Maverick Philosopher

I was in the eighth grade when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. We were assembled in an auditorium for some reason when the principal came in and announced that the president had been shot. The date was November 22, 1963. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was seated behind my quondam inamorata, Christine W. My love for her was from afar, like that of Don Quixote for the fair Dulcinea, but at the moment I was in close proximity to her, studying the back of her blouse through which I could make out the strap of her training bra . . . .

By the way, if you want to read a thorough (1,612 pages with notes on a separate CD!) takedown of all the JFK conspiracy speculation, I recommend Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

It was a tale of two nonentities, Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Both were little men who wanted to be big men. Oswald, acting alone, shot Kennedy. Ruby, acting alone, shot Oswald. That is the long and the short of it. For details, I refer you to Bugliosi.

(E-mail from cyberpunks on this topic will be deleted unread.)

Blogging is an excellent tool for the assembly, preliminary refinement, and presentation of one’s thoughts on any topic that turns one’s crank. One e-jaculates them into the 'sphere, and on an auspicious day one snags a worthwile comment or stimulating e-mail response. Fellow mortals can hinder, but they can also help. This medium allows one to interact with them without having them in one’s face. Some of us like that. It is community without physical proximity, a disembodied community, a meeting of minds without a collision of bodies. "Hell is other people" said Sartre famously, but he was thinking of them all assembled in one physical place. Heaven is having your interlocutor at a safe distance, like Thoreau and his vis-à-vis at opposite ends of his Walden pond cabin.

Blogging is a learning tool. Sure, there is hereabouts a bit of pontificatory rant, and ranting pontification, not to mention some necessary smiting of ideological enemies who are sorely in need of smiting; but mainly I blog to learn, and I learn because I don’t know. Nescio ergo blogo, with apologies to those who want Latin to stay good and dead. I do not know, so I blog.

I blog for the same reason that I write: to know my mind, to actualize my mind, and to hook a few like-minded people to myself. When mind-actualization becomes a chore, then it will be time to pack it in. But when that time comes, it will be time to pack it in all the way.

Many are the reasons to blog. To develop a thicker skin is another of them. A thick skin is an attribute conducive to negotiating this world with equanimity. Since I've taken up blogging, I have noticed a definite uptick in the fitness of my psycho-armor. Nasty e-mails and the like roll off me. The scum of humanity offend me less. And one day, to cop a line from Nietzsche, "my only negation shall be to look away."

It is one of the arts of life to know how to live with zest and engagement, yet with a certain detachment. To borrow an old Hindu figure, the lotus blossom floats on the water but without getting wet. In contact with life but unsullied by it. It's an ideal, but we need ideals to live well.

SECTION 9. To be self-sufficient, to be all in all to oneself, to want for nothing, to be able to say omnia mea mecum porto — that is assuredly the chief qualification for happiness. Hence Aristotle’s remark, hae eudaimonia ton autarchon esti, Eudem. Eth. VII. ii. 37 — to be happy means to be self-sufficient — cannot be too often repeated. It is, at bottom, the same thought as is present in the very well-turned sentence from Chamfort: Le bonheur n’est pas chose aisée: il est très difficile de le trouver en nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs.

For while a man cannot reckon with certainty upon anyone but himself, the burdens and disadvantages, the dangers and annoyances, which arise from having to do with others, are not only countless but unavoidable.

But from whom did Schopenhauer borrow the saying? A question for a classicist, so we turn to the erudite Mike Gilleland for help. Here he finds the idea in Seneca, and the formulation itself (in different word order: omnia mecum porto mea) in Cicero. It is good bet that the pessimist found the tag in the writings of the Roman statesman.

It is easy Latin. Start at the end with the verb, porto, 'I carry.' From the infinitive portare, the stem port lives on in numerous words of English and other languages: port, portage, porter, portable, porta-potty, import, export, report (to carry back), deport, comport, transport, portmanteau (carry-all), and so on. What about disport? It means to divert or amuse. Someone who disports himself (lasciviously with the ladies, for example) gets carried away.

I carry what? Omnia mea, my all. That mea qualifies omnia is clear from the sameness of their terminal letters. How do I carry it? Mecum, with me. Cum is in use in (non-pornographic) English as a substitute for 'with,' so mecum presents no difficulty.

The maintenance of a journal aids mightily in the project of self-individuation. Like that prodigious journal writer Søren Kierkegaard, I believe we are here to become actually the individuals we are potentially. Our individuation is nicht gegeben sondern aufgegeben to borrow a famous phrase from the neo-Kantians: it is not given, but a task to be accomplished. The world is a vale of soul-making; we are not here to improve it, but to be improved by it.

Henry David Thoreau, another of the world’s great journal writers, said in Walden that “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” I would only add that without a journal, one’s life is one of quiet dissipation. One’s life dribbles away, day by day, unreflected on, unexamined, unrecorded, and thus fundamentally unlived. Living, for us, is not just a biological process; it is fundamentally a spiritual unfolding. To mean anything it has to add up to something, and that something cannot be expressed with a dollar sign.

I have always had a horror of an unfocused existence. In my early twenties, I spoke of the “supreme desideratum of a focused existence.” What bothered me about the people around me, fellow students in particular, was the mere aestheticism of their existence: their aimless drifting hither and yon, their lack of commitment, their unseriousness, their refusal to engage the arduous task of self-definition and self-individuation, their willingness to be guided and mis-guided by social suggestions. In one’s journal one collects and re-collects oneself; one makes war against the lower self and the forces of dispersion.

Another advantage to a journal and its regular maintenance is that one thereby learns how to write, and how to think. An unwritten thought is still a half-baked thought: proper concretion is achieved only by expressing thoughts in writing and developing them. Always write as well as you can, in complete sentences free of grammatical and spelling errors. Develop the sentences into paragraphs, and if the Muse is with you those paragraphs may one day issue in essays, articles, and chapters of books.

So I'm a frugal bastard too. And on the automotive front, I've got Keith beat. His car is old as sin, but mine is older, as old as Original Sin. It's a 1988 Jeep Cherokee base model: five-speed manual tranny, 4.0 liter, six-cylinder engine, four-wheel drive, off-road shocks, oversized tires, and manual air conditioning despite the fact that I live in the infernal Valle del Sol -- from which I don't escape in the summer like some snowbird wimps I could mention. Manual air conditioning: if you want air, you use your God-given hands to roll down the windows. In this part of the country manual A/C is also know to the politically incorrect as 'Mexican air conditioning.' 'Roll down the windows, Manuel!' One blazing hot August I drove straight through from Bishop, California to Chandler, Arizona, 600 miles, alone. Stopping for gas in Blythe, on the California side of the Colorado river, I noted that the afternoon temperature was 115 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Bouncing along Interstate-10 I saw that the only people with their windows down were me and the Mexicans.

