesian response is seen to consist in the application of (...) a wager argument to the skeptical issue in analogy with Pascal's wager. The Peircean strategy, on the other hand, is to attempt a direct rejection of one of the skeptic's main premises: that we do not know we are not deceived. I argue that while the Jamesian attempt is ultimately incoherent, Peirce's argument contains the core of a detailed and characteristically "pragmatic" rebuttal of skepticism, one that deserves to be taken seriously in the contemporary debate. (shrink)

In this article I examine the challenging question concerning whether communal forgiveness is possible. In order to show that it is in principle possible I articulate and then respond to two of the most powerful objections to communal forgiveness that have been formulated to date, namely: (1) the argument that only victims can forgive; and (2) the argument that forgiveness is unconditional and thus outside the scope of such things as communal or political deliberation. I argue that communal forgiveness is (...) a process of transformation that requires at the practical level an institutional framework in which a representative of a community can initiate the process of forgiveness, like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu did in South Africa. Because forgiveness is a process of transformation, it cannot be assessed at the level of acts or commitments alone, but is a wager on the future that will indeed show whether the communities involved have accepted the transformation. (shrink)

Is it reasonable to believe in God even in the absence of strong evidence that God exists? Pragmatic arguments for theism are designed to support belief even if one lacks evidence that theism is more likely than not. Jeff Jordan proposes that there is a sound version of the most well-known argument of this kind, Pascal's Wager, and explores the issues involved - in epistemology, the ethics of belief, decision theory, and theology.

I argue that a version of Pascal's Wager applies to the persistent vegetative state with sufficient force that it ought to part of advance directives.

I defend Pascal's Wager from a particular way of evading it, the mixed strategy approach. The mixed strategies approach suggests that Pascal's Wager does not obligate one to believe in God, because one can get the same infinite expected utility from other strategies besides the strategy of believing in God. I will show that while there's nothing technically wrong with the mixed strategy approach, rationality requires it to be applied in such a way that Pascal's Wager doesn't (...) lose any force. (shrink)

Pascal's wager attempts to provide a prudential reason in support of the rationality of believing that God exists. The wager employs the idea that the utility of theistic belief, if true, is infinite, and in this way, the expected utility of theism swamps that of any of its rivals. Not surprisingly the wager generates more than a good share of philosophical criticism. In this essay I examine two recent objections levelled against the wager and I argue (...) that each fails. Following this, I argue that a transfinite version of the wager -- one using the idea of an infinite utility -- is incompatible with standard axiomatic constructions of decision-theory and, as a consequence, the Pascalian would be well-advised to give up the idea of an infinite utility and employ only a finite version of the wager. The consequences of limiting the wager to finite utilities are also explored. (shrink)

In Pascal's Wager: A Study Of Practical Reasoning In Philosophical Theology ,[1] Nicholas Rescher aims to show that, contrary to received philosophical opinion, Pascal's Wager argument is "the vehicle of a fruitful and valuable insight -one which not only represents a milestone in the development of an historically important tradition of thought but can still be seen as making an instructive contribution to philosophical theology". [2] In particular, Rescher argues that one only needs to adopt a correct perspective (...) in order to see that Pascal's Wager argument is a good argument. Moreover, there seems to be a certain amount of contemporary support for Rescher's claim that Pascal's Wager argument can be seen to be a good argument when properly construed.[3] However, despite this recent trend to adopt a more sympathetic stance towards Pascal's Wager argument, I propose to defend the traditional view that Pascal's Wager argument is almost entirely worthless -at least from the theological standpoint. (No doubt, it has historical significance from the standpoint of decision theory; but that's a separate matter.). (shrink)

Alan Hájek has recently argued that certain assignments of vague probability defeat Pascals Wager. In particular, he argues that skeptical agnostics – those whose probability for God''s existence is vague over an interval containing zero – have nothing to fear from Pascal. In this paper, I make two arguments against Hájek: (1) that skeptical agnosticism is a form of dogmatism, and as such should be rejected; (2) that in any case, choice situations with vague probability assignments ought to be (...) treated as second-order cases of choice under uncertainty, with the result that belief in God is the favored option in a very wide range of cases. (shrink)

