essay about science philosophy and god

Book Reviews , Philosophy , Science

Science, Philosophy, and God

January 29, 2016

Understanding what natural entities are—and how they are the kinds of things that they are—is a central goal of all scientific endeavor. It is an endeavor that cannot be undertaken without at least an implicit theology and philosophy. We might distinguish the natural sciences from philosophy and theology, but it is a mistake to see them as extrinsic to one another, each existing in its own neat epistemological and ontological compartment. Although at first it might seem counter-intuitive, the proper autonomy of these areas of inquiry depends upon their interdependence.

Such, at least, is the general claim that informs Michael Hanby’s No God, No Science? Theology, Cosmology, and Biology. Hanby’s analysis is wide-ranging, erudite, and sophisticated; his is a challenging and important book.

For Hanby, “science is constitutively and inexorably related to metaphysics and theology;” the latter are “internal to science even as they are distinct from it.” The key to understanding this constitutive relationship is the doctrine of creation, and Hanby argues that we need “to retrieve the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo from the distortions imposed upon it by the totalizing claims of positivist science and especially by that most theological of sciences, evolutionary biology.” Hanby claims that the appropriate autonomy of the natural sciences and metaphysics is “theologically grounded” in science’s very own “creaturely constitution.”

The Notion of Creation

Start your day with Public Discourse

Distorted notions of God as Creator, that is, as extrinsic cause of things and events in the world, are behind the view that we must choose between divine agency in the world and the kinds of causes that the natural sciences disclose. Too often, God has been seen as a finite object among other finite objects, albeit one who is juxtaposed to the world: a cause among causes, a thing simply vastly greater in degree from all other things. God becomes a master craftsman and the created order his artifact. God so conceived is one who “imposes his design upon passive subjects.” It is this conception of creation that Darwinism claims to supplant.

For Hanby, this theological “extrinsicism” fails to capture the truth of God’s transcendence, a transcendence so radical that God as Creator is the immanent source of the very existence of all that is. The doctrine of creation, properly understood, is not an alternate cosmological theory of the temporal origins of the universe, nor a rival to scientific explanations of change (e.g., natural selection). Creation is not “a process of bringing forth the animate from the inanimate or one species from another.” Rather, it discloses the ontological structure of the world and is the necessary precondition for the world and for science itself.

The claim that Hanby defends in considerable detail—historically, philosophically, and theologically—is this:

the doctrine of creation is essential to an understanding of the universe that is both comprehensive and nonreductive; and that the scientific and Darwinian revolutions, for all their stunning success in increasing our knowledge of the universe, have left us with a universe so reduced and fractured that it threatens to undermine the rationality and intelligibility of their own achievement.

The error, according to Hanby, is seeing the relationship between God and the world in extrinsic terms rather than seeing God’s abiding presence as cause of existence immanent in the world. As a result of embracing an extrinsic notion of God as creator, the modern world “evacuates creatures of the unity, intelligibility, and interiority inherent in our elementary experience of them.” To see nature simply as the product of a divine craftsman is to reduce nature to an artifact and to find the intelligibility of nature exclusively in terms of “extrinsic relations” governing the interaction of parts.

Darwin, according to Hanby, inherited a mechanistic ontology and an “extrinsicist” theology (God as a finite object within the order of being) that has shaped the continuing debate about evolution and creation. The debate, however, often reveals a false dilemma rooted in defective notions of God, creation, and causality. A vision of God as an artisan/designer was evident in the natural theology of William Paley, which Darwin rejected. It’s also evident in contemporary “intelligent design” theories. Paley understood creation as a kind of manufacturing; he did not see the Creator as the interior source of the creature’s very existence but as an extrinsic cause who imposes order and design on the world. The world is a “cluster of contrivances” and God is the master contriver.

The Unity and Interiority of Living Beings

There is a related failure to understand that living beings are true unities, each of which possesses an irreducible interiority that is not possible for artifacts or machines. Here we have a key feature of a reductionist view of the world that claims to explain all things exhaustively in terms of their material constituents. Hanby argues that the failure of modern biology to speak intelligibly of what an organism is follows from the prior commitment to mechanism that has its roots in a defective understanding of what it means for God to create. Accordingly, Hanby identifies a program for achieving a better grasp of what the world truly is:

We must restore to the things of the world the unity and the interior depth of being that was taken away from them in the modern conflation of nature and art, being and history, truth and utility, and knowledge and power. We must dispose with the natural theology and mechanistic ontology commenced in the seventeenth-century and brought to fulfillment by Darwin and his disciples, a theology and metaphysics which continue to deform the meaning of the doctrine of creation and the stakes in its confrontation with the totalizing claims of evolutionary biology. We must distinguish the act of creation—that gratuitous gift of being that calls forth its own recipient—from a process of immanent manufacture, and we must distinguish the doctrine of creation from any mechanical explanation seeking to account for the ‘how’ of the world. To do this, we must begin by setting aside that finite and idolatrous God simultaneously affirmed and denied by Darwinian biology and approach, at long last, the Creator God.

Hanby argues that the mistaken metaphysics and theology implicit in Darwinian biology are the sources of considerable confusion in what the biological sciences tell us about the world.

Recognizing the distinction between an organism and an artifact—a recognition that, according to Hanby, requires a correct understanding of what it means for God to be the Creator—leads us to see how activities such as metabolism, respiration, reproduction, and self-movement properly belong to living things precisely as living. An organism is, in this sense, both the cause and effect of itself. Organisms maintain themselves in being, whereas artifacts engage in none of these activities because their parts are essentially external to each other and their unity is not intrinsic to them. The significance of this way of distinguishing between organism and artifact is clear:

Whereas the unity of an organism ontologically precedes its development, so that its development is the development of an organism such as an embryo or an oak tree, the unity of an artifact resides primarily in the mind of its maker and only comes about in the thing itself as the end result of a process of manufacture.

The conflation of created nature with artifact eliminates the organism as the subject of its own being and action. The organism is considered only “an accidental aggregation of parts which are the parts of no real whole.”

Faith, Reason, and the Revelation of Transcendence

Throughout his analysis of what it means for God to create, Hanby incorporates important insights from Hans Urs von Balthasar and David Schindler. To see the distinction between God and nature as being “operative in every conception of nature” is in one sense correct, since all of nature is the result of God’s creative act. A complete view of nature requires this recognition, which ultimately involves an appeal to doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Hanby does not grant to metaphysics the ability to reach the conclusion that all that is depends upon the agency of a transcendent source of existence. For him, the doctrine of creation out-of-nothing can only be a revealed theological insight, even if it appropriates metaphysical language.

Following the lead of scholars such as Étienne Gilson, Hanby thinks that, without Christian revelation, Greek philosophy was not and is not able to understand that there must be a transcendent cause of the existence of things.

At issue here are complex historical, philosophical, and theological topics concerning the relationship between reason and faith, including questions about the proper autonomy of various modes of inquiry. As we have seen, Hanby argues against a separation of these modes of inquiry (including the separation of theology and metaphysics from the natural sciences), and he thinks that the distinctions he draws maintain a kind of autonomy for each. For Thomas Aquinas, however, reason alone, in the discipline of metaphysics, can come to a recognition that the world is created. Faith, based on divine revelation, deepens this understanding of creation. Hanby, I think, would take issue with the phrase “reason alone,” since he would think that, following Thomas, I have granted too great a distinction between reason and faith.

Hanby calls for a profound rethinking of the explicit and implicit assumptions of much of modern thought. He thinks we must “retrieve the doctrine of God from the idolatrous natural theology presupposed by modern science in its founding gesture and exemplified, above all, by Darwinian biology.” This rethinking will also lead to retrieving “the world from the endemic reductionism of a pervasive mechanistic ontology. Retrieving creation, then, means retrieving the ontological question suppressed by positivist science and its reduction of being from act to brute facticity.” This is all true, but, as Thomas Aquinas can help us to see, retrieving the ontological question of cause of existence does not initially require an appeal to revealed theological claims about the Trinity and the Incarnation. There is a philosophical sense of God’s creative act that does not involve appeals to a theology that sees creation in terms of the dynamics of a triune God—no matter how correct such theology may be.

The view of global politics taught by political scientists is the poorest possible preparation for…

We can no longer afford to hang on to secularization theories as we design policy…

Since the seventeenth century, Rousseau’s influence has changed the way scientists approach their discipline—ironically, given…

Latest Articles

Building, Beauty, and Belonging

Valuing the Craft of Beautiful Homemaking

Graced Imagination: Recovering True Creativity in the Age of Authenticity

It Takes a Swarm to Raise a Village

What Makes America Family Unfriendly? A Q&A with Tim Carney

A Common Good Framework in Bioethics and Policy

Privacy Overview

Subscribe to public discourse.

Daily Emails
Weekly Emails
First Name *
Last Name *

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

View all journals
My Account Login
Explore content
About the journal
Publish with us
Sign up for alerts
Open access
Published: 13 November 2018

Philosophy of religion and the scientific turn

Aku Visala ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8692-804X 1 &
Olli-Pekka Vainio 1

Palgrave Communications volume 4 , Article number: 135 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

20k Accesses

1 Citations

11 Altmetric

Metrics details

Traditionally, analytic philosophy of religion has focused almost solely on specifically philosophical questions about religion. These include the existence of God and divine attributes, religious language, and the justification of religious beliefs, just to mention a few. Recently, many scholars in the field have begun to engage more directly with scientific results. We suggest that this is a promising direction for philosophy of religion to take. Nevertheless, we want to warn philosophy of religion against the excessive focus on methodology that has preoccupied the “science and religion dialogue” in theology. Instead of attempting to formulate a general methodology for all possible engagements between philosophy of religion and the sciences, philosophers of religion would do well to focus on local and particular themes. Since there is no single method in philosophy and since scientific disciplines that have religious relevance vary in their methods as well, progress can be made only if philosophical tools are employed to analyse particular and clearly demarcated questions.

On how religions could accidentally incite lies and violence: folktales as a cultural transmitter

Anatomy of tragedy: the skeptical gothic in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

A phylogenetic analysis of revolution and afterlife beliefs

Since the 1950s, analytic philosophy of religion has focused almost solely on distinctly philosophical questions related to religion and theology. These include (but are not limited to) questions about religious language, arguments for the existence and non-existence of God and the concept of God. In the 1980s, philosophy of religion saw a renaissance when new and more diverse views of epistemology and metaphysics stirred up the field. Although some philosophers of religion have engaged with scientific results, usually either supporting of undermining theism (e.g., Swinburne, 2004 ), it is clear that the methods and the questions have been distinctly “philosophical” rather than scientific. In the meantime, analytic philosophy as a whole has been strongly shaped not only by methodological naturalism, where philosophy seeks to model itself after the sciences, but also by the increasing motivation to take into account the results of the sciences in philosophical work (Kornblith, 2016 ). The scientific turn in philosophy of mind and cognition is a good example of this. Following this general trend, philosophers of religion have begun to engage with the results of the sciences more and more (e.g., Plantinga, 2011 ; Nagasawa, 2012 ). It is perhaps misleading to talk about “a scientific turn” in the philosophy of religion: methodologically philosophy of religion has not become more scientific, nor are there many voices demanding that. Nevertheless, philosophers have begun to take scientific results into account in debates that have traditionally been conducted in philosophical terms only.

Generally speaking, we find this turn towards increasing engagement with the sciences a positive one. Not only does it make philosophy of religion more pluralistic and interdisciplinary, but it also injects the stale debates with new ideas and perspectives. We also want to maintain the “philosophical” nature of philosophy of religion: it cannot be turned or transformed into a science to supplement or replace the scientific study of religion.

In this article, we want to address two interconnected issues. The first has to do with the methods of engagement between the sciences and philosophy of religion. We will provide some methodological reflections on how this engagement with the sciences has been done and how it could be done better. By drawing lessons from theology, especially the “science and religion dialogue”, we suggest that philosophers of religion should not commit themselves to one, single method of engagement or enforce one methodological stance for all such engagements. We refer here especially to a number of scholars who have attempted to develop a post-foundationalist methodology for all such engagements. As far as we understand it, postfoundationalists have two goals. On the one hand, they seek rehabilitate theology as an academic enterprise; on the other hand, they seek to resist scientistic or reductionistic views of the sciences as a whole (e.g., Van Huyssteen, 2006 ).

Although we suggest that lessons can be learned from “religion and science”, we do not want to press the analogy too far. It is clear that philosophy of religion and “science and religion” dialogue are not completely analogous. The scope of the analogy obviously depends on how we understand, among other things, the nature of “science” and to what extent theology or philosophy of religion might be understood as faith-based or apologetic enterprises. Nevertheless, there is enough similarity between the cases that warrant the analogy for our purposes. The second part of the article highlight some topics where philosophers of religion have, we suggest, successfully taken into account or responded to scientific work thus contributing to the interdisciplinary discussion. We will conclude the article with reflections on future topics and questions, and some suggested modes of engagement.

Before going any further, we want to note the following. It is not our aim to offer a programmatic discussion of the nature of philosophy of religion as a whole, since this is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we outline a way of understanding how the engagements between science, philosophy and religion could be conducted more efficiently; an apologia for a pluralistic methodological approach, one might say. Regarding the specific examples of some topics briefly mentioned along the way, we do not aim to break new ground.

What does philosophy of religion have to do with the sciences?

Philosophers of religion have many different motives for engaging the sciences. The most salient one has, of course, been the impact that the sciences might have for the theism/atheism debate. We call this the “apologetic motive”. On the atheist side, there are arguments suggesting that some large-scale scientific results, say, from evolutionary biology and cosmology, undermine theism in some way or another. According to a very popular argument, Darwinist evolutionary biology undermines those arguments for the existence of God that are based on biological design. Some have even suggested that evolutionary biology undermines all aspects of theism (e.g., Dawkins, 2006 ). However, it is not only the results of the sciences that are relevant in this context. Rather, the progress and trustworthiness of the sciences has also raised epistemological challenges to the rationality of religious beliefs and commitments. The Dutch philosopher Herman Philipse, ( 2012 ) is a good example of a philosopher who employs both strategies. First, he argues that the ways in which religious beliefs are formed (claims about revelations, testimony, etc.) are in fact much less reliable than scientific ones. For this reason, one should take scientific results as having superior authority over less reliably produced religious beliefs. Second, he argues that all arguments for the existence of God, gods and supernatural beings fail, be they empirical or conceptual.

The theist side of the debate has attempted to defuse the scientific challenge to theism in different ways. One well-known response is to adopt scientific-style reasoning in defence of theism, like Richard Swinburne, ( 2004 ) has sought to do for decades. According to Swinburne, metaphysical claims, such as the existence of God, can be established with some probability by invoking a large spectrum of empirical evidence. These include the existence and general features of our world, certain historical events and religious experiences. The theistic hypothesis, according to Swinburne, explains this evidence better than the naturalistic one. Another response comes from the so called Reformed Epistemology that seeks to defuse the epistemic challenge from science by defending a different kind of epistemology altogether. But this is all familiar territory to those in the field of philosophy of religion.

Although it is somewhat narrow, we find nothing wrong in principle with the apologetic motivation. One function of philosophy of religion is to make the reasons behind and the structure inherent in religious and non-religious worldviews as clear and transparent as possible. Moreover, it is a value for civic discourse to be based on views that are publicly and properly managed (Gutting, 2016 ). In what follows, we, nevertheless, want to look beyond the apologetic motive and seek wider forms of engagement between the sciences and philosophy of religion. Now, the question is what these engagements could look like. Here we might take our cue from philosopher Alvin Goldman, ( 1992 ), who is known for his work at the boundary of epistemology and the cognitive sciences. According to Goldman, there are at least three separate ways in which philosophers have engaged with the cognitive sciences.

First, the traffic can be from philosophy to some other discipline. Cognitive science is a field where philosophers have made significant contributions to empirical work. Philosophical contributions to the field include theories, models and hypotheses, but especially philosophical tools. As is well known, different systems of logic, probabilistic reasoning and semantic theories of philosophy are now widely employed in cognitive linguistics and artificial intelligence studies, for instance. Philosophical theories concerning the mind-body problem and consciousness, for instance, now have a life of their own in different fields of the cognitive sciences. As far as we see it, philosophers of religion have had very little engagement of this kind with the sciences in the last century or so. Philosophers of religion very seldom contribute anything to the sciences themselves. However, we will suggest later that this does not necessarily need to be so. Perhaps philosophers of religion could contribute to the sciences by providing claims and perhaps even theories that could be tested and assessed in the scientific study of religion or even experimental philosophy.

In the second form of engagement, philosophers can bring insights from philosophy of science, analyse background assumptions and metaphysical commitments of different theories. By assuming this role, the philosopher clarifies critical concepts thereby contributing to possible novel empirical questions and theoretical innovation in the target field. We think this kind of engagement could also include the interpretation of scientific results: what kinds of conclusions can be drawn from them given their methodological assumptions? This, we suggest, can also include engaging with popular science material, since oftentimes the most important interpretations of scientific results appear in popularised works rather than in scientific papers themselves.

This form of engagement has been more popular among philosophers of religion. They have debated interpretations of the aforementioned evolutionary biology and physical cosmology, for instance (Holder, 2004 ). However, more positive contributions via methodological criticism and analysis have been surprisingly rare. We think that there could be multiple scientific fields where philosophers of religion could make a distinctive contribution. The authors of this paper have worked on the scientific study of religion (Visala, 2011 ), interdisciplinary models of human nature, and the psychology of disagreement (Vainio, 2017 ) just to mention a few.

The most natural domain for the philosophers of religion to engage in this way would be religious studies and the scientific study of religion. Various approaches in the study of religion have their own distinctive philosophical questions that have overlapped somewhat with philosophy of religion. These include, among other things, the concept of “religion” itself. Questions have been raised whether “religion” is a helpful scientific category at all; perhaps “tradition” or “practice” would be more accurate. Against this, one could maintain that “religion” still has pragmatic value in the study of religion: it is useful to have a general definition of religion but one must at the same time remember that it might not work in all cases (Nongbri, 2013 ).

Coming back to Goldman, there is a third way in which he sees the relationship of philosophy and the sciences playing out. Instead of contributing to the cognitive sciences, philosophers can apply the results and theories from this field to reformulate or answer philosophical problems. When philosophers of religion have engaged the sciences in this way, the motivation has mainly been apologetic, but it need not be so. Philosophers of religion should use a wide variety of scientific results, since their own interests span from moral and religious knowledge to metaphysics. This variety of interest beyond the apologetic motivation can be seen in a recent edited volume on scientific approaches to philosophy of religion (Nagasawa, 2012 ). Essays in the volume cover many different topics and seek to employ theories from the natural and behavioural sciences to problems in philosophy of religion. There are essays on psychology of counterfactual thinking, multiverse cosmology, the cognition of religious disagreement, as well as the psychology of character formation and responsibility.

In philosophy of religion, there has been a long-standing debate on what role naturalistic explanations of religion have in the atheism vs. theism debate. It is clear that simply offering a naturalistic explanation of belief in God or gods does not show that these beliefs are false. Nevertheless, such explanations might cast doubt upon religious claims in some other way. In the current scene, these issues are discussed in the context of so called debunking arguments of ethics, morality and religion. The main issue here is whether the epistemic status of our value-beliefs, moral beliefs and religious beliefs changes after we take into account evolutionary and cognitive explanations of these beliefs. We will return to this issue in more detail later.

What can philosophers learn from the science and religion dialogue?

The question is how exactly philosophers of religion should engage with the sciences. In what follows, we want to suggest that we need not enforce one single methodology for such engagements. Here we want to draw a specific lesson from theology, where the “science and religion dialogue” has been going on for some time now. It seems that many theological postfoundationalists have attempted to formulate an overarching methodology for theology and science engagements. Against this, we want to suggest that philosophers of religion can proceed successfully without strongly committing themselves to some overarching methodological stance. Philosophers of religion should be pluralists: engagements between philosophy and the sciences should be conducted more “locally” than “globally” and taking into account the diverse interests of those actually involved in the engagement. Something similar is also acknowledged in general philosophical methodology, so our argument does not constitute any kind of special pleading (Cappelen, 2017 ).

