Jonathan L. Kvanvig

Justification and Proper Basing

Some thirty or so years ago, Keith Lehrer attacked the idea that causation has much to do with knowledge or justification with the case of the gypsy lawyer, and has more recently endorsed the same kind of attack with the case of the racist scientist.’ These cases threaten not only causal theories of knowledge but also theories of knowledge or justification which require that one’s evidence be at least a partial cause of one’s belief. They threaten, that is, the view that causation is at the heart of the distinction between propositional justification, the justification one has for thecontentof one’s belief, and doxastic justification, the justification which attaches to the believing itself. When justification attaches to the believing itself rather than merely to the content of what is believed, it is because one holds the belief in questionon the basis ofthe evidence. When justification only attaches to propositional contents, there is a failure of such basing, e.g., one may have the evidence but believe for different reasons.

Rationality and reflection : how to think about what to think

Introduction 1. Epistemic Appraisal 2. The Egocentric Predicament and Normativity 3. Excusability 4. Rational Disagreement 5. Perspectivalism and Optionalism 6. From Schema to Theory: The Role of Autonomy in the Theory of Rationality 7. Conclusion A. Reducing Personal to Doxastic Justification B. Reducing Doxastic to Propositional Justification Index Bibliography

Lewis on Finkish Dispositions

Finkish dispositions, those dispositions that are lost when their conditions of realization occur, pose deep problems for counterfactual accounts of dispositions. David Lewis has argued that the counterfactual approach can be rescued, offering such an account that purports to handle finkish as well as other dispositions. The paper argues that Lewiss account fails to account for several kinds of dispositions, one of which involves failure to distinguish parallel processes from unitary processes.

Faith and Humility

The words, “The just shall live by faith,” which were commented upon last week, in the article, “Living by Faith,” suggested a few other thoughts that could not, for lack of space, be given in that article. The apostle quoted only the last half of the verse, as it was all that specially applied to the subject he was considering, but we may well note the whole. It is this: “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4).

The incarnation and the knowability paradox

The best defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation implies that traditional Christianity has a special stake in the knowability paradox, a stake not shared by other theistic perspectives or by non-traditional accounts of the Incarnation. Perhaps, this stake is not even shared by antirealism, the view most obviously threatened by the paradox. I argue for these points, concluding that these results put traditional Christianity at a disadvantage compared to other viewpoints, and I close with some comments about the extent of the burden incurred.

The Value of True Belief

If the value of knowledge cannot be explained adequately in terms of things external to it, such as its usefulness or its permanence or its role as a foundation for acceptable action, we will have to look at internal features in order to find the value of knowledge. Perhaps the value of knowledge will emerge as we look at its (purported) constituents, and because knowledge is ordinarily conceived to involve true belief, I begin with the value of true belief here. There are those who doubt that knowledge involves true belief, maintaining that belief itself is a quite different state from knowledge. There are even those who maintain that there is no such thing as belief. I do not want to become embroiled in these controversies, because these disputes will take us too far afield from the focus of this work on the value of knowledge. Given that focus, our interest can concentrate on the connection between the shared informational content that exists both when a person knows something and when that person only believes it. When a person knows something, there is informational content in the cognitive, as opposed to the affective, mental realm, informational content endorsed by the person, or to which that person is committed, or to which that person assents.

The Problem of Hell.

The doctrine of hell presents the most intractable version of the problem of evil, for though it might be argued that ordinary pain and evil can somehow be compensated for by the course of future experience, the pain and suffering of hell leads nowhere. This work develops an understanding of hell that is common to a broad variety of religious perspectives, and argues that the usual understandings of hell are incapable of solving the problem of hell. Kvanvig first argues that the traditional understanding of hell found in Christianity suffers from moral and epistemological inadequacies. Historically, these shortcomings lead to alternatives to the traditional doctrine of hell, such as universalism, annihilationism, or the second chance doctrine. Kvanvig shows, however, that the typical alternatives to the traditional understanding are inadequate as well. He argues that both the traditional understanding and the typical alternatives fail to solve the problem of hell because they share the common flaw of being constructed on a retributive model of hell. Kvanvig then develops a philosophical account of hell which does not depend on a retributive model and argues that it is adequate on both philosophical and theological grounds.

The Intellectual Virtues and the Life of the Mind.

Virtue ethics, virtue epistemology, and the intellectual virtues the motivational aspects of virtue epistemology eliminative virtue epistemology justification and the intellectual virtues knowledge and the intellectual virtues the nature of the virtues the importance of the virtues.

Adams on Actualism and Presentism

In Time and Thisness .(Midwest Studies in Philosophy i i (i986): 3 I 5-z9), Robert Adams argues for what I shall call the Temporal Dependency Thesis (TDT). According to the TDT, no singular propositions about an individual and no thisnesses of individuals exist prior to the existence of the individual in question, where a thisness is the property of being x, or of being identical with x and a singular proposition about an individual x is a proposition that involves or refers to x directly, perhaps by having x or the thisness of x as a constituent, and not merely by way of xs qualitative properties or relations to other individuals (p. 3 I 5). The support for this position comes from two sources, according to Adams: actualism about possible worlds (Adams says that actualism is the view that the two-place propositional function rx exists in wl, where w is a possible world, is not primitive but is understood as meaning that . . . rx exists] is included in the world-story of w, or that x would have existed if w had been actual (p. 3 zi)), and intuitions to the effect that the future is metaphysically open in a way in which the past is not. I wish to argue two points here: Adams argument does not establish the TDT, and his position is not grounded in our intuitions concerning the openness of the future. I turn first to the argument for the TDT. The argument for the TDT involves premises which Adams claims are implications of actualism, the crucial premise being the claim that there are no singular propositions about a thing in worlds in which that thing does not exist. He says, My thisness, and singular propositions about me, cannot have pre-existed me because if they had, it would have been possible for them to have existed even if I had never existed, and that is not possible. (p. 3I7) Thus, if actualism is true and has the implications attributed to it, the TDT follows since, according to Adams, its denial is incompatible with the purported implications of actualism.