The author argues that faith survives as a rational option, despite science rendering improbable distinctively theological claims about the world and history. After rejecting justifications of faith from natural theology and natural law, he defends a seemingly weaker strategy, a corrected version of Pascal's wager argument. The wager lets one's desires count toward showing one's faith to be rational, and the faith requires that oneÕs desires undergo radical transformation to protect the faith, making the wager argument really (...) quite strong. As Nietzsche insisted, to be an atheist in the face of this challenge, one would have to become superhuman and transform one's values radically in the opposite direction. (shrink)

Perhaps the best known criticism of Pascal’s wager is the many Gods objection. As so often with anglophone criticisms of Pascal, the many Gods objectiontypically treats the wager in isolation from the rest of Pascal’s thought. In this case, the truncated reading has issued in the view that Pascal was indifferent toor ignorant of the possibility that Gods other than the one described by Catholic theology might exist. This view is false. Even a cursory glance beyond the wagerfragment (...) reveals that Pascal considers a number of religious and philosophical positions and argues that, given the nature and needs of the human being, onlya God of a specific description could count as God for the human being and, so, be the object of the wager. This essay sketches Pascal’s view to show that the many Gods objection is not sufficient to address his argument meaningfully. (shrink)

Arthur Falk has proposed a new construal of faith according to which it is not a mere species of belief, but has essential components in action. This twist on faith promises to resurrect Pascal’s Wager, making faith compatible with reason by believing as the scientist but acting as the theist. I argue that Falk’s proposal leaves religious faith in no better shape; in particular, it merely reframes the question in terms of rational desires rather than rational beliefs.

Nicholas Agar has recently argued that it would be irrational for future human beings to choose to radically enhance themselves by uploading their minds onto computers. Utilizing Searle’s argument that machines cannot think, he claims that uploading might entail death. He grants that Searle’s argument is controversial, but he claims, so long as there is a non-zero probability that uploading entails death, uploading is irrational. I argue that Agar’s argument, like Pascal’s wager on which it is modelled, fails, because (...) the principle that we (or future agents) ought to avoid actions that might entail death is not action guiding. Too many actions fall under its scope for the principle to be plausible. I also argue that the probability that uploading entails death is likely to be lower than Agar recognizes. (shrink)

There are at least two versions of the famous Wager argument to be found in Pascal’s Pensées. In contemporary work on the Wager, attention is almost always focused on the second. In this paper, we take a look at the first, which is often quickly dismissed as a failure. Indeed, it seems to be generally believed that Pascal himself quickly dismissed it as a failure. We fi rst argue that Pascal himself accepted the argument. Then we argue (more (...) importantly) that those who accept a virtue theoretic account of human flourishing ought to agree with Pascal in accepting the argument. (shrink)

Pascal is best known among philosophers for his wager in support of Christian belief. Since Ian Hacking’s classic article on the wager, three versions of the wager have been recognized within the concise paragraphs of the Pensées. In what follows I argue that there is a fourth to be found there, a version that in many respects anticipates the argument of William James in his 1896 essay “The Will to Believe.” This fourth wager argument, I contend, (...) differs from the better-known three in that it has as a premise the proposition that theistic belief is more rewarding than non-belief in this life, whether God exists or not. As we will see, this proposition provides a way of circumventing the many-gods objection. From the four wagers found in Pascal’s Pensées, I argue, one can salvage the resources for a version of the wager, Pascalian in nature, even if not in origin, immune to the many-gods objection. A brief comment on the apologetic role Pascal intended for the wagers played is our first task at hand. (shrink)

In part one, I identify the core logical structure of the precautionary principle and distinguish it from the various key concepts that appear in the many different formulations of the principle. I survey these concepts and suggest a program of further conceptual analysis. In part two, I examine a particular version of the precautionary principle dubbed “the catastrophe principle” and criticize it in light of its similarities to the principle at work in Pascal’s Wager. I conclude with some suggestions (...) for advocates of the precautionary principle who wish their formulation to avoid the pitfalls confronting the catastrophe principle. (shrink)

