Where the Bootstrapping Really Lives
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Issue Date
2017-12
Authors
Gould, Paul M., 1971-
Davis, Richard Brian, 1963-
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Type
Article
Keywords
Theistic activism
Property--Philosophy
Panchuk, Michelle Lynn
Bootstrapping
Ontology
God--Philosophy
God--Proof
Property--Philosophy
Panchuk, Michelle Lynn
Bootstrapping
Ontology
God--Philosophy
God--Proof
Citation
Gould, Paul M. and Richard Brian Davis. “Where the Bootstrapping Really Lives.” International Philosophical Quarterly 57, no. 4 (December 2017): 415-428. doi: 10.5840/ipq201791895
Abstract
Modified Theistic Activism is the view that abstract objects not essentially possessed by God fall under God’s creative activity in one way or another. Michelle Panchuk has argued that this position succumbs to the bootstrapping problem such that God is and is not logically prior to his properties—an incoherent and necessarily false state of affairs. In this essay we respond to Panchuk by arguing that our neo-Aristotelian account of substance and property possession successfully avoids the bootstrapping problem. Moreover, her own neo-Augustinian account of universals contains many conceptual deficiencies and ultimately
succumbs to an epistemic iteration of the bootstrapping problem. Finally, we argue that the reasons provided for thinking only created beings need universals to ground character is unmotivated. In clarifying and defending our position, our hope is to bury once and for all the familiar claim that traditional.
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Publisher
Fordham University Press
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Copyright, Fordham University Press. All rights reserved.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/