2010-2011 TEMPLETON RESEARCH FELLOWS RECIPIENTS

C. Anthony Anderson (Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara)

Project Abstract:

Professor Anderson's project is titled, "Conceptual Modality." In it he seeks to develop a theory of concepts, construed as objective entities, expanding logical work begun by Alonzo Church on the "logic of sense and denotation." A modal logic (logic of possibility and necessity) will be developed on this basis, taking conceptual incompatibility as a primitive idea. It is believed that the result will secure a step in the modal ontological argument for the existence of God, provide a foundation for the necessity of mathematical truths, and possibly provide a basis for Leibniz's argument for the existence of God from eternal truths.

Select Publications:

"Russellian Intensional Logic." In Themes from Kaplan, eds. Joseph Almog, John Perry, and Howard Wettstein, pp. 67-103. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

"Some Emendations of Gödel's Ontological Proof." Faith and Philosophy 7 (1990): 291-303.

"Gödel's Ontological Argument Revisited" (with Michael Gettings). In Gödel '96. Logical Foundations of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics – Kurt Gödel's Legacy, ed. Peter Hájek, pp. 167-172. Berlin: Springer, 1996.

"Alternative (1*): A Criterion of Identity for Intensional Entities." In Logic, Meaning and Computation, eds. C. Anthony Anderson and Michael Zeleny, pp. 393-427. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

---

Kevin Timpe (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Northwest Nazarene University)

Project Abstract:

Professor Timpe's project is titled, "Free Will: Human and Divine." Though the nature of human free will has received significant philosophical attention in recent decades, the relationship between human free will and various theological topics has received much less attention. His starting point is the claim that while at least some human adults are morally responsible, and thus also free, humans do not begin their lives as free and responsible agents. How is it that this transformation takes place? Drawing on current research in psychology and biology, Timpe will seek to explain how the capacities required for freedom emerge through normal human development. In addition, he will extend this account to theological issues, showing how recent work on the metaphysics of free will sheds light on, for example, the nature of God's free will, sin, and character formation.

Select Publications:

Free Will: Sourcehood and Its Alternatives (London: Continuum, 2008).

"Incompatibilism, Sin, and Free Will in Heaven" (with Timothy Pawl), Faith and Philosophy 26:4 (2009): 396-417.

"Demotivating Semicompatibilism," forthcoming in Ideas y Valores: Revista colombiana de filosofia, ed. Carlos Patarroyo.

"The Metaphysics of Free Will," forthcoming in Continuum Companion to Metaphysics, eds. Neil A. Manson and Bob Barnard (London: Continuum, 2010).

Managed by the University of Oklahoma, Oxford University, and the Society of Christian Philosophers. | Funded by the John Templeton Foundation