The best reason for believing that robots might some day become conscious is that we human beings are conscious, and we are a sort of robot ourselves. That is, we are extraordinarily complex self-controlling, self-sustaining physical mechanisms, designed over the eons by natural selection, and operating according to the same well-understood principles that govern all the other physical processes in living things: digestive and metabolic processes, self-repair and reproductive processes, for instance. It may be wildly over-ambitious to suppose that human (...) artificers can repeat Nature's triumph, with variations in material, form, and design process, but this is not a deep objection. It is not as if a conscious machine contradicted any fundamental laws of nature, the way a perpetual motion machine does. Still, many skeptics believe--or in any event want to believe--that it will never be done. I wouldn't wager against them, but my reasons for skepticism are mundane, economic reasons, not theoretical reasons. (shrink)

Cryonic suspension is a relatively new technology that offers those who can afford it the chance to be 'frozen' for future revival when they reach the ends of their lives. This paper will examine the ethical status of this technology and whether its use can be justified. Among the arguments against using this technology are: it is 'against nature', and would change the very concept of death; no friends or family of the 'freezee' will be left alive when he is (...) revived; the considerable expense involved for the freezee and the future society that will revive him; the environmental cost of maintaining suspension; those who wish to use cryonics might not live life to the full because they would economize in order to afford suspension; and cryonics could lead to premature euthanasia in order to maximize chances of success. Furthermore, science might not advance enough to ever permit revival, and reanimation might not take place due to socio-political or catastrophic reasons. Arguments advanced by proponents of cryonics include: the potential benefit to society; the ability to cheat death for at least a few more years; the prospect of immortality if revival is successful; and all the associated benefits that delaying or avoiding dying would bring. It emerges that it might be imprudent not to use the technology, given the relatively minor expense involved and the potential payoff. An adapted and more persuasive version of Pascal's Wager is presented and offered as a conclusive argument in favour of utilizing cryonic suspension. (shrink)

Over the centuries, many different arguments have been used to support the belief in God. These range from the abstruse and theoretical, such as Anselm’s famous Ontological Argument, to the relatively downto-earth and practical, such as Pascal’s Wager; but nearly all of them share a common weakness on which I intend to focus. I shall claim that the theistic arguments typically take for granted that in order to establish the existence of God they have only to establish the existence (...) of a Supreme Being. They thus presuppose that for the office of Lord of the Universe, God as traditionally understood by Christians is the only candidate worth considering, and as a result they give insufficient attention to the nature of the Supreme Being whose existence they supposedly prove. (shrink)

AI: Matt Strohl mstrohl@princeton.edu We start with two traditional arguments: that the apparently unnecessary pain in the universe shows that there is no god (the problem of evil), and that the apparent designed nature of the universe shows that there is a god (the argument from design). We then consider various questions in creation ethics (e.g., what sort of genetic modifications to one's offspring are justifiable) in the light of the theological arguments we have discussed so far. Next, starting with (...) a discussion Pascal's wager, we assess the extent to which one may reasonably control one's beliefs and desires. Finally, we ask whether the sources of our own beliefs and desires (concerning what is valuable, or what is worth doing) show that life is absurd. (shrink)

The idea that beliefs may be stake-sensitive is explored. This is the idea that the strength with which a single, persistent belief is held may vary and depend upon what the believer takes to be at stake. The stakes in question are tied to the truth of the belief—not, as in Pascal’s wager and other cases, to the belief’s presence. Categorical beliefs and degrees of belief are considered; both kinds of account typically exclude the idea and treat belief as (...) stake-invariant , though an exception is briefly described. The role of the assumption of stake-invariance in familiar accounts of degrees of belief is also discussed, and morals are drawn concerning finite and countable Dutch book arguments. (shrink)

