Divine Aftknowledge

Here are some links to stuff related to our recent class discussions:

• Here are two encyclopedia entries (one and two) on divine foreknowledge and free will.
• Here's an entry on Augustine.
• Here's an entry on Maimonides (plus an entry on the impact of Islamic thought on his philosophy).
• Here's a review of a recent book on Maimonides in my favorite free online philosophy review publication.

Hear No Evil

If you like to get philosophical on the treadmill, try downloading and listening to these podcasts on the problem of suffering:

• Well-known contemporary philosopher (and ordained priest) Marilyn McCord Adams offers some insights into the problem of evil in this audio interview. (Download)
• The NPR program Fresh Air has an audio interview with Bart Ehrman on the problem of suffering. (Download)
• Here's even more audio from a few philosophers on the problem of suffering. (Download)

Suffer-iness

Here's Stephen Colbert's take on evil:

Bad Things to Good People

Here are some links on the problem of suffering.

• This is a great introductory article on the problem of suffering.
• There is a collection of resources all about the problem of evil, including criticisms of several different responses to the problem. I mean, wow.
• I'd like to highlight one article in particular: a discussion of the "God works in mysterious ways" response: do we have enough evidence to believe that there is a reason for all the suffering in the world, but humans aren't smart enough to understand what that reason is?
• And here's a video talk on the humility response.
• Does everything happen for a reason? This cartoon dinosaur has an interesting take on that question. (T-Rex also occasionally wonders why bad things happen to nice people, and whether we're in the worst possible world.)

Random Comedy

As usual, The Onion nails it:

• "Realistic Announcer Shouting How Kevin Durant Making His Last 4 Shots Has No Bearing On Whether He Will Make Next Shot"
• "Cornell Drains Fun Out Of Cinderella Run By Explaining How On A Long Enough Timeline The Improbable Becomes Probable"

The Importance of Being Stochastic

Here is a bunch of links related to our natural tendency to misinterpret randomness as if it's an intentional pattern:

• Most of us are pretty bad at statistical reasoning.
• Here's a review of a decent book (The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives) on this topic.
• What was that infinite monkey typewriter thing we were talking about in class? Someone recently tried it! Well, sort of.
• A radio show I love recently devoted an entire episode to probability.
  
• Another radio show I love ran a great 2-part series on the screening for diseases called "You Are Pre-Diseased".
• What's up with that recent recommendation that routine screenings for breast cancer should wait until your 50s rather than 40s? Math helps explain it.

Design in the Mind's Eye

Here's an interesting approach to explaining the seeming complexity, order, and functionality of the universe: maybe it's all in our mind.

Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that we see intentional design and patterns too much... including in things that are actually random. So things that seem so fine-tuned and unlikely from our perspective might not actually be. Here's a video dialogue on this topic:




Bloom has two great books (Descartes' Baby and How Children Learn the Meaning of Words) on how our minds develop from early childhood on.

Midterm

Just a reminder that the midterm exam will be held on Monday, November 7th. It's worth 20% of your overall grade.

There are a variety of questions on the midterm:  different types of argument evaluation, some short answers, a mini-essay, and extra credit. It covers everything we've gone over in class so far:

• Philosophy
  -Definitions
  -Doing philosophy
• Arguments
  -Evaluation: truth and support tests
  -Types: arguments from example, arguments by analogy, causal arguments, arguments from authority, deductive arguments
  
• Knowledge
  -Definition: Plato says true belief doesn't equal knowledge
  -Skepticism
  -Descartes: uncertain of childhood beliefs, senses, and reasoning; certain he's thinking and he exists
• God Stuff
  -Cosmological Argument: Aquinas's uncaused 1st cause version
  -Ontological Argument: Anselm's version, Guanilo's criticism
  -Design Argument: arg by analogy version, inductive version, Hume's criticisms of the analogy & inductive versions, abductive version