Category Archives: semantics

Critiquing Craig on Omniscience – Part 3 (Foreknowledge)

Prominent Christian philosopher, apologist, and analytic theologian William Lane Craig is in the process of releasing his magnum opus, a 5-volume Systematic Philosophical Theology (Wiley Blackwell, 2025–2026). Volume 2a (released in 2025) focuses on God’s attributes and includes a 100-page chapter on omniscience. Now aged 76, Craig presumably intends this chapter to be the crowning… Read More: Critiquing Craig on Omniscience – Part 3 (Foreknowledge) »

Philosophical Essays against Open Theism – ch. 7: Stewart

This is part seven of eleven in a series responding to the essays in Ben Arbour’s edited volume, Philosophical Essays against Open Theism (Routledge, 2019). In this post I tackle chapter 7 by Robert B. Stewart, “On Open Theism Either God Has False Beliefs, or I Can Know Something That God Cannot” (pp. 110–118). This… Read More: Philosophical Essays against Open Theism – ch. 7: Stewart »

The Metaphysical Muddles of Molinism – Some Thoughts on MacGregor (Part 3)

This is my third and final post on Kirk MacGregor’s book, Molinist Philosophical and Theological Ventures (2022). My first post dealt with chapters 1–3. My second post dealt with chapter 4. This post covers chapters 5–6 and part of the concluding chapter. In Chapter 5 MacGregor defends Molinism’s Biblical credentials against various open theism friendly prooftexts.… Read More: The Metaphysical Muddles of Molinism – Some Thoughts on MacGregor… »

A Misguided Argument for Conditional Excluded Middle

I have finished reading Kirk MacGregor’s new book defending Molinism. In my previous post I commented on his first 3 chapters and shared why I don’t think his reply to the grounding objection to Molinism is any good. I plan to do another blog post on chapters 4–6 of MacGregor’s book. But right now I… Read More: A Misguided Argument for Conditional Excluded Middle »

Todd (ch.8) – The Assertion Problem

This is the 9th and final installment of my series on Patrick Todd’s recently published book The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False (Oxford, 2021). (Previous installments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.) In this chapter Todd tackles the “assertion problem” for open futurism. He’s quick to clarify that it’s not… Read More: Todd (ch.8) – The Assertion Problem »

Todd (ch.7) – Against Open-Closurism

This is part 8 of my ongoing series on Patrick Todd’s recently published book The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False (Oxford, 2021). (Previous installments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.) In Chapter 7 Todd and his coauthor, Brian Rabern, tackle a view that they dub “open-closurism”. It’s the view espoused by… Read More: Todd (ch.7) – Against Open-Closurism »

Todd (ch.4) – Against Conditional Excluded Middle

This is part 4 of my ongoing series on Patrick Todd’s recently published book The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False (Oxford, 2021). You can find part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here. Ch. 3 dealt with will excluded middle (WEM), the thesis that Fp ∨ F~p (i.e., that for… Read More: Todd (ch.4) – Against Conditional Excluded Middle »

Todd (ch.2) – Models of the Undetermined Future

This is part 2 of my ongoing series on Patrick Todd’s recently published book The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False (Oxford, 2021). You can find part 1 here. In chapter 2, Todd compares and contrasts “three models of the undetermined future” and proposes a unified semantics for the future tense. I argue… Read More: Todd (ch.2) – Models of the Undetermined Future »

Correspondence vs. Disquotation

In my previous two posts I have discussed the correspondence theory of truth and disquotation principles. In this post I’m going to use the former to argue against the latter. More specifically, I’m going to argue that the “if and only if” of the disquotation principles should be merely an “only if”. In other words, instead… Read More: Correspondence vs. Disquotation »

Truth and Disquotation Principles

In my previous post I talked about the correspondence theory of truth and its relation to truthmaker theory. I’m going to follow it up with a series of posts on various issues concerning truth and ontology that I’ve been mulling over off-and-on over the past several years. The current post concerns disquotation principles. I distinguish between sentential… Read More: Truth and Disquotation Principles »