Do you believe it to be impossible that God is infinite, without parts?-Yes. I wish therefore to show you an infinite and indivisible thing. It is a point moving everywhere with an infinite velocity; for it is one in all places, and is all totality in every place. Let this effect of nature, which previously seemed to you impossible, make you know that there may be others of which you are still ignorant. Do not draw this conclusion from your experiment, (...) that there remains nothing for you to know; but rather that there remains an infinity for you to know. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that people become selfish and turn to looting, price gouging, and other immoral behaviour in emergencies. This has been the basis for an argument justifying extraordinary measures in emergencies. It states that if emergencies are not curtailed, breakdown of moral norms threaten (‘the moral black hole’). Using the example of natural disasters, we argue that the validity of this argument in non-antagonistic situations, i.e. situations other than war and armed conflict, is highly questionable. Available evidence suggests (...) that people in such emergencies typically do not display panic reactions or exaggerated selfishness, and that phenomena such as looting and price gouging are rare. Furthermore, a version of the moral-black-hole argument based on the mere possibility of a moral black hole occurring runs into problems similar to those of Pascal’s Wager. We conclude that we should be wary against applying the moral-black-hole argument to non-antagonistic cases. (shrink)

Ultimism and the aims of human immaturity -- Faith without details, or how to practice skeptical religion -- Simple faith and the complexities of tradition -- The structure of faith justification -- How skeptical faith is true to reason -- Anselm's idea -- Leibniz's ambition -- Paley's wonder -- Pascal's wager -- Kant's postulate -- James's will -- Faith is positively justified : the many modes of religious vision.

Louis Pojman has argued that Christian faith does not entail belief, or even assigning a probability of 1/2 to the claims of Christianity. However, this conclusion fails in many cases because of its ethical consequences. A Christian is committed by his faith to acting in accordance with Christian teaching. However, there are circumstances when it is morally impermissible to act in accordance to beliefs to which one assigns epistemic probability smaller than 1/2, namely when the action is prohibited by ethical (...) claims that one takes to be more probable. It is argued that in most cases such considerations preclude a person who assigns a probability of less 1/2 from being both committed both to Christianity and to the moral life. Matters are particularly clear in the paradigmatic faith-action of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac: this action would clearly be immoral if Abraham assigned a probability less than 1/2, or in fact any probability not very close to 1, to the existence of God. A moral version of Pascal’s wager is also discussed. (shrink)

This paper is a critical review of Howard Sobel’s ’Logic and Theism’. I discuss his analyses of ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, and arguments from evil, and comment upon his accounts of Pascal’s wager and Hume on miracles. My overall judgment is that this is the very best book on arguments about the existence of God that has yet appeared.

In his famous Wager, Blaise Pascal attempted to adduce prudential grounds on which to base a belief in God. His argument founders, however, on the notorious 'Many Gods Problem', the problem of selecting among the many equiprobable gods on offer. Lycan and Schlesinger try to treat the Many Gods Problem as a problem of empirical over-determination, attempting to overcome it using methodologies familiar from empirical science. I argue that their strategy fails, but that the Many Gods Problem can be (...) solved (or dissolved) nevertheless. The solution I offer both avoids the problem faced by Lycan and Schlesinger, and does so while respecting the original Pascalian intuitions to a greater extent than any solutions thus far proffered. (shrink)

Fictionalism in ontology is a mixed bag. Here I focus on three main variants—which I label after the names of Pascal, Berkeley, and Hume—and consider their relative strengths and weaknesses with special reference to the ontology that comes with common sense. The first variant is just a version of the epistemic Wager, applied across the board. For all we know—says the Pascalian—our ordinary common-sense ontology may be a fiction. However, what goes on in that fiction matters a lot to (...) us. Indeed, that’s all that matters, so let us pretend the fiction is true and let’s continue to plan our lives accordingly. The second variant builds instead on a semantic intuition. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1. Transporter Troubles. -- 2. Zeno's Hand to Mouth Paradox. -- 3. If a Pint Spills in the Forest. -- 4. The Beer Goggles Paradox. -- 5. Pascal's Wager. -- 6. The Experience Machine. -- 7. Lucretius' Spear. -- 8. The Omnipotence Dilemma. -- 9. What Mary Didn't Know About Lager. -- 10. Malcolm X and the Whites Only Bar. -- 11. Untangling Taste. -- 12. The Foreknowledge Paradox. -- 13. The Buddha's Missing Self. -- (...) 14. The Blind Men and the Black and Tan. -- 15. Liar's Paradox. -- 16. Paley's Cask. -- 17. Chuang Tzu's Butterfly. -- 18. Descartes' Doubt. -- 19. God's Command. -- 20. Mill's Drunkard. -- 21. The Myth of Gyges. -- 22. Laplace's Superscientist. -- 23. Gaunilo's Perfect Ale. -- 24. The Problem of Moral Truth. -- 25. How to Sew on a Soul. -- 26. Plato's Forms. -- 27. Realizing Nirvana. -- 28. The Problem of Evil. -- 29. Time's Conundrum. -- 30. Time Travel Paradoxes. -- 31. Hitler's Lager. -- 32. The Zen Koan. -- 33. Sex and Sensibility. -- 34. Socrates' Virtue. -- 35. Nature Calls. -- 36. Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence. -- 37. The Most Interesting Man and the Firing Line. -- 38. Turing's Tasting Machine. -- 39. Singer's Pond. -- 40. The Wisest One of All. -- 41. Enter the Matrix. -- 42. A Case of Bad Faith. -- 43. Cask and Cleaver. -- 44. Flirting with Disaster. -- 45. Fear of Zombies. -- 46. Lao Tzu's Empty Mug. -- 47. Beer and the Meaning of Life. -- 48. The Case for Temperance. (shrink)

