November 29, 2010
Leibniz and Frankfurt on Freedom
The history of the debate on free will is sometimes narrated as follows: first, we have the 'classic compatibilists', starting from Hobbes, through Locke, Hume, and the positivists. At first these fellows square off against libertarians like Bramhall and Reid, who are (so the story goes) deservedly obscure. The debate is terribly unsophisticated: the compatibilists hold that freedom just is the ability to do what you want to do, the absence of any sort of external constraints. The libertarians require some kind of magic 'contra-causal' agent causation they can't explain. They slowly die out as English language philosophy is purified...
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Topic(s):
Augustine
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
David Hume
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Ethics
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Free Will
,
G. W. Leibniz
,
Harry Frankfurt
,
Historical Thinkers
,
John Bramhall
,
John Locke
,
Martin Luther
,
Metaphysics
,
Moral Psychology
,
Peter van Inwagen
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Mind
,
Roderick Chisholm
,
Thomas Hobbes
,
Thomas Reid
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November 23, 2010
John Locke, Ron Paul, and Airport Security
It has been rather a long time since I wrote on politics. As you can probably imagine, I'm pretty worked up about this whole body scanner business. As recently announced in a post on Homeland Stupidity, Ron Paul and two co-sponsors have introduced a bill in the House which would remove immunity from airport screeners and other federal employees who engage in certain sorts of behavior associated with airport screening. That is, it ensures that the screeners at airports are subject to the same laws regarding battery, sexual assault, child pornography, etc., as everyone else. I think there is something...
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November 22, 2010
November 9, 2010
Omniscience and Simplicity
The end of the semester is fast approaching, which means an even more hectic academic schedule, followed by a vacation. This post will be a brief remark on Sobel's treatment of omniscience, which completes his interlude on divine attributes. Following this, I will leave off until after the holidays, at which point I will deal with the remainder of the book, which treats arguments against the existence of God, and also 'Pascalian' practical arguments for belief in God. The main puzzle Sobel finds with omniscience is one pushed by Patrick Grim. The thrust of the argument is this: (1) a...
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Topic(s):
Abstract Objects
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Contemporary Thinkers
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Divine Attributes
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Divine Simplicity
,
Jordan Howard Sobel
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Metaphysics
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Omniscience
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Ontology
,
Patrick Grim
,
Philosophical Theology
,
Philosophy
,
Propositions
,
Timothy Williamson
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November 2, 2010
Leibniz Against Fine-Tuning
It appears that I'm going to be getting a bit behind on my Sobel series due to other commitments. Here is some Leibniz to make up for it. One of the problems with those forms of teleological (design) arguments that posit necessary 'gaps' in naturalistic explanation is that they are revisionary with respect to scientific practice: that is, it is a principle of scientific methodology to keep looking for naturalistic explanations no matter what. Now, most philosophers think that taking a revisionary attitude toward scientific practice is bad since the track record of science, on its current methodology, is stellar...
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Topic(s):
Albert Einstein
,
Christian Huygens
,
Contemporary Thinkers
,
Del Ratzsch
,
Existence of God
,
G. W. Leibniz
,
Historical Thinkers
,
Isaac Newton
,
Philosophy
,
Philosophy of Religion
,
Philosophy of Science
,
Science
,
Teleological Argument
,
Tim Maudlin
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Kenny at
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