Alexander Pruss's Blog

Epiphenomenalists think that there are non-physical qualia that are causally inert: all causes are physical. The main reason epiphenomenalis...

Here is an interesting special case of Ockham’s Razor: If we find that of nomic necessity whenever A occurs, so does B , then it is reaso...

Let’s assume that lethal self-defense is permissible. Such self-defense requires an aggressor . There is a variety of concepts of an aggress...

You know what it’s like to see green. Close your eyes. Do you still know what it’s like to see green? I think so. Maybe you got lucky and ...

All facts completely reducible to physics are first-order facts. All facts completely explained by first-order facts are themselves comple...

In a lovely paper , Leon Porter shows that semantic naturalism is false. One way to put the argument is as follows: If semantic naturalism...

The truthteller paradox is focused on the sentence: This sentence is true. There is no contradiction in taking (1) to be true, but neith...

Start with this argument: It’s not wrong for me to love my friend as if they were in the image and likeness of God. If someone is not God...

Here’s an interesting set of cases that I haven’t seen a philosophical discussion of. To get some item B , you need to affirm that you did A...

Whether p is evidence for q will often depend on one’s background beliefs. This is a well-known phenomenon. But here’s an interesting fac...

The Gospel message—the account of the infinite and perfect God becoming one of us in order to suffer and die in atonement of our sins—is imm...

I don’t remember seeing much philosophical discussion of the duty to think hard . There is a distinction we should start with. For many x s...

A normative power is supposed to be a power to directly change normative reality. We can, of course, indirectly change normative reality by...

Assume naturalism and suppose that digital electronic systems can be significantly conscious. Suppose Alice is a deterministic significantly...

The famous Epicurean argument that death (considered as leading to nonexistence) is not a harm is that death doesn’t harm one when one is al...