Pascal‘s wager is expounded as a paradigm case of a practical,decision-theoretical argument for acting as if a proposition is true when wehave no theoretical reasons to accept or reject it (1.1.–1.2.). Thoughthe paradigm is fallacious in various respects there are valid and adequatearguments for acting as if certain propositions are true: that theoreticalentities exist, that there are material perceptual objects, that the worldis uniform across time (1.3). After this analysis of examples the author‘sgeneral approach for developing criteria for the (...) validity and adequacy oftypes of argument (2.1.) is applied: Having discussed some problems(2.2.–2.3.), a general epistemic principle for such ’pascal arguments‘is developed, which characterizes their premisses and, if introduced as anadditional premiss, can make them deductively valid (2.4). (shrink)

The Repugnant Conclusion is closer to infinity-based arguments, such as Pascal’s Wager, than it at first appears. Both rely on an unbounded set of payoff comparisons. It is possible to restructure Pascal’s Wager to resemble the Repugnant Conclusion more closely, as the use of infinity is not central to the former. I then consider settings in which the set of comparisons is bounded, so as to differentiate Parfit’s problem from the more general issues involved with very large numbers. (...) We then find the Repugnant Conclusion no longer necessarily arises as a matter of logic rather is an empirical contingency. I then present some plausible intuitions under which the Repugnant Conclusion never arises. The paradoxical nature of Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion is traced to the simultaneous application of two inconsistent outside observer constructs: one to judge the Repugnant Conclusion as repugnant, and another to define the utility scale for a marginally worthwhile life. Once the two constructs are made consistent, the Repugnant Conclusion can be defused. (shrink)

This book stands in the tradition of philosophers who advance the rationality of faith. Yet, this book goes beyond their accounts, for it not only defends the view that faith can be termed rational, but it also considers the different senses in which faith can be termed rational. While this book advances the idea that faith as a general category can be termed rational, it does not investigate in a detailed way whether there are arguments for the rationality of particular (...) faiths which would go beyond the arguments for the rationality of faith as a general category. Besides discussing whether betting on God in Pascal’s wager and believing in miracles are forms of the rationality of faith, I will provide unique solutions to the problem of evil and the paradoxes of omnipotence and omniscience. (publisher). (shrink)

There are good grounds for seeing a deep opposition between reason and violence. Yet some forms of argument appear to link the two; and a prominent example is the argumentum ad baculum, where the premise contains a threat. Consideration of the connection between premise and conclusion in such an argument can, it seems, yield some cases where the status of the author of the threat renders the argument not only valid but also sound. Examples of such arguments cluster in the (...) areas near Pascal's Wager and Rawls' argument for justice. However even these arguments fail to effect a reconciliation between reason and violence. (shrink)