The best way to approach the “science and religion dialogue” is to look at its aims. After four or five decades of intense research and branching out towards various scientific disciplines, it seems that the “dialogue” has not really achieved its aims as they were originally conceived. Although the dialogue began in the 1970s in the English-speaking world, mainly in the UK, it has since been taken up in continental Europe, as well as in the US. The dialogue was originally an attempt to form a workable theological position between two extremes: science inspired naturalism that rejects central theological claims (the existence of God and the possibility of revelation, for instance) and entails a large-scale conflict between science and theology, and creationism or various forms of intelligent design theory that reject the validity of large parts of contemporary science, especially biology. Furthermore, this view was supposed to be disseminated amongst both scientists and theologians: from now on, both could work together in solving the great mysteries of life and cosmos. So, the aim was to make both academic theology and actual religious communities adopt a more positive attitude towards the sciences and to convince the sceptical scientists to adopt a friendlier attitude towards religion and theology. Early on, scientist/theologians such as John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke and Ian Barbour, ( 1998 ), among others, argued for a deep compatibility between scientific and theological worldviews.

The field has enjoyed steady growth since the early days and it has established itself as a kind of sub-discipline of theology. The enquiry so far has produced constructive theological proposals that seek to integrate scientific insights into theology (e.g., Peacocke 2004 ). Several journals ( Zygon , Theology and Science ), institutions ( Ian Ramsey Centre in Oxford, the Zygon Centre for Religion and Science in Chicago), professor’s chairs and lectureships (Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton Theological Seminary, Boston University) and societies ( International Society for Science and Religion , for instance) have emerged to support and structure the research in the field. The intellectual development of the field is summarised in numerous textbooks and handbooks published in the last few years (e.g., Clayton and Simpson, 2006 ).

Regardless of the steady growth of the field both academically and intellectually, there are dissenting voices. Philosopher Willem Drees’ analysis is dim: “Despite much activity, however, consensus on issues of importance seems far away, the impact on theology and on religious communities is limited and the academic credibility of ‘religion and science’ is marginal.” ( 2009 ). Apart from occasional knee-jerks towards biological evolution, Western theology, for the most part, has proceeded without taking into account what the sciences say about important theological issues, such as the nature of human beings. The same is true of actual religious communities, which oftentimes exhibit a hostile attitude towards science. Finally, the science and theology dialogue has had very little impact on the academia at large.

It is surprising to note that there are very few critical assessments of the science and theology dialogue from the theological side. Most textbooks and handbooks only mention the rapid development of the field but do not provide a general assessment as to whether the field has achieved its goals. So far, many have turned to postfoundationalism as methodological tool to achieve the original goals set for the debate (e.g., Van Huyssteen, 2006 ; Marshall, 2002 ). The underlying assumption was that if the right method were to be found, the dialogue would subsequently sort itself out.

However, it is clear that the science and religion dialogue has not achieved methodological unity or consensus. According to Drees, ( 2009 ), the failure to reach the original aims stems from the fragmentation endemic to the field. The fragmentation is most likely produced by the mutually exclusive philosophical assumptions and interests of the participants: most participants operate on the basis of their own (and mutually incompatible) religious (or non-religious) assumptions and, thus, understand the nature of science, religion and theology differently than others. Some might be critical of the sciences and unwilling to modify their theologies, whereas others are willing to make large-scale theological revisions to accommodate even the most thoroughgoing versions of scientific naturalism. Another methodological issue is the analytic-continental divide: the area is torn between continental style theology and postmodern philosophy in Europe and more analytically and science-oriented approaches in the English-speaking world.

Although we do not see much progress in the distinctly theological part of the dialogue, other parts of the discipline have progressed well. Here we have in mind the research conducted into the history of the relationship between religions and the sciences. Indeed, the work done here has successfully debunked the very popular conflict narrative or conflict myth of science and religion (Numbers, 2009 ). Significant work has been done on the Galileo case, the birth of the scientific method in the late medieval and renaissance Europe, as well as the 19th century debates on Darwinism just to mention a few topics (Harrison, 1998 , 2015 ; Brooke, 1991 ).

We can draw an important moral from this: when the science and religion dialogue has made progress, the progress has come about through scholars working on methods they know well (in this case historical ones) and focusing on specific claims (the conflict myth, for instance). We think that this should be also the model for the future of scholarship. Instead of formulating the supposedly correct overall method for the engagement, like the postfoundationalists suggest, scholars should localise their approach and concentrate, for example, on particular instances where scientific theories or results seem to be relevant to religious views and use the methods that seem to be appropriate for this specific task.

The debate about debunking

We now move from the methodological discussion towards the topical. More specifically, we want to highlight one area where philosophers of religion have successfully engaged with ethicists, epistemologists and scientists. This is the debate about psychological or evolutionary debunking arguments. Given the progress of offering evolutionary and cognitive accounts of the emergence of moral and religious beliefs, there have been suggestions that such accounts undermine the rationality or justification of such beliefs or preclude moral and religious knowledge altogether. This debate, we suggest, is a point where philosophers of religion can engage with the sciences in all aforementioned ways. First, they can provide hypotheses to be tested by the scientists (could there be a specific cognitive mechanism for religious experiences, for instance). Second, they can engage in methodological analysis and clarification of the work in cognitive science and evolutionary biology. Finally, they can use the results in multiple ways: assess whether they are relevant for the theism/atheism debate and rework their ideas about religious or moral epistemology, just to mention a few.

What are evolutionary debunking arguments? The discussion has heated up as a result of the increasingly detailed evolutionary and cognitive explanations of our value-beliefs, moral beliefs (Joyce, 2003 ; Griffiths and Wilkins, 2013 ) and god-beliefs (Leech and Visala, 2011 ). Debunking arguments can be aimed at undermining the truth of these beliefs or the basis of which we come to believe them. Consider god-beliefs and the archaeologist Steven Mithen, for example. According to Mithen, religion is a human universal: it can be found in almost all cultures and societies. This fact, he continues, can be explained by positing the existence of a supernatural realm where gods reside or by providing evidence that the human mind itself creates these ideas about the supernatural. Mithen goes for the latter solution, since the “on-going activity of the universe and life are explained by entirely natural processes”. He concludes that

Religious thought is uniquely associated with Homo sapiens and arose as a consequence of cognitive fluidity, which was in turn a consequence of the origin of language. In this regard, there appears to be no need to invoke a moment of divine intervention that initiated the start of a revelation. For me, therefore, there is no supernatural, no God to be revealed. (Mithen, 2009 )

As far as we see it, the argument can be characterised as follows. The fact that there is a plausible naturalistic explanation for the emergence of belief in gods, demonstrates that god-beliefs (and supernatural belief in general) is false. To be more precise, the deductive version of the argument would be this:

If there is a complete or sufficiently complete causal explanation of how belief in God came about and this explanation does not include God as a causal factor, then there is no God.

Current cognitive and evolutionary accounts of religion provide a complete or sufficiently complete causal explanation of this kind and they do not include God as a causal factor.

Therefore, there is no God.

Such an argument has a number of problems. First, there seems to be very little reason to accept 1. The falsity of god-beliefs cannot be inferred from the fact that there exists a causal explanation why people have god-beliefs that does not mention any god. This would commit the genetic fallacy. By exposing the causal history of a belief says nothing about the truth of the belief. This is because the truth (or falsity) of a proposition has no necessary relationship to the causes that led people to believe it. For such reasons, philosophers of all stripes consider such inferences as invalid.

Furthermore, premise 2 is also vulnerable to critique. One could point out that we do not as of yet know whether the scientific theories of religion we now have will withstand the test of time. Or one could grant that perhaps the cognitive and evolutionary factors that current theories invoke to explain religion are necessary, but not sufficient conditions for the emergence of religion (or at least we do not know that they are). Thus, it seems that we do not have enough reasons to exclude the possibility of other causal factors being involved (Visala, 2011 ).

Given the aforementioned points, it seems to us that debunking arguments aimed at the truth of god-beliefs or perhaps even moral beliefs are not very plausible. However, debunking arguments usually target the grounding of a belief rather than its truth. In this case, they seek to undermine the rationality, justification or otherwise cast doubt upon the belief on the basis of how it is generated. Philosopher Guy Kahane, ( 2011 ) provides a schematic version of the argument:

S’s belief that p is explained by X.

X is a process that does not track the truth of p.

Therefore, S’s belief that p is not justified.

It is not difficult to adapt this schema for our purposes.

Susan’s belief that there is a God is explained by her unconscious cognitive mechanisms.

These cognitive mechanisms are not truth-tracking with respect to the existence or non-existence of God.

Therefore, Susan’s belief that there is a God is not justified.

There is a considerable body of work dealing with debunking arguments of this kind (e.g.,Visala, 2014 ; Jong and Visala, 2014 ; Leech and Visala, 2012 ; Clark and Rabinowitz, 2011 ; Schloss and Murray, 2009 ; Trigg and Barrett, 2014 ; De Cruz and de Smedt, 2014 ; Vainio, 2016 ). Let us simply mention some counter strategies that have emerged in the literature to block the aforementioned argument.

First, premise 4 suffers from the same problems as premise 1 above. So, it seems that any given individual’s belief in God is underdetermined by her intuitive cognitive mechanisms. If this is the case, then even if we could eventually get a full description of a person’s intuitive cognitive mechanisms and demonstrate that such mechanisms are unreliable sources of god-beliefs, we could not conclude that god-beliefs were unwarranted. They could be justified on some other grounds.

Second, premise 5 looks much more plausible and defensible. One defence would be as follows. It could be argued, for instance, that a causal connection of a certain kind has to connect a belief and its target for the belief to be justified. An argument could be made that such a link might not exist in the case of theism: the best explanation on offer seems to suggest that if God did not exist, people might be theists anyway. One cognitive mechanisms singled out for its unreliability is the postulated (hyper)sensitive agency detection device (Barrett, 2011 ). This system responds to clues of agency and purposeful action in perceptual input. The suggestion is that human agency detection is oversensitive or hypersensitive: it overextends agency where there is none (natural occurrences, luck, misfortune, etc.). In addition to being oversensitive, agency detection is unreliable in other ways as well. The god-beliefs it generates or supports are extremely diverse and mutually incompatible: the religious worlds are populated by various gods, spirits, ghosts and other non-natural agencies. This diversity demonstrates that human agency detection is unreliable.

There have been a number of responses to such arguments. Philosopher Michael Murray ( 2009 ) and others have maintained that the unreliability of agency detection is difficult to prove without assuming the truth of atheism. The bottom line is that, for the most part, our agency detection successfully detects actual agency. We identify other humans, animals and their various kinds of intentions very reliably. Without assuming atheism, there seems to be nothing in the cognitive science account of agency detection that would rule out the possibility of genuine agency detection in a religious context as well.

As for the link between unreliability and diversity, Murray has tried to respond to this as well. He suggests that the diversity might be a product of the cultural context where the outputs of the agency detection system are interpreted rather than the system itself. Thus, the outputs of the agency detection system would be stable across cultures and therefore reliable, although their cultural elaborations would change from context to context. One might respond to Murray here by introducing an epistemological worry: how do we know what the “real” outputs of agency detection system are, since they are always interpreted in some cultural context? Is not the fact that the outputs can be interpreted differently itself a signal of the unreliability of the mechanism? As such responses demonstrate, it is far from clear that the problem of religious diversity has been solved. The discussion on debunking arguments is likely to continue.

Future issues

Lastly, we wish to briefly highlight some promising fields of enquiry where philosophy of religion and other sciences can meet and produce something beneficial, not only for academic specialists but for the public. These topics include free will, virtues, religion and violence and cosmology.

Free will and moral responsibility

Philosophers of religion are interested in free will for a variety of reasons. Notions of free will and responsibility are central to many religious doctrines, including incarnation, sin, grace and salvation. In addition, free will is crucial in debates about personhood of both God and human beings. Finally, free will has do with philosophical and theological views of moral cognition and virtue. Despite the fact that Christian theologians disagree about free will to some extent, they nevertheless maintain that humans are moral agents, who are accountable for their actions in front of God and one another.

Interestingly, some cognitive scientists and neuroscientists have been sceptical of free will. Inspired by the 1980s studies of neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, psychologist Daniel Wegner, ( 2002 ) argues that free will is an illusion. According to Wegner, conscious decisions are not involved in the production of human actions. Instead, underlying neural mechanisms cause both actions and feelings of conscious decision-making. In other words, our conscious “decisions” are more like rationalisations that attempt to retroactively make rational the actions caused by subconscious, non-rational mechanisms.

These claims sparked an enormous philosophical and scientific debate (e.g., Baer and Kaufman and Baumeister, 2008 ). Philosophers of religion could engage with this debate in a variety of ways. They could highlight, among other critics of Wegner and others, that a very limited notion of free will is being assumed here. It is assumed that an action must be immediately preceded by a conscious decision in order to be free. Against this, philosophers of religion could maintain that our moral responsibility practices are rather diverse and varied: it seems that people can be held responsible for actions that are not immediately preceded by conscious decisions.

Freedom and moral responsibility are fruitful areas of discussion, because of the probability of new neuroscientific and cognitive science results in the near future. The study of cognitive and neural processes of decision-making is progressing quite rapidly. The engagement need not take the form of opposing the sceptical conclusion. It can also channel the results of this research into philosophy of religion. In terms of human decision-making and moral cognition, there is an important lesson to be learned here: human moral decisions and choices are not always as deliberate and conscious as humans might like to think. Most of our cognitive mechanisms work automatically without our conscious awareness. And, like breathing, we do not consciously decide to do most of the things that we do.

Virtues and moral character

Ever since Plato and Aristotle, we have asked whether and how teaching and learning virtues might be possible. Recent advances in moral psychology have provided some empirical studies that demonstrate how stable our characters are and how they might be influenced, for good or for worse (Miller, 2014 ; Peterson and Seligman, 2004 ). The current state of the art seems to suggest that we humans are bundles of various habits some of which are good while some bad. None of us is simply virtuous or vicious, but we can excel in some areas while failing in many others. Nonetheless, our characters appear to be relatively stable, and also subject to behavioural improvement or degeneration.

As we come to understand how the human mind works more and more, this raises important philosophical and religious questions, which are not, as such, answerable by the sciences alone. What are virtues we should teach to our citizens? What is the best way to do so? The received answer is that we need small-scale institutions, like families and clubs, that are best suited for cultivating virtuous behaviour (Adams, 2006 ). However, these theories can and should be tested in the future. The current escalated culture war and campus meltdowns in USA make these questions all the more important.

How should we view moral failures and responsibility given what we know about the weakness and malleability of the human mind? Why some forms of action that appear virtuous, can be in fact vicious (Tosi and Warmke, 2016 )? These are likewise timely and practical questions, which incidentally were thoroughly investigated by patristic and medieval authors (Saarinen, 1994 ). Contemporary authors have not so far engaged these works in constructive manner.

Religion, tolerance and violence

The acts of terror perpetrated in the name of Islam have produced a burgeoning field of study since 9/11. While we still may hear simplistic accusation about the relationship of religiosity and violent or extremist behaviour, there is ample amount of material that uses philosophical clarity to address this relationship in detail. For example, philosophical tools, social sciences, anthropology, psychology and history have been used to successfully argue for the complexity of this relationship (Atran, 2010 , Clarke, 2014 , Clarke et al. 2013 , Vainio, 2017 ). While there are situations where religious behaviour and violence seem to correlate, it is simply not warranted to claim that religiosity per se causes violence more than general human “groupish” or group-oriented behaviour.

The existing issues concern, among other things, the definition of religion, harm and tolerance. In multicultural Western societies, we face more and more questions about religious freedom and religious recognition. Answering these questions requires interdisciplinary work, where philosophy of religion should play important role. Obviously, the question concerning the freedom of religion or freedom of conscience cannot be answered without having well-defined concepts of religion, freedom and conscience that are agreed upon by the disputants. In USA, there is an ongoing discussion whether “freedom of worship” is the same thing as “freedom of religion”. It seems that this redefinition restricts the meaning of religion so that special freedom would be applicable to the places and moments of “worship” and not to public life. This, however, enforces a very narrow definition what religious convictions are and what they entail.

But granting the freedom of religion creates new issues, such as how should individuals and institutions encounter and foster multiple religious, or ideological, identities within the same public space. Since the Enlightenment, we have been familiar with the attitude of toleration, but now many argue that this are not enough. Instead of toleration, we should aim for acknowledgement and recognition. Since these demands come from political philosophy, they function quite well with national and racial identities, but run into problems in cases where there are ideological convictions involved, be they secular or religious. The practical question is what we can reasonably demand from people when we know how political, moral and religious convictions are formed and sustained (Vainio and Visala, 2016 ).

Cosmology and human existence

Several scientists have recently popularised their work in the form of popular science books, which also delve into questions that are not inherently scientific. Effectively, many scientists use their authority as scientists to engage philosophical or theological questions (Krauss, 2012 ; Vilenkin, 2006 ). Some such claims have been subjected to criticism not only by theists but also atheists (Nagel, 2010 ). We think that this is important task for philosophers of religion to undertake simply because it is not good for the public discourse to be based on highly contested or even blatantly false views.

Philosophy of religion has traditionally discussed the meaning of Big Bang-cosmology and whether it supports, for example, Kalam cosmological argument (Craig and Sinclair, 2012 ). Recent ongoing discussion concerns multiverse cosmologies and their effects on religious views (Holder, 2004 ). An example of a cosmological question, which is not directly religious but it has religious relevance, is the issue of human cosmic significance (Kahane, 2014 ; Mulgan, 2015 ). Briefly put, how should we construe human significance and value when we know that the universe is mind-bogglingly huge and we are just vanishing bits of dust in the midst of endless empty space?

A further question concerns the possibility of objective moral value in our almost incomprehensibly large cosmos. While philosophers of religion have focused on arguing for theism as the source of objective value, there has been an emergence of various non-naturalistic positions that acknowledge the value theistic considerations and arguments while rejecting theism (Wielenberg, 2014 ). While non-naturalist options in metaethics have become more popular in philosophy, this quite likely means more work and visibility for philosophers of religion who have for long wrestled with these questions (Cuneo, 2016 ).

We have suggested a modest methodological pluralism in philosophy of religion, when it engages the sciences. Since there is no single methodology in philosophy and there are various scientific methodologies depending on the subject matter, there cannot be just one monolithic method that could be used to solve the issues in the interface of science and philosophy. The methods and questions are determined ad hoc and based on the nature of the issue at hand. It is, of course, possible and even hoped for that philosophers of religion provide contextual methodologies that define how philosophical tools are to be used in a specified context. One such example is the analytic theology project that investigates the reasonability of theological doctrines and attempts to find new ways to formulate them with analytic tools (Arcadi, 2017 ).

Meanwhile, we propose that the enquiry should pay attention to a broad range of epistemic virtues, such as transparency, honesty and all the other virtues necessary for critical thinking, which should guide the scholars as they go about thinking these issues. While there is some disagreement concerning the ultimate goals of philosophy in general and philosophy of religion in particular, we believe that virtually everyone thinks that these goals include, even if they are not exhausted by, rational and public enquiry of fundamental questions of being and existence, providing arguments and counter-arguments to pre-theoretical convictions and assessing strengths and weaknesses of various claims that are relevant to our worldview (Gutting, 2016 ). We cannot see how meaningful public discussion about these matters could take place without the perspectives provided by philosophers of religion.

Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this paper as no datasets were analysed or generated.