It's no big deal, really, driving through 115 degree heat in the middle of the day in the middle of the desert with the windows down. You take a bandanna and soak it in the ice-water in your cooler and wrap it around your neck. When the dry blast of desert wind hits the wet bandanna some serious evaporation takes place cooling your neck and with it the rest of your body. Feeling a little drowsy after four hundred miles of nonstop driving? Stoke up a cheap cigar, say that Swisher Sweet that's been aging under the seat alongside those oily shop rags, and throw another tape into the deck. May I recommend Dave Brubeck? Or how about Kerouac reading to the piano accompaniment of Steve Allen? Or perhaps that latter-day beat, Tom Waits. With four on the road, one in the hand, a cigar in the mouth, some boiling hot McDonald's drive-through java in the other hand, Brubeck on the box, proudly enthroned at the helm of a solid chunk of De-troit iron, rolling down a wide-open American road, with a woman waiting at the end of the line, you're feeling fine.

I bought the Jeep around Thanksgiving, 1987 and come this Thanksgiving it will have been twenty years. Expect another post in celebration. An old car is a cheap car: cheap to operate, cheap to insure, cheap to register. My last registration renewal cost me all of $31.39 for two years. My wife's late model Jeep Liberty, however, set us back $377.93 for two years. With a five-speed manual tranny, a six cylinder engine, and no A/C I can easily get 25 mpg. With a tailwind, 30 mpg. So I don't want to hear any liberal bullshit about all SUVs being gas guzzlers. Your mileage may vary.

Americans are very foolish when it comes to money. If you want to stay poor, buy a new car every four or five years. That's what most Americans do. And if you finance the 'investment,' you compound your mistake. Buy a good car, pay cash, and keep it 10+ years. Better yet, live without a car. From September 1973 to May 1979 I lived and lived well without a car. But I was in Boston and Europe, compact places.

Mike Gilleland, the Laudator Temporis Acti, is now three years into it as well. He started his six days after I started mine and he writes that I was his inspiration. I am proud to have played some minor role in triggering his astonishing outpouring of erudite and finely crafted pieces. I can think of a half-dozen others whom I have inspired to take up the 'sport,' but (false?) modesty forbids me from listing them.

Perhaps it comes down to this. Either you are a natural-born scribbler or you are not. If you are, then in this day and age you will most likely end up a blogger. I like what I said two years ago on the occasion of my first anniversary:

We studious types are not about to abandon study. It is is just too richly satisfying. Now if you read, you ought to study what you read, and if you study, you ought to take notes. And if you take notes, you owe it to yourself to assemble them into some sort of coherent commentary. What is the point of studious reading if not to evaluate critically what you read, assimilating the good while rejecting the bad? The forming of the mind is the name of the game. What’s the good of it? It is self-evidently good in and of itself. Mental/spiritual culture is the highest culture, and everything else exists to serve it. Vita activa ancilla philosophiae. The active life, the life of hustling and hassling, of getting and making, is the handmaiden of philosophy. The worldly hustle is for the sake of contemplative repose.

Blogging is an excellent tool for the assembly, preliminary refinement, and presentation of one’s thoughts on any topic that turns one’s crank. One e-jaculates them into the ‘sphere, and on an auspicious day one snags a worthwile comment or stimulating e-mail response. Fellow mortals can hinder, but they can also help. This medium allows one to interact with them without having them in one’s face. Some of us like that. It is community without physical proximity, a disembodied community, a meeting of minds without a collision of bodies. "Hell is other people," said Sartre famously, but he was thinking of them all assembled in one physical place. Heaven is having your interlocutor at a safe distance, like Thoreau and his vis-a-vis at opposite ends of his Walden pond cabin.

I've been at the blogging game for about three years now, and on at least a half-dozen occasions I have had people say or suggest that a certain post was directed at them. Well, we are all vain, and we all take the measure of events in their relation to our dear old selves. So you read one of my posts and you think, "Is he trying to get back at me?" But I'm an idea man, not a people person, and so my posts are about ideas always and primarily and about people only sometimes and secondarily. And if they are about specific people I say so.

So Ed Yetman can rest assured that this post is not about him, and neither was The Losertarian Party post which Yetman suspected was crafted with him in mind in order to "twit" him as he put it in a comment. (When I first met Ed in '91 or so he was a libertarian and actually tried to rope me into some libertarian politicking. He told me recently that he is now a monarchist. Is that yet another example of Yetmaniacal whimsicality?)

And Bob Koepp can rest assured that this post is not about him, and neither was The Cowardice of One's Convictions. The aphorism occurred to me as follows. I have for a long time been thinking about the virtues and vices, and how some people will praise a person for his courage as if this covers a multitude of sins. But then I realized (what is obvious) that although courage is a virtue and hence a good thing, a person possessing courage is not necessarily an overall praiseworthy person. Muhammad Atta and the boys, for example, had the courage of their lunatic 72-black-eyed-virgins convictions. But they were evil men all the same. The pump having been primed, the aphorism unfurled itself before my mind:

Some are praised for having the courage of their convictions. But if one has the wrong convictions, then it might be better were he to have the cowardice of his convictions.

Just so everything is perfectly clear, my title is a takeoff on the refrain of a Carly Simon number from the early '70s. I am not saying de re of any particular person, Ed or Bob, or anyone, that he or she is vain. I am saying de dicto that all of the seed of Adam are vain sons-of-bitches.

The maintenance of a journal aids mightily in the project of self-individuation. Like that prodigious journal writer Søren Kierkegaard, I believe we are here to become actually the individuals we are potentially. Our individuation is nicht gegeben sondern aufgegeben to borrow a famous phrase from the neo-Kantians: it is not given, but a task to be accomplished. The world is a vale of soul-making; we are not here to improve it, but to be improved by it.

Henry David Thoreau, another of the world’s great journal writers, said in Walden that “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” I would only add that without a journal, one’s life is one of quiet dissipation. One’s life dribbles away, day by day, unreflected on, unexamined, unrecorded, and thus fundamentally unlived. Living, for us, is not just a biological process; it is fundamentally a spiritual unfolding. To mean anything it has to add up to something, and that something cannot be expressed with a dollar sign.

I have always had a horror of an unfocused existence. In my early twenties, I spoke of the “supreme desideratum of a focused existence.” What bothered me about the people around me, fellow students in particular, was the mere aestheticism of their existence: their aimless drifting hither and yon, their lack of commitment, their unseriousness, their refusal to engage the arduous task of self-definition and self-individuation, their willingness to be guided and mis-guided by social suggestions. In one’s journal one collects and re-collects oneself; one makes war against the lower self and the forces of dispersion.

Another advantage to a journal and its regular maintenance is that one thereby learns how to write, and how to think. An unwritten thought is still a half-baked thought: proper concretion is achieved only by expressing thoughts in writing and developing them. Always write as well as you can, in complete sentences free of grammatical and spelling errors. Develop the sentences into paragraphs, and if the Muse is with you those paragraphs may one day issue in essays, articles, and chapters of books.

