24 found
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  1. Does cognitive science show belief in god to be irrational? The epistemic consequences of the cognitive science of religion.Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 74 (1):77-98.
    The last 15 years or so has seen the development of a fascinating new area of cognitive science: the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Scientists in this field aim to explain religious beliefs and various other religious human activities by appeal to basic cognitive structures that all humans possess. The CSR scientific theories raise an interesting philosophical question: do they somehow show that religious belief, more specifically belief in a god of some kind, is irrational? In this paper I investigate (...)
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  2. Moral Intuitionism Defeated?Nathan Ballantyne & Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - American Philosophical Quarterly 50 (4):411-422.
    Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has developed and progressively refined an argument against moral intuitionism—the view on which some moral beliefs enjoy non-inferential justification. He has stated his argument in a few different forms, but the basic idea is straightforward. To start with, Sinnott-Armstrong highlights facts relevant to the truth of moral beliefs: such beliefs are sometimes biased, influenced by various irrelevant factors, and often subject to disagreement. Given these facts, Sinnott-Armstrong infers that many moral beliefs are false. What then shall we think (...)
     
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  3. The a priori defended: a defense of the generality argument.Joshua C. Thurow - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 146 (2):273-289.
    One of Laurence BonJour’s main arguments for the existence of the a priori is an argument that a priori justification is indispensable for making inferences from experience to conclusions that go beyond experience. This argument has recently come under heavy fire from Albert Casullo, who has dubbed BonJour’s argument, “The Generality Argument.” In this paper I (i) defend the Generality Argument against Casullo’s criticisms, and (ii) develop a new, more plausible, version of the Generality Argument in response to some other (...)
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  4. Some Reflections on Cognitive Science, Doubt, and Religious Belief.Joshua C. Thurow - 2014 - In Justin Barrett Roger Trigg (ed.), The Root of Religion. Ashgate.
    Religious belief and behavior raises the following two questions: (Q1) Does God, or any other being or state that is integral to various religious traditions, exist? (Q2) Why do humans have religious beliefs and engage in religious behavior? How one answers (Q2) can affect how reasonable individuals can be in accepting a particular answer to (Q1). My aim in this chapter is to carefully distinguish the various ways in which an answer to Q2 might affect the rationality of believing in (...)
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  5. The defeater version of Benacerraf’s problem for a priori knowledge.Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - Synthese 190 (9):1587-1603.
    Paul Benacerraf’s argument that mathematical realism is apparently incompatible with mathematical knowledge has been widely thought to also show that a priori knowledge in general is problematic. Although many philosophers have rejected Benacerraf’s argument because it assumes a causal theory of knowledge, some maintain that Benacerraf nevertheless put his finger on a genuine problem, even though he didn’t state the problem in its most challenging form. After diagnosing what went wrong with Benacerraf’s argument, I argue that a new, more challenging, (...)
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  6.  24
    Explaining Rationalist Weak Conciliationism: A Challenge.Joshua C. Thurow - 2023 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 13 (4):297-310.
    In his book, Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment, John Pittard presents and critiques what he calls the “master argument for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism.” This argument purports to show, using only higher-order reasoning and facts about religious disagreement, that nobody’s religious outlook is justified (at least, nobody aware of the argument). The master argument presupposes that any attempt to vindicate one’s religious outlook must employ dispute-independent reasons. Pittard objects to this assumption and argues, instead, for rationalist weak conciliationism: the view that (...)
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  7. On Epistemic Partisanship.Mike Almeida & Joshua C. Thurow - 2021 - Https://Philosophyofreligion.Org/.
    According to Paul Draper and Ryan Nichols the practice of philosophy of religion—and especially its theistically committed practitioners—regularly violate norms of rationality, objectivity, and impartiality in the review, assessment, and weighing of evidence. (Draper and Nichols, 2013). We consider the charge of epistemic partisanship and show that the observational data does not illustrate a norm-violating form of inquiry. The major oversight in the charge of epistemic partiality is the epistemically central role of prior probabilities in determining the significance of incongruent (...)
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  8.  62
    Debunking and fully apt belief.Joshua C. Thurow - 2018 - Filosofia Unisinos 19 (3).
    One of the contentious philosophical issues surrounding the cognitive science of religion (CSR) is whether well-confirmed CSR theories would debunk religious beliefs. These debates have been contentious in part because of criticisms of epistemic principles used in debunking arguments. In this paper I use Ernest Sosa’s respected theory of knowledge as fully apt belief—which avoids objections that have been leveled against sensitivity and safety principles often used in debunking arguments—to construct a plausible debunking argument for religious belief on the assumption (...)
