Response to Van Inwagen and Welty

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-286
Author(s):  
William Lane Craig ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Indispensability Argument ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen

In response to my critics, I argue that Peter van Inwagen, despite his protestations, is an advocate of an indispensability argument for Platonism. What remains to be shown by van Inwagen is that his version of the argument overcomes his own presumption against Platonism and survives defeat by besting every anti-Platonist alternative. While acknowledging Greg Welty’s helpful responses to my worries about divine conceptualism as a realist alternative to Platonism, I express ongoing reservations about some of those responses.

Two Arguments from Disagreement

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Stoljar
Keyword(s):  
Van Inwagen ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen ◽  
Epistemic Peers ◽  
Suspension Of Judgement

This chapter criticizes two disagreement arguments for pessimism. The first, due to David Chalmers, asserts on empirical grounds that there is no large collective convergence to, or agreement on, the truth on the big questions of philosophy. The second, inspired by Peter van Inwagen, asserts that disagreement in philosophy is of a certain special epistemological kind, viz., it rationally requires suspension of judgement, at least in many cases; hence progress is impossible. The existence of ‘epistemic peers’ as a condition of suspension of judgement is discussed. It is suggested that neither argument is persuasive. The chapter ends by asking whether any argument from disagreement may succeed.

A restricted Principle of Sufficient Reason and the cosmological argument

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDER R. PRUSS
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Quantum Mechanical ◽  
Cosmological Argument ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Restricted Version ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen ◽  
Mechanical Phenomena

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) says that, necessarily, every contingently true proposition has an explanation. The PSR is the most controversial premise in the cosmological argument for the existence of God. It is likely that one reason why a number of philosophers reject the PSR is that they think there are conceptual counter-examples to it. For instance, they may think, with Peter van Inwagen, that the conjunction of all contingent propositions cannot have an explanation, or they may believe that quantum mechanical phenomena cannot be explained. It may, however, be that these philosophers would be open to accepting a restricted version of the PSR as long as it was not ad hoc. I present a natural restricted version of the PSR that avoids all conceptual counter-examples, and yet that is strong enough to ground a cosmological argument. The restricted PSR says that all explainable true propositions have explanations.

Can Libertarians Make Promises?

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 217-241
Author(s):  
Alfred Mele
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Free Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen

Libertarians hold that free action and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism and that some human beings occasionally act freely and are morally responsible for some of what they do. Can libertarians who know both that they are right and that they are free make sincere promises? Peter van Inwagen, a libertarian, contends that they cannot—at least when they assume that should they do what they promise to do, they would do it freely. Probably, this strikes many readers as a surprising thesis for a libertarian to hold. In light of van Inwagen's holding it, the title of his essay—‘Free Will Remains a Mystery’—may seem unsurprising.

PETER VAN INWAGEN ON THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-431
Author(s):  
William L. Rowe ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen ◽  
The Problem Of Evil

Explaining Evil

1998 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK BERNSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practice ◽  
William Alston ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
The Past ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen ◽  
Supreme Being

In the past few years, the focus of arguments against theism has shifted. Where previously the existence of evil has been thought by many demonstrative of the impossibility of God's existence, now it is frequently purveyed as merely evidence against the existence of a Supreme Being. Even this more modest claim has been forcefully denied by William Alston and Peter van Inwagen. I argue that their arguments are not persuasive. Not only do they suffer logical flaws but, if accepted, actually have pernicious effects on the values of reasoning and religious practice.

scholarly journals Moderate Modal Skepticism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margot Strohminger ◽  
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Metaphysical Modality ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen ◽  
Modal Skepticism

This chapter examines moderate modal skepticism, a form of skepticism about metaphysical modality defended by Peter van Inwagen in order to blunt the force of certain modal arguments in the philosophy of religion. Van Inwagen’s argument for moderate modal skepticism assumes Yablo’s (1993) influential world-based epistemology of possibility. This chapter raises two problems for this epistemology of possibility, which undermine van Inwagen’s argument. It then considers how one might motivate moderate modal skepticism by relying on a different epistemology of possibility, which does not face these problems: Williamson’s (2007) counterfactual-based epistemology. Two ways of motivating moderate modal skepticism within that framework are found unpromising. Nevertheless, the chapter also finds a way of vindicating an epistemological thesis that, while weaker than moderate modal skepticism, is strong enough to support the methodological moral van Inwagen wishes to draw.

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