Thank you for reading. You have been approved on the basis of your two or three e-mails and what a search on you e-mail address revealed. It is curious that the people who hesitate to comment are often the ones whose comments would be the best to receive, and contrapositively. I sometimes think I am too liberal in allowing people who are not 'up to speed' to comment, but then I remind myself what the masthead says about "promoting independent thought about ultimates." Part of this promoting involves interacting with a wide range of people, not just philosophy specialists. But I go back and forth on this question, since responding to comments takes time, not responding smacks of churlishness, and some of the effort expended is unproductive: I don't learn anything from it.

Still, I have received excellent and helpful comments from many. 'Spur' remains King Kommenter, though he hasn't been around in a while. And anyone who has read his comments knows that I don't say that because he agrees with me: he does sometimes but more often he does not. He has scored clean, direct hits that rationally compel me to say, "You've refuted me." There are at least a dozen or so other excellent commenters. I won't name them because I may leave some out and I don't want to insult them by omission. But they definitely keep me honest and sharp and contribute to my education. And that's what it is all about. In a corny slogan: 'Lifelong learning through blogging.'

So that is why I don't "ban comments altogether." They also make the site more interesting. Since you are a loyal reader, what do you think of the comments?

Now I cannot say that I know Schopenhauer's two-volumed magnum opus "like the back of my hand," but I have read most of it, in German and in English translation. I have thoroughly studied, and taught in a metaphysics class, his On the Freedom of the Will, which I recommend as the best introduction to the the Free Will problem that I know of. In 1988, I read an ethusiastic paper at a meeting of the Ohio Philosophical Association entitled, "Schopenhauer on the Freedom of the Will." In the opening paragraph, I say that I think that Schopenhauer is "wholly correct in his negative thesis . . . that the so-called freedom of the will is an illusion." I no longer agree with my 1988 self about this, however.

Over the years I have read and re-read the late Parerga and Parilipomena, the early Four-fold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, chunks of Metaphysik der Sitten from the Nachlass, some of On the Basis of Morality, and probably some things I am forgetting. My library contains 17 books by Schopenhauer and two books about him.

So yes, I've read some Schopenhauer.

But don't procrastinate as I did. It is not too much of a hassle. Yesterday I subsisted on clear fluids alone, my last meal being Wednesday's dinner. At four PM I swallowed four Dulocolax tablets and at six began quaffing four liters of a solution ($35 out of pocket, insurance wouldn't cover any part of it due to its one-time consumption) designed for lavage. That term, from Fr. laver and L. lavare, signifies the therapeutic washing out of an organ or orifice. And wash out my lower GI tract it did. By the next morning, said tract was so clean you could have eaten out of it.

The thought of deep ANALysis (deeper than sigmoidoscopy) may unnerve some of you, but if you are like me you won't be aware of a thing due to the narcotic cocktail they mainline into your arm. They gave me a bigger shot than I requested, as I wanted to watch the proceedings on the screen. My last words right after the Good Dr. Stein introduced himself and the nurse opened the IV valve were, "Time to be ANALyzed!" (I refrained from such other prepared witticisms as "Doc, I'm Mabel, if you're able" and philosophical nuggets about wide and narrow 'scope.') In no time at all I was floating face-down in the sweet waters of Lethe. Next thing I knew I was putting on my clothes and stumbling out the door with a clean bill of gastroenterological health.

Should I be blogging about a subject like this? Maybe not. But it was no physician who convinced me to get scoped out, but a regular guy in the pool who told me about his experience and how polyps were found. Maybe it takes a blogger to get you off your analysandum.

Have I gone on too long, hard by the boundary of boredom? Perhaps. So let me go on a bit more. A physician my own age once recommended a screening colonoscopy. I said, "Have you had one, Doc?" "No, I'm a runner," "Well, I'm a runner too." The doctor's enthymematic argument was bad, but it helped me procrastinate. And my wife once saw him coming out of a fast-food joint. But he was a good practioner and diagnostician. He had a scientific mind, something too many medicos lack.

BV: Learning sacred, scholarship transcendent, books sublime. I can see we have something in common, a commonality that is also part of the reason why I gave up teaching. The average run of students would dismiss your sentiments and mine as bullshit, as some kind of empty self-serving rhetoric that could only be spouted by some weirdo we fills his belly by spouting it. Most people have no intellectual eros, could not care less about scholarship, and place no value whatsoever on good books.

Proof of the latter point can be found by scouring the used bookstores in a locale like Boston-Cambridge. Take a book off the shelf that was assigned in a course, note the underlining or 'magic mark-up' and how it extends maybe three or four pages and then stops -- great for me, of course, who gets a relatively pristine copy for pennies, but indicative of the pointlessness of reading assignments.

Most teaching is like trying to feed people who aren't hungry. Pointless. Of course, I had some great students and great classes. But not enough of either to justify the enterprise.

Then there is the problem of stimulating colleagues. It is easy to end up in a department without any, in which case you are on your own, and you may as well be an independent scholar. Isolation? Not any more. Not with the WWW and the blogosphere in particular.

But the main reason I quit was to be able to do philosophy full time and live a more focused existence. It had been something I had been thinking about for a long time. I had tenure, had enjoyed it for seven years, had enjoyed a two-year visiting professorship, and was ready to take the next step in my life. The catalyst was my wife's being offered a great job in a beautiful place. Being a Westerner, I had served enough time in the effete and epicene East and was ready to get back to where mountains are mountains and hikers and climbers are damn glad of it.

Visits

Total ...................... 169,744 Average per Day ................ 603 Average Visit Length .......... 2:28 This Week .................... 4,223

Page Views

Total ...................... 281,658 Average per Day .............. 1,068 Average per Visit .............. 1.8 This Week .................... 7,478

My period of tubelessness included the whole of the 1970s and roughly the first third of the 1980s. Once I got the teaching job, I was able to afford a stereo system. I gave myself a classical music education and listened to the FM band. My tuner was usually set to WYSO, Yellow Springs, Ohio, an ultraliberal enclave and home to Antioch College. WYSO was an NPR affiliate and that is where I got most of my news and commentary. That and The New York Review of Books and The New Republic, to both of which I subscribed. In those days I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to the AM band.

But then a lovely creature entered my life. She came without a dowry but with a TV. Thus the tube entered my life and I joined the booboisie. But it was now the mid-80s and cable was the thing. Brian Lamb and the cable providers made possible C-Span, and this brings me to my main point.

No TV, no C-Span. Therein lies the main reason for owning a TV.

There are several other reasons, of course, but that is the main one. I suppose I am still an elitist, but an elitist of a different sort. Before, my elitism was manifested by a rejection of TV tout court; now by a selection of perhaps 20 out of 200 channels as worth viewing. The Hitler Channel, more commonly know as the History Channel, is worth a visit. I recently discovered the Documentary Channel which, despite its leftist leanings, is a source of some outstanding documentaries. I'm not talking about docu-drama bullshit, such as one might find on MSM networks, but hard-core documentaries containing lengthy interviews with interesting characters. A recent one, on anarchism, included a long interview with Karl Hess.

