Evan Fales
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 88690 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Evan Fales |
| NOMBRES | Evan |
| APELLIDO | Fales |
| FIRMA | FALES E |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Iowa |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 23 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 23 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 23 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1976 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2023 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Sensible Animism
Philosophy after Darwin
Proper Basicality
Foundationalist epistemologies, whether internalist or externalist, ground noetic structures in beliefs that are said to be foundational, or properly basic. It is essential to such epistemologies that they provide clear criteria for proper basicality. This proves, 1 argue, to be a thorny task, at least insofar as the goal is to provide a psychologically realistic reconstruction of our actual doxastic practices. I examine some of the difficulties,…
Can science explain mysticism
Jerome Gellman has recently disputed my claim that a naturalistic explanation for mystical experiences is available, a better explanation than any current attempt to show that God is sometimes perceived in those experiences. Gellman argues (i) that some mystics do not ‘fit’ the sociological explanation of I. M. Lewis; (ii) that the sociological analysis of tribal mysticism cannot properly be extended to theistic experiences; and (iii) that mystic…
A Defense of the Given
What is the connection between experience and knowledge? Evan Fales defends the contested idea that sense experience can be used to justify basic beliefs. He explores what it is for a belief to be self-evident and examines implications for his argument of Gestalt psychology and visual phenomena and illusions. Fales diverges from classical foundationalism, however, arguing that basic beliefs are often only probable, rather than infallible. A Defen…
Evaluating Heterodox Theories
Journal Article Evaluating Heterodox Theories Get access Evan Fales, Evan Fales University of Iowa Direct correspondence to Evan Fales, Department of Philosophy, or Barry Markovsky, Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52242. E-mail [email protected] or [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Barry Markovsky Barry Markovsky University of Iowa Search for other wo…
Scientific Explanations of Mystical Experiences
In Part I of this paper, I took up a challenge posed by Alston (1991), Wainwright (1981), Yandell (1993), and other theists who hold the rather natural view that mystical experiences provide perceptual contact with God, roughly on a par with the access sense experience affords to the natural world. These theists recognize, at the same time, that the plausibility of this view would be significantly compromised by the possibility of scientifically …
Plantinga's Case Against Naturalistic Epistemology
In Warrant and Proper Function , Alvin Plantinga claims that metaphysical naturalism, when joined to a naturalized epistemology, is self-undermining. Plantinga argues that naturalists are committed to a neoDarwinian account of our origins, and that the reliability of our cognitive faculties is improbable or unknown relative to that theory. If the theory is true, then we are in no position to know that, whereas theism, if true, underwrites cogniti…
Scientific Explanations of Mystical Experiences, Part I
Several writers have argued for the implausibility of there being naturalistic explanations of mystical experience. These writers recognize that the evidential significance of mystical experiences for theism depends upon whether explanations that exclude supernatural agency can be discounted; but they seem unaware of some of the best scientific work done in this area. Part I of the present paper introduces the theory of I. M. Lewis, an anthropolo…
Causes and Coincidences
Causation and Universals
Causation and Universals
Causation and Universals
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Causation and Universal. By Evan Fales. (London and New York: Routledge, 1990. Pp. xxii + 362. Price £35.00.)The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume. By Galen Strawson. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pp. xiv + 291. Price £32.50.)Causation: A Realist Approach. By Michael Tooley. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Pp. xiv + 360. Price £32.50.) E.J. Lowe E.J. Lowe University of Durham Search for…
Causation
Davidson's Compatibilism
The problem of free will has been with us ever since men began to recognize the existence of laws of nature. Explanatory theories exercise a kind of imperialism over human thought, in the sense that we inevitably try to extend the embrace of a successful theory to cover as many phenomena as opportunity allows. Theoretical hypotheses come in various degrees of generality. Among them, one of the most general is the vague and relatively noncommittal…
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Natural Kinds and Freaks of Nature
Essentialism—understood as the doctrine that there are natural kinds—can be sustained with respect to the most fundamental physical entities of the world, as I elsewhere argue. In this paper I take up the question of the existence of natural kinds among complex structures built out of these elementary ones. I consider a number of objections to essentialism, in particular Locke's puzzle about the existence of borderline cases. A number of recent a…
