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Work in Progress

  • 'Modal Panentheism'
  • 'A Systematic Modelling of the Anselmian God'
  • An edited volume on Russellian monism (with Torin Alter), Oxford University Press

Books (monographs)

The Existence of God: A Philosophical Introduction, Routledge, 2011. Amazon USA  Amazon UK

God and Phenomenal Consciousness: A Nove Approach to Knowledge Arguments, Cambridge University Press, 2008.  Winner of the 2008 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise. Amazon USA  Amazon UK

Books (edited collections)

Scientific Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion, Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.

Special Issue on Nonphysicalist Monism, Journal of Consciousness Studies, forthcoming.

Special Issue on Anselmian theism, International Journal for Philosoph of Religion 69, Issue 2, 2011.

New Waves in Philosophy of Religion (Edited with Erik Wielenberg), Palgrave Macmillan (New Waves in Philosophy Series), 2008. Amazon USA  Amazon UK

There's Something About Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument (Edited with Peter Ludlow and Daniel Stoljar), MIT Press, 2004. Amazon USA  Amazon UK

Articles

Forthcoming

According to one construal, the mind-body problem is a problem of determining the nature of the deepest level of reality with respect to the mental and the physical. It asks whether everything is ultimately mental, physical, both, or neither. But what if there is no such thing as the deepest level because the universe is infinitely decomposable? In this paper the argument is made that such a possibility would be devastating because it would undermine all traditional responses to the mind-body problem, such as physicalism, dualism, idealism and neutral monism. Two attempts—introduced or anticipated by Barbara Montero and Jonathan Schaffer—to rescue physicalism from such an argument are then discussed. The paper concludes that neither of them succeeds and that their failures might motivate a unique form of monism that is radically different from physicalism as commonly formulated.

  • 'What is Russellian Monism?' (with Torin Alter), Journal of Consciousness Studies.

Russellian monism offers a distinctive perspective on the relationship between the physical and the phenomenal. For example, on one version of the view, phenomenal properties are the categorical bases of fundamental physical properties, such as mass and charge, which are dispositional. Russellian monism has prominent supporters, such as Bertrand Russell, Grover Maxwell, Michael Lockwood, and David Chalmers. But its strengths and shortcomings are often misunderstood. In this paper we try to eliminate confusions about the view and defend it from criticisms. We present its core and distinguish different versions of it. We then compare these versions with traditional theories, such as physicalism, dualism, and idealism. We also argue that the knowledge argument and the conceivability argument are consistent with Russellian monism and that existing arguments against the view, such as the argument from weirdness, are not decisive. We conclude that Russellian monism is an attractive view that deserves serious consideration.

John Hick is a mind-body dualist. He claims that reality consists of two ontologically distinct types of entities, the mental and the physical, which causally interact with each other. Yet he subscribes to monism in response to the diversity of religion. He maintains that every world religion provides a unique response to the same single transcategorial ultimate reality. He also contends that he has realised through his religious experience that, as monism says, everything is part of a single indivisible whole. In this paper I propose and analyse three possible ways of solving this apparent tension between the dualistic and monistic elements in Hick’s metaphysical system. I argue that the first two solutions fail but their failures lead us to the third, successful solution, which entails a unique form of pantheistic or panentheistic monism.

I have argued elsewhere that nearly all existing arguments against Anselmian theism—such as the paradox of the stone, the argument from God’s inability to sin, and the problem of evil—can be refuted all at once by holding that God possesses the maximal consistent set of knowledge, power and benevolence instead of insisting that He is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. Some critics suggest, however, that my strategy fails, at least with respect to the problem of evil, because that problem defeats not only the version of theism that depends on God’s being omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, but also versions of theism that do not depend on that thesis. In this paper I defend my strategy against such a criticism.

2011

  • 'Anselmian Theism', Philosophy Compass 6, pp. 564-571 (invited).

