Timothy O'Connor

Theism and Ultimate Explanation

The Necessary Shape of Contingency

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Theism and Ultimate Explanation engages with the traditional metaphysician's quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most general features of the world we inhabit.

The first part of the book develops an original view concerning the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, or truths concerning what is possible or necessary. This framework is then applied to a re-examination of the cosmological argument for theism. O'Connor defends a novel version of the Leibnizian cosmological argument from contingency for the existence of a transcendent necessary being as the source and basis for the ultimate explanation of contingent beings and their interconnected histories.

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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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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley & Sons
• 1. Auflage
• Seitenzahl: 192
• Erscheinungstermin: 20. Januar 2012
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 226mm x 154mm x 9mm
• Gewicht: 252g
• ISBN-13: 9781444350883
• ISBN-10: 1444350889
• Artikelnr.: 34159412

Autorenporträt

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).

Inhaltsangabe

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

Rezensionen

"This trim but highly technical volume is indisensable forscholars and graudate-level researchers in the field. SummingUp: Essential. Graduate students andresearchers/faculty." (Choice, 1 October2012)

"Despite these limitations, this book is worth reading. It willalert theologians to the philosophical strength of cosmologicalarguments and the superficial objections to them. It will alsointerest philosophers of religion and those working on modallogic." (The Journal of Religion, 2011)

"It will alert theologians to the philosophical strength ofcosmological arguments and the superficial objections to them. Itwill also interest philosophers of religion and those working onmodal logic." (Journal of Religion, 1 April 2011)

"O'Connor does not disappoint those who are used to thehigh levels of clarity, rigor, and originality that readers of hiswork on free will and emergence have come to expect fromhim." (Mind, July 2009)

"A breathtaking sweep from metaphysics through theology.This is a superb book in the philosophy of religion, the like ofwhose quality and originality is rare."
Alexander Pruss, Baylor University