Robert M. Adams, a seminal figure in philosophy of religion, has passed. Details here. Adams was a good man. I recall fondly when he and his wife, the late Marylin McCord Adams, visited our department when I was a graduate student. Robert Adams' seminal defense of divine command meta-ethics, Finite and Infinite Goods, had just come out, and I was taking John Martin Fischer's graduate seminar that was devoted to studying and evaluating the book. Robert and Marylin attended the seminar while they visiting, and Robert was gracious in answering some hard-hitting objections.  Exapologist ..read more

Resto Quiñones, J. Incompatible and incomparable perfections: a new argument against perfect being theism. Int J Philos Relig (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-024-09910-8. Abstract: Perfect being theism is the view that the perfect being exists and the property being-perfect is the property being-God. According to the strong analysis of perfection, a being is perfect just in case it exemplifies all perfections. On the other hand, the weak analysis of perfection says that a being is perfect just in case it exemplifies the best possible combination of compatible perfections. Strong perfect ..read more

 Li, H. & Saad, B., (2024) “The Multiverse Theodicy Meets Population Ethics”, Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10: 56. doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.5193 Abstract: The multiverse theodicy proposes to reconcile the existence of God and evil by supposing that God created all and only the creation-worthy universes and that some universes like ours are, despite their evils, creation-worthy. Drawing on work in population ethics, this paper develops a novel challenge to the multiverse theodicy. Roughly, the challenge contends that the axiological underpinnings o ..read more

 ...is now out, and available for free download for a limited time. Required reading. Exapologist ..read more

Schmid, Joseph C. "Benardete paradoxes, patchwork principles, and the infinite past", Synthese, forthcoming. Abstract: Benardete paradoxes involve a beginningless set each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. Such paradoxes have been wielded on behalf of arguments for the impossibility of an infinite past. These arguments often deploy patchwork principles in support of their key linking premise. Here I argue that patchwork principles fail to justify this key premise. Happy reading! Exapologist ..read more

Launonen, Lari. "Hearing God speak? Debunking arguments and everyday religious experiences", International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, forthcoming. Abstract: Against claims that cognitive science of religion undercuts belief in God, many defenders of theistic belief have invoked the Religious Reasons Reply: science cannot undercut belief in God if one has good independent reasons to believe. However, it is unclear whether this response helps salvage the god beliefs of most people. This paper considers four questions: (1) What reasons do Christians have for believing in God? (2 ..read more

"Are infinite explanations self-explanatory?", Erkenntnis 88 (5): 1935-1954. 2021. Abstract: Consider an infinite series whose items are each explained by their immediate successor. Does such an infinite explanation explain the whole series or does it leave something to be explained? Hume arguably claimed that it does fully explain the whole series. Leibniz, however, designed a very telling objection against this claim, an objection involving an infinite series of book copies. In this paper, I argue that the Humean claim can, in certain cases, be saved from the Leibnizian “infinite b ..read more

Carrie Figdor interviews Philip Goff on his terrific new book, Why? The Purpose of the Universe, on New Books in Philosophy. Exapologist ..read more

Schmid, Joseph C. "The End is Near: Grim Reapers and Endless Futures", Mind (forthcoming). Abstract: José Benardete developed a famous paradox involving a beginningless set of items each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. The Grim Reaper version of this paradox has recently been employed in favor of various finitist metaphysical theses, ranging from temporal finitism to causal finitism to the discrete nature of time. Here, I examine a new challenge to these finitist arguments—namely, the challenge of implying that the future cannot be end ..read more

Tooley, Michael. "Wes Morriston’s ‘Skeptical Demonism’ Argument from Evil and Timothy Perrine’s Response", Sophia (forthcoming).  Abstract: Wes Morriston has argued that given the mixture of goods and evils found in the world, the probability of God’s existence is much less than the probability of a creator who is indifferent to good and evil. One of my goals here is, first, to show how, by bringing in the concept of dispositions, Morriston’s argument can be expressed in a rigorous, step-by-step fashion, and then, second, to show how one can connect the extent to which different events ar ..read more