Paul Moser's book defends what has been an unfashionable view in recent epistemology: the foundationalist account of knowledge and justification. Since the time of Plato philosophers have wondered what exactly knowledge is. This book develops a new account of perceptual knowledge which specifies the exact sense in which knowledge has foundations. The author argues that experiential foundations are indeed essential to perceptual knowledge, and he explains what knowledge requires beyond justified true beliefs. In challenging prominent sceptical claims that we (...) have no justified beliefs about the external world, the book outlines a theory of rational belief. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Varieties of Atheism: Connecting Religion and Its Critics ed. by David NewheiserPaul K. MoserThe Varieties of Atheism: Connecting Religion and Its Critics. Edited by David Newheiser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022. 216 pp. $32.50 paper; $99.00 hardcover.There are two general ways to approach a controversial topic. The first way defines the key terms for the topic as clearly as possible, in order to give contributors a (...) common focus. This manner of approach keeps participants on the same page, with a shared topic of conversation and debate. The second way does not bother to formulate shared definitions of key terms. Instead, it notes multiple uses of key terms in history, and it allows contributors to proceed with their preferred uses, despite considerable variation in uses.This book, emerging from a 2018 conference on religion and its critics, opts for the second way, leaving readers with a wide range of understandings of “atheism.” Its eight essays therefore often treat different topics, with little sense of a common query. Editor Newheiser looks for a common feature as follows: “These essays explore the complex relations of sympathy and resistance that connect particular atheisms with particular religious traditions” (2). He hopes that “the collection opens new possibilities for conversation between those who are religious and those who are not” (2).We naturally might ask what the hoped-for conversation is about. If it is about the truth of theism, we are faced with a potential belief about whether God exists. Many people are concerned about that matter, even if atheism includes components beyond a mere belief about God’s existence. Atheism, Newheiser proposes, “is a polyphonic assemblage that develops in conversation with religious traditions” (8). He also claims that the collection is helpful in “bracketing the timeworn debate over the existence of God” (9). Even if the debate is “timeworn,” it still could be vital to understanding many religious traditions, theistic and nontheistic. In addition, it could be central to an adequate understanding of atheism even if atheism includes many noncognitive features. Such important prospects deserve more attention than Newheiser and his contributors suggest.An Afterword by Constance M. Furey, “The Drama of Atheism,” tries to find some unity in the book’s essays. She reports that the contributors are “united in our interest in atheism’s diversity, and intrigued by the possibility that new studies of atheism might unravel the single thread linking religion to belief” (200). She adds that the book’s authors “collectively confirm that [End Page 94] atheism’s multifaceted drama has often been overshadowed by the huckster out front, luring passersby with a simple cry, ‘God! Alive or Dead? True or False?’” (201). I fail to see why the latter questions should be associated with a “huckster.” That seems to assign guilt by association, without needed good reasons.I cannot recall anyone, philosopher or theologian, arguing that historical atheists hold only that it is false that God exists. Interest in the issue of “True or False?” is prominent among philosophers and theologians, because they are interested in the nature of reality, with respect to the existence of a divine being. Such interests, however, are no threat to other areas of commitment and practice among atheists. Those other areas can get due attention while one maintains a keen interest in the question of God’s existence. I suggest, then, that the book has a misplaced emphasis in its (attempt at) jettisoning issues about the existence of God in connection with atheism. Such issues are central to historical atheism, even though other concerns and features accompany it.Furey looks for a special kind of “hope” in the collection’s essays. She cites the book’s editor in endorsing “a commitment to thoughtful life and living thought that holds ‘affirmation and negation together in tension,’... in ‘an ethical practice of openness to the unexpected’” (202). She exclaims: “What better place to find this hope, the holding of affirmation and negation together, than in a volume devoted to open inquiry and unexpected conclusions about atheism” (202). She does not say, however, what the praised “negation” consists in. Is this the negation of God’s existence... (shrink)

In this book, Paul K. Moser offers a new approach to religious experience and the kind of evidence it provides. Here, he explains the nature of theistic and non-theistic experience in relation to the meaning of human life and its underlying evidence, with special attention given to the perspectives of Tolstoy, Buddha, Confucius, Krishna, Moses, the apostle Paul, and Muhammad. Among the many topics explored in this timely volume are: religious experience characterized in a unifying conception; religious experience (...) naturalized relative to science; religious experience psychologized in merely psychological phenomena; and religious experience cognized relative to potential defeaters from evil, divine hiddenness, and religious diversity. Understanding Religious Experience will benefit those interested in the nature of religion and can be used in relevant courses in religious studies, philosophy, theology, Biblical studies, and the history of religion. (shrink)