Thu Jun 22 15:12:22 EDT 2006
CSA
Database: Philosopher`s Index
Query: vallicella

Record 1 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Compositional Science and Religious Philosophy
AU: Author
Angel, Leonard
SO: Source
Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of
Religion, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 125-143, June 2005
IS: ISSN
0034-4125
DE: Descriptors
Causal; Completeness; Physical; Religion; Religious Experience;
Science
AB: Abstract
Religious thought often assumes that the principle of physical causal
completeness (PCC) is false. But those who explicitly deny or doubt
PCC, including William Alston, W. D. Hart, Tim Crane, Paul Moser and
David Yandell, Charles Taliaferro, Keith Yandell, Dallas Willard,
William Vallicella, Frank Dilley, and, recently, David Chalmers, have
ignored not only the explicit but also the implicit grounds for
acceptance of PCC. I review the explicit grounds, and extend the
hitherto implicit grounds, which together constitute a greater
challenge to contemporary religious philosophy than has been realized.
Religious philosophers need to find a better way around PCC than has
been found, or, if PCC is unavoidable, religious philosophers need to
work toward a worldview that both accepts PCC and defends strong forms
of religious experience.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2005
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060502
AN: Accession Number
2075195

Record 2 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Review of Metaphysics, vol. 58, no. 3 (231), March 2005
IS: ISSN
0034-6632
RA: Review Author
McCann, Hugh J
RW: Related Work
Author(s): Vallicella, William F. Title: A Paradigm Theory of
Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated. Published: Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Pub., 2005
PY: Publication Year
2005
PT: Publication Type
Book Review
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
9040904

Record 3 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Bradley's Regress and Relation-Instances
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Modern Schoolman: A Quarterly Journal of Philosophy, vol. 81, no. 3,
pp. 159-183, March 2004
IS: ISSN
0026-8402
DE: Descriptors
Metaphysics; Regress; Relation; Unification; Bradley
AB: Abstract
Different philosophers take Bradley's regress to prove different
things. After presenting a rigorous reconstruction of Bradley's
argument, I examine and reject D. W. Mertz's claim that what the
argument ultimately shows is that relations in reality occur only as
particulars, relation-instances or relational tropes. I also respond
to Mertz's criticisms of my theory according to which the unifier of a
fact's constituents must be external to the fact.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2004
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1785294

Record 4 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
The Moreland-Willard-Lotze Thesis on Being
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Philosophia Christi, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 27-58, Series 2 2004
IS: ISSN
1529-1634
DE: Descriptors
Being; Existence; Metaphysics; Property; Moreland, J
AB: Abstract
This article is an introduction to my book, A Paradigm Theory of
Existence (Kluwer 2002). It covers material not treated in the
book. The article examines and rejects J. P. Moreland's theory
according to which "existence is not a property which belongs,
but is the belonging of a property." I explain what is right
with this view, but also what is wrong with it. I then examine a
similar theory advanced by Moreland's teacher, Dallas Willard. The
article then criticizes a precursor theory in Hermann Lotze. In
conclusion, I sketch my positive theory.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2004
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1785245

Record 5 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Kant Chastened but Vindicated: Rejoinder to Forgie
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 98-104, January 2004
IS: ISSN
0739-7046
DE: Descriptors
Cosmological Proof; Ontological Proof; Religion; Forgie, J; Kant
AB: Abstract
I have defended the quasi-Kantian thesis that the cosmological
argument for the existence of God depends for its probativeness on the
ontological argument from possibility. William Forgie finds my case
for this thesis unconvincing. This rejoinder clarifies my position and
rebuts Forgie's counterarguments.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2004
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
2062030

Record 6 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Philosophia Christi, vol. 6, no. 1, Series 2 2004
IS: ISSN
1529-1634
RA: Review Author
Moreland, J P
RW: Related Work
Author(s): Vallicella, William F. Title: A Paradigm Theory of
Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated. Published: Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Pub., 2004
PY: Publication Year
2004
PT: Publication Type
Book Review
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
9038456

Record 7 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Philosophy in Review (Comptes rendus philosophiques), vol. 23, no. 6,
December 2003
IS: ISSN
1206-5269
RA: Review Author
Armour, Leslie
RW: Related Work
Author(s): Vallicella, William F. Title: A Paradigm Theory of
Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated. Published: Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Pub., 2003
PY: Publication Year
2003
PT: Publication Type
Book Review
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
9034287

Record 8 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
The Problem of Existence, by Arthur Witherall (Aldershot: Ashgate
Publishing, 2002)
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 176-188,
Spring-Summer 2003
IS: ISSN
1098-3570
DE: Descriptors
Being; Existence; Fecundity; Religion; Sufficient Reason; Witherall,
A
AB: Abstract
This review article situates Witherall's book within the context of
recent theories of existence and submits some of his theses to a
critical examination. His central thesis is that "Being gives itself
to beings." This is supposed to answer the fundamental question of
metaphysics, namely, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
Witherall's answer is intended to be neutral as between theism and
atheism. This article shows, however, that Witherall's proposal makes
sense only within a theistic perspective.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2003
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1773252

Record 9 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
The Alleged Dependency of the Cosmological Argument on the
Ontological
AU: Author
Forgie, J William
SO: Source
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 364-370, July 2003
IS: ISSN
0739-7046
DE: Descriptors
Cosmological Proof; Existence; God; Metaphysics; Ontological Proof
AB: Abstract
In a recent issue of Faith and Philosophy, William Vallicella
maintains that the cosmological argument (CA) depends on the
ontological argument (OA), not on an OA "from mere concepts", as Kant
wrongly supposed, but on a modal OA "from possibility". He argues (1)
that the CA "presupposes" that God (or the ens realissum) is
possible, and therefore (2) that the CA depends on the OA in a way
that renders the CA superfluous. I suggest that although (1) is
undeniably true, the notion of presupposition Vallicella uses is
insufficiently epistemic to allow his inference from (1) to (2).
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2003
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1780278

Record 10 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
The Problem of Existence
AU: Author
Witherall, Arthur
SO: Source
Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 1, Spring-Summer 2003
IS: ISSN
1098-3570
RA: Review Author
Vallicella, William F
RW: Related Work
Author(s): Witherall, Arthur. Title: The Problem of Existence.
Published: Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing., 2003
PY: Publication Year
2003
PT: Publication Type
Book Review
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
9035446

Record 11 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A Tension in Quine's Theory of Existence
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 193-204,
Fall-Winter 2003
IS: ISSN
1098-3570
DE: Descriptors
Being; Existence; Metaphysics; Quantifier; Quine; Van Inwagen, P
AB: Abstract
"What is it for an item to be there?" Peter van Inwagen has recently
suggested that this be called the metaontological question, and more
importantly, has endorsed Quine's answer to it. Ingredient in this
Quinean answer to the metaontological question are several theses,
among them, "Being is the same as existence"; "Being is univocal"; and
"The single sense of being or existence is adequately captured by the
existential quantifier of formal logic." This article examines the
last of these theses, which van Inwagen claims "ought to be
uncontroversial." But far from having this deontic property, the
thesis in question ought to be not only controverted, but rejected.
(edited)
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2003
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1781741