Adams R (2006) Theory of virtue: excellence in being for the good. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Book Google Scholar

Arcadi JM (2017) Analytic theology as declarative theology Theologica 1(1):37–52

Article Google Scholar

Atran S (2010) Talking to the enemy: Religion, brotherhood, and the (Un)making of terrorists. Allen Lane, London

Google Scholar

Barbour I (1998) Religion and science: Historical and contemporary issues. SCM Press, London

Barrett J (2011) Cognitive science, religion and theology: From human minds to divine minds. Templeton Press, West Conshohocken

Brooke JH (1991) Science and religion: Some historical perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Baer J, Kaufman J, Baumeister R (ed) (2008) Are we free? Psychology and free will. Oxford University Press, New York

Cappelen H (2017) Disagreement in philosophy: An optimistic view. In: D’Oro Giuseppina, Overgaard Soren (eds) The Cambridge companion to philosophical methodology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 56–76

Chapter Google Scholar

Clark KJ, Rabinowitz D (2011) Knowledge and the objection to religious belief from cognitive science. Eur J Philos Relig 3(1):67–82

Clarke S (2014) Justification of religious violence. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford

Clarke S, Powell R, Savulescu J (eds) (2013) Religion, intolerance, and conflict: A scientific and conceptual investigation. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Clayton P, Simpson Z (eds) (2006) Oxford handbook of religion and science. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Craig WL, Sinclair JD (2012) The Kalam cosmological argument. In: Craig WL, Moreland JP eds. The Blackwell companion tonatural theology. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, p 101–201

De Cruz H, de Smedt J (2014) A natural history of natural theology: The cognitive science of theology and philosophy of religion. MIT Press, Cambridge

Cuneo T (2016) What’s to be said for moral non-naturalism? In: Clark KJ(ed) The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, p 401–415

Dawkins R (2006) The God delusion. Houghton Mifflin Co, Boston

Drees W (2009) Religion and science in context: A guide to the debates. Routledge, London

Goldman A (1992) Liaisons: philosophy meets the cognitive and social sciences. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Griffiths PE, Wilkins JE (2013) Evolutionary debunking arguments in three domains: Fact value and religion. In: Dawes G, Maclaurin J (eds) A New Science of Religion. Routledge, London, p 133–146

Gutting G (2016) Philosophical progress. In: Cappelen H, Gendler T, Hawthorne J (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 309–325

Harrison P (1998) The Bible, Protestantism, and the rise of natural science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Harrison P (2015) The territories of science and religion. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Holder RD (2004) God, the multiverse, and everything: Modern cosmology and the argument from design. Ashgate, Aldershot

Jong J, Visala A (2014) Evolutionary debunking arguments against theism, reconsidered. Int J Philos Relig 76(3):243–258. in

Joyce R (2003) Evolution of morality. MIT Press, London

Kahane G (2011) Evolutionary debunking arguments. Nous 45:103–125

Kahane G (2014) Our cosmic insignificance. Nous 48(4):745–772

Kornblith H (2016) Philosophical naturalism. In: Cappelen H, Gendler T, Hawthorne J (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 147–157

Krauss LM (2012) A universe from nothing. Simon and Schuster, London

Leech D, Visala A (2011) The cognitive science of religion: Implications for theism? Zygon J Relig Sci 46(1):47–64

Leech D, Visala A (2012) How the cognitive science of religion might be relevant for philosophy of religion?. In: Nagasawa Yujin (ed) Scientific approaches to philosophy of religion. Palgrave, London, p 165–83

Marshall B (2002) Trinity and truth. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Miller CB (2014) Character and moral psychology. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Mithen S (2009) The prehistory and the religious mind. In: Spurway N (ed) Ecology, evolution and the mind. CSP, Newcastle, p 10–30

Mulgan T (2015) Purpose in the universe: The moral and metaphysical case for ananthropocentric purposivism. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Murray M (2009) Scientific explanations of religion and the Justification of religious belief. In The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Reflection on the Origin of Religion, Schloss J & Murray M (Eds). Oxford University Press, New York, 168-178

Nagasawa Y(ed) (2012) Scientific approaches to the philosophy of religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London

Nagel T (2010) Seular philosophy and the religious temperament. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Numbers RL(ed) (2009) Galileo goes to jail: And other myths about science and religion. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Nongbri B (2013) Before religion: a history of a modern concept. Yale University Press, New Haven

Peacocke A (2004) Creation and the World of Science. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Peterson C, Seligman M (2004) Character strengths and virtues. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Philipse H (2012) God in the age of science: A critique of religious reason. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Plantinga A (2011) Where the conflict really lies: Science, religion, and naturalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Saarinen R (1994) Weakness of the will in medieval thought: From Augustine to Buridan. Brill, Leiden

Schloss J, Murray M(eds) (2009) The believing primate: Scientific, philosophical, and theological reflections on the origin of religion. Oxford University Press, New York

Swinburne R (2004) The existence of God. Clarendon Press, Oxford

Tosi J, Warmke B (2016) Moral grandstanding. Philos and Public Aff 44(3):197–217

Trigg R, Barrett J (eds.) (2014) The roots of religion: Exploring the cognitive science of religion. Ashgate, Farnham

Vainio O-P (2017) Disagreeing virtuously. Religious conflict in interdisciplinary perspective. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids

Vainio O-P (2016) What does theology have to do with religion? Dual-process accounts, cognitive science of religion and a curious blind spot in contemporary theorizing. Open Theol 2(1):106–112

Vainio O-P, Visala A (2016) Tolerance or recognition? What can we expect? Open Theology 2(1):553–565

Vilenkin A (2006) Many worlds in one. The search for other universes. Hill and Wang, New York

MATH Google Scholar

Visala A (2011) Naturalism, theism and the cognitive study of religion. Ashgate, Farnham

Van Huyssteen W (2006) Alone in the World? Human uniqueness in science and theology. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids

Visala A (2014) The evolution of divine and human minds: Evolutionary psychology, the cognitive study of religion and theism. In: Watts Fraser, Turner Leon (ed) Evolution, religion and cognitive science. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 56–73

Wegner D (2002) The illusion of conscious will. The MIT Press, Cambridge

Wielenberg EJ (2014) Robust ethics: the metaphysics and epistemology of godless normative realism. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Aku Visala & Olli-Pekka Vainio

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aku Visala .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Visala, A., Vainio, OP. Philosophy of religion and the scientific turn. Palgrave Commun 4 , 135 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-018-0190-9

Download citation

Received : 24 April 2018

Accepted : 23 October 2018

Published : 13 November 2018

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-018-0190-9

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

Explore articles by subject
Guide to authors
Editorial policies

Subject List
Take a Tour
For Authors
Subscriber Services
Publications
African American Studies
African Studies
American Literature
Anthropology
Architecture Planning and Preservation
Art History
Atlantic History
Biblical Studies
British and Irish Literature
Childhood Studies
Chinese Studies
Cinema and Media Studies
Communication
Criminology
Environmental Science
Evolutionary Biology
International Law
International Relations
Islamic Studies
Jewish Studies
Latin American Studies
Latino Studies
Linguistics
Literary and Critical Theory
Medieval Studies
Military History
Political Science
Public Health
Renaissance and Reformation
Social Work
Urban Studies
Victorian Literature
Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Arguments for the Existence of God

Introduction, general overviews.

Anthologies
Assessing Arguments
Anselm’s Proslogion
Modal Ontological Arguments
Gödel’s Ontological Argument
Aquinas’s Five Ways
Arguments from Sufficient Reason
Arguments from Contingency
Kalām Cosmological Arguments
Biological Arguments for Design
Cosmological Fine-Tuning Arguments for Design
Moral Arguments
Arguments from Religious Experience
Arguments from Miracles
Arguments from Consciousness
Arguments from Reason
Aesthetic Arguments
“Cumulative” Arguments
Pascal’s Wager

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

Alfred North Whitehead
Feminist Aesthetics
Find more forthcoming articles...
Export Citations
Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Arguments for the Existence of God by Graham Oppy LAST REVIEWED: 26 February 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0040

Philosophical discussion of arguments for the existence of God appeared to have become extinct during the heyday of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. However, since the mid-1960s, there has been a resurgence of interest in these arguments. Much of the discussion has focused on Kant’s “big three” arguments: ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, and teleological arguments. Discussion of ontological arguments has been primarily concerned with (a) Anselm’s ontological argument; (b) modal ontological arguments, particularly as developed by Alvin Plantinga; and (c) higher-order ontological arguments, particularly Gödel’s ontological argument. Each of these kinds of arguments has found supporters, although few regard these as the strongest arguments that can be given for the existence of God. Discussion of cosmological arguments has been focused on (a) kalām cosmological arguments (defended, in particular, by William Lane Craig); (b) cosmological arguments from sufficient reason (defended, in particular, by Richard Gale and Alexander Pruss); and (c) cosmological arguments from contingency (defended, in particular, by Robert Koons and Timothy O’Connor). Discussion of teleological arguments has, in recent times, been partly driven by the emergence of the intelligent design movement in the United States. On the one hand, there has been a huge revival of enthusiasm for Paley’s biological argument for design. On the other hand, there has also been the development of fine-tuning teleological arguments driven primarily by results from very recent cosmological investigation of our universe. Moreover, new kinds of teleological arguments have also emerged—for example, Alvin Plantinga’s arguments for the incompatibility of metaphysical naturalism with evolutionary theory and Michael Rea’s arguments for the incompatibility of the rejection of intelligent design with materialism, realism about material objects, and realism about other minds. Other (“minor”) arguments for the existence of God that have received serious discussion in recent times include moral arguments, arguments from religious experience, arguments from miracles, arguments from consciousness, arguments from reason, and aesthetic arguments. Of course, there is also a host of “lesser” arguments that are mainly viewed as fodder for undergraduate dissection. Further topics that are germane to any discussion of arguments for the existence of God include (a) the appropriate goals at which these arguments should aim and the standards that they should meet, (b) the prospects for “cumulative” arguments (e.g., of the kind developed by Richard Swinburne), and (c) the prospects for prudential arguments that appeal to our desires rather than to our beliefs (e.g., Pascal’s wager).

There are few works that seek to provide a comprehensive overview of arguments for the existence of God; there are rather more works that seek to give a thorough treatment of arguments for and against the existence of God. Mackie 1982 is the gold standard; its treatment of arguments for the existence of God remained unmatched until the publication of Sobel 2004 . Other worthy treatments of a range of arguments for the existence of God—as parts of treatments of ranges of arguments for and against the existence of God—include Gale 1991 , Martin 1990 , and Oppy 2006 . The works mentioned so far are all products of nonbelief; they all provide critical analyses and negative assessments of the arguments for the existence of God that they consider. Plantinga 1990 is an interesting product of belief that also provides critical analyses and negative assessments of the arguments for the existence of God that it considers, although in the service of a wider argument in favor of the rationality of religious belief; first published in 1967, this work was clearly the gold standard for analysis of arguments for the existence of God prior to Mackie 1982 . Of the general works that provide a more positive assessment of arguments for the existence of God, consideration should certainly be given to Plantinga 2007 and, for those interested in a gentle but enthusiastic introduction, Davies 2004 .

Davies, Brian. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Wide-ranging introduction to philosophy of religion that includes a discussion of ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, arguments from religious experience, arguments from miracles, and moral arguments. Good coverage of a range of arguments for the existence of God.

Gale, Richard. On the Nature and Existence of God . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Entertaining and energetic discussion of ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, arguments from religious experience, and pragmatic arguments (e.g., Pascal’s wager).

Mackie, John. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God . New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Superb presentation of cumulative case argument for atheism. Considers ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, moral arguments, arguments from consciousness, arguments from religious experience, arguments from miracles, and Pascal’s wager. Benchmark text for critical discussion of arguments for the existence of God.

Martin, Michael. Atheism: A Philosophical Justification . Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.

Comprehensive cumulative case for atheism. Considers ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, arguments from miracles, arguments from religious experience, Pascal’s wager, and minor evidential arguments. Worthy contribution to the literature on arguments for the existence of God.

Oppy, Graham. Arguing about Gods . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511498978

Detailed discussion of cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, Pascal’s wager, and a range of other arguments. Discussion of ontological arguments that supplements Oppy 1995 (cited under Ontological Arguments ). Also includes some discussion of methodology: the mechanics of assessment of arguments for the existence of God.

Plantinga, Alvin. God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.

Groundbreaking discussion of cosmological arguments, ontological arguments, and teleological arguments. Instrumental in setting new standards of rigor and precision for the analysis of arguments for the existence of God. First published in 1967.

Plantinga, Alvin. “Appendix: Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments.” In Alvin Plantinga . Edited by Deane-Peter Baker, 203–228. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511611247

A collection of sketches or pointers to what Plantinga claims would be good arguments for the existence of God. Divided into (a) metaphysical arguments (aboutness, collections, numbers, counterfactuals, physical constants, complexity, contingency), (b) epistemological arguments (positive epistemic status, proper function, simplicity, induction, rejection of global skepticism, reference, intuition), (c) moral arguments, and (d) other arguments (colors and flavors, love, Mozart, play and enjoyment, providence, miracles).

Sobel, Jordan. Logic and Theism: Arguments for and against Beliefs in God . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Brilliant discussion of major arguments about the existence of God. Contains very detailed analyses of ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, and arguments from miracles. Brought new rigor and technical precision to the discussion of these arguments for the existence of God.

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

About Philosophy »
Meet the Editorial Board »
A Priori Knowledge
Abduction and Explanatory Reasoning
Abstract Objects
Addams, Jane
Adorno, Theodor
Aesthetic Hedonism
Aesthetics, Analytic Approaches to
Aesthetics, Continental
Aesthetics, Environmental
Aesthetics, History of
African Philosophy, Contemporary
Alexander, Samuel
Analytic/Synthetic Distinction
Anarchism, Philosophical
Animal Rights
Anscombe, G. E. M.
Anthropic Principle, The
Anti-Natalism
Applied Ethics
Aquinas, Thomas
Argument Mapping
Art and Emotion
Art and Knowledge
Art and Morality
Astell, Mary
Aurelius, Marcus
Austin, J. L.
Bacon, Francis
Bayesianism
Bergson, Henri
Berkeley, George
Biology, Philosophy of
Bolzano, Bernard
Boredom, Philosophy of
British Idealism
Buber, Martin
Buddhist Philosophy
Burge, Tyler
Business Ethics
Camus, Albert
Canterbury, Anselm of
Carnap, Rudolf
Cavendish, Margaret
Chemistry, Philosophy of
Childhood, Philosophy of
Chinese Philosophy
Cognitive Ability
Cognitive Phenomenology
Cognitive Science, Philosophy of
Coherentism
Communitarianism
Computational Science
Computer Science, Philosophy of
Computer Simulations
Comte, Auguste
Conceptual Role Semantics
Conditionals
Confirmation
Connectionism
Consciousness
Constructive Empiricism
Contemporary Hylomorphism
Contextualism
Contrastivism
Cook Wilson, John
Cosmology, Philosophy of
Critical Theory
Culture and Cognition
Daoism and Philosophy
Davidson, Donald
de Beauvoir, Simone
de Montaigne, Michel
Decision Theory
Deleuze, Gilles
Derrida, Jacques
Descartes, René
Descartes, René: Sensory Representations
Descriptions
Dewey, John
Dialetheism
Disagreement, Epistemology of
Disjunctivism
Dispositions
Divine Command Theory
Doing and Allowing
du Châtelet, Emilie
Dummett, Michael
Dutch Book Arguments
Early Modern Philosophy, 1600-1750
Education, Philosophy of
Engineering, Philosophy and Ethics of
Environmental Philosophy
Epistemic Basing Relation
Epistemic Defeat
Epistemic Injustice
Epistemic Justification
Epistemic Philosophy of Logic
Epistemology
Epistemology and Active Externalism
Epistemology, Bayesian
Epistemology, Feminist
Epistemology, Internalism and Externalism in
Epistemology, Moral
Epistemology of Education
Ethical Consequentialism
Ethical Deontology
Ethical Intuitionism
Eugenics and Philosophy
Events, The Philosophy of
Evidence-Based Medicine, Philosophy of
Evidential Support Relation In Epistemology, The
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments in Ethics
Evolutionary Epistemology
Experimental Philosophy
Extended Mind Thesis, The
Externalism and Internalism in the Philosophy of Mind
Faith, Conceptions of
Feminist Philosophy
Feyerabend, Paul
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb
Fictionalism
Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
Film, Philosophy of
Foot, Philippa
Foreknowledge
Forgiveness
Formal Epistemology
Foucault, Michel
Frege, Gottlob
Gadamer, Hans-Georg
Geometry, Epistemology of
God, Arguments for the Existence of
God, The Existence and Attributes of
Grice, Paul
Habermas, Jürgen
Hart, H. L. A.
Heaven and Hell
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Aesthetics
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Metaphysics
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Philosophy of History
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Philosophy of Politics
Heidegger, Martin: Early Works
Hermeneutics
Higher Education, Philosophy of
History, Philosophy of
Hobbes, Thomas
Horkheimer, Max
Human Rights
Hume, David: Aesthetics
Hume, David: Moral and Political Philosophy
Husserl, Edmund
Idealizations in Science
Identity in Physics
Imagination
Imagination and Belief
Immanuel Kant: Political and Legal Philosophy
Impossible Worlds
Incommensurability in Science
Indian Philosophy
Indispensability of Mathematics
Inductive Reasoning
Instruments in Science
Intellectual Humility
Intentionality, Collective
James, William
Japanese Philosophy
Kant and the Laws of Nature
Kant, Immanuel: Aesthetics and Teleology
Kant, Immanuel: Ethics
Kant, Immanuel: Theoretical Philosophy
Kierkegaard, Søren
Knowledge-first Epistemology
Knowledge-How
Kristeva, Julia
Kuhn, Thomas S.
Lacan, Jacques
Lakatos, Imre
Langer, Susanne
Language of Thought
Language, Philosophy of
Latin American Philosophy
Laws of Nature
Legal Epistemology
Legal Philosophy
Legal Positivism
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
Levinas, Emmanuel
Lewis, C. I.
Literature, Philosophy of
Locke, John
Locke, John: Identity, Persons, and Personal Identity
Lottery and Preface Paradoxes, The
Machiavelli, Niccolò
Martin Heidegger: Later Works
Martin Heidegger: Middle Works
Material Constitution
Mathematical Explanation
Mathematical Pluralism
Mathematical Structuralism
Mathematics, Ontology of
Mathematics, Philosophy of
Mathematics, Visual Thinking in
McDowell, John
McTaggart, John
Meaning of Life, The
Mechanisms in Science
Medically Assisted Dying
Medicine, Contemporary Philosophy of
Medieval Logic
Medieval Philosophy
Mental Causation
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice
Meta-epistemological Skepticism
Metaepistemology
Metametaphysics
Metaphilosophy
Metaphysical Grounding
Metaphysics, Contemporary
Metaphysics, Feminist
Midgley, Mary
Mill, John Stuart
Mind, Metaphysics of
Modal Epistemology
Models and Theories in Science
Montesquieu
Moore, G. E.
Moral Contractualism
Moral Naturalism and Nonnaturalism
Moral Responsibility
Multiculturalism
Murdoch, Iris
Music, Analytic Philosophy of
Nationalism
Natural Kinds
Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
Naïve Realism
Neo-Confucianism
Neuroscience, Philosophy of
Nietzsche, Friedrich
Nonexistent Objects
Normative Ethics
Normative Foundations, Philosophy of Law:
Normativity and Social Explanation
Objectivity
Occasionalism
Ontological Dependence
Ontology of Art
Ordinary Objects
Other Minds
Panpsychism
Particularism in Ethics
Pascal, Blaise
Paternalism
Peirce, Charles Sanders
Perception, Cognition, Action
Perception, The Problem of
Perfectionism
Persistence
Personal Identity
Phenomenal Concepts
Phenomenal Conservatism
Phenomenology
Philosophy for Children
Photography, Analytic Philosophy of
Physicalism
Physicalism and Metaphysical Naturalism
Physics, Experiments in
Political Epistemology
Political Obligation
Political Philosophy
Popper, Karl
Pornography and Objectification, Analytic Approaches to
Practical Knowledge
Practical Moral Skepticism
Practical Reason
Probabilistic Representations of Belief
Probability, Interpretations of
Problem of Divine Hiddenness, The
Problem of Evil, The
Propositions
Psychology, Philosophy of
Quine, W. V. O.
Racist Jokes
Rationalism
Rationality
Rawls, John: Moral and Political Philosophy
Realism and Anti-Realism
Realization
Reasons in Epistemology
Reductionism in Biology
Reference, Theory of
Reid, Thomas
Reliabilism
Religion, Philosophy of
Religious Belief, Epistemology of
Religious Experience
Ricoeur, Paul
Risk, Philosophy of
Rorty, Richard
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Rule-Following
Russell, Bertrand
Ryle, Gilbert
Sartre, Jean-Paul
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Science, Theoretical Virtues in
Scientific Explanation
Scientific Progress
Scientific Realism
Scientific Representation
Scientific Revolutions
Scotus, Duns
Self-Knowledge
Sellars, Wilfrid
Semantic Externalism
Semantic Minimalism
Senses, The
Sensitivity Principle in Epistemology
Shepherd, Mary
Singular Thought
Situated Cognition
Situationism and Virtue Theory
Skepticism, Contemporary
Skepticism, History of
Slurs, Pejoratives, and Hate Speech
Smith, Adam: Moral and Political Philosophy
Social Aspects of Scientific Knowledge
Social Epistemology
Social Identity
Sounds and Auditory Perception
Space and Time
Speech Acts
Spinoza, Baruch
Stebbing, Susan
Strawson, P. F.
Structural Realism
Supererogation
Supervenience
Tarski, Alfred
Technology, Philosophy of
Testimony, Epistemology of
Theoretical Terms in Science
Thought Experiments
Time and Tense
Time Travel
Transcendental Arguments
Truth and the Aim of Belief
Truthmaking
Turing Test
Two-Dimensional Semantics
Understanding
Uniqueness and Permissiveness in Epistemology
Utilitarianism
Value of Knowledge
Vienna Circle
Virtue Epistemology
Virtue Ethics
Virtues, Epistemic
Virtues, Intellectual
Voluntarism, Doxastic
Weakness of Will
Weil, Simone
William of Ockham
Williams, Bernard
Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Early Works
Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Later Works
Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Middle Works
Wollstonecraft, Mary
Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy
Legal Notice
Accessibility

[66.249.64.20|109.248.223.228]
109.248.223.228

(Stanford users can avoid this Captcha by logging in.)