In this article I discuss Anselmian theism, which is arguably the most widely accepted form of monotheism. First, I introduce the core theses of Anselmian theism and consider its historical and developmental origins. I contend that, despite its name, Anselmian theism might well be older than Anselm. I also claim, supporting my argument by reference to research in the cognitive science of religion, that, contrary to what many think, Anselmian theism might be a natural result of human cognitive development rather than a mere philosophical artefact. Second, in the course of explaining the merits of Anselmian theism, I argue that this doctrine seems to benefit from at least three virtues. Third, I discuss existing arguments against Anselmian theism and maintain that most of them can be classified into three types. Finally, I suggest a novel strategy on the basis of which it is possible to defend Anselmian theism from these arguments.

2010

Frank Jackson endorses epiphenomenalism because he thinks that his knowledge argument undermines physicalism. One of the most interesting criticisms of Jackson’s position is what I call the ‘inconsistency objection’. The inconsistency objection says that Jackson’s position is untenable because epiphenomenalism undermines the knowledge argument. The inconsistency objection has been defended by various philosophers independently, including Michael Watkins, Fredrik Stjernberg, and Neil Campbell. Surprisingly enough, while Jackson himself admits explicitly that the inconsistency objection is ‘the most powerful reply to the knowledge argument’ he knows of, it has never been discussed critically. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the objection and to identify and consider its implications. The objection is alleged to be based on a causal theory of knowledge. I argue that the objection fails by showing that any causal theory of knowledge is such that it is either false or does not support the inconsistency objection. In order to defend my argument, I offer a hypothesis concerning phenomenal knowledge.

The so-called ‘parody objection’ purports to undermine the ontological argument for the existence of God by constructing parallel parody arguments that appear to prove the existence (or non-existence) of various absurd entities. In this paper I discuss some of the most recent and most sophisticated versions of the parody objection concerning the existence of ‘AntiGod’ and the devil, as introduced by Peter Millican and Timothy Chambers. In analysing these versions I defend the following hypothesis: The parody objection will always fail, because any parody of the ontological argument is such that either (i) it is not structurally parallel to the ontological argument (typically because its scope is too narrow), or (ii) it is not dialectically parallel to the ontological argument (typically because it makes extraneous assumptions to which proponents of the ontological argument are not committed). I argue, moreover, that once a parody argument is modified in such a way that it negates (i) and (ii), it is, ironically, no longer a parody—it is the ontological argument itself. Of course, one can hardly undermine the ontological argument by appealing to the ontological argument itself.

  • 'Australasian Dualism', Graham Oppy, Nick Trakakis, et. al. (eds.), A Companion to Australasian Philosophy, Monash University Publishing (Invited).

It is widely recognised that Australia has produced a number of prominent physicalists, such as D. M. Armstrong, U. T. Place and J. J. C. Smart. It is sometimes forgotten, however, that Australia has also produced a number of prominent dualists. This entry introduces the views of three Australian dualists: Keith Campbell, Frank Jackson and David Chalmers. Their positions differ uniquely from those of traditional dualists because their endorsement of dualism is based on their sympathy with a naturalistic, materialistic worldview rather than with a supernaturalistic, spiritual worldview.

2009

  • 'Immortality without Boredom' (with Lisa Bortolotti), Ratio 22, pp. 261-277.
  • 'The Knowledge Argument', Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans and Patrick Wilken (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Oxford University Press, pp. 395-397 (Invited).
  • 'Foreword' to John Hick and Arthur McGill (eds.), The Many-Faced Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God (new reprint), Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock.

2008

Anselmian theism is a version of monotheism that endorses the thesis that God is the being than which no greater can be thought. According to most Anselmian theists, this thesis entails that He is an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being. For the last nine hundred years or so, however, critics of Anselmian theism have tried to show that there does not exist an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being by advancing numerous distinct arguments, such as the argument from evil, the paradox of the stone, and the argument from Gods inability to sin. In order to defend their position Anselmian theists have attempted to provide objections to these arguments on a case-by-case basis. That is, they have tried to construct a unique, independent response to each one of them. This approach is, however, uneconomical, particularly if one's ultimate goal is to defend Anselmian theism. The aim of this paper is hence to establish a radically new and more efficient defence, which undercuts almost all the existing arguments against Anselmian theism at once. In the course of developing the defence I consider the possibility that the Anselmian God is not an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being.

