Over the past four months I’ve been working off-and-on on a paper on tense logic, in which I argue against the common assumption (common, that is, in philosophy of time circles) that the mere fact that some event happens at time t is sufficient for it to have always been the case prior to t,… Read More »

In a recent issue of The Harvard Crimson, well-known psychology prof. Steven Pinker has an interesting editorial critique of a new report by the Harvard Committee on General Education. The editorial gets off to a pretty good start, but then descends into absurd posturing on the relation between faith (= religion) and reason (= science),… Read More »

Linda Zagzebski thinks not. In her book The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge, she argues that the classical doctrine of divine timelessness is compatible with an A-theory of time. She begins by laying out her understanding of the B-theory of time in terms of four theses, and then argues that denials of at least the… Read More »

Can you spot the typo? As reported by the New York Times (may require a subscription), this is a poster for a gathering of what might appropriately be called “evangelical atheists”, that is, atheists of the Richard Dawkinsesque sort who think that theism is intrinsically bad and therefore something vigorously to be opposed. They’re quite… Read More »

The great polymath Leibniz is famous for his advocacy of the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” (PSR). He states it in various ways throughout his writings, but it basically runs like this: (PSR-1): Necessarily, for everything that exists, there is a sufficient reason why it exists and why it exists as it exists rather than otherwise.… Read More »

Does open theism have any advantages vis-a-vis other theories of divine providence, in particular, theological determinism (hereafter ‘Calvinism’) and theological compatibilism (hereafter ‘Molinism’), with respect to the problem of evil? The answer, I think, is a clear ‘Yes’. Before stating my case, let me briefly define my terms. By Calvinism I mean the view that… Read More »

Did most people up until a couple centuries ago believe that the Earth was flat? Did Christopher Columbus encounter opposition from flat-earthers? Is the idea that the Earth is approximately spherical a discovery of “modern science”? It may come as a surprise to many to learn that the answers to all three of those questions… Read More »

Drange’s third argument (see here) claims that divine immutability, the idea that God is incapable of change in any sense, is incompatible with divine omniscience, the idea that God knows all and only truths. He argues as follows: The Immutability-vs.-Omniscience Argument If God exists, then he is immutable. If God exists, then he omniscient. An… Read More »

There’s an interesting discussion over at Bill Vallicella’s blog about the interaction between faith and reason and the importance of that to the vitality of Western culture. A comment by David Tye is especially illuminating: Athens as traditionally understood could have a conversation with Jerusalem because both Athens and Jerusalem agreed there was something to… Read More »

I teach a course on Critical Thinking each semester and we’re now getting into some formal logic – just scratching the surface, really. But each time I notice that some students catch on very quickly and just accept the principles as I lay them out; others catch on quickly but immediately want to challenge the… Read More »