Record 12 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A Paradigm of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated by William F.
Vallicella (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002)
AU: Author
Butchvarov, Panayot
SO: Source
Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 314-319,
Fall-Winter 2003
IS: ISSN
1098-3570
DE: Descriptors
Existence; Metaphysics; Mind; Realism; Vallicella, W
AB: Abstract
A thing "consists" of its properties, though existence is not one of
them, and perhaps a "bare particular." But it is not the set of its
constituents. They might exist even if it did not. The thing exists
only if its constituents are united. How are to understand this union?
We must appeal to its ground. The ground must be ontological, not
causal. It is an individual that is existence itself. Vallicella calls
it the 'paradigm'. Its role is not causal, for to appeal to a cause we
must presuppose an understanding of the existence of its effect.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2003
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1781750

Record 13 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 2, Fall-Winter 2003
IS: ISSN
1098-3570
RA: Review Author
Butchvarov, Panayot
RW: Related Work
Author(s): Vallicella, William F. Title: A Paradigm Theory of
Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated. Published: Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Pub., 2003
PY: Publication Year
2003
PT: Publication Type
Book Review
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
9037703

Record 14 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
No Self? A Look at a Buddhist Argument
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 453-466,
December 2002
IS: ISSN
0019-0365
DE: Descriptors
Buddhism; Metaphysics; Negation; Religion; Self
AB: Abstract
Central to Buddhist thought and practice is the anatta doctrine.
In its unrestricted form the doctrine amounts to the claim that
nothing at all possesses self-nature. This article examines an early
Buddhist argument for the doctrine. The argument, roughly, is that (i)
if anything were a self, it would be both unchanging and
self-determining; (ii) nothing has both of these properties;
therefore, (iii) nothing is a self. The thesis of this article is
that, despite the appearance of formal validity, the truth of (i) is
inconsistent with the truth of (iii).
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2002
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1707101

Record 15 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Incarnation and Identity
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 84-93,
Spring-Summer 2002
IS: ISSN
1098-3570
DE: Descriptors
Christianity; Identity; Incarnation; Religion; Trinity
AB: Abstract
The characteristic claim of Christianity, as codified at Chalcedon, is
that God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is numerically the
same person as Jesus of Nazareth. This article raises three questions
that appear to threaten the coherence of orthodox Chalcedonian
incarnationalism. (edited)
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2002
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1701007

Record 16 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
The Creation-Conservation Dilemma and Presentist Four-Dimensionalism
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of
Religion, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 187-200, June 2002
IS: ISSN
0034-4125
DE: Descriptors
Conservation; Creation; Dilemma; Dimension; God; Religion
AB: Abstract
On traditional theism, God is not only a creator but also a conserver.
The doctrine of conservation, however, appears to face a dilemma.
Either conservation is continuous recreation with consequences
inimical to diachronic identity, or conservation is an operation upon
a pre-existent entity, which, because it is pre-existent, is in no
clear need of conservation. This article first makes a case for the
dilemma, and then proposes a way between its horns. Safe passage is
possible if we adopt presentist four-dimensionalism, i.e., the
conjunction of presentism, according to which temporally present items
alone exist, and four-dimensionalism, the doctrine that individuals
are not continuants but wholes of temporal parts.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2002
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1699295

Record 17 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Relations, Monism, and the Vindication of Bradley's Regress
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Dialectica: International Journal of Philosophy of Knowledge, vol. 56,
no. 1, pp. 3-35, 2002
IS: ISSN
0012-2017
DE: Descriptors
External; Metaphysics; Monism; Regress; Relation; Bradley
AB: Abstract
This article articulates and defends F. H. Bradley's regress argument
against external relations using contemporary analytic techniques and
conceptuality. Bradley's argument is usually quickly dismissed as if
it were beneath serious consideration. But I shall maintain that
Bradley's argument, suitably reconstructed, is a powerful argument,
plausibly premised, and free of such obvious fallacies as petitio
principii. Thus, it does not rest on the question-begging
assumption that all relations are internal, as Russell, and more
recently van Inwagen, maintain. Bradley does not attack external
relations in order to affirm a doctrine of internal relations, and his
monism is not derived from the internality of all relations, but
from the self-contradictory nature of all relations. For Bradley, it
is the "relational situation" as such that is ontologically
defective.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2002
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1700605

Record 18 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated
(Philosophical Studies Series 89)
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pub, 2002.
DE: Descriptors
Metaphysics; Ontology; Ontotheology; Philosophical Theology; Brentano;
Frege
AB: Abstract
This book thoroughly analyzes and demolishes the main deflationary and
eliminativist theories of existence, including those of Brentano,
Frege, Russell, and Quine. It then proposes a "paradigm theory of
existence" which offers a unified answer to the questions, "What is it
to any contingent thing to exist?" and "Why does any contingent thing
exist?". The central idea of the 'paradigm theory' is that existence
itself is a paradigmatically existent concrete individual. In this
way, the author vindicates onto-theology and puts paid to the
Heideggerian conceit that Being cannot itself be a being.
IB: ISBN
1402008872
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2002
PT: Publication Type
Book
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1709565

Record 19 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Brentano on Existence
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 311-327, July
2001
IS: ISSN
0740-0675
DE: Descriptors
Eliminativism; Existence; Metaphysics; Brentano
AB: Abstract
This article begins by distinguishing eliminativist from identitarian
theories of singular existence. It is then argued that Brentano's
theory is most charitably construed as eliminativist, as denying that
existence is attributable to individuals. Next, Brentano's central
argument is evaluated and rejected according to which, (i) the
copulative 'is' is syncategorematic; (ii) 'exist(s)' can be eliminated
in favor of the copulative 'is'; hence, the former is as
syncategorematic as the latter. A positive argument against
eliminativism is then presented. The penultimate section extends the
critique to the eliminativism of Frege and Russell. The conclusion
suggests that theories like that of Brentano, Frege, and Russell
derive their plausibility from a waffling between identitarian and
eliminativist approaches.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2001
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1689741

Record 20 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
From Facts to God: An Onto-Cosmological Argument
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 48, no. 3, pp.
157-181, December 2000
IS: ISSN
0020-7047
DE: Descriptors
Cosmological Proof; Existence; Fact; God; Power; Proof; Religion
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2000
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1685408

Record 21 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Does the Cosmological Argument Depend on the Ontological?
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 441-458, October 2000
IS: ISSN
0739-7046
DE: Descriptors
Cosmological Proof; God; Metaphysics; Ontological Proof; Religion;
Bennett, J; Forgie, J; Kant
AB: Abstract
Does the cosmological argument (CA) depend on the ontological (OA)?
That depends. If the OA is an argument "from mere concepts," then no;
if the OA is an argument from possibility, then yes. That is my main
thesis. Along the way, I explore a number of subsidiary themes, among
them, the nature of proof in metaphysics, and what Kant calls the
"mystery of absolute necessity."
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2000
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1685341