2007

Peter Millican (2004) provides a novel and elaborate objection to Anselm's ontological argument. Millican thinks that his objection is more powerful than any other because it does not dispute contentious 'deep philosophical theories' that underlie the argument. Instead, it tries to reveal the 'fatal flaw' of the argument by considering its 'shallow logical details'. Millican's objection is based on his interpretation of the argument, according to which Anselm relies on what I call the 'principle of the superiority of existence' (PSE). I argue that (i) the textual evidence Millican cites does not provide a convincing case that Anselm relies on PSE and that, moreover, (ii) Anselm does not even need PSE for the ontological argument. I introduce a plausible interpretation of the ontological argument that is not vulnerable to Millican's objection and conclude that even if the ontological argument fails, it does not fail in the way Millican thinks it does. (Response to this article: Millican, Peter (2007), 'Ontological Arguments and the Superiority of Existence: Reply to Nagasawa', Mind 116, pp. 1041-1054.)

  • 'A Further Reply to Beyer on Omniscience', Sophia 46, pp. 65-67.

I provide a further response to Jason A. Beyer's objection to the alleged inconsistency between God's omniscience and His other attributes.

In the paper that forms the target of Crowe's discussion we attempted to shed some much-needed light on worship. Our focus was not on the question of whether theists hold that human beings are obliged to worship God, for we took it as obvious that theists--orthodox theists, at any rate--hold that we have such obligations. Instead, our concern was to determine what might ground the obligation to worship God. We surveyed a number of candidate grounds and argued that none is compelling. Given the centrality of worship to theism, we took this result to be a serious problem for theism. In his response, Crowe argues that we misunderstood the nature of the theist's conception of worship, and that we under-estimated the theist's resources for defending the claim that we ought to worship God. We address these points in turn. 

Harman's formulation of the explanatory gap seems to face the following difficulty: Either (i) it is irrelevant to the cogency of physicalism or (ii) if it is relevant, any talk of translation is otiose.

When patients are in vegetative states and their lives are maintained by medical devices, their surrogates might offer proxy consents on their behalf in order to terminate the use of the devices. The so-called 'substituted judgment thesis' has been adopted by the courts regularly in order to determine the validity of such proxy consents. The thesis purports to evaluate proxy consents by appealing to putative counterfactual truths about what the patients would choose, were they to be competent. The aim of this paper is to reveal a significant limitation of the thesis, which has hitherto been recognised only vaguely and intuitively. By appealing to the metaphysics of counterfactuals I explain how the thesis fails to determine the validity of proxy consents in a number of actual cases.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the claim that the disclosure of surgeons' performance data could lead to the practice of defensive medicine. I argue that disclosure could actually encourage surgeons to practice a new form of defensive medicine, one that has not hitherto been noted. I explore a possible way of avoiding this problem.

2006

I argue that Gregg Rosenberg's panexperientialism is either extremely implausible or irrelevant to the mystery of consciousness by introducing metaphysical and conceptual objections to his appeal to the notion of 'protoconsciousness'.

Although worship has a pivotal place in religious thought and practice, philosophers of religion have had remarkably little to say about it. In this paper we examine some of the many questions surrounding the notion of worship, focusing on the claim that human beings have obligations to worship God. We explore a number of attempts to ground our supposed duty to worship God, and argue that each is problematic. We conclude by examining the implications of this result, and suggest that it might be taken to provide an argument against God's existence, since theists generally regard it is a necessary truth that we ought to worship God. (Response to this article: Crowe, Benjamin (2008), 'Reasons for Worship: A Response to Bayne and Nagasawa', Religious Studies.)

2005

In a recent issue of Sophia, Jason A. Beyer introduced objections to the antitheist arguments that purport to show the inconsistencies between God's attributes. In this short response I argue that Beyer's objections are untenable. (Response to this article: Beyer, Jason (2006), 'Reply to Nagasawa', Sophia 45, pp. 127-130.)

We argue that the divine command theory is inconsistent with the veiw, held by many theists, that we have a moral obligation to worship God. (Response to this article: Blaauw, Martijn (2007), 'Worship Me!: A Reply to Brown and Nagasawa', Ratio 20, pp.  236-240.)

