This paper argues that William Hasker's 'A new anti-Molinist argument' offers a fascinating but ultimately unsuccessful new instalment in his continuing campaign to discredit the picture of providence based on the theory of middle knowledge. It is first shown that Hasker's argument, though suffering from a seemingly irreparable logical gap, does nicely highlight a significant (and hitherto unduly underemphasized) point of contention between Molinists and anti-Molinists -- the question whether or not Molinists are committed to viewing counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (...) as part of the history of the world. Hasker's argument that they are so committed is shown to be lacking, for that argument depends upon a premise against which several contemporary Molinists have already presented independent arguments. Furthermore, the premise is not one which, on reflection, many traditional Christians could easily accept. Hence, Hasker's argument fails. It may remind us that some of the things Molinists are led to say are surprising, but it by no means shows that those surprising consequences make the view unworthy of our allegiance. (shrink)
The Chinese room argument has presented a persistent headache in the search for Artificial Intelligence. Since it first appeared in the literature, various interpretations have been made, attempting to understand the problems posed by this thought experiment. Throughout all this time, some researchers in the Artificial Intelligence community have seen Symbol Grounding as proposed by Harnad as a solution to the Chinese room argument. The main thesis in this paper is that although related, these two issues present different problems in (...) the framework presented by Harnad himself. The work presented here attempts to shed some light on the relationship between John Searle’s intentionality notion and Harnad’s Symbol Grounding Problem. (shrink)
Scientific cosmology is an empirical discipline whose objects of study are the large-scale properties of the universe. In this context, it is usual to call the direction of the expansion of the universe the "cosmological arrow of time". However, there is no reason for privileging the ‘radius’ of the universe for defining the arrow of time over other geometrical properties of the space-time. Traditional discussions about the arrow of time in general involve the concept of entropy. In the cosmological context, (...) the direction past-to-future is usually related to the direction of the gradient of the entropy function of the universe. But entropy is a thermodynamic magnitude that is typically associated with subsystems of the universe: the entropy of the universe as a whole is a very controversial matter. Moreover, thermodynamics is a phenomenological theory. Geometrical properties of space-time provide a more fundamental and less controversial way of defining an arrow of time for the universe as a whole. We will call the arrow defined only on the basis of the geometrical properties of space-time, independently of any entropic considerations, the "cosmological arrow of time". In this paper we will argue that: (i) it is possible to define a cosmological arrow of time for the universe as a whole, if certain conditions are satisfied, and (ii) the standard models of contemporary cosmology satisfy these conditions. (shrink)
The traditional doctrine of the Incarnation maintains that God became man. But was it necessary that God become the particular man He in fact became? Could some man or woman other than the man born in Bethlehem roughly two thousand years ago have been assumed by the Son to effect our salvation? This essay addresses such questions from the perspective of one embracing Molina's picture of divine providence. After showing how Molina thought his theory of middle knowledge helps alleviate a (...) traditional Christological puzzle, the essay turns to the aforementioned questions concerning God's incarnational alternatives and suggests some fairly radical answers. Finally, the essay presents two substantial objections to these radical answers and argues that these objections fail. (shrink)
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology attempts both to familiarize readers with the directions in which this scholarship has gone and to pursue the ...
Thomas Bonk has dedicated a book to analyzing the thesis of underdetermination of scientific theories, with a chapter exclusively devoted to the analysis of the relation between this idea and the indeterminacy of meaning. Both theses caused a revolution in the philosophic world in the sixties, generating a cascade of articles and doctoral theses. Agitation seems to have cooled down, but the point is still debated and it may be experiencing a renewed resurgence.
Traditional Christians face a puzzle concerning the freedom and perfection of Christ. Jesus the man, it seems, must have possessed significant freedom forhim to serve as a moral example for us and for his death to have been truly meritorious. Yet Jesus the Son of God must be incapable of sinning if he is trulydivine. So if Jesus is both human and divine, one of these two attributes - significant freedom or moral perfection - apparently needs to be surrendered. In (...) thisessay, it is argued that if (and perhaps only if) a Molinist approach to divine providence is embraced, one can plausibly affirm both the freedom of the manand the impeccability of the Son. (shrink)
Contemporary education now appears to be dominated by the continual drive for improvement measured against the assessment of what students have learned. It is our contention that a foundational relation with assessment organises contemporary education. Here we draw on a 'way of thinking' that is deconstructive in its intent. Such thinking makes clear the vicious circularity of the argument for improvement, wherein assessment valorised in discourses of improvement provides not only a rationalisation for improvement via assessment, but also the very (...) means of achieving such possibilities via targets grounded in limited specifications of assessment. On reading Heidegger's 'question concerning technology' we sought to reconsider the vicious circle of improvement in relation to Being. We claim that the means-ends driven technology of assessment, rather than being at our disposal and under our control, only serves to reveals the Real to us in accordance with the restricting principle of reason. The principle of reason, we argue, grounds 'Enframing' that ranks and orders the very beings of education as objects to produce an objective 'world as picture', rather than opening the possibility of their identity as belongings with a movement of difference. So, 'improvement' becomes normative and binding for institutions and practices on grounds of the principle of assessment, and renders agents of education as functionaries of 'Enframing'. (shrink)
The contributors to this volume move through time and space--from prehistoric Europe to the Enlightenment, and from industrial Victorian England to Aboriginal Australia--to compare the ways in which the environment is constructed in different ways across cultures.
