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References
Alvin Plantinga, ‘Reason and Belief in God’,Faith and Rationality, Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, editors (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), p. 48.
Nicholas Rescher,The Strife of Systems (Pittsburgh, Pa.: The University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985), pp. 127f. ‘What counts as crucial from this overarching metaphysical standpoint is not the matter of ‘getting at the absolute truth’, but rather of enhancing the quality of the argumentation and gaining a deepened understanding of the structure of alternative position’. pp. 273f.
Plantinga,op.cit., p. 64.
Ibid., p. 65.
Ibid., p. 66.
Wolterstorff argues that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. I am not comfortable with an unqualified expression of this idea, but rather than give my objections in detail, I well say only that the reader can infer them from my whole position which I develop below.
p.cit. Wolterstorff argues that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. I am not comfortable with an unqualified expression of this idea, but rather than give my objections in detail, I well say only that the reader can infer them from my whole position which I develop below, p. 48.
Ibid. Wolterstorff argues that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. I am not comfortable with an unqualified expression of this idea, but rather than give my objections in detail, I well say only that the reader can infer them from my whole position which I develop below, p. 62.
Ibid. Wolterstorff argues that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. I am not comfortable with an unqualified expression of this idea, but rather than give my objections in detail, I well say only that the reader can infer them from my whole position which I develop below, p. 50.
On this point Plantinga credits Herman Bavinck,The Doctrine of God, tr. William Hendricksen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), pp. 78ff.
Ibid., p. 78f.
Ibid., p. 83.
Ibid., p. 79.
Ibid., p. 80.
Ibid., p. 81.
Quoted in Mavrodes, ‘Jerusalem and Athens Revisited’,Ibid., p. 205. Mavrodes cites Plantinga’s essay ‘Reason and Belief in God’,Ibid., p. 73–74, 79. I could not find the quote on those pages or even in that essay. I assume the quotation is accurate and the citation is somehow faulty.
Karl Popper,Objective Knowledge (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 146. Also see p. 72.
Pragmatism (New York: Washington Square Press, 1963), pp. 5, 6, 19, 28, 29, 33, 37, 61.
Ibid. Pragmatism (New York: Washington Square Press, 1963), pp. 96.
bid. Pragmatism (New York: Washington Square Press, 1963), p. 37.
I would add that ordinary people also know about self-deception and rationalization. They know that some ‘reasons’ for believing are wrong or unworthy. So not absolutley everything that inclines us to belief may rightly operate. But the philosoher can hardly do more that enumerate the illegitimate factors which he finds to be disvalued by conscientious and observant ordinary people. He can not succeed, or at least has not succeeded, in making wholesale improvements upon the normal standard for belief at work in people. His efforts to do so previously have resulted in the terribly misleading distortions of extreme reationalism and extreme empiricism.
Peirce astutely observes, ‘If you ask an investigator why he does not try this or that wild theory, he will say, ‘It does not seemreasonable’. It is curious that we seldom use this work where the strict logic of our procedure is clearly seen. We do [not] say that a mathematical error is not reasonable. We call that opinion reasonable whose only support is instinct …’ Charles Sanders Peirce,Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, edd., Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), 5.174.
See Wolterstorff,op. cit., Wolterstorff argues that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. I am not comfortable with an unqualified expression of this idea, but rather than give my objections in detail, I well say only that the reader can infer them from my whole position which I develop below., p. 177.
‘The Logic of God’,Pardox and Discovery (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), p. 20. ‘In the same way the words, ‘In Nero was God incarnate’ are not without any meaning; one who utters them makes a statement, he makes a statement which is absurd andagainst all reason and thereforenot beyond the scope of reason. Now if a statement is not beyond the scope of reason then any logically parallel statement is also not beyond the scope of reason’.
As Bertrand Russell pointed out, Kant never induced that all sheep probably live within 20 miles of Königsberg, though that was his uniform experience of the matter. Russell says, ‘our animal propensity toward induction in confined to the sorts of cases in which induction is liable to give correct results’.Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951), pp. 540f.
Wolterstorff reluctantly admits that his view is a coherence theory. ‘Perhaps so’, he say,Op. cit., Wolterstorff argues that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. I am not comfortable with an unqualified expression of this idea, but rather than give my objections in detail, I well say only that the reader can infer them from my whole position which I develop below, p. 172.
‘Gods’,Philosophy and Psychonanalysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), pp. 156ff. The actual quote is in the form of a question to which a positive answer is expected. See the whole context.
James calles it ‘rectilinear’ reasoning, ‘Humanism and Truth’,Ibid., p. 165.
See myPeirce’s Epistemology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972).
This last from Thomas Reid. See Wolterstorff,op. cit., Wolterstorff argues that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. I am not comfortable with an unqualified expression of this idea, but rather than give my objections in detail, I well say only that the reader can infer them from my whole position which I develop below, p. 149.
Once again I am in full agreement with Wolterstortff who says, ‘A characteristic error of epistemologists has been to suppose that our noetic obligations are disconnected from our other obligations’.Op. cit. Wolterstorff argues that beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. I am not comfortable with an unqualified expression of this idea, but rather than give my objections in detail, I well say only that the reader can infer them from my whole position which I develop below. p. 148. And agin he says of his own approach, so close to ours here, ‘Is it then a coherence criterion? Yes, perhaps so … However, in its incorporation of a normative component it goes beyond traditional coherence theories’.Op. cit., p. 172.
He is rightly criticised on this point by George Mavrodes. ‘Why does not Plantinga come down firmly on one side or the other, opting either for the basicality or the derivative character ofGod exists? At the least, why does he not tell us what status it holds in his own belief structure, that of a sophisticated believer who has long pondered these questions. One has the impression that he is unable to settle these questions to his own satisfaction’. ‘Jerusalem and Athens Revisited’,op. cit., p. 203.
As I understand it, Godel’s proof can be taken to show this.
Barry Stroud, ‘Wittgenstein and Logical Necessity’, in G. Pitcher, ed.,Wittgenstein (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1966), p. 496.
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970) 2nd edition.
Ibid., (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970) 2nd edition. p. 166f.
When we say men choose the perspective they take on the world or choose their standards of belief, we do not mean that it is a deliberate, fully conscious process. ‘Choose’ is shorthand for the lifelong process of the choices involved in character formation which gradually makes some perspectives more attractive and others less so. The ethical overtones in the word ‘character’ are crucial.
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Davis, W.H. Evidence and belief. SOPH 30, 1–22 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02789728
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02789728