The Paradox of the Stone is a familiar argument that purports to show the incoherence of the notion of an omnipotent God. We argue in this paper that the paradox loses all force once one accepts two plausible principles regarding the nature of divine omnipotence. We claim that our solution to the paradox is importantly different from the traditional one introduced by such philosophers as Mavrodes, Mayo and Plantinga. We also consider, and reject, a common strategy for bolstering the paradox, one that appeals to an apparent ability that is lacked by God yet possessed by ordinary folk. We argue that the strategy rests on an equivocation.

The Argument from Inferiority holds that our world cannot be the creation of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being; for if it were, it would be the best of all possible worlds, which evidently it is not. We argue that this argument rests on an implausible principle concerning which worlds it is permissible for an omnipotent being to create: roughly, the principle that such a being ought not to create a non-best world. More specifically, we argue that this principle is plausible only if we assume that there is a best element in the set of all possible worlds. However, as we show, there are conceivable scenarios in which that assumption does not hold.

In 'Anthropocentrism and the Problem of Evil' Timothy Chappell argues that one cannot advance the following two criticisms of Christianity at the same time: (1) Christianity is an implausibly anthropocentric religion, and (2) Christianity has no convincing answer to the problem of natural evil. I demonstrate that Chappell's argument is unsuccessful by providing three possible, and consistent, interpretations of (1) and (2).

2004

Skeptical theists purport to undermine evidential arguments from evil by appealing to the fact that our knowledge of goods, evils, and their interconnections is significantly limited. Michael J. Almeida and Graham Oppy have recently argued that skeptical theism is unacceptable because it results in a form of moral skepticism which rejects inferences that play an important role in our ordinary moral reasoning. In this reply to Almeida and Oppy's argument we offer some reasons for thinking that skeptical theism need not lead to any such objectionable form of moral skepticism. (Response to this article: Almeida, Michael and Graham Oppy (2005), 'Reply to Trakakis and Nagasawa', Ars Disputandi 5.)

Kim Atkins argues that Thomas Nagel's argument regarding a bat's phenomenal experience is important for understanding the value placed on patient autonomy in medical ethics. In this paper I demonstrate that Atkins's argument (a) is based on her misinterpretations of Nagel's argument, and (b) can be established without appealing to such a controversial assumption as that which she makes.

  • 'Salvation in Heaven?' (with Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis), Philosophical Papers, 33, pp. 95-117. Reprinted in Graham Oppy (2006) Arguing About Gods, Cambridge University Press.

The aim of this paper is to examine the difficulties that belief in a paradisiacal afterlife creates for orthodox theists. In particular, we consider the difficulties that arise when one asks whether there is freedom in Heaven, i.e. whether the denizens of Heaven have libertarian freedom in action. Our main contention is that this 'Problem of Heaven' makes serious difficulties for proponents of free will theodicies and for proponents of free will defences.

2003

In this paper I examine Thomas Nagel's familiar challenge to physicalism. Nagel illustrates the difficulty of providing a purely physical characterisation of phenomenal experience with a vivid example about a bat's sensory apparatus. While a number of objections have already been made to Nagel's argument, I propose a novel way of undermining it. Adapting Thomas Aquinas's principle regarding the nature of divine omnipotence, I argue that the fact that we cannot know what it is like to be a bat does not threaten physicalism. (Response to this article: Gorman, Michael (2005),  'Nagasawa vs. Nagel: Omnipotence, Pseudo-Tasks, and a Recent Discussion of Nagel's Doubts About Physicalism', Inquiry 48, pp. 436-447.)

In his very interesting article Steve Clarke (1999) examines various views about a patient's trust of a doctor, including Edwin R. DuBose's view (1995), according to which trust in medicine is closely related to religious faith. Clarke finds them unconvincing and provides his own, more elaborate view of trust. In this short reply to Clarke's paper I argue that his view is not compelling because it faces a difficulty that is similar to the one he believes DuBose's view inherits. (Response to this article: Clarke, Steve (2004), 'Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News: A Response to Nagasawa', Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics.)

