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Hud Hudson offers a fascinating examination of philosophical
reasons to believe in hyperspace. He begins with some stage-setting
discussions, offering his analysis of the term 'material object',
noting his adherence to substantivalism, confessing his sympathies
regarding principles of composition and decomposition, identifying
his views on material simples, material gunk, and the persistence
of material objects, and preparing the reader for later discussions
with introductory remarks on eternalism, modality and
recombination, vagueness, bruteness, and the epistemic role of
intuitions. The subsequent chapters are loosely organized around
the theme of hyperspace. Hudson explores nontheistic reasons to
believe in hyperspace in chapter 1 (e.g. reasons arising from
reflection on incongruent counterparts and fine-tuning arguments),
theistic reasons in chapter 7 (e.g. reasons arising from reflection
on theistic puzzles known as the problem of the best and the
problem of evil), and some distinctively Christian reasons in
chapter 8 (e.g. reasons arising from reflection on traditional
Christian themes such as heaven and hell, the Garden of Eden,
angels and demons, and new testament miracles). In the intervening
chapters, Hudson inquires into a variety of puzzles in the
metaphysics of material objects that are either generated by the
hypothesis of hyperspace, focusing on the topics of mirror
determinism and mirror incompatibilism, or else informed by the
hypothesis of hyperspace, with discussions of receptacles,
boundaries, contact, occupation, and superluminal motion. Anyone
engaged with contemporary metaphysics will find much to stimulate
them here.
Frequently, alleged irreconcilable conflicts between science and
religion are instead misdescribed battles concerning negotiable
philosophical assumptions-conflicts between metaphysics and
metaphysics. Hud Hudson provides a two-stage illustration of this
claim with respect to the putative inconsistency between the
doctrines of The Fall and Original Sin and the deliverances of
contemporary science. The tension in question emerges through a
study of the many forms the religious doctrines have assumed over
the centuries and through a review of some well-established
scientific lessons on the origin and history of the universe and of
human persons. The first stage: After surveying various paths of
retreat which involve reinterpreting and impoverishing Original Sin
and minimizing and dehistoricizing The Fall, one version of
moderate realism about the doctrines is articulated, critically
evaluated, and found both consistent with contemporary science and
suitable to play a crucial role in the theist's confrontation with
the Problem of Evil. The second stage: Recent work in the
philosophy of time and in the philosophy of religion provides
intriguing support for a Hypertime Hypothesis (a species of
multiverse hypothesis), distinctive for positing a series of
successive hypertimes, each of which hosts a spacetime block. After
arguing that the Hypertime Hypothesis is a genuine epistemic
possibility and critically discussing its impact on a number of
debates in metaphysics and philosophy of religion, Hudson reveals a
strategy for unabashed, extreme literalism concerning The Fall and
Original Sin which nevertheless has the extraordinary and
delightful feature of being thoroughly consistent with the reigning
scientific orthodoxy.
Hud Hudson offers a fascinating examination of philosophical
reasons to believe in hyperspace. He begins with some stage-setting
discussions, offering his analysis of the term "material object,"
noting his adherence to substantivalism, confessing his sympathies
regarding principles of composition and decomposition, identifying
his views on material simples, material gunk, and the persistence
of material objects, and preparing the reader for later discussions
with introductory remarks on eternalism, modality and
recombination, vagueness, bruteness, and the epistemic role of
intuitions. The subsequent chapters are loosely organized around
the theme of hyperspace. Hudson explores nontheistic reasons to
believe in hyperspace in chapter 1 (e.g. reasons arising from
reflection on incongruent counterparts and fine-tuning arguments),
theistic reasons in chapter 7 (e.g. reasons arising from reflection
on theistic puzzles known as the problem of the best and the
problem of evil), and some distinctively Christian reasons in
chapter 8 (e.g. reasons arising from reflection on traditional
Christian themes such as heaven and hell, the Garden of Eden,
angels and demons, and new testament miracles). In the intervening
chapters, Hudson inquires into a variety of puzzles in the
metaphysics of material objects that are either generated by the
hypothesis of hyperspace, focusing on the topics of mirror
determinism and mirror incompatibilism, or else informed by the
hypothesis of hyperspace, with discussions of receptacles,
boundaries, contact, occupation, and superluminal motion.
Anyone engaged with contemporary metaphysics will find much to
stimulate them here.
Fallenness and Flourishing opens with defenses of the philosophy of
pessimism, first on secular grounds and then again on distinctively
Christian grounds with reference to the fallenness of human beings.
It then details traditional Christian reasons for optimism with
which this philosophy of pessimism can be qualified. Yet even among
those who accept the general religious worldview underlying this
optimism, many nevertheless willfully resist the efforts required
to cooperate with God and instead pursue happiness and well-being
(or flourishing) on their own power. On the assumption that we can
acquire knowledge in such matters, arguments are presented in
favour of objective-list theories of well-being and the Psychic
Affirmation theory of happiness, and the question 'How are people
faring in this quest for self-achieved happiness and well-being?'
is critically investigated. The unfortunate result is that nearly
everywhere, people are failing. The causes of failure, it is
argued, are found in the noetic effects of sin-especially in
inordinate self-love and self-deception, but also in insufficient
self-love-and such failure manifests both in widespread unhappiness
and in that most misunderstood of the seven deadly sins, sloth.
After a literary tour designed to reveal the many different ways
that sloth can damage a life, Hud Hudson provides a constructive
proposal for responding to this predicament featuring the virtue of
obedience. This virtue is analysed, illustrated, and located in a
new theory of well-being.
Hud Hudson presents an innovative view of the metaphysics of human
persons according to which human persons are material objects but
not human organisms. In developing his account, he formulates and
defends a unique collection of positions on parthood, persistence,
vagueness, composition, identity, and various puzzles of material
constitution.The author also applies his materialist metaphysics to
issues in ethics and in the philosophy of religion. He examines the
implications for ethics of his metaphysical views for standard
arguments addressing the moral permissibility of our treatment of
human persons and their parts, fetuses and infants, the
irreversibly comatose, and corpses. He argues that his metaphysics
provides the best foundation in the philosophy of religion for the
Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body.Hudson addresses
a broad range of metaphysical issues, but among his most strikingly
original contributions are his defense of the "Partist" view
(according to which a material object can exactly occupy multiple,
overlapping regions of spacetime) and his argument for the
compatibility of Christianity with a materialistic theory of human
persons.
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