: This paper deals with Claudia Card's important contributions to a theory of evil that steps out from traditional models of thinking about this problem (theodicies, metaphysical theories, etc.). Instead, our author seeks to explore important elements from other theorists (such as Kant and Nietzsche) in order to build up her ideas of what she calls the "atrocity paradigm." This critical essay focuses mainly in the spaces where Card's conclusions need to rethink the limits and constraints of her theory.
: The key concept is "vertigo of secularization." It relates to the fears that societies experience when understanding the need to ground their political orders as separated from religion. The erosion of values produces vertigos around the world. We need to understand better these kinds of processes because only by doing so can we keep that fear and violence from taking precedence over the hard working tasks of building up a global political community.
In the centenary year of Turing’s birth, a lot of good things are sure to be written about him. But it is hard to find something new to write about Turing. This is the biggest merit of this article: it shows how von Neumann’s architecture of the modern computer is a serendipitous consequence of the universal Turing machine, built to solve a logical problem.
Traditional Christians face a puzzle concerning the freedom and perfection of Christ. Jesus the man, it seems, must have possessed significant freedom forhim to serve as a moral example for us and for his death to have been truly meritorious. Yet Jesus the Son of God must be incapable of sinning if he is trulydivine. So if Jesus is both human and divine, one of these two attributes - significant freedom or moral perfection - apparently needs to be surrendered. In (...) thisessay, it is argued that if (and perhaps only if) a Molinist approach to divine providence is embraced, one can plausibly affirm both the freedom of the manand the impeccability of the Son. (shrink)
: My text is written to answer the questions asked at the APA Meeting's presentation of the book Moral Textures: Feminist Narratives in the Public Sphere by professors María Lugones and Eduardo Mendieta. The answer seeks to clarify that Lugones's infrapolitics position is not so distant from mine. I also address Mendieta's question directed more to the aesthetic domain. There, I seek to show how my position could be taken as a creative effort to extend some of Habermas's early work (...) on the public sphere, and to develop the thesis of the important relations between the aesthetic and the moral realms. (shrink)
Thomas P. Flint (2008). Divine Providence. In Thomas P. Flint & Michael C. Rea (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Oxford University Press.score: 30.0
The debate within the Christian academic community over open theism, or "openism", has been quite intense of late. Progress in this debate depends upon our examining how openism and its rivals fare when applied to particular Christian doctrines, beliefs, and practices. I hope to further the debate by raising a question regarding the Incarnation: ’Was Jesus Christ free in a morally significant way?’ After arguing that the two principal alternatives to openism (Thomism and Molinism) can offer internally plausible answers to (...) this question, I examine responses available to the open theist. None of these responses, I argue, seems particularly appealing. (shrink)
In defending his rejection of Maverick Molinism (Faith and Philosophy 20.1, (January 2003), pp. 91-100) from my criticisms (Faith and Philosophy 19 (2002), pp. 348-357), Tom Flint attributes three central claims to my argument, and disagrees with two of them. He also notes my request for a defense of the Law of Conditional Excluded Middle, which his argument employs. He portrays that discussion as taking “potshots” at his argument, in part because I denied that concerns about the Law are (...) compelling, but it is a mistake to think that controversial premises need no defense simply because the case against them is not compelling. Regarding the points where Flint is more forthcoming, one of his points places further demands on his rejection of this version of Molinism. The other point involves a serious misrepresentation of my argument. (shrink)
Thomas Flint has claimed that my argument against Molinism suffers from a 'seemingly irreparable logical gap'. He also contests a key assumption of that argument, namely that 'something which has had causal consequences in the past is ipso facto a hard, fixed, settled fact about the past'. In reply, I show that there is no logical gap at all in the argument. And I argue that, even though Molinists have reasons, based on Molinist principles, for rejecting the assumption in (...) question, the assumption is indeed extremely plausible. Thus, the argument creates difficulties for Molinism that are more severe than Flint is willing to admit. (shrink)
There is a common assumption about pictures, that seeing them produces in us something like the same effects as seeing the things they depict. This assumption lies behind much empirical research into vision, where experiments often expose subjects to pictures of things in order to investigate the processes involved in cognizing those things themselves. Can philosophy provide any justification for this assumption? I examine this issue in the context of Flint Schier's account of pictorial representation. Schier attempts to infer (...) the assumption from what he takes to be the fundamental facts about picturing. I argue that there is no plausible form of Schier's basic claims from which the assumption can be inferred. I then reject a second argument, that by appealing to the assumption Schier could explain why it is impossible to depict a particular without depicting it as having certain properties. I conclude that those sympathetic to the assumption need to articulate and defend some version of it suited to their needs. (shrink)
Pragmatism, with its insistence that philosophy attend to practical affairs of what Charles Sanders Peirce called "vital importance," has always faced a unique double bind. If it spent too much time on philosophical speculation, it made no difference to practical affairs. But if it fixated on the practical affairs of the social and political realm, it was no longer engaged in philosophy. This double bind is not unique to pragmatism and has shown itself repeatedly in the last two hundred years (...) as feminist and anti-racist philosophy have gained traction in academia. Feminists who worry about concrete cases of oppression, who work in practical ways to end this oppression, are not regarded as true philosophers. .. (shrink)