Send to text email RefWorks EndNote printer

Hermeneutic philosophy of science, Van Gogh's eyes, and God : essays in honor of Patrick A. Heelan

Available online, at the library.

SAL3 (off-campus storage)

More options.

Find it at other libraries via WorldCat
Contributors

Description

Creators/contributors, contents/summary.

Acknowledgments. Preface: 'Patrick Heelan'-- J. Ladriere, M. Jager. Introduction. The Fortunes of Incommensurability: Thought-Styles, Paradigms, and Patrick A. Heelan's Hermeneutic of Science-- B.E. Babich. Hermeneutics and the Philosophy of Science. Section Summaries. The Hermeneutics of the Natural Sciences-- S. Toulmin. Experimental Life: Heelan on Quantum Mechanics-- R.P. Crease. The Hermeneutic Context of Constitution-- D. Ginev. The 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of Quantum Mechanics and Phenomenology-- R. Fjelland. Sokal's Hermeneutic Hoax: Physics and the New Inquisition-- B.E. Babich. Wittgenstein, Hertz, and Hermeneutics-- A. Janik. On the Interpretive Nature of Hertz's Mechanics-- J. Kockelmans. Comte and the Possibility of a Hermeneutics of Science-- R.C. Scharff. Was heisst das - die Bewandtnis?: Retranslating the Categories of Heidegger's Hermeneutics of the Technical-- T. Kisiel. The Hermeneutics of Texts-- T. Seebohm. Husserlian Hermeneutics: Mathematics and Theoria-- R. Cobb-Stevens. Abstracting Aristotle's Philosophy of Mathematics-- J. Cleary. Piaget and Husserl: On Theory and Praxis in Science-- W. Mays. Human Agency and the Social Sciences: From Contextual Phenomenology to Genealogy-- T. O'Connor. Toward a Phenomenological Philosophy of Nature-- J.J. Compton. No Man is an Island-- J. Ziman. Science as the Work of a Community-- R. Harre. Truth in Art, Visual Spaces and the Pragmatic Phenomenology of Perception. Section Summaries. Patrick Heelan's Interpretation of van Gogh's 'Bedroom at Arles'-- J. Margolis. Patrick Heelan's Innocent Eye-- S. Crowell. Merleau-Ponty's Reading of Heidegger-- J. Taminiaux. Heidegger's Truth of Art and the Question of Aesthetics-- B.E. Babich. Phenomenology and 20th Century Artistic Revolutions-- D.C. Barrett, S.J. Virtue and Virtual Reality in John Trumbull's Pantheon-- I.B. Jaffe. Getting at the Rapture of Seeing: Ellsworth Kelly and Visual Experience-- L.J. O'Donovan, S.J. Grammar(s) of Perception-- B. Saunders. Cognitive Neuroscience of Social Sensibility-- J. Schulkin. Phenomenology and Pragmatism-- R.C. Neville. God: Religion and Science. Section Summaries. Psychoanalytic Praxis and the Truth of Pain-- W.J. Richardson, S.J. Poetics of a Possible God
Faith or Philosophy-- R. Kearney. James on Bootstraps, Evolution, and Life-- T. Nickles, G. McCollum-Nickles. In-Between Science and Religion-- D. Balestra. Thinking the Philosophy of Religion-- G. Barden. Van Gogh's Eyes-- T.J.J. Altizer. A Catholic Stance Toward Scientific Inquiry for the 21st Century-- S. Fuller. The Dialogism of Meaning, The Discursive Embeddedness of Knowledge, The Colloquy of Being-- H. Byrnes. The Creative Imagination-- W.N. Clarke, S.J. A Priestly View of Bible Arithmetic: Deity's Regulative Aesthetic Activity within Davidic Musicology-- E.G. McClain. Afterword-- P.A. Heelan, S.J. Bibliography: Patrick A. Heelan. Notes on Contributors. Index.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Bibliographic information

Browse related items.

Stanford Home
Maps & Directions
Search Stanford
Emergency Info
Terms of Use
Non-Discrimination
Accessibility

Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview

© 2012
Todd H. Weir

You can also search for this editor in PubMed Google Scholar

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History (CIH)

1796 Accesses

35 Citations

3 Altmetric

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Available as EPUB and PDF
Read on any device
Instant download
Own it forever
Compact, lightweight edition
Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
Free shipping worldwide - see info
Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (10 chapters)

Front matter, the riddles of monism: an introductory essay, proto-monism in german philosophy, theology, and science, 1800–1845.

Frederick Gregory

Alexander von Humboldt and Monism

Nicolaas Rupke

Monism and Suffering: A Theosophical Perspective

Gauri Viswanathan

Spinozist Monism: Perspectives from within and without the Monist Movement

Tracie Matysik

Monism and Morphology at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Sander Gliboff

Monist Philosophy of Science: Between Worldview and Scientific Meta-Reflection

Monism in britain: biologists and the rationalist press association.

Peter J. Bowler

Between Hegel and Haeckel: Monistic Worldview, Marxist Philosophy, and Biomedicine in Russia and the Soviet Union

Igor J. Polianski

Monism, Racial Hygiene, and National Socialism

Heiner Fangerau

Back Matter

20. Jahrhundert
20th century
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
National Socialism
Soviet Union
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

About this book

Hear an interview with editor Todd H. Weir on New Books in Intellectual History, here:

http://newbooksinintellectualhistory.com/2013/11/25/todd-h-weir-monism-science-philosophy-religion-and-the-history-of-a-worldview-palgrave-2012/

'Monism is a devilish shapeshifter. This volume takes up the challenge of recognizing and analysing monism in a wide diversity of forms, from the early nineteenth century to 1945. Collectively, its authors deepen the discussion of monism as a worldview while extending our understanding of its philosophical, social and political locations.' - German History

'This set of wonderfully probing essays greatly deepens our understanding of monism as both intellectual movement and cultural mood. The expansive scope of the monist empire is matched by an interdisciplinary range of authors who collectively deliver a remarkable interrogation of a subject much in need of renewed scrutiny. In a time when monism snakes its way through a good deal of both popular science and New Age spirituality, this careful reassessment of its diverse historical trajectories is most welcome.' David N. Livingstone, author of Putting Science in its Place, and Adam's Ancestors: Race, Religion and the Politics of Human Origins

'The contributors pull out of obscurity a world-view that aimed at overcoming the philosophical tradition of separating mind and matter, only to enjoy considerable popularity, especially in the German-speaking world, after 1840 and well into the twentieth century. The collected essays provide ample evidence for connecting monist ideas with broader strands of popular science and indicate, too, a renewed interest in anti-dualistic philosophies today. Monism thus appears in this volume as a set of ideas, always radiating into in the public arena, whose analysis can effectively connect questions from the history of science and a broadly conceived intellectual history.' Andreas W. Daum, professor of History, State University of New York at Buffalo

'This fascinating collection of essays explores the origins of monism in nineteenth-century Germany and its impact on biology, medicine, eugenics, feminism, philosophy, and religion up through the 1940s, including in the Soviet Union and the Third Reich. This volume is a major contribution to European intellectual history, highlighting the vitality and influence of a movement that operated along the boundaries between idealism and materialism, academic and popular science, secularism and established religion, and right and left-wing forms of collectivism and dissent.' George S. Williamson, author of The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche

About the authors

Bibliographic information.

Book Title : Monism

Book Subtitle : Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview

Editors : Todd H. Weir

Series Title : Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137011749

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan New York

eBook Packages : Palgrave History Collection , History (R0)

Hardcover ISBN : 978-0-230-11373-2 Published: 26 July 2012

Softcover ISBN : 978-1-349-29548-7 Published: 26 July 2012

eBook ISBN : 978-1-137-01174-9 Published: 06 August 2012

Series ISSN : 2945-6630

Series E-ISSN : 2945-6649

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : IX, 258

Topics : Cultural History , History of Philosophy , History of Science , European History , Social History , Modern Philosophy

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Find a journal
Track your research

Three Essays on Religion

Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Date: September 1, 1948 to May 31, 1951 ?

Location: Chester, Pa. ?

Genre: Essay

Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Education

In the following three essays, King wrestles with the role of religion in modern society. In the first assignment, he calls science and religion “different though converging truths” that both “spring from the same seeds of vital human needs.” King emphasizes an awareness of God’s presence in the second document, noting that religion’s purpose “is not to perpetuate a dogma or a theology; but to produce living witnesses and testimonies to the power of God in human experience.” In the final handwritten essay King acknowledges the life-affirming nature of Christianity, observing that its adherents have consistently “looked forward for a time to come when the law of love becomes the law of life.”

"Science and Religion"

There is widespread belief in the minds of many that there is a conflict between science and religion. But there is no fundamental issue between the two. While the conflict has been waged long and furiously, it has been on issues utterly unrelated either to religion or to science. The conflict has been largely one of trespassing, and as soon as religion and science discover their legitimate spheres the conflict ceases.

Religion, of course, has been very slow and loath to surrender its claim to sovereignty in all departments of human life; and science overjoyed with recent victories, has been quick to lay claim to a similar sovereignty. Hence the conflict.

But there was never a conflict between religion and science as such. There cannot be. Their respective worlds are different. Their methods are dissimilar and their immediate objectives are not the same. The method of science is observation, that of religion contemplation. Science investigates. Religion interprets. One seeks causes, the other ends. Science thinks in terms of history, religion in terms of teleology. One is a survey, the other an outlook.

The conflict was always between superstition disguised as religion and materialism disguised as science, between pseudo-science and pseudo-religion.

Religion and science are two hemispheres of human thought. They are different though converging truths. Both science and religion spring from the same seeds of vital human needs.

Science is the response to the human need of knowledge and power. Religion is the response to the human need for hope and certitude. One is an outreaching for mastery, the other for perfection. Both are man-made, and like man himself, are hedged about with limitations. Neither science nor religion, by itself, is sufficient for man. Science is not civilization. Science is organized knowledge; but civilization which is the art of noble and progressive communal living requires much more than knowledge. It needs beauty which is art, and faith and moral aspiration which are religion. It needs artistic and spiritual values along with the intellectual.

Man cannot live by facts alone. What we know is little enough. What we are likely to know will always be little in comparison with what there is to know. But man has a wish-life which must build inverted pyramids upon the apexes of known facts. This is not logical. It is, however, psychological.

Science and religion are not rivals. It is only when one attempts to be the oracle at the others shrine that confusion arises. Whan the scientist from his laboratory, on the basis of alleged scientific knowledge presumes to issue pronouncements on God, on the origin and destiny of life, and on man's place in the scheme of things he is [ passing? ] out worthless checks. When the religionist delivers ultimatums to the scientist on the basis of certain cosomologies embedded in the sacred text then he is a sorry spectacle indeed.

When religion, however, on the strength of its own postulates, speaks to men of God and the moral order of the universe, when it utters its prophetic burden of justice and love and holiness and peace, then its voice is the voice of the eternal spiritual truth, irrefutable and invincible.,

"The Purpose of Religion"

What is the purpose of religion? 1 Is it to perpetuate an idea about God? Is it totally dependent upon revelation? What part does psychological experience play? Is religion synonymous with theology?

Harry Emerson Fosdick says that the most hopeful thing about any system of theology is that it will not last. 2 This statement will shock some. But is the purpose of religion the perpetuation of theological ideas? Religion is not validated by ideas, but by experience.

This automatically raises the question of salvation. Is the basis for salvation in creeds and dogmas or in experience. Catholics would have us believe the former. For them, the church, its creeds, its popes and bishops have recited the essence of religion and that is all there is to it. On the other hand we say that each soul must make its own reconciliation to God; that no creed can take the place of that personal experience. This was expressed by Paul Tillich when he said, “There is natural religion which belongs to man by nature. But there is also a revealed religion which man receives from a supernatural reality.” 3 Relevant religion therefore, comes through revelation from God, on the one hand; and through repentance and acceptance of salvation on the other hand. 4 Dogma as an agent in salvation has no essential place.

This is the secret of our religion. This is what makes the saints move on in spite of problems and perplexities of life that they must face. This religion of experience by which man is aware of God seeking him and saving him helps him to see the hands of God moving through history.

Religion has to be interpreted for each age; stated in terms that that age can understand. But the essential purpose of religion remains the same. It is not to perpetuate a dogma or theology; but to produce living witnesses and testimonies to the power of God in human experience.

[ signed ] M. L. King Jr. 5

"The Philosophy of Life Undergirding Christianity and the Christian Ministry"

Basically Christianity is a value philosophy. It insists that there are eternal values of intrinsic, self-evidencing validity and worth, embracing the true and the beautiful and consummated in the Good. This value content is embodied in the life of Christ. So that Christian philosophy is first and foremost Christocentric. It begins and ends with the assumption that Christ is the revelation of God. 6

We might ask what are some of the specific values that Christianity seeks to conserve? First Christianity speaks of the value of the world. In its conception of the world, it is not negative; it stands over against the asceticisms, world denials, and world flights, for example, of the religions of India, and is world-affirming, life affirming, life creating. Gautama bids us flee from the world, but Jesus would have us use it, because God has made it for our sustenance, our discipline, and our happiness. 7 So that the Christian view of the world can be summed up by saying that it is a place in which God is fitting men and women for the Kingdom of God.

Christianity also insists on the value of persons. All human personality is supremely worthful. This is something of what Schweitzer has called “reverence for life.” 8 Hunan being must always be used as ends; never as means. I realize that there have been times that Christianity has short at this point. There have been periods in Christians history that persons have been dealt with as if they were means rather than ends. But Christianity at its highest and best has always insisted that persons are intrinsically valuable. And so it is the job of the Christian to love every man because God love love. We must not love men merely because of their social or economic position or because of their cultural contribution, but we are to love them because God they are of value to God.

Christianity is also concerned about the value of life itself. Christianity is concerned about the good life for every child, man, and woman and child. This concern for the good life and the value of life is no where better expressed than in the words of Jesus in the gospel of John: “I came that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.” 9 This emphasis has run throughout the Christian tradition. Christianity has always had a concern for the elimination of disease and pestilence. This is seen in the great interest that it has taken in the hospital movement.

Christianity is concerned about increasing value. The whole concept of the kingdom of God on earth expressing a concern for increasing value. We need not go into a dicussion of the nature and meaning of the Kingdom of God, only to say that Christians throughout the ages have held tenaciouly to this concept. They have looked forward for a time to come when the law of love becomes the law of life.

In the light of all that we have said about Christianity as a value philosophy, where does the ministry come into the picture? 10

1. King may have also considered the purpose of religion in a Morehouse paper that is no longer extant, as he began a third Morehouse paper, “Last week we attempted to discuss the purpose of religion” (King, “The Purpose of Education,” September 1946-February 1947, in Papers 1:122).

2. “Harry Emerson Fosdick” in American Spiritual Autobiographies: Fifteen Self-Portraits, ed. Louis Finkelstein (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), p. 114: “The theology of any generation cannot be understood, apart from the conditioning social matrix in which it is formulated. All systems of theology are as transient as the cultures they are patterned from.”

3. King further developed this theme in his dissertation: “[Tillich] finds a basis for God's transcendence in the conception of God as abyss. There is a basic inconsistency in Tillich's thought at this point. On the one hand he speaks as a religious naturalist making God wholly immanent in nature. On the other hand he speaks as an extreme supernaturalist making God almost comparable to the Barthian ‘wholly other’” (King, “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman,” 15 April 1955, in Papers 2:535).

4. Commas were added after the words “religion” and “salvation.”

5. King folded this assignment lengthwise and signed his name on the verso of the last page.

6. King also penned a brief outline with this title (King, “The Philosophy of Life Undergirding Christianity and the Christian Ministry,” Outline, September 1948-May 1951). In the outline, King included the reference “see Enc. Of Religion p. 162.” This entry in An Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Vergilius Ferm (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946) contains a definition of Christianity as “Christo-centric” and as consisting “of eternal values of intrinsic, self-evidencing validity and worth, embracing the true and the beautiful and consummated in the Good.” King kept this book in his personal library.

7. Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563-ca. 483 BCE) was the historical Buddha.

8. For an example of Schweitzer's use of the phrase “reverence for life,” see Albert Schweitzer, “The Ethics of Reverence for Life,” Christendom 1 (1936): 225-239.

9. John 10:10.

10. In his outline for this paper, King elaborated: “The Ministry provides leadership in helping men to recognize and accept the eternal values in the Xty religion. a. The necessity of a call b. The necessity for disinterested love c. The [ necessity ] for moral uprightness” (King, “Philosophy of Life,” Outline, September 1948-May 1951).

Source: CSKC-INP, Coretta Scott King Collection, In Private Hands, Sermon file.

The Scopes Trial: a Landmark in the Clash of Science and Religion

This essay about the Scopes Trial of 1925 discusses the significant legal and cultural conflict it represented in American history, focusing on the clash between modern scientific theories of evolution and traditional religious beliefs. Centered on John Scopes, a teacher accused of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act by teaching evolution, the trial attracted national attention with figures like William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow representing opposing sides. The essay highlights the trial’s role as a public spectacle that underscored broader national debates over academic freedom, the role of science in education, and the balance between religious doctrine and educational content. It concludes by reflecting on the trial’s lasting impact on American society, particularly in shaping discussions around educational policies and the intersection of law, religion, and science.

How it works

Few instances in the annals of American legal and cultural history have generated as much attention and debate as the 1925 Scopes Trial. The Scopes Monkey Trial, also known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, was a court battle that focused on the fundamental disagreement between conventional religious beliefs and contemporary scientific theories on evolution. In the continuous discussion about the place of science and religion in American society and public schools, the trial turned into a turning point.

A young Dayton, Tennessee, high school teacher named John Scopes emerged as the main character in this momentous conflict. The Butler Act of Tennessee, which forbade the teaching of human evolution in any state-funded school, was allegedly broken by Scopes. The act directly contested Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories, which some religious organizations believed to be at odds with the biblical creation story.

Due in part to the presence of two prominent public figures, the trial garnered significant public attention. Prosecution joined forces with prominent Christian conservative William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential contender, to campaign against evolution education. He was opposed by eminent defense lawyer and agnostic Clarence Darrow, who took up Scopes’ case in an effort to support intellectual freedom and science.

Courtroom discussions on academic freedom, science vs religion, and how education shapes young minds gave way to larger national discussions. The trial became a national spectacle as media from all over the nation flocked to Dayton to cover the first-ever live radio broadcast of a trial in American history.

At its heart, the Scopes Trial was more than just a legal dispute over a teacher’s curriculum. It symbolized a deeper cultural conflict between emergent modernist sensibilities that embraced scientific advancements and the entrenched traditionalist views that sought to preserve established religious doctrines. This clash can be seen as part of the larger tension characterizing the Roaring Twenties, a time of dramatic social and cultural change in the United States.

Despite the circus-like atmosphere surrounding the trial, the legal arguments centered on whether Scopes had indeed violated the Butler Act and whether the Act itself was constitutional. Darrow’s brilliant, if theatrical, defense strategy included calling Bryan to the stand as a witness. In a dramatic interrogation, Darrow grilled Bryan on his interpretation of the Bible, trying to highlight the inherent conflicts between literal biblical interpretations and scientific evidence.

The trial concluded with Scopes found guilty and fined $100 (a verdict later overturned on a technicality), but the broader legal question about the Butler Act’s constitutionality remained unresolved until a later Supreme Court case. The immediate outcome of the trial was paradoxically seen as both a victory and a defeat for both sides. While the anti-evolution law remained in effect, the trial itself raised significant public doubt about the viability of such statutes and showcased the increasing public support for evolutionary science.

In retrospect, the Scopes Trial did more than just debate the legality of teaching evolution; it spotlighted the growing pains of a society transitioning from the past into a modern age. Today, the trial serves as a case study in the complex interplay between law, education, and societal values. It remains a poignant reminder of the ongoing challenges in balancing diverse viewpoints in a pluralistic society, particularly in the realms of education and public policy.

