We walked into the comic-book store a block and a half from the beach, the seven-year-old and I, as we’ve been doing for three or four years now. The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall, leading the way, a few steps in front of me. […]| Hmm Daily
I recently came across somebody who argued that the foundation of reality could not be a mind, because if it were, then this mind would have...| sed-contra-philosophy.blogspot.com
I recently came across an old paper by Clement Dore, entitled "Rowe on the Cosmological Argument" (1983). In it, Dore objects attempts to uphold Hume's objection to the PSR, by critiquing Rowe's defense of the principle. He writes:| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
Richard Carrier (an atheist blogger suffering from the world's most ironic god complex) thinks he has an argument to the effect that "[if] ...| sed-contra-philosophy.blogspot.com
One objection to theistic arguments from design is that it seems as though God could have achieved most (if not all) of the goods of creating finite beings without bothering to make a physical world, complete with finely-tuned constants, life-permitting laws, and so on. As Neil Manson puts the objection:The problem here for proponents of the fine-tuning argument is that, if God| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
While perusing Alexander Pruss' blog, I came across a post in which he offers this quote from Aquinas:Hence we must say that the distinction and multitude of things come from the intention of the first agent, who is God. For He brought things into being in order that His goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and because His goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, He produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one...| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
Jewish apologists commonly employ what has come to be known as the "Kuzari argument," which purports to show that the Jewish people really did receive a public revelation from God at Mount Sinai. Philosopher Tyron Goldschmidt formulates the crucial principle underlying this argument like so:The Kuzari Principle: A tradition is true if it is (1) accepted by a nation; and describes (2) a national experience of a previous generation of that nation; and (3) the national experience would be expect...| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
Here's a brief and plausibly sound argument:| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
Introduction| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
[Note: Most of this post consists of fairly obvious observations about the consequences of modal dispositionalism; I just wanted to have this train of thought in writing somewhere.]| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
As the title says. The paper has been published Open Access, so there will be no paywall to deal with. Links to the paper are included below.| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
I think it's worth pointing out just how dramatic the probabilities being discussed in the fine-tuning argument really are. As John Hawthorne and Yoaav Isaacs point out:| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
If one is a physicalist, then presumably one thinks that consciousness emerged as a result of naturalistic evolution. From this, it would seem to follow that consciousness was selected for, i.e. that it provided some kind of adaptive advantage, which lead to conscious organisms out-competing non-conscious ones. (If consciousness is a purely physical process, then it would likely depend on rather complex biological systems, and so it is unlikely to be a spandrel that simply piggy-backed on som...| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
More people ought to read J.L. Schellenberg's excellent book Monotheism and the Rise of Science (2020), published by Cambridge University Press. In it, Schellenberg notes that there is "considerable support" for the claim that monotheism "contributed to science's early rise" (p. 4). He writes that "Monotheism and science... were not enemies at all but rather friends" (p. 47). He further notes that such a relationship might well reemerge, writing:When the total story of science’s relationshi...| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
Michael Huemer is an interesting guy. I don't have hard data on this, but I'm fairly confident that he's the only philosopher working today who simultaneously advocates veganism, anarcho-capitalism, agnosticism, and substance dualism. As such, it was not terribly surprising to find that he also believes in reincarnation, having defended the idea in a (very interesting) 2019 paper in Nous. The gist of Huemer's argument is as follows:If you were to live at most once in the history of the univer...| Jim Reilly's Philosophy Blog
A few years back, renowned chemist Peter Atkins wrote a couple of rather silly books, in which he tried to give an account of how the univer...| sed-contra-philosophy.blogspot.com
Have you ever created the perfect Excel Formula, proudly dragged it down to fill a column, and then watched in horror as it produced errors or completely wrong numbers? It’s one of the most common frustrations for new Excel users. The good news is that the solution is simple, and it's one of the most The post Absolute vs. Relative References in Excel: A Simple Guide appeared first on Excel.| Excel
In our last guide, we discovered that functions are powerful shortcuts that save us time and prevent errors. We know that =SUM(A1:A10) is much easier than typing out a long addition problem. But have you ever wondered how the SUM function knows which cells to add? Or how the IF function knows what to check The post What is a Function Argument in Excel? A Simple Explanation appeared first on Excel.| Excel
Christopher Martin provides an interpretation of the fifth way which I find rather plausible. He contends that “unconscious teleology is alw...| sed-contra-philosophy.blogspot.com
Jason Brennan famously argues that the politically uninformed have a moral obligation not to vote. One of his arguments for this claim goes ...| sed-contra-philosophy.blogspot.com
“Parental rights” are all the rage now in some quarters. But when parents gain rights, who loses them? Children.| Democracy Journal
Shell script and AWK are very complementary languages. AWK was designed from its very beginnings at Bell Labs as a pattern-action language for short programs, ideally one or two lines long. It was intended to be used on the Unix … Continue reading →| Arabesque
"You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." - Saint Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1. Introduction Prag...| sed-contra-philosophy.blogspot.com
This brief (and plausibly sound) argument is inspired by Andrew Hronich's Biblical defense of universalism (the relevant portion begins aro...| sed-contra-philosophy.blogspot.com