Category: Doxastic Voluntarism
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Limited Doxastic Voluntarism and Epoché
Are there any beliefs over which we have direct voluntary control? I am a limited doxastic voluntarist: I hold that there are some beliefs over the formation of which one has direct voluntary control. That is, there are some believable contents — call them propositions — that I can bring myself to believe at will,…
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The Pragmatic and the Evidential
Substack latest. On believing beyond the evidence. Immoral? Irrational?
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On the Eternal in Man
Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night (tr. Alexander Dru, Pantheon Books, 1950, p. 67, #263, written 1940): The man who explicitly does not believe and does not will to believe (for the will to believe belongs to believing) in an eternal life, that is to say in a personal life after death, will become an animal,…
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Is Belief Voluntary?
Why would it matter? Here is one reason. If the experts are evenly divided on some question, many will urge that that the rational thing to do is to suspend belief. To satisfy the dictates of reason, then, one ought to suspend or withhold belief in some cases. But 'ought' implies 'can.' So, if one…
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More on Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil with Responses to Caiati and Pollack
Vito Caiati, to whom I responded earlier, replies: In your excellent response to my email on animal suffering and theism, you write, “If one suffers from the problem of (natural) evil, there is little a philosopher qua philosopher can do. Pastoral care is not his forte. But if one can gain some intellectual light on…
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Is ‘Justified Belief’ a Solecism?
Panayot Butchvarov, Anthropocentrism in Philosophy: Realism, Antirealism, Semirealism, Walter de Gruyter, 2015, p. 33: As used in epistemology, "justified" is a technical term, of obscure meaning and uncertain reference, indeed often explicitly introduced as a primitive. In everyday talk, it is a deontic term, usually a synonym of 'just' or 'right,' and thus 'justified belief'…
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Decision and Conclusion
How much of decision is included in every conclusion? Did you conclude that there is no God or decide that there is no God? Some of both? Which then is the major player here, reason or will?
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Can Theistic Arguments Deliver More Than Plausibility?
James N. Anderson writes, . . . a good theistic argument doesn’t have to be irrefutable, but surely we should expect the conclusions of our arguments to rise above the level of mere plausibility. If indeed the heavens declare the glory of God (Ps. 19:1), and God’s existence can be “clearly perceived” from the creation…
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Ebeneezer Scrooge and the Limits of Doxastic Voluntarism
Here is my favorite scene from my favorite movie version of Dickens' Christmas Carol. "There is more of gravy than of grave about you. Humbug!"
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Does Knowledge Entail Belief or Exclude Belief?
A reader who says he is drawn to the view that knowledge excludes belief comments: I am taking a philosophy class now that takes for granted that knowledge entails belief. My sense is that most philosophers now think that that condition is obvious and settled. They tend to dispute what "justification" means, or add more conditions…
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On Belief
I have been thinking about belief and whether it is under the control of the will. This question is important since it lies at the foundation of the very possibility of an 'ethics of belief.' People believe all sorts of things, and it is quite natural to suppose that some of the things they believe they…
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A Pieperian Argument for Doxastic Voluntarism
Josef Pieper (1904-1997) is a 20th century German Thomist. I read his Belief and Faith as an undergraduate and am now [December 2007] re-reading it very carefully. It is an excellent counterbalance to a lot of the current analytic stuff on belief and doxastic voluntarism. What follows is my reconstruction of Pieper's argument for doxastic…
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Against William Alston Against Doxastic Voluntarism
The following remarks are based on the first two sections of Chapter Four, "Deontological Desiderata," of William P. Alston's Beyond "Justification": Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation (Cornell UP, 2005), pp. 58-67. 1. It makes sense to apply deontological predicates to actions. Thus it makes sense to say of a voluntary action that it is obligatory or…
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Are There Any Beliefs Over Which We Have Direct Voluntary Control? Doxastic Voluntarism and Epoché
I suppose I am a limited doxastic voluntarist: though I haven't thought about this question in much depth my tendency is to say that there are some beliefs over the formation of which I have direct voluntary control. That is, there are some believable contents — call them propositions — that I can bring myself…
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Are Any Beliefs Acquired At Will? Any Room for an ‘Ethics of Belief’?
William P. Alston boldly maintains that "no one ever acquires a belief at will." (Beyond Justification, Cornell 2005, 67) This blanket rejection of doxastic voluntarism — the view that some belief-formation is under the control of the will — sounds extreme. What about beliefs that one acquires as a result of reasoning? Are not some of…