This moment in history underscores not only the conflict that can arise when new ideas challenge old beliefs but also the enduring struggle over control of educational content. It highlights the critical need for a thoughtful dialogue that respects both scientific insights and religious beliefs, aiming for an informed consensus in educational standards. As such, the Scopes Trial remains a key reference point in discussions about academic freedom and the nature of education in a democratic society.

Cite this page

The Scopes Trial: A Landmark in the Clash of Science and Religion. (2024, May 12). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-scopes-trial-a-landmark-in-the-clash-of-science-and-religion/

"The Scopes Trial: A Landmark in the Clash of Science and Religion." PapersOwl.com , 12 May 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-scopes-trial-a-landmark-in-the-clash-of-science-and-religion/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Scopes Trial: A Landmark in the Clash of Science and Religion . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-scopes-trial-a-landmark-in-the-clash-of-science-and-religion/ [Accessed: 16 May. 2024]

"The Scopes Trial: A Landmark in the Clash of Science and Religion." PapersOwl.com, May 12, 2024. Accessed May 16, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-scopes-trial-a-landmark-in-the-clash-of-science-and-religion/

"The Scopes Trial: A Landmark in the Clash of Science and Religion," PapersOwl.com , 12-May-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-scopes-trial-a-landmark-in-the-clash-of-science-and-religion/. [Accessed: 16-May-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

Table of Contents
Random Entry
Chronological
Editorial Information
About the SEP
Editorial Board
How to Cite the SEP
Special Characters
Advanced Tools
Support the SEP
PDFs for SEP Friends
Make a Donation
SEPIA for Libraries
Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

Friends PDF Preview
Author and Citation Info
Back to Top

Einstein’s Philosophy of Science

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is well known as the most prominent physicist of the twentieth century. His contributions to twentieth-century philosophy of science, though of comparable importance, are less well known. Einstein’s own philosophy of science is an original synthesis of elements drawn from sources as diverse as neo-Kantianism, conventionalism, and logical empiricism, its distinctive feature being its novel blending of realism with a holist, underdeterminationist form of conventionalism. Of special note is the manner in which Einstein’s philosophical thinking was driven by and contributed to the solution of problems first encountered in his work in physics. Equally significant are Einstein’s relations with and influence on other prominent twentieth-century philosophers of science, including Moritz Schlick, Hans Reichenbach, Ernst Cassirer, Philipp Frank, Henri Bergson, Émile Meyerson.

1. Introduction: Was Einstein an Epistemological “Opportunist”?

2. theoretical holism: the nature and role of conventions in science, 3. simplicity and theory choice, 4. univocalness in the theoretical representation of nature, 5. realism and separability, 6. the principle theories—constructive theories distinction, 7. conclusion: albert einstein: philosopher-physicist, einstein’s work, related literature, other internet resources, related entries.

Late in 1944, Albert Einstein received a letter from Robert Thornton, a young African-American philosopher of science who had just finished his Ph.D. under Herbert Feigl at Minnesota and was beginning a new job teaching physics at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. He had written to solicit from Einstein a few supportive words on behalf of his efforts to introduce “as much of the philosophy of science as possible” into the modern physics course that he was to teach the following spring (Thornton to Einstein, 28 November 1944, EA 61–573). Here is what Einstein offered in reply:

I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth. (Einstein to Thornton, 7 December 1944, EA 61–574)

That Einstein meant what he said about the relevance of philosophy to physics is evidenced by the fact that he had been saying more or less the same thing for decades. Thus, in a 1916 memorial note for Ernst Mach, a physicist and philosopher to whom Einstein owed a special debt, he wrote:

How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his specialty? I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching, that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not merely their quick-wittedness, I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through their tenacity in defending their views, that the subject seemed important to them. Indeed, one should not be surprised at this. (Einstein 1916, 101)

How, exactly, does the philosophical habit of mind provide the physicist with such “independence of judgment”? Einstein goes on to explain:

Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as “necessities of thought,” “a priori givens,” etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, replaced by others if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason. (Einstein 1916, 102)

One is not surprised at Einstein’s then citing Mach’s critical analysis of the Newtonian conception of absolute space as a paradigm of what Mach, himself, termed the “historical-critical” method of philosophical analysis (Einstein 1916, 101, citing Ch. 2, §§ 6–7 of Mach’s Mechanik , most likely the third edition, Mach 1897).

The place of philosophy in physics was a theme to which Einstein returned time and again, it being clearly an issue of deep importance to him. Sometimes he adopts a modest pose, as in this oft-quoted remark from his 1933 Spencer Lecture:

If you wish to learn from the theoretical physicist anything about the methods which he uses, I would give you the following piece of advice: Don’t listen to his words, examine his achievements. For to the discoverer in that field, the constructions of his imagination appear so necessary and so natural that he is apt to treat them not as the creations of his thoughts but as given realities. (Einstein 1933, 5–6)

More typical, however, is the confident pose he struck three years later in “Physics and Reality”:

It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why then should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher do the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing at a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are so well established that waves of doubt can not reach them; but it can not be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of the theoretical foundations; for, he himself knows best, and feels more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for a new foundation, he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities. (Einstein 1936, 349)

What kind of philosophy might we expect from the philosopher-physicist? One thing that we should not expect from a physicist who takes the philosophical turn in order to help solve fundamental physical problems is a systematic philosophy:

The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent upon each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is—insofar as it is thinkable at all—primitive and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through to such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever does not fit into his system. The scientist, however, cannot afford to carry his striving for epistemological systematic that far. He accepts gratefully the epistemological conceptual analysis; but the external conditions, which are set for him by the facts of experience, do not permit him to let himself be too much restricted in the construction of his conceptual world by the adherence to an epistemological system. He therefore must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist: he appears as realist insofar as he seeks to describe a world independent of the acts of perception; as idealist insofar as he looks upon the concepts and theories as free inventions of the human spirit (not logically derivable from what is empirically given); as positivist insofar as he considers his concepts and theories justified only to the extent to which they furnish a logical representation of relations among sensory experiences. He may even appear as Platonist or Pythagorean insofar as he considers the viewpoint of logical simplicity as an indispensable and effective tool of his research. (Einstein 1949, 683–684)

But what strikes the “systematic epistemologist” as mere opportunism might appear otherwise when viewed from the perspective of a physicist engaged, as Einstein himself put it, in “the critical contemplation of the theoretical foundations.” The overarching goal of that critical contemplation was, for Einstein, the creation of a unified foundation for physics after the model of a field theory like general relativity (see Sauer 2014 for non-technical overview on Einstein’s approach to the unified field theory program). Einstein failed in his quest, but there was a consistency and constancy in the striving that informed as well the philosophy of science developing hand in hand with the scientific project.

Indeed, from early to late a few key ideas played the central, leading role in Einstein’s philosophy of science, ideas about which Einstein evinced surprisingly little doubt even while achieving an ever deeper understanding of their implications. For the purposes of the following comparatively brief overview, we can confine our attention to just five topics:

Theoretical holism.
Simplicity and theory choice.
Univocalness in the theoretical representation of nature.
Realism and separability.
The principle theories-constructive theories distinction.

The emphasis on the continuity and coherence in the development of Einstein’s philosophy of science contrasts with an account such as Gerald Holton’s (1968), which claims to find a major philosophical break in the mid-1910s, in the form of a turn away from a sympathy for an anti-metaphysical positivism and toward a robust scientific realism. Holton sees this turn being driven by Einstein’s alleged realization that general relativity, by contrast with special relativity, requires a realistic ontology. However, Einstein was probably never an ardent “Machian” positivist, [ 1 ] and he was never a scientific realist, at least not in the sense acquired by the term “scientific realist” in later twentieth century philosophical discourse (see Howard 1993). Einstein expected scientific theories to have the proper empirical credentials, but he was no positivist; and he expected scientific theories to give an account of physical reality, but he was no scientific realist. Moreover, in both respects his views remained more or less the same from the beginning to the end of his career.

Why Einstein did not think himself a realist (he said so explicitly) is discussed below. Why he is not to be understood as a positivist deserves a word or two of further discussion here, if only because the belief that he was sympathetic to positivism, at least early in his life, is so widespread (for a fuller discussion, see Howard 1993).

That Einstein later repudiated positivism is beyond doubt. Many remarks from at least the early 1920s through the end of his life make this clear. In 1946 he explained what he took to be Mach’s basic error:

He did not place in the correct light the essentially constructive and speculative nature of all thinking and more especially of scientific thinking; in consequence, he condemned theory precisely at those points where its constructive-speculative character comes to light unmistakably, such as in the kinetic theory of atoms. (Einstein 1946, 21)

Is Einstein here also criticizing his own youthful philosophical indiscretions? The very example that Einstein gives here makes any such interpretation highly implausible, because one of Einstein’s main goals in his early work on Brownian motion (Einstein 1905b) was precisely to prove the reality of atoms, this in the face of the then famous skepticism of thinkers like Mach and Wilhelm Ostwald:

My principal aim in this was to find facts that would guarantee as much as possible the existence of atoms of definite size.… The agreement of these considerations with experience together with Planck’s determination of the true molecular size from the law of radiation (for high temperatures) convinced the skeptics, who were quite numerous at that time (Ostwald, Mach), of the reality of atoms. (Einstein 1946, 45, 47)

Why, then, is the belief in Einstein’s early sympathy for positivism so well entrenched?

The one piece of evidence standardly cited for a youthful flirtation with positivism is Einstein’s critique of the notion of absolute distant simultaneity in his 1905 paper on special relativity (Einstein 1905c). Einstein speaks there of “observers,” but in an epistemologically neutral way that can be replaced by talk of an inertial frame of reference. What really bothers Einstein about distant simultaneity is not that it is observationally inaccessible but that it involves a two-fold arbitrariness, one in the choice of an inertial frame of reference and one in the stipulation within a given frame of a convention regarding the ratio of the times required for a light signal to go from one stationary observer to another and back again. Likewise, Einstein faults classical Maxwellian electrodynamics for an asymmetry in the way it explains electromagnetic induction depending on whether it is the coil or the magnet that is assumed to be at rest. If the effect is the same—a current in the coil—why, asks Einstein, should there be two different explanations: an electrical field created in the vicinity of a moving magnet or an electromotive force induced in a conductor moving through a stationary magnetic field? To be sure, whether it is the coil or the magnet that is taken to be at rest makes no observable difference, but the problem, from Einstein’s point of view, is the asymmetry in the two explanations. Even the young Einstein was no positivist.

First generation logical empiricists sought to legitimate their movement in part by claiming Einstein as a friend. They may be forgiven their putting a forced interpretation on arguments taken out of context. We can do better.

Einstein’s philosophy of science is an original synthesis drawing upon many philosophical resources, from neo-Kantianism to Machian empiricism and Duhemian conventionalism. Other thinkers and movements, most notably the logical empiricists, drew upon the same resources. But Einstein put the pieces together in a manner importantly different from Moritz Schlick, Hans Reichenbach, and Rudolf Carnap, and he argued with them for decades about who was right (however much they obscured these differences in representing Einstein publicly as a friend of logical empiricism and scientific philosophy). Starting from the mid-1920s till the end of the decade Einstein show some interest in the rationalistic realism of Émile Meyerson (Einstein, 1928; cf. Giovanelli 2018; on the contemporary debate between Einstein and Bergson, see Canales 2015). Understanding how Einstein puts those pieces together therefore sheds light not only on the philosophical aspect of his own achievements in physics but also upon the larger history of the development of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century.

Any philosophy of science must include an account of the relation between theory and evidence. Einstein learned about the historicity of scientific concepts from Mach. But his preferred way of modeling the logical relationship between theory and evidence was inspired mainly by his reading of Pierre Duhem’s La Théorie physique: son objet et sa structure (Duhem 1906). Einstein probably first read Duhem, or at least learned the essentials of Duhem’s philosophy of science around the fall of 1909, when, upon returning to Zurich from the patent office in Bern to take up his first academic appointment at the University of Zurich, he became the upstairs neighbor of his old friend and fellow Zurich physics student, Friedrich Adler. Just a few months before, Adler had published the German translation of La Théorie physique (Duhem 1908), and the philosophy of science became a frequent topic of conversation between the new neighbors, Adler and Einstein (see Howard 1990a).

Theoretical holism and the underdetermination of theory choice by empirical evidence are the central theses in Duhem’s philosophy of science. His argument, in brief, is that at least in sciences like physics, where experiment is dense with sophisticated instrumentation whose employment itself requires theoretical interpretation, hypotheses are not tested in isolation but only as part of whole bodies of theory. It follows that when there is a conflict between theory and evidence, the fit can be restored in a multiplicity of different ways. No statement is immune to revision because of a presumed status as a definition or thanks to some other a priori warrant, and most any statement can be retained on pain of suitable adjustments elsewhere in the total body of theory. Hence, theory choice is underdetermined by evidence.

That Einstein’s exposure to Duhem’s philosophy of science soon left its mark is evident from lecture notes that Einstein prepared for a course on electricity and magnetism at the University of Zurich in the winter semester of 1910/11. Einstein asks how one can assign a definite electrical charge everywhere within a material body, if the interior of the body is not accessible to test particles. A “Machian” positivist would deem such direct empirical access necessary for meaningful talk of a charge distribution in the interior of a sold. Einstein argues otherwise:

We have seen how experience led to the introd. of the concept of the quantity of electricity. it was defined by means of the forces that small electrified bodies exert on each other. But now we extend the application of the concept to cases in which this definition cannot be applied directly as soon as we conceive the el. forces as forces exerted on electricity rather than on material particles. We set up a conceptual system the individual parts of which do not correspond directly to empirical facts. Only a certain totality of theoretical material corresponds again to a certain totality of experimental facts. We find that such an el. continuum is always applicable only for the representation of el. states of affairs in the interior of ponderable bodies. Here too we define the vector of el. field strength as the vector of the mech. force exerted on the unit of pos. electr. quantity inside a body. But the force so defined is no longer directly accessible to exp. It is one part of a theoretical construction that can be correct or false, i.e., consistent or not consistent with experience, only as a whole . ( Collected Papers of Albert Einstein , hereafter CPAE, Vol. 3, Doc. 11 [pp. 12–13])

One can hardly ask for a better summary of Duhem’s point of view in application to a specific physical theory. Explicit citations of Duhem by Einstein are rare (for details, see Howard 1990a). But explicit invocations of a holist picture of the structure and empirical interpretation of theories started to prevail at the turn of the 1920s.

During the decade 1905–1915, Einstein had more or less explicitly assumed that in a good theory there are certain individual parts that can be directly coordinated with the behavior of physically-existent objects used as probes. A theory can be said to be ‘true or false’ if such objects respectively behave or do not behave as predicted. In special relativity, as in classical mechanics, the fundamental geometrical/kinematical variables, the space and time coordinates, are measured with rods and clocks separately from the other non-geometrical variables, say, charge electric field strengths, which were supposed to be defined by measuring the force on a charge test particle. In general relativity, coordinates are no longer directly measurable independently from the gravitational field. Still, the line element $ds$ (distance between nearby spacetime points) was supposed to have a ‘natural’ distance that can be measured with rods and clocks. In the late 1910s, pressed by the epistemological objections raised by different interlocutors—in particular Hermann Weyl (Ryckman 2005) and the young Wolfgang Pauli (Stachel, 2005)—Einstein was forced to recognize that this epistemological model was at most a provisional compromise. In principle rod- and clock-like structures should emerge as solutions of a future relativistic theory of matter, possibly a field theory encompassing gravitation and electromagnetism. In this context, the sharp distinction between rods and clocks that serve to define the geometrical/kinematical structure of the theory and other material systems would become questionable. Einstein regarded such distinction as provisionally necessary, give the current state of physics. However, he recognized that in principle a physical theory should construct rods and clocks as solutions to its equations (see Ryckman 2017, ch. VII for an overview on Einstein view on the relation between geometry and experience).

Einstein addressed this issue in several popular writings during the 1920s, in particular, the famous lecture Geometrie und Erfahrung (Einstein 1921, see also Einstein, 1923, Einstein, 1924, Einstein 1926; Einstein 1926; see Giovanelli 2014 for an overview). Sub specie temporis , he argued, it was useful to compare the geometrical/kinematical structures of the theory with experience separately from the rest of physics. Sub specie aeterni , however, only geometry and physics taken together can be said to be ‘true or false.’ This epistemological model became more appropriate, while Einstein was moving beyond general relativity in the direction of theory unifying the gravitational and the electromagnetic field. Einstein had to rely on progressively more abstract geometrical structures which could not be defined in terms of the behavior of some physical probes. Thus, the use of such structures was justified because of their role in the theory as a whole. In the second half of the 1920s, in correspondence with Reichenbach (Giovanelli 2017) and Meyerson (Giovanelli 2018), Einstein even denied that the very distinction between geometrical and non-geometrical is meaningful (Lehmkuhl 2014).

A different, but especially interesting example of Einstein’s reliance on a form of theoretical holism is found in a review that Einstein wrote in 1924 of Alfred Elsbach’s Kant und Einstein (1924), one of the flood of books and articles then trying to reconcile the Kant’s philosophy. Having asserted that relativity theory is incompatible with Kant’s doctrine of the a priori, Einstein explains why, more generally, he is not sympathetic with Kant:

This does not, at first, preclude one’s holding at least to the Kantian problematic , as, e.g., Cassirer has done. I am even of the opinion that this standpoint can be rigorously refuted by no development of natural science. For one will always be able to say that critical philosophers have until now erred in the establishment of the a priori elements, and one will always be able to establish a system of a priori elements that does not contradict a given physical system. Let me briefly indicate why I do not find this standpoint natural. A physical theory consists of the parts (elements) A, B, C, D, that together constitute a logical whole which correctly connects the pertinent experiments (sense experiences). Then it tends to be the case that the aggregate of fewer than all four elements, e.g., A, B, D, without C, no longer says anything about these experiences, and just as well A, B, C without D. One is then free to regard the aggregate of three of these elements, e.g., A, B, C as a priori, and only D as empirically conditioned. But what remains unsatisfactory in this is always the arbitrariness in the choice of those elements that one designates as a priori, entirely apart from the fact that the theory could one day be replaced by another that replaces certain of these elements (or all four) by others. (Einstein 1924, 1688–1689)

Einstein’s point seems to be that while one can always choose to designate selected elements as a priori and, hence, non-empirical, no principle determines which elements can be so designated, and our ability thus to designate them derives from the fact that it is only the totality of the elements that possesses empirical content.

Much the same point could be made, and was made by Duhem himself (see Duhem 1906, part 2, ch. 6, sects. 8 and 9), against those who would insulate certain statements against empirical refutation by claiming for them the status of conventional definitions. Edouard Le Roy (1901) had argued thus about the law of free fall. It could not be refuted by experiment because it functioned as a definition of “free fall.” And Henri Poincaré (1901) said much the same about the principles of mechanics more generally. As Einstein answered the neo-Kantians, so Duhem answered this species of conventionalist: Yes, experiment cannot refute, say, the law of free fall by itself, but only because it is part of a larger theoretical whole that has empirical content only as a whole, and various other elements of that whole could as well be said to be, alone, immune to refutation.

That Einstein should deploy against the neo-Kantians in the early 1920s the argument that Duhem used against the conventionalism of Poincaré and Le Roy is interesting from the point of view of Einstein’s relationships with those who were leading the development of logical empiricism and scientific philosophy in the 1920s, especially Schlick and Reichenbach. Einstein shared with Schlick and Reichenbach the goal of crafting a new form of empiricism that would be adequate to the task of defending general relativity against neo-Kantian critiques (see Schlick 1917 and 1921, and Reichenbach 1920, 1924, and 1928; for more detail, see Howard 1994a). But while they all agreed that what Kant regarded as the a priori element in scientific cognition was better understood as a conventional moment in science, they were growing to disagree dramatically over the nature and place of conventions in science. The classic logical empiricist view that the moment of convention was restricted to conventional coordinating definitions that endow individual primitive terms, worked well, but did not comport well with the holism about theories

It was this argument over the nature and place of conventions in science that underlies Einstein’s gradual philosophical estrangement from Schlick and Reichenbach in the 1920s. Serious in its own right, the argument over conventions was entangled with two other issues as well, namely, realism and Einstein’s famous view of theories as the “free creations of the human spirit” (see, for example, Einstein 1921). In both instances what troubled Einstein was that a verificationist semantics made the link between theory and experience too strong, leaving too small a role for theory, itself, and the creative theorizing that produces it.