Record 22 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Three Conceptions of States of Affairs
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Noûs, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 237-259, June 2000
IS: ISSN
0029-4624
DE: Descriptors
Logic; States Of Affairs; Truth; Armstrong, D
AB: Abstract
A state of affairs (STOA) is a contingent unity of constituents. The
nature of this unity, however, poses a problem. This article argues
that there are three theoretically possible conceptions of STOAs
depending on how we account for the unity of their constituents. On
the reductionist conception, associated with Gustav Bergmann and
others, the unity of a STOA's primary constituents is explained in
terms of a secondary constituent that connects the primary
constituents. On the nonreductionist conception, championed by D. M.
Armstrong et al., the unity of constituents is accounted for by the
STOA itself. This article argues against both the reductionist and
nonreductionist approaches, and then explores the idea that a STOA is
a complex, the constituents of which are united by a unifier distinct
from the STOA and its constituents.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
2000
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1690471

Record 23 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A Most Unlikely God: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature of God
AU: Author
Miller, Barry
SO: Source
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, vol. 38, no. 3, Summer 1999
IS: ISSN
0012-2173
RA: Review Author
Vallicella, William F
RW: Related Work
Author(s): Miller, Barry. Title: A Most Unlikely God: A Philosophical
Inquiry into the Nature of God. Published: Notre Dame: Univ Notre Dame
Pr., 1999
PY: Publication Year
1999
PT: Publication Type
Book Review
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
9017278

Record 24 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
God, Causation and Occasionalism
AU: Author
Vallicella, W F
SO: Source
Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of
Religion, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 3-18, March 1999
IS: ISSN
0034-4125
DE: Descriptors
Causation; God; Occasionalism; Religion; Al-ghazali; Smith, Q
AB: Abstract
The doctrine that there are no logically necessary connections in
nature can be used to support both occasionalism, according to which
God alone can be a cause, and 'antioccasionalism', according to which
God cannot be a cause. Quentin Smith has recently invoked the 'no
logically necessary connections in nature' doctrine in support of the
latter. I bring two main objections against his thesis that God
(logically) cannot be a cause. The first is that there are good
reasons to think that there are irreducible dispositions in nature,
and that where such dispositions are manifested, there are logically
necessary causal connections. The second objection is that even if the
'no logically necessary connections in nature' doctrine is true, one
is not forced to deny causal efficacy to God: with no breach in
logical propriety, one may embrace occasionalism.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1999
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1666152

Record 25 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Could a Classical Theist Be a Physicalist?
AU: Author
Vallicella, W F
SO: Source
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 160-180, April 1998
IS: ISSN
0739-7046
DE: Descriptors
Christianity; God; Philosophy; Physicalism; Religion
AB: Abstract
Since physicalism is fashionable nowadays, one should perhaps not be
too surprised to find a growing number of theistic philosophers bent
on combining theism with physicalism. I shall be arguing that this is
an innovation we have good reason to resist. I begin by distinguishing
global physicalism (physicalism about everything) from local
physicalism (physicalism about human beings). I then present the
theist who would be a physicalist with a challenge: Articulate a
version of local physicalism that allows some minds to be purely
material and others to be purely immaterial. After examining the main
versions of local physicalism currently on offer, among them,
type-type identity theory, supervenientism, emergentism and
functionalism, I conclude that none of them can meet the challenge.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1998
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1660038

Record 26 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
On an Insufficient Argument against Sufficient Reason
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Ratio: An International Journal of Analytic Philosophy, vol. 10, no.
1, pp. 76-81, April 1997
IS: ISSN
0034-0006
DE: Descriptors
Argument; Epistemology; Proposition; Reason; Truth
AB: Abstract
The task of this article is to show that such maximal propositions
pose no threat to the principle. According to what is perhaps the most
'popular' version of the principle to sufficient reason (PSR), every
true proposition has a sufficient reason why it is true. Peter van
Inwagen formulates the principle as follows: 'for every truth, for
everything that is so, there is a sufficient reason for its being true
or being so.' Like many contemporary philosophers, however, he rejects
the principle. My purpose here is to show that the main philosophical
argument against PSR rests on a mistaken assumption. There is also a
'scientific' argument against PSR that turns on considerations of
quantum indeterminacy; but that argument lies beyond the scope of this
discussion.(edited)
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1997
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1647435

Record 27 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
The Hume-Edwards Objection to the Cosmological Argument
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Journal of Philosophical Research, vol. 22, pp. 423-443, April 1997
IS: ISSN
1053-8364
DE: Descriptors
Cosmological Proof; God; Metaphysics; Universe; Edwards, P; Hume
AB: Abstract
The Hume-Edwards objection has recently come under attack by atheists
and theists alike; if I am right, however, the real flaw in this
objection lies deep and has yet to be isolated. This paper accordingly
divides into two main parts. The first discusses three recent failed
critiques of the objection. The second presents the beginnings of what
I hope is a sound critique. I argue that there is no extant theory of
causation according to which it could be true both that I) each state
of the universe is caused by a preceding state and that II) each state
is caused to exist by a preceding state. Here we go only part of the
way in substantiating this ambitious thesis: we argue that no
nomological theory of causation satisfied both I) and
II).(edited)
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1997
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1648234

Record 28 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Bundles and Indiscernibility: A Reply to O'Leary-Hawthorne
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Analysis, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 91-94, January 1997
IS: ISSN
0003-2638
DE: Descriptors
Bundle; Indiscernibility; Metaphysics; Particular; Universal; Black,
M; O'leary-hawthorne, J
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1997
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1647606

Record 29 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Concurrentism or Occasionalism?
AU: Author
Vallicella, William
SO: Source
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 70, no. 3, pp.
339-359, Summer 1996
IS: ISSN
1051-3558
DE: Descriptors
Deism; God; Occasionalism; Religion; Thomism
AB: Abstract
How deeply is God involved in nature? According to concurrentism, God
not only maintains the universe in being, but also cooperates with
nature causes in the production of natural effects. Concurrentism thus
leaves room for genuine causal activity on the part of natural
substances, which fact marks it off sharply from occasionalism,
according to which God alone is a 'true' (productive) cause and
natural causes are mere occasional causes. This paper aims to tilt the
balance in favor of occasionalism, first by questioning the
Aristotelian conception of natural causation that animates the
concurrentist vision, and then by showing how a very plausible
contemporary theory of causation can be pressed into occasionalism's
service.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1996
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1643249

Record 30 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
No Time for Propositions
AU: Author
Vallicella, W F
SO: Source
Philosophia: Philosophical Quarterly of Israel, vol. 24, no. 3-4, pp.
473-480, December 1995
IS: ISSN
0048-3893
DE: Descriptors
Belief; Logic; Proposition; Temporality; Time; Smith, O
AB: Abstract
This is a critical reply to Quentin Smith, "Time and Propositions,"
Philosophia, vol. 20, no. 3 (December 1990), pp. 279-294. Smith
argues for two provocative theses. The first is that "All propositions
exist in time"; the second is that "All propositions refer to some
time or ascribe some temporal property or relation." I contend that
Smith has gone wrong on both counts and has given us no good reasons
to reject the view that propositions are essentially timeless
entities. Smith replies to some of my criticisms in "Absolute
Simultaneity and the Infinity of Time" in Robin Le Poidevin ed.,
Questions of Time and Tense (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997),
forthcoming.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1995
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1642180

