Benjamin McCraw | University of South Carolina Upstate (original) (raw)

Books by Benjamin McCraw

In contradistinction to the many monographs and edited volumes devoted to historical, cultural, o... more In contradistinction to the many monographs and edited volumes devoted to historical, cultural, or theological treatments of demonology, this collection features newly written papers by philosophers and other scholars engaged specifically in philosophical argument, debate, and dialogue involving ideas and topics in demonology. The contributors to the volume approach the subject from the perspective of the broadest areas of Western philosophy, namely metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and moral philosophy. The collection also features a plurality of religious, cultural, and theological views on the nature of demons from both Eastern and Western thought, in addition to views that may diverge from these traditional roots. Philosophical Approaches to Demonology will be of interest to philosophers of religion, theologians, and scholars working in philosophical theology and demonology, as well as historians, cultural anthropologists, and sociologists interested more broadly in the concept of demons.

This book engages the problem of evil from a variety of philosophical viewpoints, traditions, met... more This book engages the problem of evil from a variety of philosophical viewpoints, traditions, methodologies, and interests. For millennia, philosophers, theologians, and people outside of the academy have thought about evil and its relation to religious belief. The Problem of Evil: New Philosophical Directions aims to take this history of thought into evil while also extending the discourse in other directions; providing a multi-faceted collection of papers that take heed of the various ways one can think about evil and what role in may play in philosophical considerations of religion. From the nature of evil to the well-known problem of evil to the discussion of the problem in philosophical discourse, the collection provides a wide range of philosophical approaches to evil. Anyone interested in evil—its nature, relation to religious belief, its use in philosophical discussion, and so on—will find the papers in this book of interest.

What is the nature of Hell? What role(s) may Hell play in religious, political, or ethical though... more What is the nature of Hell? What role(s) may Hell play in religious, political, or ethical thought? Can Hell be justified? This edited volume addresses these questions and others; drawing philosophers from many approaches and traditions to analyze and examine Hell.

This collection brings together new papers addressing the philosophical challenges that the conce... more This collection brings together new papers addressing the philosophical challenges that the concept of a Devil presents, bringing philosophical rigor to treatments of the Devil. Contributors approach the idea of the Devil from a variety of philosophical traditions, methodologies, and styles, providing a comprehensive philosophical overview that contemplates the existence, nature, and purpose of the Devil. While some papers take a classical approach to the Devil, drawing on biblical exegesis, other contributors approach the topic of the Devil from epistemological, metaphysical, phenomenological, and ethical perspectives. This volume will be relevant to researchers and scholars interested in philosophical conceptions of the Devil and related areas, such as philosophers of religion, theologians, and scholars working in philosophical theology and demonology.

Articles by Benjamin McCraw

Acta Analytica, 2020

This paper is ambitious: it begins with mixing externalism in philosophy of mind with internalism... more This paper is ambitious: it begins with mixing externalism in philosophy of mind with internalism in epistemology, and it ends with instructive insights from social and feminist thought. In the first stage, I argue that one can consistently combine two theses that appear, at first glance, incompatible: cognitive externalism—the thesis that one’s mental states/processing can extend past one’s biological boundaries—and mentalism in epistemology—i.e. that epistemic justification supervenes on one’s mental states. This yields the perhaps startling or strange view that the loci of epistemic justification are both mental states and (can be) located externally to one’s skull and skin. This motivates the second stage: I aim to ease that strangeness by suggesting that most discussions of cognitive externalism and epistemology too often focus exclusively on extending epistemically reliable abilities, faculties, dispositions, etc. to artifacts (e.g. notebooks, computers, etc.) in one’s environment. Instead we should think of this combination as informed by feminist epistemologists’ insistence of our thinking’s irreducible and radical sociality. Epistemic communities shape and are shaped by our cognition—echoing the dynamic, interactive integration at the heart of cognitive externalism. Thus, just as I am part of an epistemic community, it is also a part of me (literally). Thus, I think with others: not merely as an artifact but as constituent elements of my cognition itself; resulting in a robust socially extended internalism.