Spectrum inversion is a thought experiment, and I would wager that there is no better diagnostic test to the disciplinary affiliation of a randomly selected member of the audience than your reaction to a thought experiment. It is a litmus test. If you find that you are paying close attention, subvocalizing objections, and that your heart-rate and metabolism go up, you have turned pink: you are a philosopher. If on the other hand the thought experiment leaves you cold, and (...) you wonder why otherwise sensible people would worry about such things, you have turned blue and you are a psychologist. (shrink)

Tilley has provided a novel retrieval of the Pascalian wager within a postmodern context. He is to be especially commended for his critique of mainstream philosophy of religion, his approach to religious traditions as a set of practices, and his insistence that religious commitment is an act of phronesis within a social-traditional context. Two issues remain problematic, however, in Tilley’s treatment of religious commitment: 1. His conception of religion pays inadequate attention to the establishment of the plausibility of the (...) transcendent referent of religious commitment; 2.In his account there is a fundamental ambiguity regarding the role of the individual and an unresolved tension between the self and the social context. (shrink)

Spectrum inversion is a thought experiment, and I would wager that there is no better diagnostic test to the disciplinary affiliation of a randomly selected member of the audience than your reaction to a thought experiment. It is a litmus test. If you find that you are paying close attention, subvocalizing objections, and that your heart-rate and metabolism go up, you have turned pink: you are a philosopher. If on the other hand the thought experiment leaves you cold, and (...) you wonder why otherwise sensible people would worry about such things, you have turned blue and you are a psychologist. (shrink)

Pascal’s famous pragmatic argument for belief in God is plagued by a number of well-known problems, not the least of which is related to the claim that significant benefits may arise when we acquire a certain set of religious beliefs. But it is reasonable to hold a wide range of conflicting beliefs about the existence of God, the nature and supposed purposes of divine reality, and other related metaphysical claims. If it is not clear what claims are true about God, (...) then the world is religiously ambiguous. If the world is characterized by religious ambiguity, then the punishment-reward structure that underlies Pascalian wagering should be rejected in favor of what I call the agnostic wager. Given our bewildering epistemic situation in relation to questions about divine reality, if theism is true it is unlikely that it matters whether we believe theism is true. (shrink)

This unique textbook--the first to offer balanced, comprehensive coverage of all major perspectives on the rational justification of religious belief--includes twenty-four key papers by some of the world's leading philosophers of religion. Arranged in six sections, each representing a major approach to religious epistemology, the book begins with papers by noted atheists, setting the stage for the main theistic responses--Wittgensteinian Fideism, Reformed epistemology, natural theology, prudential accounts of religious beliefs, and rational belief based in religious experience--in each case offering a (...) representative sample of papers by leading exponents, a critical paper, and a substantial bibliography. A comprehensive introductory essay and ample cross-references help students to contrast and evaluate the different approaches, while the overall arrangement encourages them to assess the full range of philosophical positions on the issue. Carefully selected to provide both a comprehensive overview of current work and a series of modern perspectives on many classic sources--Swinburne's detailed discussion of Hume's critique of the design argument, for example, as well as an entire section evaluating and extending Pascal's famous Wager--the essays also provide a uniquely readable survey that will be useful in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of religion and epistemology. (shrink)

AT LEAST ONE MODEL OF THE RATIONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEVER EXISTS: PRIMARY COMMITMENT TO DISCOVERING TRUTH AND ACTING RIGHTLY; COMMITMENT TO A RELIGION FLOWING FROM THOSE PRIMARY ONES; SOME DEGREE OF TENTATIVENESS ABOUT FAITH; SEARCHING FOR PROBABILITY, MORE THAN CERTAINTY; FAITH CONSTITUTING A PARTLY MORAL WAGER AIMED AT MAXIMIZING EXPECTED UTILITIES OF CERTAIN KINDS; A TOLERANT WISDOM ABOUT COMMITMENTS (AND ORDERINGS) PARTLY PLEASING TO SUCH SECULAR THINKERS AS MILL, QUINE AND POPPER, ALSO AQUINAS, BARTLEY AND WILLIAM JAMES; PRIMARY LOVE FOR (...) GOD AS THE SUPREME JUSTIFIER OF HUMAN JUSTIFIER OF HUMAN HISTORY--GOD’S POWER BEING TREATED AS SECONDARY TO HIS GOODNESS. (TOPICS INCLUDE: MIRACLES, IS AND OUGHT, PROBABILITY, WAGERS, PROOFS, TIME, WAR). (shrink)