Must sociology be qualitative
Uniqueness and Historical Laws
This paper presents an argument for the claim that historical events are unique in a nontrivial sense which entails the inapplicability of the Hempelian D-N model to historical explanations. Some previous criticisms of Hempel are shown to be general criticisms of the D-N model which can be outflanked in cases where a reduction to fundamental laws is available. I then survey grounds for denying that explanations by reasons can be effectively reduc…
Relative Essentialism
Theoretical Simplicity and Defeasibility
Theoretical simplicity is difficult to characterize, and evidently can depend upon a number of distinct factors. One such desirable characteristic is that the laws of a theory have relatively few “counterinstances” whose accommodation requires the invocation of a ceteris paribus condition and ancillary explanation. It is argued that, when one theory is reduced to another, such that the laws of the second govern the behavior of the parts of the en…
The Ontology of Social Roles
Truth, Tradition, and Rationality
Uniqueness and Historical Laws
This paper presents an argument for the claim that historical events are unique in a nontrivial sense which entails the inapplicability of the Hempelian D-N model to historical explanations. Some previous criticisms of Hempel are shown to be general criticisms of the D-N model which can be outflanked in cases where a reduction to fundamental laws is available. I then survey grounds for denying that explanations by reasons can be effectively reduc…
Plantinga's Case Against Naturalistic Epistemology
In Warrant and Proper Function , Alvin Plantinga claims that metaphysical naturalism, when joined to a naturalized epistemology, is self-undermining. Plantinga argues that naturalists are committed to a neoDarwinian account of our origins, and that the reliability of our cognitive faculties is improbable or unknown relative to that theory. If the theory is true, then we are in no position to know that, whereas theism, if true, underwrites cogniti…
Relative Essentialism
Theoretical Simplicity and Defeasibility
Theoretical simplicity is difficult to characterize, and evidently can depend upon a number of distinct factors. One such desirable characteristic is that the laws of a theory have relatively few “counterinstances” whose accommodation requires the invocation of a ceteris paribus condition and ancillary explanation. It is argued that, when one theory is reduced to another, such that the laws of the second govern the behavior of the parts of the en…
Proper Basicality
Foundationalist epistemologies, whether internalist or externalist, ground noetic structures in beliefs that are said to be foundational, or properly basic. It is essential to such epistemologies that they provide clear criteria for proper basicality. This proves, 1 argue, to be a thorny task, at least insofar as the goal is to provide a psychologically realistic reconstruction of our actual doxastic practices. I examine some of the difficulties,…
Scientific Explanations of Mystical Experiences, Part I
Several writers have argued for the implausibility of there being naturalistic explanations of mystical experience. These writers recognize that the evidential significance of mystical experiences for theism depends upon whether explanations that exclude supernatural agency can be discounted; but they seem unaware of some of the best scientific work done in this area. Part I of the present paper introduces the theory of I. M. Lewis, an anthropolo…
The Ontology of Social Roles
Causation
Natural Kinds and Freaks of Nature
Essentialism—understood as the doctrine that there are natural kinds—can be sustained with respect to the most fundamental physical entities of the world, as I elsewhere argue. In this paper I take up the question of the existence of natural kinds among complex structures built out of these elementary ones. I consider a number of objections to essentialism, in particular Locke's puzzle about the existence of borderline cases. A number of recent a…
Truth, Tradition, and Rationality
Truth, Tradition, and Rationality
The Ontology of Social Roles
Theoretical Simplicity and Defeasibility
Theoretical simplicity is difficult to characterize, and evidently can depend upon a number of distinct factors. One such desirable characteristic is that the laws of a theory have relatively few “counterinstances” whose accommodation requires the invocation of a ceteris paribus condition and ancillary explanation. It is argued that, when one theory is reduced to another, such that the laws of the second govern the behavior of the parts of the en…
Relative Essentialism
Uniqueness and Historical Laws
This paper presents an argument for the claim that historical events are unique in a nontrivial sense which entails the inapplicability of the Hempelian D-N model to historical explanations. Some previous criticisms of Hempel are shown to be general criticisms of the D-N model which can be outflanked in cases where a reduction to fundamental laws is available. I then survey grounds for denying that explanations by reasons can be effectively reduc…
