Occasionally, in the introductory philosophy courses I teach, a student will give an interesting argument for non-belief in God. Though I have never seen this argument in print, it seems familiar. Basically, the argument goes like this. Religious belief is largely determined by geography – where you are born and raised largely determines your religious beliefs. But believing something just because of where you are born and raised is not a reliable indication of whether that belief turns out to be (...) true. So, in some sense, you are not justified in your religious beliefs. I will attempt a more rigorous reconstruction of this argument and offer an objection to it. (shrink)

The most recent and, arguably, the most scientifically rigorous study of the healing power of intercessory prayer, the so-called “STEP” (“Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Prayer”) study involved over 1,800 subjects and roughly a decade of study. Though the results did little, if anything, to lend support to the idea that prayers really can heal the sick, religious believers might remain optimistic. Two main reasons for this optimism stem from, first, a crucial missing (though practically unavoidable) study control and, (...) second, the warning that studying the effectiveness of prayer amounts to an (improper) attempt at quantifying God’s effects in the world. And few serious religious believers will want to say that we could ever pin God down in that way and, hence, that God, in order to maintain the importance of faith in religion, would have good reason to manipulate the results of an experiment on the effectiveness of prayer (even if prayer was very effective when not formally studied). But, then, the only evidence to which prayer proponents can appeal is anecdotal. The problems associated with anecdotal evidence as support for hypotheses is discussed here (generally, as well as with respect to intercessory prayer) and, I submit, the empirical case for the healing powers of prayer is weak. (shrink)

In debates over life and death it is often said that one should err on the side of caution—that is, on the side of life. In light of the recent case of Terri Schiavo, it is explained how the “err-on-the-side-of-life” argument proceeds, and an objection to it is offered.

This dissertation assesses the value of Cartesian conceivability arguments, with particular attention given to three contemporary debates surrounding the mind-body problem. Saul Kripke's separability argument utilized new developments surrounding the nature of necessity and the reference of proper names. For all its merit, the Kripkean separability argument is open to serious criticisms. I examine several standard objections to Kripke's arguments and maintain that none are successful. I also maintain, however, that it is possible to show, contrary to what Kripke presupposes, (...) that conceivability is not a reliable guide to possibility. I develop a new form of one of the standard objections, specifically, the objection that Kripke is mistaken in presupposing that conceivability is a reliable guide to possibility. I maintain that this objection is ultimately defensible. Next I examine the Cartesian arguments developed by David Chalmers in his The Conscious Mind. Chalmers relies heavily on conceivability arguments and has made the notion of a "philosophical zombie" something of a commonplace in attacks on physicalism. It is Chalmers's view that physicalism requires a strong supervenience thesis to the effect that all facts are dependent on or determined by physical facts. But according to Chalmers, this thesis is false because zombies are conceivable. It will be shown that Chalmers's arguments are vulnerable to the same types of criticisms that befall Kripke. Finally, I will examine a cluster of arguments conveniently called "Mode of Presentation" arguments. Advocates of this type of argument attempt to exploit the fact that if physicalism is true, we still cannot see a priori that phenomenal concepts and physical concepts refer to the same object or state of affairs. They then draw the conclusion that there must be special nonphysical properties associated with our phenomenal concepts which are responsible for the a posteriori nature of the mind-body relation. I will give two arguments showing where the MOP argument goes wrong. (shrink)

In his (1977) "Anomalous Monism and Kripke's Cartesian Intuitions," Colin McGinn argues that Donald Davidson's anomalous monism is untouched by Kripke's (1980) argument against the identity theory. The type-identity of the physical with the mental may very well fall at the feet of Kripke's powerful arguments, but a token identification, argues McGinn, is left standing due to the simple fact that token physicalism countenances a kind of imagined separation of token mental states with their corresponding token physical states. If McGinn (...) is correct, a full-blooded physicalism is consistent with Kripke's Cartesian intuitions regarding the non-identity of the mental and the physical. But I think McGinn is mistaken. In particular, McGinn misunderstands the nature of an "epistemic counterpart" of a token pain. So contrary to McGinn, token physicalism does not seem to be able to defend against Kripke after all. (shrink)