Bill Pratt | April 30, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt In part 1 of this series, we argued that physicalism and determinism are self-refuting because they undermine rationality. At the end of part 1, we said that there are three conditions of rationality that physicalism does not allow, and Dr. Moreland explains them below: First, humans must have genuine intentionality; they must [...]
Bill Pratt | April 27, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt In the previous post, we saw that physicalism seems to inevitably lead to determinism. Determinism, if you recall, means that every event, including all of your thoughts, feelings, desires, and choices, is determined by the physical conditions antecedent to it. The renowned atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell said it this way: When [...]
Bill Pratt | April 25, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt If you recall, at the end of the series comparing physicalism and dualism, I promised to look at additional problems for physicalism. Before doing so, let me remind you what physicalists believe. Here is philosopher J. P. Moreland: According to physicalism, a human being is merely a physical entity. The only [...]
Bill Pratt | April 20, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt Recall that in part 2, we looked at a couple skeptics’ views on testimony. The first skeptic’s view appeared to be self-defeating, but the second skeptic singled out testimony about supernatural events, thus avoiding the self-defeating approach of the first skeptic. However, the second skeptic has a different sort of problem, which [...]
Bill Pratt | April 18, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt In the previous post, we talked about the role of testimony in our everyday lives. There are some, however, who cast serious doubts on the reliability of testimony. Here is a typical quote from a skeptic who commented on this blog: As we all should know, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. There are [...]
Bill Pratt | April 16, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt There are 3 ways that a person can gain knowledge: experience, reason, and testimony. Experience simply means that we observe something directly with one of our five senses for ourselves (e.g., “There is a computer screen in front of me”). Reason means that we make rational and logical inferences from knowledge we [...]
Bill Pratt | January 30, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt More times than I can count we have skeptics comment on the blog who insist that science is the only means of attaining knowledge. If you don’t believe me, just read the comments underneath last week’s blog posts. I have covered this topic numerous times, but it seems to surface over [...]
Bill Pratt | January 24, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt This canard has been repeated so often that it is now part of 21st century folklore. Contrary to this popular myth, philosopher Edward Feser, in his book The Last Superstition, correctly points out that the “so-called ‘war between science and religion’ is really a war between two rival philosophical worldviews, and not [...]
Bill Pratt | January 11, 2012
Post Author: Bill Pratt I don’t mean in the sense of displaying strong affection toward your spouse. I mean in the sense of the nineteenth century movement of Romanticism. I think the romantics still have something to say to us today, and I’m wondering how many of you can relate to their ideas. According to William [...]
Bill Pratt | December 29, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt Some statements about the world are objectively true, meaning they are true for all people, places, and times, regardless of whether anyone actually believes the statements. Other statements about the world are subjective, meaning they merely refer to a person’s preferences or tastes. An objective statement would be: “The sum of [...]