Very shortly before the end of Book 11 of the Aeneid, Turnus, hearing of Camilla's death, is forced to abandon his ambush in order to fall back to the city. Just after he leaves the wooded gorge, Aeneas passes through it unscathed with his company. Both then head toward the city walls. Virgil marks this near miss of the two commanders by an acrostic :ille furens deserit obsessos collis, nemora aspera linquit.uix e conspectu exierat campumque tenebat,cum pater Aeneas saltus ingressus (...) apertosexsuperatque iugum siluaque euadit opaca.sic ambo ad muros rapidi totoque ferunturagmine nec longis inter se passibus absunt. (shrink)

Offering a unique and wide-ranging examination of the theory of knowledge, the new edition of this comprehensive collection deftly blends readings from the foremost classical sources with the work of important contemporary philosophical thinkers. Human Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Approaches, 3/e, offers philosophical examinations of epistemology from ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus); medieval philosophy (Augustine, Aquinas); early modern philosophy (Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Kant); classical pragmatism and Anglo-American empiricism (James, Russell, Ayer, Lewis, Carnap, Quine, (...) Rorty); and other influential Anglo-American philosophers (Chisholm, Kripke, Moore, Wittgenstein, Strawson, Putnam). Organized chronologically and thematically, Human Knowledge, 3/e, features exceptionally broad coverage and nontechnical selections that are easily accessible to students. An ideal text for both undergraduate and graduate courses in epistemology, it is enhanced by the editors' substantial general introduction, section overviews, and up-to-date bibliographies. The third edition offers expanded selections on contemporary epistemology and adds selections by Thomas Reid, Richard Rorty, David B. Annis, Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, Ernest Sosa, Barry Stroud, and Louise M. Antony. Human Knowledge, 3/e, offers an unparalleled introduction to our ancient struggle to understand our own intellectual experience. (shrink)

This new edition provides an excellent overview of the field of epistemology. Revised sections on justification and knowledge and the Gettier Problem, and new sections on skepticism and naturalized epistemology, present the most important foundational and recent work in the theory of knowledge. Organized specifically with courses in mind, Empirical Knowledge is accessible to upper-level undergraduates and graduate students.

Because youths are particularly vulnerable to social problems, philosophers since Plato to date have continued to show interest in developing, empowering, and protecting the youths. African youths are particularly far more than ordinarily vulnerable to various social problems including racism especially from outside the continent, mainly because of the shortfall in youth development and empowerment strategies in most African countries. Consequently, young people are pulled to countries with resources and infrastructures that provide them with opportunities to enlarge their capabilities and (...) improve their quality of life, where they are also faced with discriminatory, prejudicial, and antagonistic treatments simply because of their skin colour. So, one way to look at racism and reduce its effects is to examine those socio-political as well as economic structures that constitute obstacles to youth development and empowerment, and which push and expose the young in Africa to the ill-treatments emanating from racism. (shrink)

People can experience great distress when a group to which they belong (in-group) is perceived to have committed an immoral act. We hypothesised that people would direct hostility toward a transgressing in-group whose actions threaten their self-image and evoke collective shame. Consistent with this theorising, three studies found that reminders of in-group transgression provoked several expressions of in-group-directed hostility, including in-group-directed hostile emotion (Studies 1 and 2), in-group-directed derogation (Study 2), and in-group-directed punishment (Study 3). Across studies, collective shame—but not (...) the related group-based emotion collective guilt—mediated the relationship between in-group transgression and in-group-directed hostility. Implications for group-based emotion, social identity, and group behaviour are discussed. (shrink)

This essay replies to the responses of Harold Netland, Charles Taliaferro, and Kate Waidler to my symposium paper, “Gethsemane Epistemology.” It contends that a God worthy of worship would not need the arguments of traditional natural theology, and that such arguments would not lead to such a God in the way desired by God. In addition, it explains why Paul’s position in Romans 1 offers no support to the arguments of traditional natural theology.