Many theists believe that the so-called 'free will defence' successfully undermines the antitheist argument from moral evil. However, in a recent issue of Sophia Joel Thomas Tierno provides the 'adequacy argument' in order to show an alleged difficulty with the free will defence. I argue that the adequacy argument fails because it equivocates on the notion of moral evil.  (Response to this article: Tierno, Thomas (2004), 'On the Alleged Connection Between Moral Evil and Human Freedom: Response to Nagasawa and Trakakis', Sophia 43.)

According to one antitheist argument, the necessarily omniscient, necessarily omnipotent, and necessarily omnibenevolent Anselmian God does not exist, because if God is necessarily omnipotent it is impossible for Him to comprehend fully certain concepts, such as fear, frustration and despair, that an omniscient being needs to possess. Torin Alter examines this argument and provides three elaborate objections to it. I argue that theists would not accept any of them because they conflict with traditional Judaeo-Christian doctrines concerning divine attributes.

Patrick Grim argues that God cannot be omniscient because no one other than me can acquire knowledge de se of myself. In particular, according to Grim, God cannot know what I know in knowing that I am making a mess. I argue, however, that given two plausible principles regarding divine attributes there is no reason to accept Grim's conclusion that God cannot be omniscient. In this paper I focus on the relationship between divine omniscience and necessary impossibilities, in contrast to the general trend of research since Aquinas, which has concentrated on the relationship between divine omnipotence and necessary impossibilities.

According to one antitheist argument, God cannot know what it is like to be me because He, who is necessarily unlimited and necessarily incorporeal, cannot have my point of view. In his recent article, William J. Mander tries to demonstrate that God can indeed have His own point of view and my point of view at the same time by providing examples that seem to motivate his claim. I argue that none of his examples succeeds in this task. I introduce a different objection to the antitheist argument that appeals to the Thomistic principle regarding divine attributes.

2002

Paul Boghossian's 'Memory Argument' allegedly shows, using the familiar slow-switching scenario, that externalism and authoritative self-knowledge are incompatible. The aim of this paper is to undermine the argument by examining two distinct externalist responses. I demonstrate that the Memory Argument equivocates on the notion of forgetting.

Paul Churchland argues that Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument against physicalism is so strong that if it defeated physicalism it would, at the same time, defeat 'substance dualism'. The purpose of this paper is to articulate this 'parity of reasons' objection. In the first part of the paper, I discuss Churchland's argument. I demonstrate that although his formulation of the objection is not wholly satisfactory, it may be revised so that the Knowledge Argument would defeat a certain form of dualism. In the second part, I apply the parity of reasons objection to David Chalmers' dualism. Chalmers rejects physicalism on the basis of the Knowledge Argument and introduces two possible forms of dualism. I show that of those two forms of dualism, Chalmers has to endorse the one that he does not prefer because the other is vulnerable to the parity of reasons objection.

2000

  • '"Very-Slow-Switching" and Memory: A Critical Note on Ludlow's Paper', Acta Analytica 15, pp. 173-175.

The paper critically examines Peter Ludlow's social externalism and argues that, contrary to what Ludlow believes, the truth-value of the memory content could change from being true to false (or vice versa) in a certain situation without violating his criteria of slow-switching. A 'very-slow-switching' case is proposed to support this argument.

Critical Notices, Book Reviews and Book Notes

2008. 'Review of Benatar's Better Never to Have Been', Mind 467, pp. 674-677.

2008. 'Review of Robert Kirk's Zombies and Consciousness', Philosophical Books 49, pp. 170-171.

2006, 'Note on Colin McGinn's Consciousness and Its Objects', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84, p. 462-473.

2005. 'Note on Mark Rowland's Externalism: Putting Mind and World Back Together Again', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83, pp. 150-151.

2005. 'Critical Notice of Richard Swinburne's The Evolution of the Soul (Revised Edition)', The Secular Web.

2004. 'Note on Robert Kirk's Mind and Body', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82, pp. 368-369

2004. 'Perry and Mary: Review of John Perry's Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness', Psyche 10.

2002. 'Review of Michael Palmer's The Question of God', Teaching Theology and Religion 5, pp. 246-247.

2002. 'Review of Joseph Levine's Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80, pp. 245-247.