In his Pensées, Pascal (1623-1662) introduced the very influential distinction between the subtle intelligence (esprit de finesse) and the geometrical intelligence (esprit géométrique). In the first part of the present paper Pascal’s distinction is considered by looking at his famous wager argument where Pascal acts as a skeptical philosopher and at the same time as an applied mathematician. This argument employs the esprit de finesse in a way that is of fundamental significance for the epistemology of mathematics. This claim (...) will be backed up in the second part of the paper that explores Charles Sanders Peirce’s conception of diagrammatic reasoning. Peirce’s semiotically inspired epistemology of mathematics brings to the fore the significance of the “old”position of Pascal – one has to face the fundamental problems of application. (shrink)

Belief in God answers two questions: what, if anything, is it that Jews, Christians, and Muslims are agreeing about when they join in claiming that there is a God; and what, if any, prospects are there for rationally defending or attacking this claim? -/- In the context of a sustained argument for particular answers to these questions, Tim Mawson tackles many of the most prominent topics in the philosophy of religion. He argues that those who believe that there is a (...) God are best interpreted as believing that there is a being who is essentially personal, transcendent, immanent, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, perfectly free, perfectly good, and necessary; and non-essentially creator of the world and value; revealer of Himself; and offerer of everlasting life. Having explored the meaning and consistency of this conception of God in the first half of the book, Mawson goes on to consider whether or not belief or the absence of belief in such a God might be the sort of thing that does not rationally require argument and, if not, what the criteria for a good argument for or against such a God's existence might be. Having established some criteria, he uses them to evaluate specific arguments for and against the existence of such a God. He looks at the Argument to Design; the Cosmological Argument; the Ontological Argument; the Argument from Religious Experience; the Argument from Apparent Miracles; the Problem of Evil; and Pascal's Wager. Finally, he explores the relation between faith and reason. -/- In the course of his argument, Mawson makes striking new claims and defends or attacks established positions in new ways. His conversational style, lively wit, and enlightening examples make Belief in God as pleasurable as it is instructive and thought-provoking. It makes an ideal text for beginning undergraduate courses and for anyone thinking about these most important of questions. (shrink)

At a time in which probability theory is exerting an unprecedented influence on epistemology and philosophy of science, promising to deliver an exact and unified foundation for the philosophy of rational inference and decision-making, it is worth remembering that the philosophy of religion has long proven to be an extremely fertile ground for the application of probabilistic thinking to traditional epistemological debates. This volume brings together original contributions from twelve contemporary researchers, both established and emerging, to offer a representative sample (...) of the work currently being carried out in this potentially rich field of inquiry. Grouped into five sections, the chapters span a broad range of traditional issues in religious epistemology. The first three sections discuss the evidential impact of various considerations that have often been brought to bear on the question of the existence of God. These include witness reports of the occurrence of miraculous events, the existence of complex biological adaptations, the apparent ‘fine-tuning’ for life of various physical constants and the existence of seemingly unnecessary evil. The fourth section addresses a number of issues raised by Pascal’s famous pragmatic argument for theistic belief. A final section offers probabilistic perspectives on the rationality of faith and the epistemic significance of religious disagreement. (shrink)

A person who does not have good intellectual reasons for believing in God can, depending on his probabilities and values for consequences of believing, have good practical reasons. Pascalian wagers founded on a variety of possible probability/value profiles are examined from a Bayesian perspective central to which is the idea that states and options are pragmatically reasonable only if they maximize subjective expected value. Attention is paid to problems posed by representations of values by Cantorian infinities. An appendix attends to (...) Robinsonian hyperreals. Another appendix presents for comparison Newcomb's Problem and a problem in some ways like it suggested, I think, by ideas of John Calvin. (shrink)

