This anthology contains the principal texts of the skeptical tradition from its origins in antiquity to contemporary philosophy. Selections include the writings of both well-known and lesser-known but influential philosophers of the Western tradition who either advanced skeptical views or dealt with skeptical issues for other philosophical or religious purposes. An introduction on the origins, kinds, and significance of philosophical skepticism puts the various readings in the context of the history of Western philosophy. The editors have also added brief discussions of each philosopher and text included in the anthology, plus a selected bibliography, which lists the main secondary literature on ancient, modern, and contemporary skepticism. This collection is ideal for introductory philosophy courses and courses on intellectual history, or for any reader interested in an influential school of thought, which challenges the nature of philosophy itself.

The days have passed when the goodness of God — indeed, the reality of God itself — could reasonably be called a consensus opinion. God’s reputation has come under considerable review in recent days, with some going so far as to say that it’s not we who’ve made a mess of things. Instead whatever it is we call God is to blame. But is such an opinion really a fair assessment? In this magisterial collection, the contemporary complaints against belief in God are addressed with intellectual passion and rigor by some of the most astute theological and philosophical minds of the day: J. P. Moreland, Paul Moser, John Polkinghorne, Michael Behe, Michael J. Murray, Alister McGrath, Paul Copan, Jerry Walls, Charles Taliaferro, Scot McKnight, Gary Habermas, Mark Mittelberg, Chad Meister, and William Lane Craig. Includes an interview by Gary Habermas with noted convert to theism Antony Flew, and a direct critical response to Richard Dawkins’s God Delusion by Alvin Plantinga, God Is Great, God Is Good offers convincing and compelling reassurance that though the world has changed, God has not.

The Defense of the Faith is Van Til’s book about the subject for which he is most famous, presuppositional apologetics. I know many Christians wish to be able to defend their faith and to be “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope” that they have (I Peter 3:15). … “Presuppositional” means that the argument for the truth of the claims of Scripture focuses on the presuppositions, or assumptions, of non-Christian thought, and it is founded on and proceeds according to the presuppositions of Biblical, Christian thought. The most foundational idea of non-Christian thought is the idea of human autonomy. According to the Bible, the unbeliever’s heart is naturally at war with God after the fall. God has revealed that He is the Creator, and that man, whether he wants to or not, must always ultimately face the fact the he is the creature, and is responsible to and dependent on God. He knows that this is true. However, after the fall, the unbeliever does not want to be responsible to or dependent on God. He suppresses the truth that he knows in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:21). He wants to determine for himself the significance and purpose of his life. He makes his own mind the ultimate criterion for all interpretation and for all activity. The claims of God are not satisfactory to him, so he rejects them. The mind of the creature sits in judgment over its Creator. Thus all human reasoning and interpretation is inescapably and fundamentally ethical by nature. Van Til’s argument is that a truly Biblical apologetic must confront the unbeliever at this very point. … ~ B.C. Richards at Amazon.com

Religious faith is under assault. In books and movies and on television, militant secular critics attack religion with a renewed vigor. These “new atheists” repeat a two-part mantra: that religious faith is hopelessly irrational and that those possessed of such faith are responsible for the hatred and bloodshed that has plagued humanity. Abandon religion, they urge us, and the world will at last live in peace. In Defense of Faith examines this proposition in the context of Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition and asserts that, far from encouraging hatred and violence, the Judeo-Christian tradition has easily been the most effective curb upon the dark defects of human nature and our best tool in the struggle for humanity. From the Christian activists who fought to stop the genocide of Indians in South America and their ethnic cleansing in North America, to the abolition of African slavery on both sides of the Atlantic, and on to modern human rights activists from Martin Luther King Jr. to the rock star Bono — In Defense of Faith rebuts the fashionable arguments against religion and presents the strong and lasting record of the Judeo-Christian idea. History has not been as kind to the atheist model: every time it is put to the test, we have reverted to the most base, violent instincts of our selfish genes. ~ Production Description

Do we desire things because they are good, or are they good because we desire them? Objectivists answer that we desire things because they are good; subjectivists answer that things are good because we desire them. Further, does it make sense to account for moral disagreement by claiming, as the moral relativist does, that something might be good for one person but not for another? Some essays in this book consider whether objective moral truths can be grounded in an understanding of the nature of human beings as rational and social animals. Some discuss the ethical theories of historical figures-Aristotle, Aquinas, or Kant-or offer critical assessments of the work of recent and contemporary theorists — such as Moore, Putnam, Ayn Rand, Philippa Foot, and Rosalind Hursthouse. Other essays ask whether moral principles and values can be constructed through a process of practical reasoning or deliberation. Still others consider what the phenomenology of our moral experiences can reveal about moral objectivity. ~ Product Description