If theory choice is empirically determinate, especially if theoretical concepts are explicitly constructed from empirical primitives, as in Carnap’s program in the Aufbau (Carnap 1928), then it is hard to see how theory gives us a story about anything other than experience. As noted, Einstein was not what we would today call a scientific realist, but he still believed that there was content in theory beyond mere empirical content (on the relations between Einstein’s realism and constructism see Ryckman 2017, ch. 8 and 9). He believed that theoretical science gave us a window on nature itself, even if, in principle, there will be no one uniquely correct story at the level of deep ontology (see below, section 5). And if the only choice in theory choice is one among conventional coordinating definitions, then that is no choice at all, a point stressed by Reichenbach, especially, as an important positive implication of his position. Reichenbach argued that if empirical content is the only content, then empirically equivalent theories have the same content, the difference resulting from their different choices of coordinating definitions being like in kind to the difference between “es regnet” and “il pleut,” or the difference between expressing the result of a measurement in English or metric units, just two different ways of saying the same thing. But then, Einstein would ask, where is there any role for the creative intelligence of the theoretical physicist if there is no room for genuine choice in science, if experience somehow dictates theory construction?

The argument over the nature and role of conventions in science continued to the very end of Einstein’s life, reaching its highest level of sophistication in the exchange between Reichenbach and Einstein the Library of Living Philosopher’s volume, Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Physicist (Schilpp 1949). The question is, again, whether the choice of a geometry is empirical, conventional, or a priori. In his contribution, Reichenbach reasserted his old view that once an appropriate coordinating definition is established, equating some “practically rigid rod” with the geometer’s “rigid body,” then the geometry of physical space is wholly determined by empirical evidence:

The choice of a geometry is arbitrary only so long as no definition of congruence is specified. Once this definition is set up, it becomes an empirical question which geometry holds for physical space.… The conventionalist overlooks the fact that only the incomplete statement of a geometry, in which a reference to the definition of congruence is omitted, is arbitrary. (Reichenbach 1949, 297)

Einstein’s clever reply includes a dialogue between two characters, “Reichenbach” and “Poincaré,” in which “Reichenbach” concedes to “Poincaré” that there are no perfectly rigid bodies in nature and that physics must be used to correct for such things as thermal deformations, from which it follows that what we actually test is geometry plus physics, not geometry alone. Here an “anonymous non-positivist” takes “Poincaré’s” place, out of respect, says Einstein, “for Poincaré’s superiority as thinker and author” (Einstein 1949, 677), but also, perhaps, because he realized that the point of view that follows was more Duhem than Poincaré. The “non-positivist” then argues that one’s granting that geometry and physics are tested together contravenes the positivist identification of meaning with verifiability:

Non-Positivist: If, under the stated circumstances, you hold distance to be a legitimate concept, how then is it with your basic principle (meaning = verifiability)? Must you not come to the point where you deny the meaning of geometrical statements and concede meaning only to the completely developed theory of relativity (which still does not exist at all as a finished product)? Must you not grant that no “meaning” whatsoever, in your sense, belongs to the individual concepts and statements of a physical theory, such meaning belonging instead to the whole system insofar as it makes “intelligible” what is given in experience? Why do the individual concepts that occur in a theory require any separate justification after all, if they are indispensable only within the framework of the logical structure of the theory, and if it is the theory as a whole that stands the test? (Einstein 1949, 678).

Two years before the Quine’s publication of “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951), Einstein here makes explicit the semantic implications of a thoroughgoing holism.

If theory choice is empirically underdetermined, then an obvious question is why we are so little aware of the underdetermination in the day-to-day conduct of science. In a 1918 address celebrating Max Planck’s sixtieth birthday, Einstein approached this question via a distinction between practice and principle:

The supreme task of the physicist is … the search for those most general, elementary laws from which the world picture is to be obtained through pure deduction. No logical path leads to these elementary laws; it is instead just the intuition that rests on an empathic understanding of experience. In this state of methodological uncertainty one can think that arbitrarily many, in themselves equally justified systems of theoretical principles were possible; and this opinion is, in principle , certainly correct. But the development of physics has shown that of all the conceivable theoretical constructions a single one has, at any given time, proved itself unconditionally superior to all others. No one who has really gone deeply into the subject will deny that, in practice, the world of perceptions determines the theoretical system unambiguously, even though no logical path leads from the perceptions to the basic principles of the theory. (Einstein 1918, 31; Howard’s translation)

But why is theory choice, in practice, seemingly empirically determined? Einstein hinted at an answer the year before in a letter to Schlick, where he commended Schlick’s argument that the deep elements of a theoretical ontology have as much claim to the status of the real as do Mach’s elements of sensation (Schlick 1917), but suggested that we are nonetheless speaking of two different kinds of reality. How do they differ?

It appears to me that the word “real” is taken in different senses, according to whether impressions or events, that is to say, states of affairs in the physical sense, are spoken of. If two different peoples pursue physics independently of one another, they will create systems that certainly agree as regards the impressions (“elements” in Mach’s sense). The mental constructions that the two devise for connecting these “elements” can be vastly different. And the two constructions need not agree as regards the “events”; for these surely belong to the conceptual constructions. Certainly on the “elements,” but not the “events,” are real in the sense of being “given unavoidably in experience.” But if we designate as “real” that which we arrange in the space-time-schema, as you have done in the theory of knowledge, then without doubt the “events,” above all, are real.… I would like to recommend a clean conceptual distinction here . (Einstein to Schlick, 21 May 1917, CPAE, Vol. 8, Doc. 343)

Why, in practice, are physicists unaware of underdetermination? It is because ours is not the situation of “two different peoples pursu[ing] physics independently of one another.” Though Einstein does not say it explicitly, the implication seems to be that apparent determination in theory choice is mainly a consequence of our all being similarly socialized as we become members of a common scientific community. Part of what it means to be a member of a such a community is that we have been taught to make our theoretical choices in accord with criteria or values that we hold in common.

For Einstein, as for many others, simplicity is the criterion that mainly steers theory choice in domains where experiment and observation no longer provide an unambiguous guide. This, too, is a theme sounded early and late in Einstein’s philosophical reflections (for more detail, see Howard 1998, Norton 2000, van Dongen 2002, 2010, Giovanelli 2018). For example, the just-quoted remark from 1918 about the apparent determination of theory choice in practice, contrasted with in-principle underdetermination continues:

Furthermore this conceptual system that is univocally coordinated with the world of experience is reducible to a few basic laws from which the whole system can be developed logically. With every new important advance the researcher here sees his expectations surpassed, in that those basic laws are more and more simplified under the press of experience. With astonishment he sees apparent chaos resolved into a sublime order that is to be attributed not to the rule of the individual mind, but to the constitution of the world of experience; this is what Leibniz so happily characterized as “pre-established harmony.” Physicists strenuously reproach many epistemologists for their insufficient appreciation of this circumstance. Herein, it seems to me, lie the roots of the controversy carried on some years ago between Mach and Planck. (Einstein 1918, p. 31)

There is more than a little autobiography here, for as Einstein stressed repeatedly in later years, he understood the success of his own quest for a general theory of relativity as a result of his seeking the simplest set of field equations satisfying a given set of constraints.

Einstein’s celebration of simplicity as a guide to theory choice comes clearly to the fore in the early 1930s, when he was immersed his project of a unified field theory (see, van Dongen 2010 for a reconstruction of the philosophical underpinning of Einstein’s search of a unified field theory). Witness what he wrote in his 1933 Herbert Spencer lecture:

If, then, it is true that the axiomatic foundation of theoretical physics cannot be extracted from experience but must be freely invented, may we ever hope to find the right way? Furthermore, does this right way exist anywhere other than in our illusions? May we hope to be guided safely by experience at all, if there exist theories (such as classical mechanics) which to a large extent do justice to experience, without comprehending the matter in a deep way? To these questions, I answer with complete confidence, that, in my opinion, the right way exists, and that we are capable of finding it. Our experience hitherto justifies us in trusting that nature is the realization of the simplest that is mathematically conceivable. I am convinced that purely mathematical construction enables us to find those concepts and those lawlike connections between them that provide the key to the understanding of natural phenomena. Useful mathematical concepts may well be suggested by experience, but in no way can they be derived from it. Experience naturally remains the sole criterion of the usefulness of a mathematical construction for physics. But the actual creative principle lies in mathematics. Thus, in a certain sense, I take it to be true that pure thought can grasp the real, as the ancients had dreamed. (Einstein 1933, p. 183; Howard’s translation)

Einstein’s conviction that the theoretical physicist must trust simplicity is that his work was moving steadily into domains ever further removed from direct contact with observation and experiment. Einstein started to routinely claim that this was the lesson he had drawn from the way in which he had found general relativity (Norton 2000). There are, however, good reasons to think that Einstein’s selective recollections (Jannsen and Renn 2007) were instrumental to his defense of relying on a purely mathematical strategy in the search for a unified field theory (van Dongen 2010):

The theory of relativity is a beautiful example of the basic character of the modern development of theory. That is to say, the hypotheses from which one starts become ever more abstract and more remote from experience. But in return one comes closer to the preeminent goal of science, that of encompassing a maximum of empirical contents through logical deduction with a minimum of hypotheses or axioms. The intellectual path from the axioms to the empirical contents or to the testable consequences becomes, thereby, ever longer and more subtle. The theoretician is forced, ever more, to allow himself to be directed by purely mathematical, formal points of view in the search for theories, because the physical experience of the experimenter is not capable of leading us up to the regions of the highest abstraction. Tentative deduction takes the place of the predominantly inductive methods appropriate to the youthful state of science. Such a theoretical structure must be quite thoroughly elaborated in order for it to lead to consequences that can be compared with experience. It is certainly the case that here, as well, the empirical fact is the all-powerful judge. But its judgment can be handed down only on the basis of great and difficult intellectual effort that first bridges the wide space between the axioms and the testable consequences. The theorist must accomplish this Herculean task with the clear understanding that this effort may only be destined to prepare the way for a death sentence for his theory. One should not reproach the theorist who undertakes such a task by calling him a fantast; instead, one must allow him his fantasizing, since for him there is no other way to his goal whatsoever. Indeed, it is no planless fantasizing, but rather a search for the logically simplest possibilities and their consequences. (Einstein 1954, 238–239; Howard’s translation)

What warrant is there for thus trusting in simplicity? At best one can do a kind of meta-induction. That “the totality of all sensory experience can be ‘comprehended’ on the basis of a conceptual system built on premises of great simplicity” will be derided by skeptics as a “miracle creed,” but, Einstein adds, “it is a miracle creed which has been borne out to an amazing extent by the development of science” (Einstein 1950, p. 342). The success of previous physical theories justifies our trusting that nature is the realization of the simplest that is mathematically conceivable

But for all that Einstein’s faith in simplicity was strong, he despaired of giving a precise, formal characterization of how we assess the simplicity of a theory. In 1946 he wrote about the perspective of simplicity (here termed the “inner perfection” of a theory):

This point of view, whose exact formulation meets with great difficulties, has played an important role in the selection and evaluation of theories from time immemorial. The problem here is not simply one of a kind of enumeration of the logically independent premises (if anything like this were at all possible without ambiguity), but one of a kind of reciprocal weighing of incommensurable qualities.… I shall not attempt to excuse the lack of precision of [these] assertions … on the grounds of insufficient space at my disposal; I must confess herewith that I cannot at this point, and perhaps not at all, replace these hints by more precise definitions. I believe, however, that a sharper formulation would be possible. In any case it turns out that among the “oracles” there usually is agreement in judging the “inner perfection” of the theories and even more so concerning the degree of “external confirmation.” (Einstein 1946, pp. 21, 23).

As in 1918, so in 1946 and beyond, Einstein continues to be impressed that the “oracles,” presumably the leaders of the relevant scientific community, tend to agree in their judgments of simplicity. That is why, in practice, simplicity seems to determine theory choice univocally.

In the physics and philosophy of science literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the principle according to which scientific theorizing should strive for a univocal representation of nature was widely and well known under the name that it was given in the title of a widely-cited essay by Joseph Petzoldt, “The Law of Univocalness” [“Das Gesetz der Eindeutigkeit”] (Petzoldt 1895). An indication that the map of philosophical positions was drawn then in a manner very different from today is to found in the fact that this principle found favor among both anti-metaphysical logical empiricists, such as Carnap, and neo-Kantians, such as Cassirer. It played a major role in debates over the ontology of general relativity and was an important part of the background to the development of the modern concept of categoricity in formal semantics (for more on the history, influence, and demise of the principle of univocalness, see Howard 1992 and 1996). One can find no more ardent and consistent champion of the principle than Einstein.

The principle of univocalness should not be mistaken for a denial of the underdetermination thesis. The latter asserts that a multiplicity of theories can equally well account for a given body of empirical evidence, perhaps even the infinity of all possible evidence in the extreme, Quinean version of the thesis. The principle of univocalness asserts (in a somewhat anachronistic formulation) that any one theory, even any one among a set of empirically equivalent theories, should provide a univocal representation of nature by determining for itself an isomorphic set of models. The unambiguous determination of theory choice by evidence is not the same thing as the univocal determination of a class of models by a theory.

The principle of univocalness played a central role in Einstein’s struggles to formulate the general theory of relativity. When, in 1913, Einstein wrongly rejected a fully generally covariant theory of gravitation, he did so in part because he thought, wrongly, that generally covariant field equations failed the test of univocalness. More specifically, he reasoned wrongly that for a region of spacetime devoid of matter and energy—a “hole”—generally covariant field equations permit the construction of two different solutions, different in the sense that, in general, for spacetime points inside the hole, they assign different values of the metric tensor to one and the same point (for more on the history of this episode, see Stachel 1980 and Norton 1984). But Einstein’s “hole argument” is wrong, and his own diagnosis of the error in 1915 rests again, ironically, on a deployment of the principle of univocalness. What Einstein realized in 1915 was that, in 1913, he was wrongly assuming that a coordinate chart sufficed to fix the identity of spacetime manifold points. The application of a coordinate chart cannot suffice to individuate manifold points precisely because a coordinate chart is not an invariant labeling scheme, whereas univocalness in the representation of nature requires such invariance (see Howard and Norton 1993 and Howard 1999 for further discussion).

Here is how Einstein explained his change of perspective in a letter to Paul Ehrenfest of 26 December 1915, just a few weeks after the publication of the final, generally covariant formulation of the general theory of relativity:

In §12 of my work of last year, everything is correct (in the first three paragraphs) up to that which is printed with emphasis at the end of the third paragraph. From the fact that the two systems $G(x)$ and $G'(x)$, referred to the same reference system, satisfy the conditions of the grav. field, no contradiction follows with the univocalness of events. That which was apparently compelling in these reflections founders immediately, if one considers that the reference system signifies nothing real that the (simultaneous) realization of two different $g$-systems (or better, two different grav. fields) in the same region of the continuum is impossible according to the nature of the theory. In place of §12, the following reflections must appear. The physically real in the universe of events (in contrast to that which is dependent upon the choice of a reference system) consists in spatiotemporal coincidences .* [Footnote *: and in nothing else!] Real are, e.g., the intersections of two different world lines, or the statement that they do not intersect. Those statements that refer to the physically real therefore do not founder on any univocal coordinate transformation. If two systems of the $g_{\mu v}$ (or in general the variables employed in the description of the world) are so created that one can obtain the second from the first through mere spacetime transformation, then they are completely equivalent. For they have all spatiotemporal point coincidences in common, i.e., everything that is observable. These reflections show at the same time how natural the demand for general covariance is. (CPAE, Vol. 8, Doc. 173)

Einstein’s new point of view, according to which the physically real consists exclusively in that which can be constructed on the basis of spacetime coincidences, spacetime points, for example, being regarded as intersections of world lines, is now known as the “point-coincidence argument.” Einstein might have been inspired by a paper by the young mathematician Erich Kretschmann (Howard and Norton 1993; cf. Giovanelli 2013) or possibly by a conversation with Schlick (Engler and Renn, 2017). Spacetime coincidences play this privileged ontic role because they are invariant and, thus, univocally determined. Spacetime coordinates lack such invariance, a circumstance that Einstein thereafter repeatedly formulated as the claim that space and time “thereby lose the last vestige of physical reality” (see, for example, Einstein to Ehrenfest, 5 January 1916, CPAE, Vol. 8, Doc. 180).

One telling measure of the philosophical importance of Einstein’s new perspective on the ontology of spacetime is the fact that Schlick devoted his first book, Raum und Zeit in den gegenwärtigen Physik (1917), a book for which Einstein had high praise (see Howard 1984 and 1999). But what most interested Einstein was Schlick’s discussion of the reality concept. Schlick argued that Mach was wrong to regard only the elements of sensation as real. Spacetime events, individuated invariantly as spacetime coincidences, have as much or more right to be taken as real, precisely because of the univocal manner of their determination. Einstein wholeheartedly agreed, though he ventured the above-quoted suggestion that one should distinguish the two kinds of reality—that of the elements and that of the spacetime events—on the ground that if “two different peoples” pursued physics independently of one another they were fated to agree about the elements but would almost surely produce different theoretical constructions at the level of the spacetime event ontology. Note, again, that underdetermination is not a failure of univocalness. Different though they will be, each people’s theoretical construction of an event ontology would be expected to be univocal.

Schlick, of course, went on to become the founder of the Vienna Circle, a leading figure in the development of logical empiricism, a champion of verificationism. That being so, an important question arises about Schlick’s interpretation of Einstein on the univocal determination of spacetime events as spacetime coincidences. The question is this: Do such univocal coincidences play such a privileged role because of their reality or because of their observability. Clearly the former—the reality of that which is univocally determined—is important. But are univocal spacetime coincidences real because, thanks to their invariance, they are observable? Or is their observability consequent upon their invariant reality? Einstein, himself, repeatedly stressed the observable character of spacetime coincidences, as in the 26 December 1915 letter to Ehrenfest quoted above (for additional references and a fuller discussion, see Howard 1999). [ 2 ]

Schlick, still a self-described realist in 1917, was clear about the relationship between observability and reality. He distinguished macroscopic coincidences in the field of our sense experience, to which he does accord a privileged and foundational epistemic status, from the microscopic point coincidences that define an ontology of spacetime manifold points. Mapping the former onto the latter is, for Schlick, an important part of the business of confirmation, but the reality of the spacetime manifold points is in no way consequent upon their observability. Indeed, how, strictly speaking, can one even talk of the observation of infinitesimal spacetime coincidences of the kind encountered in the intersection of two world lines? In fact, the order of implication goes the other way: Spacetime events individuated as spacetime coincidences are real because they are invariant, and such observability as they might possess is consequent upon their status as invariant bits of physical reality. For Einstein, and for Schlick in 1917, understanding the latter—physical reality—is the goal of physical theory.

As we have seen, Schlick’s Raum und Zeit in den gegenwärtigen Physik promoted a realistic interpretation of the ontology of general relativity. After reading the manuscript early in 1917, Einstein wrote to Schlick on 21 May that “the last section ‘Relations to Philosophy’ seems to me excellent” (CPAE, Vol. 8, Doc. 343), just the sort of praise one would expect from a fellow realist. Three years earlier, the Bonn mathematician, Eduard Study, had written another well-known, indeed very well-known defense of realism, Die realistische Weltansicht und die Lehre vom Raume (1914). Einstein read it in September of 1918. Much of it he liked, especially the droll style, as he said to Study in a letter of 17 September (CPAE, Vol. 8, Doc. 618). Pressed by Study to say more about the points where he disagreed, Einstein replied on 25 September in a rather surprising way:

I am supposed to explain to you my doubts? By laying stress on these it will appear that I want to pick holes in you everywhere. But things are not so bad, because I do not feel comfortable and at home in any of the “isms.” It always seems to me as though such an ism were strong only so long as it nourishes itself on the weakness of it counter-ism; but if the latter is struck dead, and it is alone on an open field, then it also turns out to be unsteady on its feet. So, away we go ! “The physical world is real.” That is supposed to be the fundamental hypothesis. What does “hypothesis” mean here? For me, a hypothesis is a statement, whose truth must be assumed for the moment, but whose meaning must be raised above all ambiguity . The above statement appears to me, however, to be, in itself, meaningless, as if one said: “The physical world is cock-a-doodle-doo.” It appears to me that the “real” is an intrinsically empty, meaningless category (pigeon hole), whose monstrous importance lies only in the fact that I can do certain things in it and not certain others. This division is, to be sure, not an arbitrary one, but instead …. I concede that the natural sciences concern the “real,” but I am still not a realist. (CPAE, Vol. 8, Doc. 624)

Lest there be any doubt that Einstein has little sympathy for the other side, he adds:

The positivist or pragmatist is strong as long as he battles against the opinion that there [are] concepts that are anchored in the “A priori.” When, in his enthusiasm, [he] forgets that all knowledge consists [in] concepts and judgments, then that is a weakness that lies not in the nature of things but in his personal disposition just as with the senseless battle against hypotheses, cf. the clear book by Duhem. In any case, the railing against atoms rests upon this weakness. Oh, how hard things are for man in this world; the path to originality leads through unreason (in the sciences), through ugliness (in the arts)-at least the path that many find passable. (CPAE, Vol. 8, Doc. 624)

What could Einstein mean by saying that he concedes that the natural sciences concern the “real,” but that he is “still not a realist” and that the “real” in the statement, “the physical world is real,” is an “intrinsically empty, meaningless category”?

