Abstract: The ‘parody objection’ to the ontological argument for the existence of God advances parallel arguments apparently proving the existence of various absurd entities. I discuss recent versions of the…
Does Ethics Need God?
Abstract: This essay presents a moral argument for the rationality of theistic belief. If all I have to go on morally are my own moral intuitions and reasoning and those…
How Significant is the Liar?
Summary: Grover argues that one should be unconcerned about the liar paradox. In formal languages there are uniform ties between syntax and semantics: a term, in all its occurrences, carries…
Models as mediating instruments
…partially independent of both theories and the world. This autonomy allows for a unified account of their role as instruments that allow for exploration of both theories and the world….
Knowledge of Arithmetic
…prioricity) yet accommodates naturalistic concerns by remaining funda- mentally empiricist. I argue that the central claims which would allow us to develop such an epistemology are (i) that arithmetical truths…
On three theories of implicature: default theory, relevance and minimalism
…literature, the precise account he offered of implicature recovery has been questioned and alternative accounts have emerged. In this paper, I examine three such alternative accounts. My main aim is…
A Powerful Theory of Causation
…and causal necessitation. The most conspicuous cases of causation are those where powers accumulate and pass a requisite threshold for an effect to occur. We develop a model for representing…
Necessary Connections and the Problem of Induction
Summary: In this paper Beebee argues that the problem of induction, which she describes as a genuine sceptical problem, is the same for Humeans than for Necessitarians. Neither scientific essentialists…
The Dappled World: A study of the Boundaries of Science
Publisher’s Note: It is often supposed that the spectacular successes of our modern mathematical sciences support a lofty vision of a world completely ordered by one single elegant theory. In this…
Reasoning without the principle of sufficient reason
Abstract: According to Principles of Sufficient Reason, every truth (in some relevant group) has an explanation. One of the most popular defenses of Principles of Sufficient Reason has been the presupposition…