Record 31 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Existence and Indefinite Identifiability
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Southwest Philosophy Review: The Journal of The Southwestern
Philosophical Society, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 171-186, July 1995
IS: ISSN
0897-2346
DE: Descriptors
Existence; Idealism; Indefinite; Metaphysics; Reality
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1995
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1632334

Record 32 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Do Individuals Exist?
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Journal of Philosophical Research, vol. 20, pp. 195-220, 1995
IS: ISSN
1053-8364
DE: Descriptors
Existence; Individual; Metaphysics; Edwards, P; Heidegger
AB: Abstract
Is there room for a metaphysics of existence above and beyond the
logic of exists'? This paper defends an affirmative answer. It takes
its point of departure from a recent polemic of Paul Edwards against
Heidegger. According to Edwards, following Frege and Russell,
Heidegger mistakenly assumes that existence belongs to individuals. I
argue that although Heidegger does indeed make this assumption, he is
not mistaken in so doing. My main concern, however, is neither to
defend Heidegger nor to reply to Edwards; it is to vindicate the
metaphysics of existence against the most damaging objection it
faces.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1995
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1250602

Record 33 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Is Existence a Property of Individuals?
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Proceedings of the Heraclitean Society: A Report on Philosophy and
Criticism of the Arts and Sciences, vol. 17, pp. 19-28, 1995
DE: Descriptors
Argument; Existence; Individual; Metaphysics; Property
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1995
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1633589

Record 34 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Does the Ontological Argument Beg the Question?
AU: Author
McGrath, P J
SO: Source
Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of
Religion, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 305-310, September 1994
IS: ISSN
0034-4125
DE: Descriptors
Existence; God; Ontological Proof; Religion; Vallicella, W
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1994
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1251359

Record 35 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
On Divine Simplicity: A New Defense
AU: Author
Miller, Barry
SO: Source
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 474-477, July 1994
IS: ISSN
0739-7046
DE: Descriptors
Divinity; Individual; Religion; Simplicity; Vallicella, W
AB: Abstract
I have two criticisms of Vallicella's "Divine Simplicity: A New
Defense." One is that its argument for property self-exemplification
fails because it ignores the distinction between "what" clauses
employing first-level quantification and those employing second-level
quantification. The second criticism is that his refection of
logically simple propositions stems from a failure to see that the
argument for those propositions is based on a logical premiss, not a
grammatical one.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1994
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1254599

Record 36 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
On Property Self-Exemplification: Rejoinder to Miller
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 478-481, July 1994
IS: ISSN
0739-7046
DE: Descriptors
Divinity; God; Individual; Religion; Simplicity
AB: Abstract
My defense of the divine simplicity depends crucially on the
possibility of property self-exemplification. Barry Miller, though a
friend of the simplicity doctrine, rejects the possibility in
question. This note provides some considerations in favor of property
self-exemplification as well as a response to Miller's objection.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1994
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1254600

Record 37 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
The Greater-Good Defence
AU: Author
Stewart, Melville Y
SO: Source
Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of
Religion, vol. 30, no. 2, June 1994
IS: ISSN
0034-4125
RA: Review Author
Vallicella, W F
RW: Related Work
Author(s): Stewart, Melville Y. Title: The Greater-Good Defence.
Published: New York: St Martin's Pr., 1994
PY: Publication Year
1994
PT: Publication Type
Book Review
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
9002439

Record 38 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker
AU: Author
Polkinghorne, John
SO: Source
International Studies in Philosophy, vol. 28, no. 4, 1994
IS: ISSN
0270-5664
RA: Review Author
Vallicella, W F
RW: Related Work
Author(s): Polkinghorne, John. Title: The Faith of a Physicist:
Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker. Published: Princeton: Princeton
Univ Pr., 1994
PY: Publication Year
1994
PT: Publication Type
Book Review
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
9009322

Record 39 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Has the Ontological Argument Been Refuted?
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of
Religion, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 97-110, March 1993
IS: ISSN
0034-4125
DE: Descriptors
Logic; Metaphysics; Ontological Proof; Possibility; Religion
AB: Abstract
It is nowadays widely accepted that there are valid modal versions of
the Ontological Argument. Nevertheless, the probative force of these
versions has been attacked on at least two grounds. First, that the
argument begs the question at the crucial premise that states, in
effect, that God is possible; second, that the crucial premise is more
rationally rejected than accepted. This article rebuts both charges.
Along the way, certain dogmatic assumptions of the critics are
exposed. Among them, the conceit that nothing concrete can necessarily
exist.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1993
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1235373

Record 40 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Divine Simplicity: A New Defense
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 508-525, October 1992
IS: ISSN
0739-7046
DE: Descriptors
Divinity; God; Religion; Simplicity
AB: Abstract
The doctrine of divine simplicity, according to which God is devoid of
physical or metaphysical complexity, is widely believed to be
incoherent. I argue that although two prominent recent attempts to
defend it fail, it can be defended against the charge of obvious
incoherence. The defense rests on the isolation and rejection of a
crucial assumption, namely, that no property is an individual to
warrant the assumption, and that once the assumption is rejected, the
way is clear to viewing the divine attributes as self-exemplifying
properties whose self-exemplification entails their identity with an
individual.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1992
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1238150

Record 41 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Reply to Smith: The Question of Idealism.
AU: Author
VALLICELLA, William F
SO: Source
International Philosophical Quarterly, pp. 343-348, September 1991
IS: ISSN
0019-0365
DE: Descriptors
Absolute; Existence; Idealism; Logic; Metaphysics
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1991
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1225721

Record 42 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Reply to Davies: Creation and Existence.
AU: Author
VALLICELLA, William F
SO: Source
International Philosophical Quarterly, pp. 213-225, June 1991
IS: ISSN
0019-0365
DE: Descriptors
Creation; Existence; God; Metaphysics; Davies, B
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1991
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1223839

Record 43 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Reply to Vallicella: Heidegger and Idealism.
AU: Author
SMITH, Quentin
SO: Source
International Philosophical Quarterly, pp. 231-235, June 1991
IS: ISSN
0019-0365
DE: Descriptors
Dasein; Idealism; Metaphysics; Heidegger; Vallicella, W
AB: Abstract
Vallicella argued that Heidegger's idealism is incoherent but that
absolute idealism is coherent. I argue the reverse. There is no
contradiction in the supposition that Being is dependent upon Dasein,
that entities are dependent upon Being, and therefore that all
entities are dependent upon Dasein. This may be false, but it is
consistent. The absolute idealism of Fichte and the like is
incoherent, however, because it supposes that all human minds are but
representations in the Absolute Mind, and it is impossible for a mind
to be nothing but a representation in another Mind.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1991
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1223841

