Category: Lupu, Peter
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Why the Left Will Not Admit the Threat of Radical Islam
My philo cronies and I were discussing this over Sunday breakfast. Why don't leftists — who obviously do not share the characteristic values and beliefs of Islamists — grant what is spectacularly obvious to everyone else, namely, that radical Islam poses a grave threat to what we in the West cherish as civilization, which includes…
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On the Meaning of Life: Lupu Contra Vallicella
Bill reveals in his post, Could the Meaning of Life Be the Quest for the Meaning of Life, that he “toyed with the notion that the meaning of life just is the search for its meaning.” He concludes that if the meaning of life were merely the searching for it, then there would be no…
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Existence: A Contrast Argument Defeated
This is a post from the old blog. It originally appeared on 27 May 2008 and appears now slightly redacted. *********** In this blogging game you throw out your line and damned if you don't snag a good catch now and again. I dredged up Peter Lupu from the Internet's vasty deeps long about January…
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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…
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The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Mr Vallicella, I want to give you a heads up on the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". The phrase is probably an idiom that means something like 'universal wisdom' or 'all knowledge'. A better translation may be 'The Tree of the Knowledge of Everything From A to Z'. There is, in…
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Fall of Man or Rise of Man? The Aporetics of Genesis 2 and 3
At Genesis 2,17 the Lord forbids Adam from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on pain of death. In the next chapter, however, Eve is tempted by the serpent, succumbs, eats of the tree, and persuades Adam to eat of it too. As punishment for their disobedience, Adam and Eve are banished…
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James Rachels’ Argument from Moral Autonomy Against the Existence of God*
A guest post by Peter Lupu. Minor edits and a comment (in blue) by BV. In an intriguing paper “God and Moral Autonomy”, James Rachels offers what he calls “The Moral Autonomy Argument” against the existence of God. The argument is based on a certain analysis of the concept of worship and its alleged incompatibility…
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Why I am a Quasi-Atheist*
A guest post by Peter Lupu with some comments in blue by Bill Vallicella. [This essay is dedicated to the memory of Ann Freitag, my significant other, who passed away on April 17, 2010, 11:30am. She gave me two priceless gifts: Herself and a deep understanding that the love of life is not a mere…
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‘Frege’ on the Trinity
Peter Lupu writes, The following are some recent thoughts about the Trinity. Let me know what you think. The three expressions of the Trinity: ‘The Father’, ‘The Son’, and ‘The Holy Spirit’ all refer to the same divine being namely God. Thus, with respect to reference, each pair of expressions forms a true identity. However,…
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Two Motivations for a Relational Account of Intentionality (Peter Lupu)
(A guest post by Peter Lupu. Minor edits and comments in blue by BV.) There are at least two ways in which the relational character and object-directedness of intentional states such as beliefs, wants, desires, seekings, etc., is motivated: A. The individuation of intentional states; B. Aristotle’s belief-desire model of explaining actions. I. Motivation (A).…
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Intentionality: Peter Lupu’s ‘Surrogate Object’ Solution
I suggest we approach the problem, or one of the problems, of intentionality via the following aporetic triad: 1. We sometimes intend the nonexistent.2. Intentionality is a relation.3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist. This is a nice neat way of formulating the problem because, on the one hand,…
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Metaphysics at Cindy’s: The Ontological Stucture of Contingent Conreta
Over Sunday breakfast at Cindy's, a hardscrabble Mesa, Arizona eatery not unwelcoming to metaphysicians and motorcyclists alike, Peter Lupu fired a double-barreled objection at my solution to Deck's Paradox. The target, however, was not hit. My solution requires that (a) concrete particulars can be coherently 'assayed' (to use a favorite word of Gustav Bergmann), or given an…
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On Islam and Toleration (Peter Lupu)
In his post titled A Mosque Grows near Brooklyn Bill made the following statement: “Muslims aren't very 'liberal,' are they? They are intolerant in their attitudes and their behavior. Now the touchstone of classical liberalism is toleration. Toleration is good, but it has limits. (See the posts in the category Toleration.) So why should we…
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MACRUES, Semantic Defeaters, and Epistemic Defeaters (Peter Lupu)
(A guest post by Peter Lupu. Editing and commentary by BV.) As Bill notes, we are attempting to secure and study a copy of James Anderson’s book, Paradox in Christian Theology. (Publication details here, including links to reviews.) Meanwhile, I will propose here some tentative observations that Anderson’s book may or may not have addressed.…