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This book examines and proposes a solution to the knowability paradox. The paradox derives from the proof that if all truths are knowable, then all truths are known, which was first published by Frederic Fitch in 1963. It identifies two problems created by Fitch’s proof: a perceived anti-realism and the paradox created by the proof. It is argued that although the two problems are related, a defence against the threat to anti-realism is no solution to the paradox. The neo-Russellian theory of quantification is considered the only acceptable solution to the paradox, since no other approach offers any hope of addressing the fundamental paradoxicality involved in asserting a lost logical distinction between actuality and possibility.

What if there is no strong evidence that God exists? Is belief in God when faced with a lack of evidence illegitimate and improper? Evidentialism answers yes. According to Evidentialism, it is impermissible to believe any proposition lacking adequate evidence. And, if any thesis enjoys the status of a dogma among philosophers, it is Evidentialism. Presenting a direct challenge to Evidentialism are pragmatic arguments for theism, which are designed to support belief in the absence of adequate evidence. Pascal's Wager is the most prominent theistic pragmatic argument, and issues in epistemology, the ethics of belief, and decision theory, as well as philosophical theology, all intersect at the Wager. This book explores various theistic pragmatic arguments and the objections employed against them. It presents a new version of the Wager, the so-called ‘Jamesian Wager’, and argues that this survives the objections hurled against theistic pragmatic arguments and provides strong support for theistic belief. Objections found in Voltaire, Hume, and Nietzsche against the Wager are scrutinized, as are objections issued by Richard Swinburne, Richard Gale, and other contemporary philosophers. The ethics of belief, the many-gods objection, the problem of infinite utilities, and the propriety of a hope-based acceptance are also examined.

The thesis of this book is that whether or not someone knows a proposition at a given time is in part determined by his or her practical interests, i.e., by how much is at stake for that person at that time. Thus, whether a true belief is knowledge is not merely a matter of supporting beliefs or reliability; in the case of knowledge, practical rationality and theoretical rationality are intertwined. This thesis, called Interest-Relative Invariantism about knowledge, is defended against alternative accounts of the phenomena that motivate it, such as the claim that knowledge attributions are linguistically context-sensitive and the claim that the truth of a knowledge claim is somehow relative to the person making the claim. The strategies available for resolving skepticism to the strategies available for resolving other philosophical paradoxes are compared. For example, contextualist solutions to the sorites paradox and the liar paradox, as well as interest-relative accounts of the sorites paradox are considered. It is shown that the argument for the interest-relative character of epistemic notions is not the result of an application of a general strategy for resolving philosophical quandaries, but arises from the distinctive nature of epistemic properties.

If one is saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ, then what is the origin of that faith? Is it a preordained gift of God to elect individuals, or is some measure of human free choice involved? Initially, Philipp Melanchthon concurred with Martin Luther—that the human will is completely bound by sin, and that the choice of faith can flow only from God's unilateral grace. But if this is so, what about those whom God has not chosen? Is he not casting people into hell who never even had a chance? What are the pastoral implications for believers thinking about the nature of God and their own relationship to him? As a result of practical concerns such as these, aided by an intellectual aversion to paradox, Melanchthon came to believe that the human will does play a key role in the origins of a saving faith in Jesus Christ. This was not the Roman Catholic free will of Erasmus, however. It was a limited free will tied to justification by faith alone. It was an evangelical free will.

Among the various conceptions of truth is one according to which ‘is true’ is a transparent, entirely see-through device introduced for only practical (expressive) reasons. This device, when introduced into the language, brings about truth-theoretic paradoxes (particularly, the notorious Liar and Curry paradoxes). The options for dealing with the paradoxes while preserving the full transparency of ‘true’ are limited. This book presents and defends a modest, so-called dialetheic theory of transparent truth.

Our image of Roman satire has developed from that of a static, moralizing genre to a deliberately complex form, but our approach to the humour intrinsic to satire has not developed accordingly. This book offers a comprehensive new analysis of humour in the writings of Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, with an excursus to Lucilius. The main thesis is that far from being an external means of sweetening the moral lesson, humour lies at the heart of Roman satire and shapes its paradoxical essence. The book argues that while the satirist needs humour for the aesthetic merit of his work, his ideological message inevitably suffers from the ambivalence that humour carries. By analyzing object-oriented humour, humour directed at the speaker (including self-irony), and humour directed at neither object nor subject, the book shows how the Roman satirists work round this double mission of morals and merriment. As a result, they present the reader with a much more sprawling and ‘open’ literary product than they promise in their programmatic self-presentations. The argument is rounded off by a contemplation of the end of Roman satire, and its descendants — not only modern satire but also the novel, in which satire’s humorous orchestration of epic questions was later taken up and richly elaborated.

