Category: Explanation
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Successful Explanation Again
Returning once again to the article by Tomas Bogardus, with a 'hat tip' to him for writing it and to Malcolm Pollack for bring it to my attention, let us reconsider his premise (2), about which I raised some questions in earlier posts: 2. Any explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves no…
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Explanation and Understanding: More on Bogardus
What follows are some further ruminations occasioned by the article by Tomas Bogardus first referenced and commented upon here. I will begin by explaining the distinction between personal and impersonal explanations. The explanation I am about to give is itself a personal explanation, as should become clear after I define 'personal explanation.' A lightning bolt…
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Naturalism, Ultimate Explanation, and Brute Facts and Laws
Malcolm Pollack solicited my comments on an article by Tomas Bogardus that appeared in Religious Studies under the title, If naturalism is true, then scientific explanationis impossible. Malcolm summarizes: I’ve just read a brief and remarkably persuasive philosophical paper by Tomas Bogardus, a professor of philosophy at Pepperdine University. In it, he argues that, if…
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Soul as Homunculus? On Homuncular Explanation
The following quotation is reproduced verbatim from Michael Gilleland's classics blog, Laudator Temporis Acti: Augustine, Sermons 241.2 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 1134; tr. Edmund Hill): They could see their bodies, they couldn't see their souls. But they could only see the body from the soul. I mean, they saw with their eyes, but inside there was…
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An Insufficient Argument against Sufficient Reason
This is an emended version of an entry that first saw the light of day on 21 May 2016. It is a set-up for a response to a question put to me by Tom Oberle. I'll try to answer Tom's question tomorrow. ………………………….. Explanatory rationalism is the view that there is a satisfactory answer to…
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The Multiverse Idea: Does it Help with the Question ‘Why Something Rather than Nothing?’
If 'universe' refers to the totality of what exists in space-time, then there can be only one universe. Call that the ontological use of 'universe.' On that use, which accords with etymology and common sense, there cannot be multiple universes or parallel universes. But if 'universe' refers to the totality of what we can 'see'…
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An Insufficient Argument Against Sufficient Reason
Explanatory rationalism is the view that there is a satisfactory answer to every explanation-seeking why question. Equivalently, it is the view that there are no propositions that are just true, i.e., true, contingently true, but without explanation of their being true. Are there some contingent truths that lack explanation? Consider the conjunction of all contingent truths.…
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Parsimony, Burden of Proof, and God
From an e-mail by Spencer Case: . . . by my lights, parsimony might be a consideration that puts the burden of proof on the theist. Theories that multiply entities unnecessarily are less likely to be true and the theist's theory postulates an entity. Now, it may be that the theist will say that we…
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Dawkins Versus Swinburne
Richard Dawkins reviews Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? (Oxford, 1996) here. What follows are the meatiest excerpts from Dawkins' review together with my critical comments. I have bolded the passages to which I object. (show) Swinburne is ambitious. He will not shrink into those few remaining backwaters which scientific explanation has so far failed…
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Infinite Regresses: Vicious and Benign
A reader asks: Are all infinite regresses (regressions?) vicious? Why the pejorative label? Of the many things I don't understand, this must be near the top of my list, and it's an ignorance that dates back to my undergrad Intro to Philosophy days. When I first read the Thomistic cosmological proofs, I found myself…
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Is Natural Causation Existence-Conferring?
When I reported to Peter Lupu over Sunday breakfast that Hugh McCann denies that natural causation is existence-conferring, he demanded to know McCann's reasons. He has three. I'll discuss one of them in this post, the third one McCann mentions. (Creation and the Sovereignty of God, p. 18) The reason is essentially Humean. Rather than…
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Sweet Dreams of Dennett
The following first appeared on 15 January 2006 at the old Powerblogs site. Here it is again, considerably reworked. ……….. I saw Daniel Dennett's Sweet Dreams (MIT Press, 2005) on offer a while back at full price, but declined to buy it: why shell out $30 to hear Dennett repeat himself one more time? But the other day it…
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The Modified Leibniz Question: The Debate So Far
What follows is a guest post by Peter Lupu with some additions and corrections by BV. 'CCB' abbreviates 'concrete contingent being.' The last post in this series is here. Thanks again to Vlastimil Vohamka for pointing us to Maitzen's article, which has proven to be stimulating indeed. So far as I can see…