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  9. Does the Scientific Study of Religion Cast Doubt on Theistic Belief?Joshua C. Thurow - 2014 - In Michael Bergmann Patrick Kain (ed.), Challenges to Moral and Religious Belief: Disagreement and Evolution. Oxford ; New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 277-294.
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    Problems with Compensation: Gleeson on Marilyn McCord Adams on Evil.Joshua C. Thurow - 2020 - Sophia 59 (3):513-524.
    According to the most recent articulation of her view, Marilyn Adams’s reply to the problem of horrendous evils states that God offers compensation to those who experience horrendous evils. This compensation includes the good of the incarnation of God and the good of identification with God in virtue of suffering horrendous evils. Andrew Gleeson has raised a series of objections to Adams’s recent articulation. I argue that all of Gleeson’s arguments fail or fail to pose a distinct challenge. I then (...)
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  11. Does Religious Disagreement Actually Aid the Case for Theism?Joshua C. Thurow - 2012 - In Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison (eds.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
  12. On Counterfactuals of Libertarian Freedom: Is There Anything I Would Have Done if I Could Have Done Otherwise?Paul C. Anders, Joshua C. Thurow & Kenneth Hochstetter - 2014 - American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (1):85-94.
  13. Jesse Bering, The God Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2011.Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5 (3):196-202.
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  14.  60
    He Died for Our Sins.Joshua C. Thurow - 2021 - Journal of Analytic Theology 9:238-261.
    How does Jesus’s death atone for human sin? Traditional answers to this question face a challenge: explain how Jesus’s death plays an important and distinctive role in atoning for human sin without employing problematic philosophical or moral assumptions. I present a new answer that meets the challenge. In the context of the Jewish sacrificial background, the blood of a pure victim can communicate the washing away of sins. Jesus’s death atones because through it his blood, and then his resurrection, can (...)
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  15.  23
    Intuition Theory of the A Priori, with Implications for Experimental Philosophy.Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - In Albert Casullo & Joshua C. Thurow (eds.), The a Priori in Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 67.
  16. The implicit conception and intuition theory of the a priori, with implications for experimental philosophy.Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - In Albert Casullo & Joshua C. Thurow (eds.), The a Priori in Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press UK.
  17.  42
    Animals with Soul.Joshua C. Thurow - 2018 - Sophia 57 (1):85-101.
    I argue that ensouled animalism—the view that we are identical to animals that have immaterial souls as parts—has a pair of advantages over its two nearest rivals, materialistic animalism and pure dualism. Contra pure dualism, ensouled animalism can explain how physical predications can be literally true of us. Contra materialistic animalism, ensouled animalism can explain how animals can survive death. Furthermore, ensouled animalism has these advantages without creating any problems beyond those already faced by animalism and by belief in souls. (...)
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  18. Debunking Arguments and Religious Belief.Joshua C. Thurow - 2023 - In John Greco, Tyler Dalton McNabb & Jonathan Fuqua (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
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  19.  31
    Finding Collective Sin and Recompense in Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo.Joshua C. Thurow - 2017 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 91 (3):431-446.
    Anselm’s argument in Cur Deus Homo commits him to the existence of collective sin and to Jesus’s offering recompense for the human race’s collective sin. By “collective sin” I mean sin of a collective entity—in this case, the human race. In the bulk of this paper I argue that one of Anselm’s defenses of a crucial assumption of his argument—what I call Anselm’s Principle—can succeed only on the assumption that Jesus offers recompense for the collective sin of the human race. (...)
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  20. Religion, 'Religion', and Tolerance.Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - In Steve Clark Russell Powell & Julian Savulescu (eds.), Religion, Intolerance, and Conflict: A Scientific and Conceptual Investigation. Oxford University Press. pp. 146-162.
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    The Realm of Reason.Joshua C. Thurow - 2006 - Philosophia Christi 8 (1):169-172.
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  22.  27
    A Natural History of Natural Theology, by Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt. [REVIEW]Joshua C. Thurow - 2016 - Faith and Philosophy 33 (3):370-374.
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  23.  61
    Christian Philosophical Theology. [REVIEW]Joshua C. Thurow - 2008 - Faith and Philosophy 25 (1):113-116.
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  24.  41
    Natural Signs and Knowledge of God: A New Look at Theistic Arguments, by C. Stephen Evans. [REVIEW]Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - Faith and Philosophy 30 (2):221-224.