Scott A. Shalkowski

Supervenience and causal necessity

Causal necessity typically receives only oblique attention. Causal relations, laws of nature, counterfactual conditionals, or dispositions are usually the immediate subject(s) of interest. All of these, however, have a common feature. In some way, they involve the causal modality, some form of natural or physical necessity. In this paper, causal necessity is discussed with the purpose of determining whether a completely general empiricist theory can account for the causal in terms of the noncausal. Based on an examination of causal relations, laws of nature, counterfactual conditionals, and dispositions, it is argued that no reductive program devoid of essentialist commitments can account for all the phenomena that involve causal necessity. Hence, neo-Humean empiricism fails to provide a framework adequate for understanding causal necessity.

Theoretical virtues and theological construction

Theist and critic alike typically assume rather traditional, Medieval, understandings of God, thereby masking certain complexities in their disputes. Drawing on the practices of both scientific and theological theory construction, it is argued that traditional theologies should be seen as negotiable in certain ways. In the light of this, standard attempts at refutations of Christianity have significantly less force than is usually appreciated. Some pitfalls of both strong and weak commitments to any particular theological framework are discussed.

Modal Epistemology Without Detours

Many common approaches to modality pose problems for accounts of modal knowledge that are no less severe than those thought to plague David Lewis’s account in terms of a plurality of concrete worlds. Typically, these theories are framed in terms of the wrong kinds of thing and their defenders misdiagnose the failings of Lewis’s plurality. These considerations provide the foundations for modalist accounts of modal knowledge, where modality is not primarily a matter of recherche objects.