Religious epistemology can benefit from the widely neglected perspective of the apostle Paul that humans can “have the mind of Christ.” This article considers whether humans can apprehend divine reality, if only partly, from a divine vantage point. Perhaps humans then can apprehend the reality and goodness of God in a salient manner, thereby gaining a vital perspective on ultimate reality. The article aims to identify the viability of a “God’s-eye standpoint” for humans in “the mind of Christ.” It (...) contends that this standpoint draws from influential volitional and affective traits of God’s personality, including “the fruit of the Spirit.”. (shrink)

Three questions motivate this book's account of evidence for the existence of God. First, if God's existence is hidden, why suppose He exists at all? Second, if God exists, why is He hidden, particularly if God seeks to communicate with people? Third, what are the implications of divine hiddenness for philosophy, theology, and religion's supposed knowledge of God? This book answers these questions on the basis of a new account of evidence and knowledge of divine reality that challenges skepticism about (...) God's existence. The central thesis is that we should expect evidence of divine reality to be purposively available to humans, that is, available only in a manner suitable to divine purposes in self-revelation. This lesson generates a seismic shift in our understanding of evidence and knowledge of divine reality. The result is a needed reorienting of religious epistemology to accommodate the character and purposes of an authoritative, perfectly loving God. (shrink)

This paper examines a nonreductive supervenience relation central to a philosophically popular version of nonreductive physicalism inspired by Donald Davidson. The paper argues that this global supervenience relation faces a serious epistemological problem that blocks its being superior to weaker, less general supervenience relations.

This book explores the role of divine severity in the character and wisdom of God, and the flux and difficulties of human life in relation to divine salvation. Much has been written on problems of evil, but the matter of divine severity has received relatively little attention. Paul K. Moser discusses the function of philosophy, evidence and miracles in approaching God. He argues that if God's aim is to extend without coercion His lasting life to humans, then commitment to (...) that goal could manifest itself in making human life severe, for the sake of encouraging humans to enter into that cooperative good life. In this scenario, divine agapē is conferred as free gift, but the human reception of it includes stress and struggle in the face of conflicting powers and priorities. Moser's work will be of great interest to students of the philosophy of religion, and theology. (shrink)

Some philosophers, such as N. R. Hanson, have suggested that one's perceiving an object entails one's having a particular perceptual belief, and not just some belief or other, about that object. This article constructs an argument showing that such a view generates an infinite regress of required perceptual beliefs.

This paper responds to “Paul K. Moser and the End of Christian Apologetics as We Know It,” by Tedla Woldeyohannes, who defends natural theology in apologetics against some objections I have raised. The paper explains why this defense of natural theology fails, and clarifies a sense in which Christian apologetics is legitimate. The paper identifies how New Testament apologetics makes do without natural theology, and fits with the apostle Paul’s remark: “My speech and my proclamation were not with (...) plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God”. (shrink)

The book provides a practical guide to the application of Critical Realism (CR), an increasingly popular philosophy of social science, in empirical research projects. Each purpose-written chapter reviews major social science research methods and contains extended illustration of how to conduct inquiry using CR.

The Socratic, or dialog, form is central to the history of philosophy and has been the discipline's canonical genre ever since. Paul Feyerabend's Three Dialogues on Knowledge resurrects the form to provide an astonishingly flexible and invigorating analysis of epistemological, ethical and metaphysical problems. He uses literary strategies - of irony, voice and distance - to make profoundly philosophical points about the epistemic, existential and political aspects of common sense and scientific knowledge. He writes about ancient and modern relativism; (...) the authority of science; the ignorance of scientists; the nature of being; and true and false enlightenment. Throughout Three Dialogues on Knowledge is provocative, controversial and inspiring. It is, unlike most current philosophical writing, written for readers with a keen sense of what matters and why. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, this is a book about truth and the criteria thereof. Thus it is, in a sense, a book about justification and rationality. But it does not purport to be about the notion of justification or the notion of rationality. For the assumption that there is just one notion of justification, or just one notion of rationality, is, as the book explains, very misleading. Justification and rationality come in various kinds. And to that extent, at least, we should recognize (...) a variety of notions of justification and rationality. This, at any rate, is one of the morals of Chapter VI. This book, in Chapters I-V, is mainly concerned with the kind of justification and rationality characteristic of a truth-seeker, specifically a seeker of truth about the world impinging upon the senses: the so-called empirical world. Hence the book's title. But since the prominent contemporary approaches to empirical justification are many and varied, so also are the epistemological issues taken up in the following chapters. For instance, there will be questions about so-called coherence and its role, if any, in empirical justification. And there will be questions about social consensus (whatever it is) and its significance, or the lack thereof, to empirical justification. Furthermore, the perennial question of whether, and if so how, empirical knowledge has so-called founda­ tions will be given special attention. (shrink)