The answer might be that realism, for Einstein, is not a philosophical doctrine about the interpretation of scientific theories or the semantics of theoretical terms. [ 3 ] For Einstein, realism is a physical postulate, one of a most interesting kind, as he explained on 18 March 1948 in a long note at the end of the manuscript of Max Born’s Waynflete Lectures, Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance (1949), which Born had sent to Einstein for commentary:

I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality. We are, to be sure, all of us aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday - Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing (’actual’) should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow ‘exist’ independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over the parts of space A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend upon the type of measurement carried out in the part of space, A; it should also be independent of whether or not, after all, a measurement is made in A. If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion. However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I do not at all see what physics is supposed to describe. For what is thought to by a ‘system’ is, after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about the parts. (Born 1969, 223–224; Howard’s translation)

Realism is thus the thesis of spatial separability, the claim that spatial separation is a sufficient condition for the individuation of physical systems, and its assumption is here made into almost a necessary condition for the possibility of an intelligible science of physics.

The postulate of spatial separability as that which undergirds the ontic independence and, hence, individual identities of the systems that physics describes was an important part of Einstein’s thinking about the foundations of physics since at least the time of his very first paper on the quantum hypothesis in 1905 (Einstein 1905a; for more detail on the early history of this idea in Einstein’s thinking, see Howard 1990b). But the true significance of the separability principle emerged most clearly in 1935, when (as hinted in the just-quoted remark) Einstein made it one of the central premises of his argument for the incompleteness of quantum mechanics (see Howard 1985 and 1989). It is not so clearly deployed in the published version of the Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen paper (1935), but Einstein did not write that paper and did not like the way the argument appeared there. Separability is, however, an explicit premise in all of Einstein’s later presentations of the argument for the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, both in correspondence and in print (see Howard 1985 for a detailed list of references).

In brief, the argument is this. Separability implies that spacelike separated systems have associated with them independent real states of affairs. A second postulate, locality, implies that the events in one region of spacetime cannot physically influence physical reality in a region of spacetime separated from the first by a spacelike interval. Consider now an experiment in which two systems, A and B, interact and separate, subsequent measurements on each corresponding to spacelike separated events. Separability implies that A and B have separate real physical states, and locality implies that the measurement performed on A cannot influence B’s real physical state. But quantum mechanics ascribes different theoretical states, different wave functions, to B depending upon that parameter that is measured on A. Therefore, quantum mechanics ascribes different theoretical states to B, when B possesses, in fact, one real physical state. Hence quantum mechanics is incomplete.

One wants to ask many questions. First, what notion of completeness is being invoked here? It is not deductive completeness. It is closer in kind to what is termed “categoricity” in formal semantics, a categorical theory being one whose models are all isomorphic to one another. It is closer still to the principle discussed above—and cited as a precursor of the concept of categoricity—namely, the principle of univocalness, which we found doing such important work in Einstein’s quest for a general theory of relativity, where it was the premise forcing the adoption of an invariant and thus univocal scheme for the individuation of spacetime manifold points.

The next question is why separability is viewed by Einstein as virtually an a priori necessary condition for the possibility of a science of physics. One reason is because a field theory like general relativity, which was Einstein’s model for a future unified foundation for physics, is an extreme embodiment of the principle of separability: “Field theory has carried out this principle to the extreme, in that it localizes within infinitely small (four-dimensional) space-elements the elementary things existing independently of the one another that it takes as basic, as well as the elementary laws it postulates for them” (Einstein 1948, 321–322). And a field theory like general relativity can do this because the infinitesimal metric interval—the careful way to think about separation in general relativistic spacetime—is invariant (hence univocally determined) under all continuous coordinate transformations.

Another reason why Einstein would be inclined to view separability as an a priori necessity is that, in thus invoking separability to ground individuation, Einstein places himself in a tradition of so viewing spatial separability with very strong Kantian roots (and, before Kant, Newtonian roots), a tradition in which spatial separability was known by the name that Arthur Schopenhauer famously gave to it, the principium individuationis (for a fuller discussion of this historical context, see Howard 1997).

A final question one wants to ask is: “What does any of this have to do with realism?” One might grant Einstein’s point that a real ontology requires a principle of individuation without agreeing that separability provides the only conceivable such principle. Separability together with the invariance of the infinitesimal metric interval implies that, in a general relativistic spacetime, there are joints everywhere, meaning that we can carve up the universe in any way we choose and still have ontically independent parts. But quantum entanglement can be read as implying that this libertarian scheme of individuation does not work. Can quantum mechanics not be given a realistic interpretation? Many would say, “yes.” Einstein said, “no.”

There is much that is original in Einstein’s philosophy of science as described thus far. At the very least, he rearranged the bits and pieces of doctrine that he learned from others—Kant, Mach, Duhem, Poincaré, Schlick, and others—in a strikingly novel way. But Einstein’s most original contribution to twentieth-century philosophy of science lies elsewhere, in his distinction between what he termed “principle theories” and “constructive theories.”

This idea first found its way into print in a brief 1919 article in the Times of London (Einstein 1919). A constructive theory, as the name implies, provides a constructive model for the phenomena of interest. An example would be kinetic theory. A principle theory consists of a set of individually well-confirmed, high-level empirical generalizations, “which permit of precise formulation” (Einstein 1914, 749). Examples include the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Ultimate understanding requires a constructive theory, but often, says Einstein, progress in theory is impeded by premature attempts at developing constructive theories in the absence of sufficient constraints by means of which to narrow the range of possible constructive theories. It is the function of principle theories to provide such constraint, and progress is often best achieved by focusing first on the establishment of such principles. According to Einstein, that is how he achieved his breakthrough with the theory of relativity, which, he says, is a principle theory, its two principles being the relativity principle and the light principle.

While the principle theories-constructive theories distinction first made its way into print in 1919, there is considerable evidence that it played an explicit role in Einstein’s thinking much earlier (Einstein 1907, Einstein to Sommerfeld 14 January 1908, CPAE, vol. 5, Doc. 73, Einstein 1914). Nor was it only the relativity and light principles that served Einstein as constraints in his theorizing. Thus, he explicitly mentions also the Boltzmann principle, $S = k \log W$, as another such:

This equation connects thermodynamics with the molecular theory. It yields, as well, the statistical probabilities of the states of systems for which we are not in a position to construct a molecular-theoretical model. To that extent, Boltzmann’s magnificent idea is of significance for theoretical physics … because it provides a heuristic principle whose range extends beyond the domain of validity of molecular mechanics. (Einstein 1915, p. 262).

Einstein is here alluding the famous entropic analogy whereby, in his 1905 photon hypothesis paper, he reasoned from the fact that black body radiation in the Wien regime satisfied the Boltzmann principle to the conclusion that, in that regime, radiation behaved as if it consisted of mutually independent, corpuscle-like quanta of electromagnetic energy. The quantum hypothesis is a constructive model of radiation; the Boltzmann principle is the constraint that first suggested that model.

There are anticipations of the principle theories-constructive theories distinction in the nineteenth-century electrodynamics literature, James Clerk Maxwell, in particular, being a source from which Einstein might well have drawn (see Harman 1998). At the turn of the century, the “physics of principles” was a subject under wide discussion. At the turn of 1900, Hendrik A. Lorentz (Lorentz 1900, 1905; see Frisch 2005) and Henri Poincaré (for example, Poincaré 1904; see, Giedymin 1982, Darrigol 1995) presented the opposition between the “physics of principles“ and the “physics of models“ as commonplace. In a similar vein, Arnold Sommerfeld opposed a “physics of problems“, a style of doing physics based on concrete puzzle solving, to the “practice of principles“ defended by Max Planck (Seth 2010). Philipp Frank (1908, relying on Rey 1909) defined relativity theory as a “ conceptual theory“ based on abstract, but empirically well confirmed principles rather than on intuitive models. Probably many other examples could be find. . But however extensive his borrowings (no explicit debt was ever acknowledged), in Einstein’s hands the distinction becomes a methodological tool of impressive scope and fertility. What is puzzling, and even a bit sad, is that this most original methodological insight of Einstein’s had comparatively little impact on later philosophy of science or practice in physics. Only in recent decades, Einstein constructive-principle distinction has attracted interest in the philosophical literature, originating a still living philosophical debate on the foundation of spacetime theories (Brown 2005, Janssen 2009, Lange 2014). [ 4 ]

Einstein’s influence on twentieth-century philosophy of science is comparable to his influence on twentieth-century physics (Howard 2014). What made that possible? One explanation looks to the institutional and disciplinary history of theoretical physics and the philosophy of science. Each was, in its own domain, a new mode of thought in the latter nineteenth century, and each finally began to secure for itself a solid institutional basis in the early twentieth century. In a curious way, the two movements helped one another. Philosophers of science helped to legitimate theoretical physics by locating the significant cognitive content of science in its theories. Theoretical physicists helped to legitimate the philosophy of science by providing for analysis a subject matter that was radically reshaping our understanding of nature and the place of humankind within it. In some cases the help was even more direct, as with the work of Einstein and Max Planck in the mid-1920s to create in the physics department at the University of Berlin a chair in the philosophy of science for Reichenbach (see Hecht and Hartmann 1982). And we should remember the example of the physicists Mach and Ludwig Boltzmann who were the first two occupants of the new chair for the philosophy of science at the University of Vienna at the turn of the century.

Another explanation looks to the education of young physicists in Einstein’s day. Not only was Einstein’s own youthful reading heavily focused on philosophy, more generally, and the philosophy of science, in particular (for an overview, see Einstein 1989, xxiv–xxv; see also Howard 1994b), in which respect he was not unlike other physicists of his generation, but also his university physics curriculum included a required course on “The Theory of Scientific Thought” (see Einstein 1987, Doc. 28). An obvious question is whether or not the early cultivation of a philosophical habit of mind made a difference in the way Einstein and his contemporaries approached physics. As indicated by his November 1944 letter to Robert Thorton quoted at the beginning of this article, Einstein thought that it did.

Einstein’s letters and manuscripts, if unpublished, are cited by their numbers in the Einstein Archive (EA) control index and, if published, by volume, document number, and, if necessary, page number in:

Works by year

Born, Max, 1949. Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, Harvey R., 2005. Physical Relativity. Space-time Structure from a Dynamical Perspective , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
––– (ed.), 1969. Albert Einstein-Hedwig und Max Born: Friefwechsel, 1916–1955 , Munich: Nymphenburger.
Canales, Jimena, 2015. Einstein, Bergson and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Carnap, Rudolf, 1928. Der logische Aufbau der Welt , Berlin-Schlachtensee: Weltkreis-Verlag; English translation: The Logical Structure of the World & Psuedoproblems in Philosophy , Rolf A. George (trans.), Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.
Darrigol, Olivier, 1995. “Henri Poincaré’s Criticism of fin de siécle Electrodynamics”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics), 26 (1): 1–44.
Duhem, Pierre, 1906. La Théorie physique: son objet et sa structure , Paris: Chevalier & Rivière. English translation of the 2nd. ed. (1914): The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory , P. P. Wiener (trans.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954; reprinted, New York: Athaneum, 1962.
–––, 1908. Ziel und Struktur der physikalischen Theorien , Friedrich Adler (trans.), foreword by Ernst Mach, Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth.
Elsbach, Alfred, 1924. Kant und Einstein. Untersuchungen über das Verhältnis der modernen Erkenntnistheorie zur Relativitätstheorie , Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter.
Engler, Fynn Ole and Jürgen Renn, 2013. “Hume, Einstein und Schlick über die Objektivität der Wissenschaft”, in Moritz Schlick–Die Rostocker Jahre und ihr Einfluss auf die Wiener Zeit , Fynn Ole Engler and Mathias Iven (eds.), Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 123–156.
Fine, Arthur, 1986. “Einstein’s Realism”, in The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism, and the Quantum Theory , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 86–111.
Frank, Philipp, 1909. “Die Stellung Des Relativitätsprinzips Im System Der Mechanik Und Der Elektrodynamik” Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften 118 (IIa), 373–446.
Friedman, Michael, 1983. Foundations of Space-Time Theories: Relativistic Physics and Philosophy of Science , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Frisch, Mathias, 2005. “Mechanisms, Principles, and Lorentz’s Cautious Realism”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics), 36: 659–679.
Giedymin, Jerzy, 1982. “The Physics of the Principles and Its Philosophy: Hamilton, Poincaré and Ramsey”, in Science and Convention: Essays on Henri Poincaré’s Philosophy of Science and the Conventionalist Tradition , Oxford: Pergamon, 42–89.
Giovanelli, Marco, 2013. “Erich Kretschmann as a Proto-Logical-Empiricist. Adventures and Misadventures of the Point-Coincidence Argument”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics , 44 (2), 115–134.
–––, 2013. “Talking at Cross-Purposes. How Einstein and the Logical Empiricists never Agreed on what they were Disagreeing About”, Synthese 190 (17): 3819–3863.
–––, 2014. “‘But One Must Not Legalize the Mentioned Sin’. Phenomenological vs. Dynamical Treatments of Rods and Clocks in Einstein’s Thought”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics), 48: 20–44.
–––, 2016. “‘…But I StillCan’t Get Rid of a Sense of Artificiality’: The Einstein-Reichenbach Debate on the Geometrization of the Electromagnetic Field”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics , 54, 35–51.
–––, 2018. “Physics Is a Kind of Metaphysics”, Émile Meyerson and Einstein’s late Rationalistic Realism”, European Journal for Philosophy of Science , 8: 783–829
Harman, P. M., 1998. The Natural Philosophy of James Clerk Maxwell , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hecht, Hartmut and Hoffmann, Dieter, 1982. “Die Berufung Hans Reichenbachs an die Berliner Universität”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 30: 651–662.
Holton, Gerald, 1968. “Mach, Einstein, and the Search for Reality”, Daedalus 97: 636–673. Reprinted in Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973, 219–259.
Howard, Don, 1984. “Realism and Conventionalism in Einstein’s Philosophy of Science: The Einstein-Schlick Correspondence”, Philosophia Naturalis 21: 618–629.
–––, 1985. “Einstein on Locality and Separability”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 16: 171–201.
–––, 1989. “Holism, Separability, and the Metaphysical Implications of the Bell Experiments”, in Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory: Reflections on Bell’s Theorem , James T. Cushing and Ernan McMullin (eds.), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 224–253.
–––, 1990a. “Einstein and Duhem”, Synthese 83: 363–384.
–––, 1990b. “’Nicht sein kann was nicht sein darf,’ or the Prehistory of EPR, 1909–1935: Einstein’s Early Worries about the Quantum Mechanics of Composite Systems”, in Sixty-Two Years of Uncertainty: Historical, Philosophical, and Physical Inquiries into the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics , Proceedings of the 1989 Conference, “Ettore Majorana” Centre for Scientific Culture, International School of History of Science, Erice, Italy, 5–14 August. Arthur Miller, ed. New York: Plenum, 61–111.
–––, 1992. “Einstein and Eindeutigkeit: A Neglected Theme in the Philosophical Background to General Relativity”, in Jean Eisenstaedt and A. J. Kox (eds.), Studies in the History of General Relativity (Einstein Studies: Volume 3), Boston: Birkhäuser, 154–243.
–––, 1993. “Was Einstein Really a Realist?” Perspectives on Science: Historical, Philosophical, Social 1: 204–251.
–––, 1994a. “Einstein, Kant, and the Origins of Logical Empiricism”, in Language, Logic, and the Structure of Scientific Theories (Proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Konstanz, 21–24 May 1991), Wesley Salmon and Gereon Wolters (eds.), Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press; Konstanz: Universitätsverlag, 45–105.
–––, 1994b. “’A kind of vessel in which the struggle for eternal truth is played out’-Albert Einstein and the Role of Personality in Science”, in The Natural History of Paradigms: Science and the Process of Intellectual Evolution , John H. Langdon and Mary E. McGann (eds.), Indianapolis: University of Indianapolis Press, 1994, 111–138.
–––, 1996. “Relativity, Eindeutigkeit, and Monomorphism: Rudolf Carnap and the Development of the Categoricity Concept in Formal Semantics”, in Origins of Logical Empiricism (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 16), Ronald N. Giere and Alan Richardson (eds.), Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 115–164.
–––, 1997. “A Peek behind the Veil of Maya: Einstein, Schopenhauer, and the Historical Background of the Conception of Space as a Ground for the Individuation of Physical Systems”, in The Cosmos of Science: Essays of Exploration (Pittsburgh-Konstanz Series in the Philosophy and History of Science, Volume 6), John Earman and John D. Norton, (eds.), Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press; Konstanz: Universitätsverlag, 87–150.
–––, 1998. “Astride the Divided Line: Platonism, Empiricism, and Einstein’s Epistemological Opportunism”, in Idealization in Contemporary Physics (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities: Volume 63), Niall Shanks (ed.), Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 143–163.
–––, 1999. “Point Coincidences and Pointer Coincidences: Einstein on Invariant Structure in Spacetime Theories”, in History of General Relativity IV: The Expanding Worlds of General Relativity (Based upon the Fourth International Conference, Berlin, Germany 31 July-3 August 1995), Hubert Goenner, Jürgen Renn, Jim Ritter, and Tilman Sauer (eds.), Boston: Birkhäuser, 463–500.
–––, 2014. “Einstein and the Development of Twentieth-century Philosophy of Science”, in The Cambridge Companion to Einstein , Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 354–376.
Howard, Don and Norton, John, 1993. “Out of the Labyrinth? Einstein, Hertz, and the Göttingen Answer to the Hole Argument”, in The Attraction of Gravitation. New Studies in the History of General Relativity (Einstein Studies: Volume 5), John Earman, Michel Jannsen, and John Norton (eds.),Boston: Birkhäuser, 30–62.
Howard, Don and Stachel, John (eds.), 1989. Einstein and the History of General Relativity (Einstein Studies: Volume 1), Boston: Birkhäuser.
Janssen, Michel, 2009. “Drawing the Line between Kinematics and Dynamics in Special Relativity”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics , 40 (1), 26–52.
Janssen, Michel and Jürgen Renn, 2007. “Untying the Knot. How Einstein Found His Way Back to Field Equations Discarded in the Zurich Notebook”, in: The Genesis of General Relativity Jürgen Renn et al. (eds.), 4 volumes, Dordrecht: Springer 839–925.
Lange, Marc, 2014. “Did Einstein Really Believe That Principle Theories Are Explanatorily Powerless?”, Perspectives on Science 22 (4), 449–63.
Lehmkuhl, Dennis, 2014. “Why Einstein Did Not Believe That General Relativity Geometrizes Gravity”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics ,, 46: 316–326.
Le Roy, Édouard, 1901. “Un positivisme nouveau”, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 9: 138–153.
Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon, 1900. “Electromagnetische theorieën van natuurkundige verschijnselen” Jaarboek der Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden , Bijlagen; repr. in Leiden: Brill 1900; German translation in Physikalische Zeitschrift , 1 (1900): 498–501, 514–519.
–––, 1905. “La thermodynamique et les théories cinétiques.“ Bulletin des séances de la Société française de physique , 35–63.
Mach, Ernst, 1886. Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen , Jena: Gustav Fischer.
–––, 1897. Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung historisch-kritisch dargestellt , 3rd impr. and enl. ed. Leipzig: Brockhaus.
–––, 1900. Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältniss des Physischen zum Psychischen , 2nd edition of Mach 1886, Jena: Gustav Fischer; English translation of the 5th edition of 1906, The Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical , Cora May Williams and Sydney Waterlow, trans. Chicago and London: Open Court, 1914. Reprint: New York: Dover, 1959.
–––, 1906. Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung , 2nd ed. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth; English translation, Knowledge and Error: Sketches on the Psychology of Enquiry , Thomas J. McCormack and Paul Foulkes, (trans.), Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel, 1976.
Meyerson, Émile, Meyerson, 1925. La déduction relativiste , Paris: Payot; Eng. tr. Meyerson 1985.
–––, 1985. The Relativistic Deduction.Epistemological Implications of the Theory of Relativity , Eng. tr. by David A. and Mary-Alice Sipfle, Dordrecht: Reidel.
Norton, John, 1984. “How Einstein Found His Field Equations”, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 14: 253–316. Reprinted in Howard and Stachel 1989, 101–159.
–––, 2000. “’Nature is the Realisation of the Simplest Conceivable Mathematical Ideas’: Einstein and the Canon of Mathematical Simplicity”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 31B: 135–170.
Petzoldt, Joseph, 1895. “Das Gesetz der Eindeutigkeit”, Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie und Soziologie 19: 146–203.
Poincaré, Henri, 1901. “Sur les Principes de la Mecanique”, Bibliotheque du Congrès Internationale de Philosophie , Sec. 3, Logique et Histoire des Sciences , Paris: A. Colin. Reprinted as: “La Mécanique classique”, in La Science et l’Hypothese , Paris: Flammarion, 1902, 110–134; English translation: “The Classical Mechanics”, n Science and Hypothesis , W. J. Greenstreet (trans.), London and New York: Walter Scott, 1905, 89–110. Reprint: New York: Dover, 1952.
–––, 1904. “The Principles of Mathematical Physics”, in Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition, St. Louis, 1904 ( Philosophy and Mathematics : Volume 1), Howard J. Rogers, (ed.), Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905, 604–622.
Quine, Willard van Orman, 1951. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, Philosophical Review , 60: 20–43; reprinted in From a Logical Point of View , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953, 20–46.
Reichenbach, Hans, 1920. Relativitätstheorie und Erkenntnis Apriori , Berlin: Julius Springer; English translation: The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge , Maria Reichenbach (trans. and ed.), Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965.
–––, 1924. Axiomatik der relativistischen Raum-Zeit-Lehre ( Die Wissenschaft : Volume 72), Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn; English translation: Axiomatization of the Theory of Relativity , Maria Reichenbach (trans.), Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.
–––, 1928. Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre , Berlin: Julius Springer; English translation, The Philosophy of Space & Time , Maria Reichenbach and John Freund (trans.), New York: Dover, 1957.
–––, 1949. “The Philosophical Significance of the Theory of Relativity”, in Schilpp 1949, 289–311.
Rey, Abel, 1907. La théorie de la physique chez les physiciens contemporains , Paris: Alcan.
–––, 1908. Die Theorie der Physik bei den modernen Physikern , Ger. tr. of Rey 1907, by Rudolf Eisler. Leipzig: Klinkhardt.
Ryckman, Thomas, 2005. The Reign of Relativity. Philosophy in Physics 1915–1925 , Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
–––, 2017. Einstein , New York: Routledge.
Sauer,Tilman, 2014. “Einstein’s Unified field Theory Program” in The Cambridge Companion to Einstein , Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014 281;–305.
Schilpp, Paul Arthur (ed.), 1949. Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (The Library of Living Philosophers: Volume 7), Evanston, IL: The Library of Living Philosophers.
Schlick, Moritz, 1910. “Das Wesen der Wahrheit nach der modernen Logik”, Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie und Soziologie 34: 386–477; English translation, “The Nature of Truth in Modern Logic”, in Schlick 1979, vol. 1, 41–103.
–––, 1915. “Die philosophische Bedeutung des Relativitätsprinzips”, Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 159: 129–175. English translation: “The Philosophical Significance of the Principle of Relativity”, in Schlick 1979, vol. 1, 153–189.
–––, 1917. Raum und Zeit in den gegenwärtigen Physik. Zur Einführung in das Verständnis der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie , Berlin: Julius Springer; English translation of the 3rd edition, Space and Time in Contemporary Physics: An Introduction to the Theory of Relativity and Gravitation , Henry L. Brose (trans.), London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1920; reprinted in Schlick 1979, vol. 1, 207–269.
–––, 1921. “Kritizistische oder empiristische Deutung der neuen Physik”, Kant-Studien 26: 96–111. English translation: “Critical or Empiricist Interpretation of Modern Physics”, in Schlick 1979, vol. 1, 322–334.
–––, 1979. Philosophical Papers , 2 volumes, Henk L. Mulder and Barbara F. B. van de Velde-Schlick (eds.), Peter Heath (trans.), Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel.
Seth, Suman, 2010. Crafting the Quantum , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Stachel, John, 1980. “Einstein’s Search for General Covariance, 1912–1915” (paper delivered at the Ninth International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, Jena, Germany (DDR), 17 July 1980), in Howard and Stachel 1989, 63–100.
Study, Eduard, 1914. Die realistische Weltansicht und die Lehre vom Raume. Geometrie, Anschauung und Erfahrung ( Die Wissenschaft : Volume 54), Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn.
van Dongen, Jeroen, 2002. Einstein’s Unification: General Relativity and the Quest for Mathematical Naturalness , Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Amsterdam.
–––, 2010. Einstein’s Unification , Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