Record 44 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Consciousness and Intentionality: Illusions?
AU: Author
Vallicella, William
SO: Source
Idealistic Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, vol.
21, no. 1, pp. 79-89, January 1991
IS: ISSN
0046-8541
DE: Descriptors
Consciousness; Intentionality; Metaphysics
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1991
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1228881

Record 45 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Two Faces of Theism.
AU: Author
VALLICELLA, William F
SO: Source
Idealistic Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, pp.
238-257, September 1990
IS: ISSN
0046-8541
DE: Descriptors
God; Mystic; Religion; Theism
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1990
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1228219

Record 46 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Reply to Zimmerman: Heidegger and the Problem of Being.
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 245-254,
June 1990
IS: ISSN
0019-0365
DE: Descriptors
Being; Metaphysics; Heidegger; Zimmerman, M
AB: Abstract
This is a ten-page reply to Michael E Zimmerman's "On Vallicella's
Critique of Heidegger" (Int Phil Quart, 30(1), 75-100, Mar 90). In a
series of articles I have elaborated the thesis that Heidegger's
philosophy of Being either issues in an unacceptable form of idealism,
or cannot make good on its claim to being phenomenological ontology.
On this occasion I deepen my critique by way of responding to
Zimmerman's meta-critique. The article divides into five sections:
"How Not to Defend Heidegger"; "The Critique Restated"; "Zimmerman's
Defense: Autodisclosure and Intrinsic Intelligibility";
"Autodisclosure as Non-Relational Appearing"; "Finitude, Transcendence
and Hypostatization."
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1990
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1186783

Record 47 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
On Vallicella's Critique of Heidegger.
AU: Author
Zimmerman, Michael E
SO: Source
International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 75-100,
March 1990
IS: ISSN
0019-0365
DE: Descriptors
Being; Metaphysics; Will; Heidegger; Vallicella, W
AB: Abstract
William F Vallicella has argued that Heidegger's thought is deeply
flawed by its tendency to reduce "being" to "truth," where being means
the "presencing" of things and "truth" means the disclosure needed for
such presencing. Insofar as this disclosure is constituted by human
existence, Heidegger would seem to make "being" dependent on the
contingent fact that humans exist. In this essay, I examine and
evaluate critically Vallicella's arguments.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1990
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1184592

Record 48 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A NOTE ON HINTIKKA'S REFUTATION OF THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers, vol. 6, pp. 215-217, April 1989
IS: ISSN
0739-7046
DE: Descriptors
Argument; Fallacy; Ontological Proof; Religion; Hintikka, J
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1989
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1164413

Record 49 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
Heidegger's Reduction of Being to Truth
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
New Scholasticism, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 156-176, Spring 1985
IS: ISSN
0028-6621
DE: Descriptors
Being; Metaphysics; Truth; Aristotle; Heidegger
AB: Abstract
My aim in the this article is to explore the interconnection of Being
and truth in Heidegger's thought in one of its aspects. What I shall
argue is that Heidegger's reduction of Being to truth is motivated in
part by an inconsistency in the position developed in Sein und
Zeit. (edited)
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1985
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1701194

Record 50 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
RELATIVISM, TRUTH AND THE SYMMETRY THESIS.
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical
Inquiry, vol. 67, pp. 452-466, July 1984
IS: ISSN
0026-9662
DE: Descriptors
Epistemology; Relativism; Sociology Of Knowledge; Barnes, B; Bloor, D
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1984
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1127491

Record 51 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
A CRITIQUE OF THE QUANTIFICATIONAL ACCOUNT OF EXISTENCE.
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review, vol. 47, pp. 242-267, April
1983
IS: ISSN
0040-6325
DE: Descriptors
Existence; Metaphysics; Quantification
AB: Abstract
This article consists of an exposition and critique of the account of
existence in terms of quantification found in the work of frege,
Russell and quine. The main conclusion, Contra quine, Is that
existence is "not" what existential quantification expresses.
Existential quantification expresses a different concept,
Instantiation, A concept that presupposes existence and that therefore
cannot be used in its explication.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1983
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1119151

Record 52 of 52

DN: Database Name
Philosopher`s Index
TI: Title
THE PROBLEM OF BEING IN THE EARLY HEIDEGGER.
AU: Author
Vallicella, William F
SO: Source
Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review, vol. 45, pp. 388-406, July
1981
IS: ISSN
0040-6325
DE: Descriptors
Being-for-itself; Being-in-itself; Metaphysics; Transcendental
Idealism; Heidegger
AB: Abstract
The paper divides into two parts. In the first, Three essential
characteristics of being as heidegger conceives it are explicated:
being as meaning; being as the transcendental--A priori condition of
the revelation of being; and being as the being "of being (genitivus
subjectivus)". In the second part it is argued that the first two
characteristics are inconsistent with the third.
LA: Language
English
PY: Publication Year
1981
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article
UD: Update
20060315
AN: Accession Number
1105746

So the dominant note of my personality is quietism in the sense just sketched. The Big Questions turn my crank, not this foreground rubbish about illegal immigration, social security, eminent domain, etc. It would be nice to be able to let the world and its violent nonsense go to hell while cultivating my garden in peace.

Unfortunately, my garden and stoa are in the world and exposed to its threats. So politics, which has too little to do with truth and too much to do with power, cannot be ignored. This world is not ultimately real, but it is no illusion either, pace some sophists of the New Age, and so some battling within it, ideological or otherwise, cannot be avoided.

To know, to understand -- that's the thing for me. The practical man sees the world sub specie voluntatis. He would impose his will upon it, either to change it in the manner of the reformer, or to prevent it from changing in the manner of the conservationist. But I would understand the world, first, and work upon it only second, and as little as possible.

Marx famously remarked that the philosophers have variously interpreted the world when the point is to change it: Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verändern. (11th of the Theses on Feuerbach.) I reject that from the ground up: the vita activa exists for the sake of the vita contemplativa, not vice versa. Making, doing, the worldly hustle generally are for the sake of contemplative repose. So I would parody Marx thusly: The activists have variously tampered with the world, often to bloody effect with the Commies murdering some 100 million in the 20th century; the point, however, is to understand it before going off half-cocked on some activist crusade that will only make it worse.

Five reasons to avoid blue-collar work: (1) The working stiff gets no respect; (2) the pay is bad; (3) the work is boring; (4) working-class types are often crude, ignorant, resentful, envious, and inimical to anyone who tries to improve himself; (5) the worker puts his body on the line, day in and day out, and often bears the marks: missing thumbs, hearing loss, etc.

Being from the working class, and having done my fair share of grunt work, I have been permanently inoculated against that fantasy of Marxist intellectuals according to which workers, the poor, the ‘downtrodden,’ have some special virtue lacking in the rest of us. There is nothing to be expected from any class as a class: it is individuals and individuals alone who are the loci of value and the hope of humanity.