Decartes' maxim Cogito, Ergo Sum (from his Meditations) is perhaps the most famous philosophical expression ever coined. The author of this book, Joseph Almog, is a Descartes scholar whose last book What Am I? focused on the second half of this expression asking who is the “I”, who is thinking, and how does this entity somehow incorporate both body and mind? This book looks at the first half of the proposition — cogito. The book calls this the “thinking man's paradox”: how can there be, in and part of the natural world, a creature that thinks? Descartes' proposition declares that such a fact maintains and is self-evident; but as this book points out, from the point of view of Descartes' own skepticism it is far from obvious. How can it be that a thinking human can be both part of the natural world and yet somehow distinct and separate from it? How did “thinking” arise in an otherwise “thoughtless” universe and what does it mean for beings like us to be thinkers? The book goes back to the Meditations, and using Descartes' own methodology — and his naturalistic, scientific worldview — tries to answer the question.

Happiness in Good Lives explores happiness as an important dimension of fully desirable lives. Happiness is defined as loving one’s life, valuing it in ways manifested by ample enjoyment and a robust sense of meaning. As such, it interacts with all other dimensions of good lives, in particular with moral decency and goodness, authenticity, mental health, self-fulfillment, and meaningfulness. The book integrates philosophical issues with topics of broad human interest, and it includes chapters on how happiness connects with the virtues, love, philanthropy, suffering, simplicity, balancing work and leisure, and politics. Happiness is a moral value, as well as a self-interested value, which we have a responsibility as well as a right to pursue. Myriad specific virtues contribute to pursuing happiness, and in turn happiness contributes to or manifests an array of virtues such as love, self-respect, gratitude, and hope. Although happiness is by no means the entirety of good lives, it helps define some additional aspects of good lives, including authenticity, self-fulfillment, meaningfulness, and mental health. It also enters into understanding what it means to live a balanced life, and also a simple life centered on what matters most. The moral status of happiness is a central concern in the history of ethics. Recent “positive psychology” has breathed new life into traditional philosophical issues, and the book draws extensively on psychological studies. It also uses myriad examples from memoirs, novels, and films. One chapter is devoted to assessing the claim of Mary Shelley’s monster in Frankenstein: “Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”

There are many senses in which we can be said to be free agents, and to be morally responsible. There is also, however, a strong, fundamental, and natural sense in which these things are impossible. Very briefly: we cannot be ultimately responsible for how we act. Why not? Because when we act, we do what we do because of the way we are, all things considered, and we cannot be ultimately responsible for the way we are. Suppose this is right: ultimate responsibility is impossible. Can we nevertheless state what would be necessary and sufficient for someone to possess ultimate responsibility (as we can state the necessary and sufficiently conditions of being a round square)? One proposal is that one would have to be causa sui, truly, ultimately the cause or source of oneself, at least in fundamental mental or characteral respects. Another proposal considered in this book is that one could not really count as a free agent (even if one was somehow causa sui) unless one also experienced oneself as, or believed oneself to be, a free agent. This raises the question whether believing something to be the case could ever be a condition of its actually being the case (the idea is highly paradoxical). It also leads to a sustained discussion of the experience of agency, and of being a free agent. Generally speaking, the metaphysical possibilities seem fairly clear when it comes to the question of free will. The remaining questions of interest may have more to do with the phenomenology of freedom, and more generally, moral psychology.

Human beings are both supremely rational and deeply superstitious, capable of believing just about anything and of questioning just about everything. Indeed, just as our reason demands that we know the truth, our skepticism leads to doubts we can ever really do so. This book guides us through a contradiction that lies at the very heart of philosophical inquiry. The book argues that our rational faculties insist on a purely rational account of the universe; yet at the same time, the inherent limitations of these faculties ensure that we will never fully satisfy that demand. As a result of being driven to this point of paradox, we either comfort ourselves with what Kant called “metaphysical illusions” or adopt a stance of radical skepticism. No middle ground seems possible and, as the book shows, skepticism, even though a healthy dose of it is essential for living a rational life, “has an inherent tendency to become unlimited in its scope, with the result that the edifice of rationality is destroyed.” In much Postmodernist thought, for example, skepticism takes the extreme form of absolute relativism, denying the basis for any value distinctions and treating all truth-claims as equally groundless. How reason avoids disgracing itself, walking a fine line between dogmatic belief and self-defeating doubt, is the question the book seeks to answer.