Acta Analytica, 2018

Debate rages in virtue epistemology between virtue reliabilists and responsibilists. Here, I deve... more Debate rages in virtue epistemology between virtue reliabilists and responsibilists. Here, I develop and argue for a new kind of responsibilism that is more conciliar to reliabilism. First, I argue that competence-based virtue reliabilism(s) cannot adequately ground epistemic credit. Then, with this problem in hand, I show how Aristotle’s virtue theory is motivated by analogous worries. Yet incorporating too many details of Aristotelian moral theory leads to problems; notably the problem of unmotivated belief. As a result, I suggest a re-turn to Aristotle to develop a distinctively epistemological virtue theory that doesn’t require any motive or affect for epistemic virtue. Nevertheless, my theory affirms that virtues are acquired, agent-expressive traits. The result is a conciliar responsibilism that leans closer to reliabilism. I end by arguing that my virtue responsibilism can solve worries facing both reliabilism and (extant) responsibilism.

Recently Patrick Grim and Einar Duenger Bohn have argued that there can be no perfectly knowing B... more Recently Patrick Grim and Einar Duenger Bohn have argued that there can be no perfectly knowing Being. In particular, they urge that the object of omniscience is logically absurd (Grim) or requires an impossible maximal point of all knowledge (Bohn). I argue that, given a more classical notion of omniscience found in Aquinas and Augustine, we can shift the focus of perfect knowledge from what that being must know to the mode of that being’s understanding. Since Grim and Bohn focus on the object rather than mode of God’s knowledge, this classical approach to omniscience undermines their objections.

This paper begins with the oft-repeated claim that having faith involves trust in God. Taking thi... more This paper begins with the oft-repeated claim that having faith involves trust in God. Taking this platitude seriously requires at least two philosophical tasks. First, one must address the relevant notion of “trust” guiding the platitude. I offer a sketch of epistemic trust: arguing that epistemic trust involves several components: acceptance, communication, dependence, and confidence. The first duo concerns the epistemic element of epistemic trust and the second part delimit the fiducial aspect to epistemic trust. Second, one must also examine what differentiates faith qua trust. I argue that we should not distinguish faith from trust merely by believing religious propositions but by the attitudes they express. In particular, the attitude of faith is more deeply entrenched and central to one’s noetic structure than trust simpliciter. The paper ends by arguing that the account proposed insofar as it accommodates and explains certain “faith desiderata”. We can thus give content to the “faith is a kind of trust” platitude with a model of trust on hand while showing how that model confirms and explains important features of faith.

This paper offers an analysis of the nature of epistemic trust. With increased philosophical att... more This paper offers an analysis of the nature of epistemic trust. With increased philosophical attention to social epistemology in general and testimony in particular, the role for an epistemic or intellectual version of trust has loomed large in recent debates. But, too often, epistemologists talk about trust without really providing a sustained examination of the concept. After some introductory comments, I begin by addressing various components key to trust simpliciter. In particular, I examine what we might think of when we consider what it means to place trust in someone. Once we have examined trust in general, we can modify this discussion to derive an epistemic version of trust—placing trust in someone for an epistemic reason. I argue that epistemic trust includes four components: belief, communication, reliance, and confidence. The first two sets (belief and communication) are distinctively epistemic and the second set of conditions (reliance and confidence) form the core of any kind of trust. Put together, both strands of concepts yield a distinctively epistemic version of trust. Together, these four conditions account for when H places epistemic trust in S that/for p. I end by addressing alternative accounts of epistemic trust and argue that they are all lacking.

In this paper, I respond to an objection raised by Duncan Pritchard and Jesper Kallestrup against... more In this paper, I respond to an objection raised by Duncan Pritchard and Jesper Kallestrup against virtue epistemology. In particular, they argue that the virtue epistemologist must either deny that S knows that p only if S believes that p because of S’s virtuous operation or deny intuitive cases of testimonial knowledge. Their dilemma has roots in the apparent ease by which we obtain testimonial knowledge and, thus, how the virtue epistemologist can explain such knowledge in a way that both preserves testimonial knowledge and grounds it in one’s virtues. I argue that the virtue epistemologist has a way to accomplish both tasks if we take epistemic trust to be an intellectual virtue. I briefly discuss what such trust must look like and then apply it to the dilemma at hand: showing that a key intellectual virtue plausibly operates in cases of testimonial knowledge and/or belief.