Natural Kinds and Freaks of Nature
Essentialism—understood as the doctrine that there are natural kinds—can be sustained with respect to the most fundamental physical entities of the world, as I elsewhere argue. In this paper I take up the question of the existence of natural kinds among complex structures built out of these elementary ones. I consider a number of objections to essentialism, in particular Locke's puzzle about the existence of borderline cases. A number of recent a…
Must sociology be qualitative
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Davidson's Compatibilism
The problem of free will has been with us ever since men began to recognize the existence of laws of nature. Explanatory theories exercise a kind of imperialism over human thought, in the sense that we inevitably try to extend the embrace of a successful theory to cover as many phenomena as opportunity allows. Theoretical hypotheses come in various degrees of generality. Among them, one of the most general is the vague and relatively noncommittal…
Causation
Causation and Universals
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Causation and Universal. By Evan Fales. (London and New York: Routledge, 1990. Pp. xxii + 362. Price £35.00.)The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume. By Galen Strawson. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pp. xiv + 291. Price £32.50.)Causation: A Realist Approach. By Michael Tooley. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Pp. xiv + 360. Price £32.50.) E.J. Lowe E.J. Lowe University of Durham Search for…
Causation and Universals
Causation and Universals
Causes and Coincidences
Scientific Explanations of Mystical Experiences
In Part I of this paper, I took up a challenge posed by Alston (1991), Wainwright (1981), Yandell (1993), and other theists who hold the rather natural view that mystical experiences provide perceptual contact with God, roughly on a par with the access sense experience affords to the natural world. These theists recognize, at the same time, that the plausibility of this view would be significantly compromised by the possibility of scientifically …
Plantinga's Case Against Naturalistic Epistemology
In Warrant and Proper Function , Alvin Plantinga claims that metaphysical naturalism, when joined to a naturalized epistemology, is self-undermining. Plantinga argues that naturalists are committed to a neoDarwinian account of our origins, and that the reliability of our cognitive faculties is improbable or unknown relative to that theory. If the theory is true, then we are in no position to know that, whereas theism, if true, underwrites cogniti…
Scientific Explanations of Mystical Experiences, Part I
Several writers have argued for the implausibility of there being naturalistic explanations of mystical experience. These writers recognize that the evidential significance of mystical experiences for theism depends upon whether explanations that exclude supernatural agency can be discounted; but they seem unaware of some of the best scientific work done in this area. Part I of the present paper introduces the theory of I. M. Lewis, an anthropolo…
Evaluating Heterodox Theories
Journal Article Evaluating Heterodox Theories Get access Evan Fales, Evan Fales University of Iowa Direct correspondence to Evan Fales, Department of Philosophy, or Barry Markovsky, Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52242. E-mail [email protected] or [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Barry Markovsky Barry Markovsky University of Iowa Search for other wo…
Can science explain mysticism
Jerome Gellman has recently disputed my claim that a naturalistic explanation for mystical experiences is available, a better explanation than any current attempt to show that God is sometimes perceived in those experiences. Gellman argues (i) that some mystics do not ‘fit’ the sociological explanation of I. M. Lewis; (ii) that the sociological analysis of tribal mysticism cannot properly be extended to theistic experiences; and (iii) that mystic…
A Defense of the Given
What is the connection between experience and knowledge? Evan Fales defends the contested idea that sense experience can be used to justify basic beliefs. He explores what it is for a belief to be self-evident and examines implications for his argument of Gestalt psychology and visual phenomena and illusions. Fales diverges from classical foundationalism, however, arguing that basic beliefs are often only probable, rather than infallible. A Defen…
Proper Basicality
Foundationalist epistemologies, whether internalist or externalist, ground noetic structures in beliefs that are said to be foundational, or properly basic. It is essential to such epistemologies that they provide clear criteria for proper basicality. This proves, 1 argue, to be a thorny task, at least insofar as the goal is to provide a psychologically realistic reconstruction of our actual doxastic practices. I examine some of the difficulties,…
Philosophy after Darwin
Sensible Animism
Philosophy (21 obras) · Epistemology (20 obras) · Sociology (9 obras) · Philosophy (6 obras) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (6 obras) · Causation (4 obras) · Computer Science (4 obras) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (4 obras) · Philosophy and History of Science (4 obras) · History (3 obras)