Einstein Papers Project , maintained by the California Institute of Technology.

Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

Info about mirror sites

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Welcome to 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology , an ever-growing set of over 180 original 1000-word essays on philosophical questions, theories, figures, and arguments.

We publish new essays frequently, so please check back for updates, follow us on Facebook , Twitter / X , and Instagram , and subscribe by email on this page to receive notifications of new essays.

All of our essays are now available in audio format; many of our essays are available as videos .

Select Recent Essays

Objects and their Parts: The Problem of Material Composition by Jeremy Skrzypek

Artificial Intelligence: The Possibility of Artificial Minds by Thomas Metcalf

The Mind-Body Problem: What Are Minds? by Jacob Berger

Seemings: Justifying Beliefs Based on How Things Seem by Kaj André Zeller

Form and Matter: Hylomorphism by Jeremy W. Skrzypek

Kant’s Theory of the Sublime by Matthew Sanderson

Philosophy of Color by Tiina Carita Rosenqvist

On Karl Marx’s Slogan “From Each According to their Ability, To Each According to their Need” by Sam Badger

Philosophy as a Way of Life by Christine Darr

Philosophy of Mysticism: Do Mystical Experiences Justify Religious Beliefs? by Matthew Sanderson

Ancient Cynicism: Rejecting Civilization and Returning to Nature by G. M. Trujillo, Jr.

“Properly Basic” Belief in God: Believing in God without an Argument by Jamie B. Turner

Philosophy of Time: Time’s Arrow by Dan Peterson

W.D. Ross’s Ethics of “Prima Facie” Duties by Matthew Pianalto

Aristotle on Friendship: What Does It Take to Be a Good Friend? by G. M. Trujillo, Jr.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: the Journey Out of Ignorance by Spencer Case

Epistemic Justification: What is Rational Belief? by Todd R. Long

The Doctrine of Double Effect: Do Intentions Matter to Ethics? by Gabriel Andrade

The Buddhist Theory of No-Self (Anātman/Anattā) by Daniel Weltman

Self-Knowledge: Knowing Your Own Mind by Benjamin Winokur

The Meaning of Life: What’s the Point? and Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful? by Matthew Pianalto

The Philosophy of Humor: What Makes Something Funny? by Chris A. Kramer

Karl Marx’s Theory of History by Angus Taylor

Saving the Many or the Few: The Moral Relevance of Numbers by Theron Pummer

Philosophy of Space and Time: What is Space? and Philosophy of Space and Time: Are the Past and Future Real ? by Dan Peterson

What Is Misogyny? by Odelia Zuckerman and Clair Morrissey

Philosophy and Race: An Introduction to Philosophy of Race by Thomas Metcalf

“Can They Suffer?”: Bentham on our Obligations to Animals by Daniel Weltman

Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas”: Would You Walk Away? by Spencer Case

Indoctrination: What is it to Indoctrinate Someone? by Chris Ranalli

Agnosticism about God’s Existence by Sylwia Wilczewska

African American Existentialism: DuBois, Locke, Thurman, and King by Anthony Sean Neal

Conspiracy Theories by Jared Millson

Philosophical Inquiry in Childhood by Jana Mohr Lone

* New categories are added as the project expands.

Popular Essays

* This is a selection of some of our most popular essays.

Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” by Charles Miceli and Descartes’ Meditations by Marc Bobro

Marx’s Conception of Alienation by Dan Lowe

John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’ by Ben Davies

The Ethics of Abortion by Nathan Nobis

Aristotle’s Defense of Slavery by Dan Lowe

“God is Dead”: Nietzsche and the Death of God by Justin Remhof

Philosophy and Its Contrast with Science : Comparing Philosophical and Scientific Understanding by Thomas Metcalf

Happiness: What is it to be Happy? by Kiki Berk

Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God by Liz Jackson

The African Ethic of Ubuntu by Thaddeus Metz

New to philosophy?! Perhaps begin with these essays:

What is Philosophy? by Thomas Metcalf,

Critical Thinking: What is it to be a Critical Thinker? by Carolina Flores,

Arguments: Why Do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf, and

Is it Wrong to Believe Without Sufficient Evidence? W.K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” by Spencer Case.

We have resources for students on How to Write a Philosophical Essay and How to Read Philosophy by the Editors of 1000-Word Philosophy .

A teaching units page has resources to help instructors develop course modules.

2023 and 2022 End of Year Reports are available here .

We have STICKERS! Want a free sticker or some stickers?? Let us know and we’ll send you some! (Offer only available for addresses in the US, unfortunately, due to postage costs.)

Follow 1000-Word Philosophy on Facebook , Twitter / X , and Instagram and subscribe to receive email notifications of new essays at 1000WordPhilosophy.com

Internet Archive Audio

This Just In
Grateful Dead
Old Time Radio
78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
Audio Books & Poetry
Computers, Technology and Science
Music, Arts & Culture
News & Public Affairs
Spirituality & Religion
Radio News Archive

Flickr Commons
Occupy Wall Street Flickr
NASA Images
Solar System Collection
Ames Research Center

All Software
Old School Emulation
MS-DOS Games
Historical Software
Classic PC Games
Software Library
Kodi Archive and Support File
Vintage Software
CD-ROM Software
CD-ROM Software Library
Software Sites
Tucows Software Library
Shareware CD-ROMs
Software Capsules Compilation
CD-ROM Images
ZX Spectrum
DOOM Level CD

Smithsonian Libraries
FEDLINK (US)
Lincoln Collection
American Libraries
Canadian Libraries
Universal Library
Project Gutenberg
Children's Library
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Books by Language
Additional Collections

Prelinger Archives
Democracy Now!
Occupy Wall Street
TV NSA Clip Library
Animation & Cartoons
Arts & Music
Computers & Technology
Cultural & Academic Films
Ephemeral Films
Sports Videos
Videogame Videos
Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

Wayback Machine (iOS)
Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

Explore the Collections
Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

Essays in science and philosophy

Bookreader item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

Graphic Violence
Explicit Sexual Content
Hate Speech
Misinformation/Disinformation
Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

2,433 Views

18 Favorites

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

For users with print-disabilities

IN COLLECTIONS

Uploaded by [email protected] on September 27, 2017

Alternative Concepts of God: Essays on the Metaphysics of the Divine

Cite Icon Cite
Permissions Icon Permissions

The concept of God according to traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic theism minimally includes the following theses: (i) There is one God; (ii) God is an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect agent; (iii) God is the creator ex nihilo of the universe and the sustainer of all that exists; and (iv) God is an immaterial substance that is ontologically distinct from the universe. Proponents of alternative concepts of God, such as pantheism, panentheism, religious anti-realism, developmental theism, and religious naturalism, exclude at least one of (i)–(iv). A number of prominent philosophers, theologians, and scientists have expressed sympathy with alternative concepts of the divine. However, voices raised in defense of these concepts tend not to be taken seriously in philosophy of religion. This book aims to shed light on alternative concepts of God and to thoroughly consider their merits and demerits.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]
Google Scholar Indexing

Personal account

Sign in with email/username & password
Get email alerts
Save searches
Purchase content
Activate your purchase/trial code
Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with username/password
Recommend to your librarian
Institutional account management
Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institutionâ€™s website and Oxford Academic.

Click Sign in through your institution.
Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institutionâ€™s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see â€˜Sign in through society siteâ€™ in the sign in pane within a journal:

Click Sign in through society site.
When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

About Oxford Academic
Publish journals with us
University press partners
What we publish
New features
Open access
Rights and permissions
Accessibility
Advertising
Media enquiries
Oxford University Press
Oxford Languages
University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

Cookie settings
Cookie policy
Privacy policy
Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

IMAGES

How to Write a Philosophy of Science Essay
Concept of God Essay AQA A-Level Philosophy (7172)
First Essay (Philosophy)
Philosophy Does God Exist
Philosophy Essay
SCIE1000 philosophy essay

VIDEO

Science can explain everything, why do we need God?
Introduction to Philosophy of Science. Lecture 1, part 2
Where Philosophy Meets Science
Introduction to Philosophy of Science. Lecture 3, part 1
Are God and Faith Anti-Science and Anti-Reason? John Lennox
Science & Religion in Context

COMMENTS

Religion and Science
This entry provides an overview of the topics and discussions in science and religion. Section 1 outlines the scope of both fields, and how they are related. Section 2 looks at the relationship between science and religion in five religious traditions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Section 3 discusses contemporary topics ...
Science, Philosophy, and God
Distorted notions of God as Creator, that is, as extrinsic cause of things and events in the world, are behind the view that we must choose between divine agency in the world and the kinds of causes that the natural sciences disclose.Too often, God has been seen as a finite object among other finite objects, albeit one who is juxtaposed to the world: a cause among causes, a thing simply vastly ...
Moral Arguments for the Existence of God
First published Thu Jun 12, 2014; substantive revision Tue Oct 4, 2022. Moral arguments for God's existence form a diverse family of arguments that reason from some feature of morality or the moral life to the existence of God, usually understood as a morally good creator of the universe. Moral arguments are both important and interesting.
Arguments for the existence of God
In these respects, arguments for God's existence can be likened to the arguments that one finds in science and the law. Scientists and lawyers don't typically aim to prove their claims beyond any shadow of doubt, but instead aim to show only that those claims are 'likely', 'probable', or perhaps 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
God, Science, and Naturalism
According to one view, religion has made war on science by trying to stop or limit or control scientific progress. Further, this war is inevitable, both because the questions addressed by science and religion overlap and because scientific and religious modes of thought stand in fundamental opposition to each other.
Philosophy of religion and the scientific turn
Since the 1950s, analytic philosophy of religion has focused almost solely on distinctly philosophical questions related to religion and theology. These include (but are not limited to) questions ...
Arguments for the Existence of God
Introduction. Philosophical discussion of arguments for the existence of God appeared to have become extinct during the heyday of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. However, since the mid-1960s, there has been a resurgence of interest in these arguments. Much of the discussion has focused on Kant's "big three" arguments ...
Philosophical Perspectives on the Relationship Between Religion and
The history of scientific thought shows that religion and science can interact in positive ways, despite their differences. In this chapter, I discuss and compare the perspectives on faith and reason expressed by four intellectuals belonging to different cultural contexts (with the exception of the first two): Averroes, Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas and Galileo Galilei.
Existence of God
existence of God, in religion, the proposition that there is a supreme supernatural or preternatural being that is the creator or sustainer or ruler of the universe and all things in it, including human beings. In many religions God is also conceived as perfect and unfathomable by humans, as all-powerful and all-knowing (omnipotent and omniscient), and as the source and ultimate ground of ...
Hermeneutic philosophy of science, Van Gogh's eyes, and God : essays in
God: Religion and Science. Section Summaries. Psychoanalytic Praxis and the Truth of Pain-- W.J. Richardson, S.J. Poetics of a Possible God; Faith or Philosophy-- R. Kearney. James on Bootstraps, Evolution, and Life-- T. Nickles, G. McCollum-Nickles. In-Between Science and Religion-- D. Balestra. Thinking the Philosophy of Religion-- G. Barden.
The God Equation: the quest for a theory of everything
The study of Philosophy looks beyond physics, as opposed to the study of science. It is the study of "The God of the Gaps." Playing the role of bridging science and religion, it provides religion a... The study of Philosophy looks beyond physics, as opposed to the study of science. It is the study of "The God of the Gaps."
Monism: Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview
The collected essays provide ample evidence for connecting monist ideas with broader strands of popular science and indicate, too, a renewed interest in anti-dualistic philosophies today. Monism thus appears in this volume as a set of ideas, always radiating into in the public arena, whose analysis can effectively connect questions from the ...
Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction
Abstract. Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction explores not only the key philosophical questions that underlie the debate between science and religion, but also the social, political, and ethical contexts that have made it such a fraught and interesting topic in the modern world. Offering perspectives from non-Christian religions and examples from across the physical, biological ...
(PDF) Existence of God: A Philosophical Aspect
The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion. In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology and ontology and ...
Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of religion is the philosophical examination of the themes and concepts involved in religious traditions as well as the broader philosophical task of reflecting on matters of religious significance including the nature of religion itself, alternative concepts of God or ultimate reality, and the religious significance of general features of the cosmos (e.g., the laws of nature, the ...
Albert Einstein: Religion and Science
Religion and Science. Return to Top; The following article by Albert Einstein appeared in the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4. It has been reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, Inc. 1954, pp 36 - 40.It also appears in Einstein's book The World as I See It, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 24 - 28.. Everything that the human race has done and thought is ...
Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science, van Gogh's Eyes, and God Essays in
God: Religion and Science. Section Summaries. Psychoanalytic Praxis and the Truth of Pain W.J. Richardson, S.J. Poetics of a Possible God -- Faith or Philosophy R. Kearney. James on Bootstraps, Evolution, and Life T. Nickles, G. McCollum-Nickles. In-Between Science and Religion D. Balestra. Thinking the Philosophy of Religion G. Barden.
Three Essays on Religion
Details. In the following three essays, King wrestles with the role of religion in modern society. In the first assignment, he calls science and religion "different though converging truths" that both "spring from the same seeds of vital human needs.". King emphasizes an awareness of God's presence in the second document, noting that ...
God
The Necessary Existence of God: The Third Argument. Spinoza's third argument for the necessary existence of God has a premise that is known a posteriori: that something exists (SE): 1. If something finite exists and God does not, then something finite is more powerful than something infinite. 2.
The Scopes Trial: A Landmark in the Clash of Science and Religion
Essay Example: Few instances in the annals of American legal and cultural history have generated as much attention and debate as the 1925 Scopes Trial. The Scopes Monkey Trial, also known as The State of Tennessee v. ... Courtroom discussions on academic freedom, science vs religion, and how education shapes young minds gave way to larger ...
Einstein's Philosophy of Science
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) is well known as the most prominent physicist of the twentieth century. His contributions to twentieth-century philosophy of science, though of comparable importance, are less well known. Einstein's own philosophy of science is an original synthesis of elements drawn from sources as diverse as neo-Kantianism ...
God in the Age of Science?: A Critique of Religious Reason
Abstract. This book is a critical examination of the philosophical strategies for defending religious belief. The main strategies may be presented as conforming to the end nodes of a decision tree for a believer. The faithful can interpret a credal statement (e.g. 'God exists') either as a factual claim, or otherwise.
1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
Welcome to 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology, an ever-growing set of over 180 original 1000-word essays on philosophical questions, theories, figures, and arguments. We publish new essays frequently, so please check back for updates, follow us on Facebook, Twitter / X, and Instagram, and subscribe by email on this page to receive ...
Essays in science and philosophy
Spirituality & Religion; Podcasts; Radio News Archive; Images. Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Featured. All Images; This Just In; Flickr Commons; ... Essays in science and philosophy by Whitehead, Alfred North, 1861-1947. n 79058622. Publication date 1948 Topics Science, Philosophy, Education, Education, Philosophy, Science
Alternative Concepts of God: Essays on the Metaphysics of the Divine
Abstract. The concept of God according to traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic theism minimally includes the following theses: (i) There is one God; (ii) God is an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect agent; (iii) God is the creator ex nihilo of the universe and the sustainer of all that exists; and (iv) God is an immaterial substance ...