Book Chapters by Benjamin McCraw

Trust in Epistemology, 2019

In this paper, I argue that epistemic trust is an intellectual virtue. First, I offer a brief an... more In this paper, I argue that epistemic trust is an intellectual virtue. First, I offer a brief analysis of what it means to place epistemic trust in someone involving several components: belief, communication, dependence, and confidence. I show this account of trust fits a major approach to virtue in the second section. Next, I argue that epistemic trust both contributes to the epistemic good life and that the paradigmatically rational or virtuous agent will include trust in her motivational structure. Considerations from both the structure and meta-epistemology of virtues give us excellent grounds to accept that such a trait is an epistemic virtue. Following these arguments, I discuss a few implications of the view. Epistemic trust will be a mean between two vices of credulity and suspiciousness but that mean will be sensitive to the agent’s particular epistemic context. The view is not evidentialist (for good trust is not defined solely in terms of evidence) but it does account for the role evidence often plays in good epistemic trust (since other virtues relevant to the obtaining and weighing of evidence must be in operation). Finally, I apply the view to three issues in epistemology: the problem of easy or low grade knowledge, testimony, and disagreement; arguing that we’re provided with interesting, fruitful ways of approaching them.

Bad Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy, 2019

Purgatory: Philosophical Dimensions, 2017

In this paper, I defend the claim that we have good reason to think that God can (and maybe does)... more In this paper, I defend the claim that we have good reason to think that God can (and maybe does) answer prayers for the dead, and, perhaps surprisingly, these reasons hold even if one is agnostic on Purgatory. I examine philosophical discussions on the efficacy of both petitionary prayer and praying for the past: showing that the reasons offered for efficacious prayers of those types apply to prayers for the dead as well. Hence, supposing that we have good reasons to think that God can/does grant petitions or that God can answer prayers about the past, we have similarly strong reasons to think that prayers addressed to God for the dead can be efficacious.

Philosophical Approaches to Demonology, 2017

My focus in this chapter concerns the demonic from the perspective of Augustine and Aquinas. Much... more My focus in this chapter concerns the demonic from the perspective of Augustine and Aquinas. Much of their views on demons coincide with certain elements of the popular view, but a good bit also diverges in some interesting and important ways. In fact, their philosophical theology is essentially bound up with their overall demonology. I show that the aim of the demonic is to bring about conversion through temptation, and this “possession” is nothing but the person coming to be like demons in rejecting God. Described thusly, we can see the Devil and his demonic minions as having an inverse or perverse role in relation to that of Christ and his disciples (broadly construed) for philosophical theologians like Augustine and Aquinas.

Revisiting Aquinas’ Proofs for the Existence of God, 2016

The Problem of Evil: New Philosophical Directions, 2015

J. L. Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason offers an argument for the non-existence ... more J. L. Schellenberg’s Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason offers an argument for the non-existence of God. He argues that God’s existence isn’t evident and, thus, there exist cases of “reasonable nonbelief”. But, such nonbelief is inconsistent—Schellenberg argues—with the existence of a loving God desiring a personal relationship with others. In short, if (a perfectly loving) God exists, then reasonable nonbelief must be impossible. But, since there is such belief, we have good reason to think God doesn’t exist. In this chapter, I argue that there is a way to resist Schellenberg’s conclusion because there is a reason that God might not make God’s existence evident. I begin by showing that the problem of hiddenness is a version of the problem of evil. Here, the obscurity of God’s existence is a kind of intellectual bad state akin to traditional moral or natural evils. This opens the door to a modified response to hiddenness based on approaches to the standard problem of evil. I take Hick’s soul making theodicy as the guiding theory altered to fit hiddenness. Hick appeals to the moral development in overcoming evil, whereas I focus on the development of faith in God as the kind of soul making feature hiddenness can spur. If God’s existence isn’t evident, the uncertainty here can promote robust trust in God and, through that faith, can provide a good reason that God might remain hidden.

