18 ideas
| 19525 | If the only aim is to believe truths, that justifies recklessly believing what is unsupported (if it is right) [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: If it is intellectually required that one try to believe all and only truths (as Chisholm says), ...then it is possible to believe some unsubstantiated proposition in a reckless endeavour to believe a truth, and happen to be right. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Evidentialism [1985], 'Justification') | |
| A reaction: This implies doxastic voluntarism. Sorry! I meant, this implies that we can control what we believe, when actually we believe what impinges on us as facts. |
| 19524 | We don't have the capacity to know all the logical consequences of our beliefs [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: Our limited cognitive capacities lead Goldman to deny a principle instructing people to believe all the logical consequences of their beliefs, since they are unable to have the infinite number of beliefs that following such a principle would require. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Evidentialism [1985], 'Doxastic') | |
| A reaction: This doesn't sound like much of an objection to epistemic closure, which I took to be the claim that you know the 'known' entailments of your knowledge. |
| 19518 | Evidentialism says justifications supervene on the available evidence [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: Fundamentally Evidentialism is a supervenience thesis, according to which facts about whether or not a person is justified in believing a proposition supervene on facts describing the evidence the person has. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Introduction to 'Evidentialism' [2004], p.1) | |
| A reaction: If facts 'describe', does that make them linguistic? That's not how I use 'facts'. A statement of a fact is not the same as the fact. An ugly fact can be beautifully expressed. I am, however, in favour of evidence. |
| 9381 | If some inferences are needed to fix meaning, but we don't know which, they are all relevant [Fodor/Lepore, by Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: The Master Argument for linguistic holism is: Some of an expression's inferences are relevant to fixing its meaning; there is no way to distinguish the inferences that are constitutive (from Quine); so all inferences are relevant to fixing meaning. | |
| From: report of J Fodor / E Lepore (Holism: a Shopper's Guide [1993], §III) by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered | |
| A reaction: This would only be if you thought that the pattern of inferences is what fixes the meanings, but how can you derive inferences before you have meanings? The underlying language of thought generates the inferences? Meanings are involved! |
| 19519 | Rational decisions are either taken to be based on evidence, or to be explained causally [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: In decision theory, there is a view according to which the rational basis for all decisions is evidential. This kind of decision theory is typically contrasted with causal decision theory. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Introduction to 'Evidentialism' [2004], p.3) | |
| A reaction: Your Kantian presumably likes rational reflection on evidence, and your modern reductive scientist prefers causality (which doesn't really sound very rational). |
| 20712 | God is 'eternal' either by being non-temporal, or by enduring forever [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: Saying 'God is eternal' means either that God is non-temporal or timeless, or that God has no beginning and no end. The first ('classical') view is found in Anselm, Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas, Calvin and Descartes. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 8 'Meaning') | |
| A reaction: A God who is outside of time but performs actions is a bit of a puzzle. It seems that Augustine started the idea of a timeless God. |
| 20701 | Can God be good, if he has not maximised goodness? [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: We may wonder whether God can be good since he has not produced more moral goodness than he has. We may wonder whether God is guilty by neglect. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Freedom') | |
| A reaction: The orthodox response is that we cannot possibly know what the maximum of moral goodness would look like, so we can't make this judgement. Atheists say that God fails by human standards, which are not particularly high. |
| 20702 | The goodness of God may be a higher form than the goodness of moral agents [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: If we can know that God exists and if God's goodness is not moral goodness, then moral goodness is not the highest form of goodness we know. There is the goodness of God to be reckoned with. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Goodness') | |
| A reaction: This idea is to counter the charge that God fails to meet human standards for an ideal moral agent. But it sounds hand-wavy, since we presumably cannot comprehend the sort of goodness that is postulated here. |
| 20703 | How could God have obligations? What law could possibly impose them? [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: We have good reason for resisting the suggestion that God has any duties or obligations. …What can oblige God in relation to his creatures? Could there be a law saying God has such obligations? Where does such a law come from? | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Goodness') | |
| A reaction: Plato can answer this question. Greek gods are not so supreme that nothing could put them under an obligation, but 'God' has to be supreme in every respect. |
| 20694 | 'Natural theology' aims to prove God to anyone (not just believers) by reason or argument [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: 'Natural theology' is the attempt to show that belief in God's existence can be defended with reference to reason or argument which ought to be acceptable to anyone, not simply to those who believe in God's existence. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 1 'Other') | |
| A reaction: I assume by 'reason or argument' he primarily means evidence (plus the ontological argument). He cites Karl Barth as objecting to the assumption of natural theology (preferring revelation). Presumably Kierkegaard offers a rival view too. |
| 20706 | A distinct cause of the universe can't be material (which would be part of the universe) [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: If the universe was caused to come into being, it presumably could not have been caused to do so by anything material. For a material object would be part of the universe, and we are now asking for a cause distinct from the universe. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 5 'God') | |
| A reaction: We're out of our depth here. We only have two modes of existence to offer, material and spiritual, and 'spiritual' means little more than non-material. |
| 20707 | The universe exhibits design either in its sense of purpose, or in its regularity [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: The design argument offers two lines: the first states that the universe displays design in the sense of purpose; the second that it displays design in the sense of regularity. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 6 'Versions') | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that you would infer the purpose from the regularity. How could you see purpose in a totally chaotic universe? |
| 20708 | If God is an orderly being, he cannot be the explanation of order [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: If God is an instance of something orderly, how can he serve to account for the order of orderly things? | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 6 'b Has') | |
| A reaction: You can at least explain the tidiness of a house by the tidiness of its owner, but obviously that won't explain the phenomenon of tidiness. |
| 20710 | Maybe an abnormal state of mind is needed to experience God? [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: Might it not be possible that experience of God requires an unusual state or psychological abnormality, just as an aerial view of Paris requires that one be in the unusual state of being abnormally elevated? | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 7 'Are the') | |
| A reaction: That would make sense if it were analogous to great mathematical or musical ability, but it sounds more like ouija boards in darkened rooms. Talent has a wonderful output, but people in mystical states don't return with proofs. |
| 20711 | A believer can experience the world as infused with God [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: Maybe someone who believes in God can be regarded as experiencing everything as something behind which God lies. Believers see the world as a world in which God is present. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 7 'Experiencing') | |
| A reaction: [Attributed to John Hick] This would count as supporting evidence for God, perhaps, if seeing reality as infused with God produces a consistent and plausible picture. But seeing reality as infused with other things might pass the same test. |
| 20709 | The experiences of God are inconsistent, not universal, and untestable [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: A proclaimed experience of God must be rejected because a) there is no agreed test that it is such an experience, b) some people experience God's absence, and c) there is no uniformity of testimony about the experience. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 7 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I'm not sure that absence of an experience is experience of an absence. Compare it with experiencing the greatness of Beethoven's Ninth. |
| 20697 | One does not need a full understanding of God in order to speak of God [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: In order to speak meaningfully about God, it is not necessary that one should understand exactly the import of one's statements about him. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 2 'Sayng') | |
| A reaction: Perfectly reasonable. To insist that all discussion of a thing requires exact understanding of the thing is ridiculous. Equally, though, to discuss God while denying all understanding of God is just as ridiculous. |
| 20699 | Paradise would not contain some virtues, such as courage [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: There are virtues (such as courage) that would not be present in a paradise. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Evil') | |
| A reaction: Part of a suggestion that morality would be entirely inapplicable in paradise, and so we need dangers etc in the world. |