Theism and Ultimate Explanation – The Necessary Shape of Contingency de T O′Connor

Theism and Ultimate Explanation – The Necessary Shape of Contingency

T O′Connor

en Limba Engleză Paperback – 19 ian 2012

An expansive, yet succinct, analysis of the Philosophy of Religion - from metaphysics through theology. Organized into two sections, the text first examines truths concerning what is possible and what is necessary. These chapters lay the foundation for the book's second part - the search for a metaphysical framework that permits the possibility of an ultimate explanation that is correct and complete. * A cutting-edge scholarly work which engages with the traditional metaphysician's quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most general features of the world we inhabit * Develops an original view concerning the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, or truths concerning what is possible or necessary * Applies this framework to a re-examination of the cosmological argument for theism * Defends a novel version of the Leibnizian cosmological argument

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Cuprins

Preface ix Part I The Explanatory Role of Necessity 1 1. Modality and Explanation 3 Relative and Absolute Necessity 3 Scientifically Established Necessities 5 An Epistemological Worry about Modality: Causal Contact with Modal Facts 7 Modal Nihilism 10 Modal Reductionism and Defl ationism 15 Modal Anti-Realism and Quasi-Realism 27 Conclusion 30 2. Modal Knowledge 32 Conceivability As Our Guide? 32 Modality a Matter of Principle? 36 The Theoretical Roles of Modal Claims: Towards a Modal Epistemology 41 The Spheres of Possibility 60 Part II The Necessary Shape of Contingency 63 3. Ultimate Explanation and Necessary Being: The Existence Stage of the Cosmological Argument 65 Necessary Being 68 Two Objections to the Traditional Answer 73 Necessary Being As the Explanatory Ground of Contingency? 79 4. The Identification Stage 86 From Necessary Being to God, I: Transcendent, Not Immanent 86 Two Models of Transcendent Necessary Being: Logos and Chaos 93 Varieties of Chaos 93 Interlude: The Fine-Tuning Argument 97 From Necessary Being to God, II: Logos, Not Random Chaos 109 5. The Scope of Contingency 111 How Many Universes Would Perfection Realize? 111 Perfection and Freedom 121 Some Applications of the Many-Universe-Creation Hypothesis 122 Necessary Being and the Scope of Possibility 125 Necessary Being and the Many Necessary Truths 128 6. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Anselm? 130 The Unity of the Divine Nature and Its Consequences 132 Natural Theology in the Understanding of Revealed Theology 140 Coda 143 Notes 145 Bibliography 162 Index 172

Notă biografică

Timothy O'Connor is Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University Bloomington. He has published widely in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of Persons and Causes (2000) and the editor of Agents, Causes, and Events: Essays on Indeterminism and Free Will (1995), Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Readings (2003), Downward Causation And The Neurobiology Of Free Will (2009), Emergence in Science and Philosophy (2010) and A Companion to the Philosophy of Action (2010).