Acta Analytica, 2020

Acta Analytica, 2018

Trust in Epistemology, 2019

Bad Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy, 2019

Purgatory: Philosophical Dimensions, 2017

Philosophical Approaches to Demonology, 2017

Revisiting Aquinas’ Proofs for the Existence of God, 2016

The Problem of Evil: New Philosophical Directions, 2015

Philosophical Approaches to the Devil, 2015

In this chapter I explore the possibility and prospects of what I’m calling reformed demonology, ... more In this chapter I explore the possibility and prospects of what I’m calling reformed demonology, an extension of a reformed epistemology that includes belief in the Devil. I begin by characterizing reformed epistemology as denying the necessity of propositional evidence—via argument—for the positive epistemic status of a religious belief. I then turn to the influential reformed approaches of Alvin Plantinga and William Alston, seeing whether or not one can developed their Reformed approaches to beliefs about God to beliefs about the Devil. For Plantinga, this question amounts to whether or not God could/would have created us with a faculty designed to produce beliefs about the Devil immediately. For Alston, this question becomes one as to whether one lives in a community such that direct (quasi)perceptual experience of the Devil is made possible. In each case, I suggest that we find neither a ‘yes’ nor ‘no’ answer: Plantinga’s epistemology hinges on what sort of aims God would have in creating us and Alston’s on what sort of epistemic communities there are as well as in which one finds oneself. So, on either view, a Reformed Demonology is possible.

Purgatory, 2017

In the introduction to this collection, Vanhoutte and McCraw draw out the religious and terminolo... more In the introduction to this collection, Vanhoutte and McCraw draw out the religious and terminological background of Purgatory and develop a philosophical model for the concept. Beginning with Purgatory’s genesis in Christian theology, they move towards a philosophical discussion of the concept of Purgatory as a temporary, intermediate place of purgation and punishment. Then, they examine more specific theological components that are often associated with the concept; showing that Purgatory (or something like it) extends far beyond the Roman Catholic Church and even outside of the Western theistic tradition altogether. Thus, it opens the concept to philosophical analysis; several of which are explored in the rest of the text.

Philosophical Approaches to Demonology, 2017

In this paper, I defend the claim that we have good reason to think that God can (and maybe does)... more In this paper, I defend the claim that we have good reason to think that God can (and maybe does) answer prayers for the dead, and, perhaps surprisingly, these reasons hold even if one is agnostic on Purgatory. I examine philosophical discussions on the efficacy of both petitionary prayer and praying for the past: showing that the reasons offered for efficacious prayers of those types apply to prayers for the dead as well. Hence, supposing that we have good reasons to think that God can/does grant petitions or that God can answer prayers about the past, we have similar reasons to think that prayers addressed to God for the dead can be efficacious.

Philosophy in review, 2015

Acta Analytica, 2020

This paper is ambitious: it begins with mixing externalism in philosophy of mind with internalism... more This paper is ambitious: it begins with mixing externalism in philosophy of mind with internalism in epistemology, and it ends with instructive insights from social and feminist thought. In the first stage, I argue that one can consistently combine two theses that appear, at first glance, incompatible: cognitive externalism-the thesis that one's mental states/processing can extend past one's biological boundaries-and mentalism in epistemology-i.e., that epistemic justification supervenes on one's mental states. This yields the perhaps startling or strange view that the loci of epistemic justification are both mental states and (can be) located externally to one's skull and skin. This motivates the second stage: I aim to ease that strangeness by suggesting that most discussions of cognitive externalism and epistemology too often focus exclusively on extending epistemically reliable abilities, faculties, dispositions, etc. to artifacts (e.g., notebooks, computers) in one's environment. Instead, we should think of this combination as informed by feminist epistemologists' insistence of our thinking's irreducible and radical sociality. Epistemic communities shape and are shaped by our cognition-echoing the dynamic, interactive integration at the heart of cognitive externalism. Thus, just as I am part of an epistemic community, it is also a part of me (literally). Thus, I think with others: not merely as an artifact but as constituent elements of my cognition itself; resulting in a robust socially extended internalism.