In ‘Why Us?’, James Le Fanu explores the major implications of the most recent findings of genetics and neuroscience, challenging the common assumption that they must ultimately explain all there is to know about life and man’s place in the world. On the contrary, he argues, they point to an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the genes strung out along the Double Helix and the near infinite beauty and diversity of the living world to which they give rise, and between the monotonous electro-chemistry of the brain and richness and creativity of the human mind. “There is,” he writes, “a powerful impression that science has been looking in the wrong place, seeking to resolve questions that somehow lie outside its domain. It is as if we – and indeed all living things – are in some way different, profounder and more complex than the physical world to which we belong.” A N Wilson in his review described it as ‘an extraordinary work of science … quite wonderfully refreshing’; for Christopher Booker in The Spectator it was “enthralling”: “one of the glories of Le Fanu’s erudite and beautifully written book is that a sense of wonder is evident on every page, even as he lucidly analyses the limitations of the narrow intellectual prism in which science has languished too long.” ~ Publisher’s Description

In a recent interview, “Literally,’ Emojis, and Other Trends That Aren’t Destroying English“,  Steven Pinker directs his usual optimism to writing style. I’ve been guilty too often of reckless hyperbole, but at least I’m not alone. Pinker notes: “We are always in search of superlatives, of ways of impressing upon our hearer that something that happened is noteworthy or even extraordinary. And the words we use to signal that eventually lose their meaning. ‘Awesome’ is a recent example. In the UK, ‘brilliant’ is used for the most banal observations. Before that, words like ‘terrific,’ meaning inspiring terror, ‘wonderful,’ inspiring wonder, ‘fabulous,’ worthy of fable. We see the fossils of dead superlatives that our ancestors overused the way we overuse ‘awesome.’ ‘Literally’ is a victim of a similar type of inflation. The figurative use doesn’t mean the language is deteriorating. Hyperbole has probably been around as long as language has been around.” What I most appreciated in the interview is that, like me, Pinker is a proponent of placing grammatical delimiters outside of quotations, preserving their ownership by the sentence, to which they properly belong. In response to the interviewer’s insistence that it is untidy to place a comma outside of the quotation mark, Pinker argues: “Your aesthetics may have been shaped by a lifetime of seeing it in the American pattern, but this would be a case in which any aesthetic reaction should be trumped by logic. Messing up the order of delimiters in a way that doesn’t reflect the logical nesting of their content is just an affront to an orderly mind.” Hear. Hear.

In a recent interview, “Literally,’ Emojis, and Other Trends That Aren’t Destroying English”,  Steven Pinker directs his usual optimism to writing style. recently shared about his sense of style in writing. I’ve been guilty too often of reckless hyperbole, but at least I’m not alone. Pinker notes: “We are always in search of superlatives, of ways of impressing upon our hearer that something that happened is noteworthy or even extraordinary. And the words we use to signal that eventually lose their meaning. ‘Awesome’ is a recent example. In the UK, ‘brilliant’ is used for the most banal observations. Before that, words like ‘terrific,’ meaning inspiring terror, ‘wonderful,’ inspiring wonder, ‘fabulous,’ worthy of fable. We see the fossils of dead superlatives that our ancestors overused the way we overuse ‘awesome.’ ‘Literally’ is a victim of a similar type of inflation. The figurative use doesn’t mean the language is deteriorating. Hyperbole has probably been around as long as language has been around.” What I most appreciated in the interview is that, like me, Pinker is a proponent of placing grammatical delimiters outside of quotations, preserving their ownership by the sentence, to which they properly belong. In response to the interviewer’s insistence that it is untidy to place a comma outside of the quotation mark, Pinker argues: “Your aesthetics may have been shaped by a lifetime of seeing it in the American pattern, but this would be a case in which any aesthetic reaction should be trumped by logic. Messing up the order of delimiters in a way that doesn’t reflect the logical nesting of their content is just an affront to an orderly mind.” Hear. Hear.

Steven Pinker recently shared about his sense of style in writing. I’ve been guilty too often of reckless hyperbole, but at least I’m not alone. Pinker notes: “We are always in search of superlatives, of ways of impressing upon our hearer that something that happened is noteworthy or even extraordinary. And the words we use to signal that eventually lose their meaning. ‘Awesome’ is a recent example. In the UK, ‘brilliant’ is used for the most banal observations. Before that, words like ‘terrific,’ meaning inspiring terror, ‘wonderful,’ inspiring wonder, ‘fabulous,’ worthy of fable. We see the fossils of dead superlatives that our ancestors overused the way we overuse ‘awesome.’ ‘Literally’ is a victim of a similar type of inflation. The figurative use doesn’t mean the language is deteriorating. Hyperbole has probably been around as long as language has been around.” What I most appreciated in the interview is that, like me, Pinker is a proponent of placing grammatical delimiters outside of quotations, preserving their ownership by the sentence, to which they properly belong. In response to the interviewer’s insistence that it is untidy to place a comma outside of the quotation mark, Pinker argues: “Your aesthetics may have been shaped by a lifetime of seeing it in the American pattern, but this would be a case in which any aesthetic reaction should be trumped by logic. Messing up the order of delimiters in a way that doesn’t reflect the logical nesting of their content is just an affront to an orderly mind.” Hear. Hear.