In chapter 8 of The Grace and the Severity of the Ideal, Victor Kestenbaum disputes the naturalistic-instrumentalist reading of John Dewey's A Common Faith. Rather than accept the orthodox reading, he challenges mainstream Dewey scholars to read Dewey's theism from a phenomenological perspective. From this vantage, Kestenbaum contends that Dewey was wagering on transcendence, gambling on an ideal realm of supersensible entities, and hoping that the payoff would be universal acknowledgement of "a widening of the place of transcendence and faith (...) in every area of his philosophy." In a long-neglected correspondence between John Dewey and Albert Balz, Dewey responds to Balz's misreading of his logic as a correspondence theory of truth by stating that through the translation of all the ontological into the logical in the context of inquiry, he is "on the side of the angels." I argue that Dewey is accomplishing much the same thing in A Common Faith by naturalistically unifying the real and the ideal under the heading of the religious. In this respect, Dewey's naturalism and instrumentalism, rather than Kestenbaum's transcendentalism, is firmly "on the side of the angels.". (shrink)

Dienes and Seth (2010) conclude that confidence ratings and post-decision wagering are two comparable and recommendable measures of conscious experience. In a recently submitted paper, we have however found that both methods are problematic and seem less suited to measure consciousness than a direct introspective measure. Here, we discuss the methodology and conclusions put forward by Dienes and Seth, and why we think the two experiments end up with so different recommendations.

In their comment on Sandberg, Timmermans, Overgaard, and Cleeremans (2010), Dienes and Seth argue that increased sensitivity of the Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS) is a consequence of the scale being less exclusive rather than more exhaustive. According to Dienes and Seth, this is because PAS may measure some conscious content, though not necessarily relevant conscious content, ‘‘If one saw a square but was only aware of seeing a flash of something, then one has not consciously seen a square.” In this (...) reply, we claim that there is a difference between conscious visual experience, which may be partial, and the resulting conscious content, which is conceptual. Whereas PAS measures the first, confidence judgments and post-decision wagering measure the second. (shrink)

A rational justification for therapeutic decisions can be developed using probability and decision theory. The set of treatments and their outcomes or consequences, which are states of health, have to be defined; and estimates made of the probabilities of outcomes, their utilities, and the costs of treatments. Most difficult is the estimation of utilities of states of health but this may be possible using a wagering technique. Until it is possible to establish some equivalence between utility and money, costs may (...) be introduced by measuring the efficiency of treatment by comparing expected utilities per unit cost. The whole method is examined practically in a plausible clinical setting. Emphasis is laid on the value of testing the completed model using a computer to get an intimate feel of the problem using different assumptions and different values for all the parameters. (shrink)

Through essays, Mount Mary College professors from various disciplines analyze several pieces of literature from a variety of genres and authors to show how ...

There is a good deal linking Whitehead’s and Emerson’s deepest in-tuitions, starting with their shared emphasis on intuition and flux—and despite the fact thatin sharp contrast with Whitehead, Emerson carefully avoided anything resembling a metaphysical system. Following Stengers, I distinguish between Whitehead’s “scheme” and his “intentionality”: he is “less the author of the scheme and of the concepts he articulates than he is obliged by them, compelled by them, in a process of empirical experimentation and verification which has about it (...) something of the experience of a trance because the thought in question is taken, captured, by a becoming—something about to be.” The bulk of the essay concerns the central role played by “interstitial wagers” of this sort in Whitehead’s contribution to what he termed “the romance of human thought.”. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a new account of luck and how luck impacts attributions of credit for agents' actions. I propose an analogy with the expected value of a series of wagers and argue that luck is what we call the difference between actual outcomes and expected value. The upshot of my argument is that when considering the interplay of intention, chance, outcomes, skill, and actions, we ought to be more parsimonious in our attributions of credit when exercising a (...) skill and obtaining successful outcomes, and more generous in our attributions of credit when exercising a skill but obtaining unsuccessful outcomes. Furthermore, I will argue that when agents skillfully perform an action, they deserve the same amount of credit whether their action is successful or unsuccessful in achieving the goal. (shrink)

van der Velde's & de Kamps's model encodes complex word-to-word relations in sentences but does not encode the hierarchical constituent structure of sentences, a fundamental property of most accounts of sentence structure. We summarize what is at stake and suggest two ways of incorporating constituency into the model.