Trust in Epistemology, 2019

In this paper, I argue that epistemic trust is an intellectual virtue. First, I offer a brief ana... more In this paper, I argue that epistemic trust is an intellectual virtue. First, I offer a brief analysis of what it means to place epistemic trust in someone involving several components: belief, communication, dependence, and confidence. I show this account of trust fits a major approach to virtue in the second section. Next, I argue that epistemic trust both contributes to the epistemic good life and that the paradigmatically rational or virtuous agent will include trust in her motivational structure. Considerations from both the structure and meta-epistemology of virtues give us excellent grounds to accept that such a trait is an epistemic virtue. Following these arguments, I discuss a few implications of the view. Epistemic trust will be a mean between two vices of credulity and suspiciousness but that mean will be sensitive to the agent’s particular epistemic context. The view is not evidentialist (for good trust is not defined solely in terms of evidence) but it does account for the role evidence often plays in good epistemic trust (since other virtues relevant to the obtaining and weighing of evidence must be in operation). Finally, I apply the view to three issues in epistemology: the problem of easy or low grade knowledge, testimony, and disagreement; arguing that we’re provided with interesting, fruitful ways of approaching them.

Acta Analytica, 2018

Debate rages in virtue epistemology between virtue reliabilists and responsibilists. Here, I deve... more Debate rages in virtue epistemology between virtue reliabilists and responsibilists. Here, I develop and argue for a new kind of responsibilism that is more conciliar to reliabilism. First, I argue that competence-based virtue reliabilism(s) cannot adequately ground epistemic credit. Then, with this problem in hand, I show how Aristotle's virtue theory is motivated by analogous worries. Yet, incorporating too many details of Aristotelian moral theory leads to problems, notably the problem of unmotivated belief. As a result, I suggest a return to Aristotle to develop a distinctively epistemological virtue theory that does not require any motive or affect for epistemic virtue. Nevertheless, my theory affirms that virtues are acquired, agent-expressive traits. The result is a conciliar responsibilism that leans closer to reliabilism. I end by arguing that my virtue responsibilism can solve worries facing both reliabilism and (extant) responsibilism.

Philosophical Approaches to Demonology, 2017

Philosophy and Theology, 2016

Philosophical Approaches to the Devil, 2015

Introduction Benjamin W. McCraw and Robert Arp Part I: Divergent Conceptions of the Devil 1. Devi... more Introduction Benjamin W. McCraw and Robert Arp Part I: Divergent Conceptions of the Devil 1. Devil in the Details: Tracing the Biblical Genealogy and Origin of the Satan-Lucifer Myths Adam D. Neal 2. Nietzsche, Satan, and the Romantics: The Devil as "Tragic Hero" in Romanticism Siobhan Lyons 3. Satan, Romantic Hero or Just Another Asshole: The Desire to be God, the Devil, and the Demonic James M. McLachlan 4. Wormwood Gets Promoted: A Devilish Look at Higher Education J. Aaron Simmons Part II: The Devil in Medieval and Modern Philosophy 5. The Devil and St. Anselm Katherin A. Rogers 6. The Secret Joke of Satan's Soul Kevin Carnahan 7. "Behold, It is Cast into the Fire for Fuel": Jonathan Edwards on the Usefulness of the Wicked David Reiter 8. Descartes' Demon: More Powerful and Virtuous than God? Joshua M. Hall Part III: The Devil and Epistemology 9. A Theist's Nightmare Paul McNamara 10. "Now, Who Could it Be?": Satan and the Argument from Natural Evil James F. Sennett 11. Reformed Demonology Benjamin W. McCraw Part IV: The Devil in Moral and Social Philosophy 12. What's Wrong with Satanic Temptation? T. Ryan Byerly 13. The Devil's Philosophy of Law: Obedience and Disobedience Andre Santos Campos 14. If the Devil Did Not Exist, It May Be Necessary to Invent Him in Certain Contexts Robert Arp