I recently had the privilege of providing my thoughts on the evidential value of Near Death Experiences (NDE’s) to philosopher Beth Seacord. After some fruitful email correspondence on the problem of evolutionary evil, she asked if I would be willing to give her some of my thoughts on NDE’s, as she will be writing a paper on their evidential value for the SCP Conference this upcoming April. Read more “The Evidential Value of Near Death Experiences, Part 1”
Contra Clifford: The Necessity of Going Beyond the Evidence
“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.” William Kingdon Clifford
At the outset of the essay “The Ethics of Belief,” William K. Clifford defends the stringent principle that we are always obliged to have sufficient evidence for every one of our beliefs. Indeed, the early sections of “The Ethics of Belief” are so stern that William James would later characterize Clifford as a “delicious enfant terrible” who defends doxastic self-control “with somewhat too much of robustious pathos in the voice” (1896, 8). Read more “Contra Clifford: The Necessity of Going Beyond the Evidence”