Paul Moser

Paul Moser

Paul K. Moser (born 1957 in Bismarck, North Dakota) is an American analytic philosopher who writes on epistemology and the philosophy of religion. He is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago^[1] and past editor of the American Philosophical Quarterly.^[2] He is the author of many works in epistemology and the philosophy of religion, in which he has supported versions of epistemic foundationalism and volitional theism. His work brings these two positions together to support volitional evidentialism about theistic belief, in contrast to fideism and traditional natural theology. He draws from some epistemological and theological insights of the apostle Paul, Blaise Pascal, Kierkegaard, John Oman,^[3] and H. H. Farmer,^[4] but adds (i) a notion of purposively available evidence of God’s existence, (ii) a notion of authoritative evidence in contrast with spectator evidence, and (iii) a notion of personifying evidence of God whereby some willing humans become salient evidence of God's existence. His most recent work emphasizes the importance of foundational evidence from the self-manifestation of God's moral character to cooperative humans. An evidential role for agapē, along the lines of Romans 5:5, is central to his theistic epistemology. One result is a distinctive approach to divine hiddenness.

Authored books

• The God Relationship: Ethics for Inquiry about God

Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2017.

• The Severity of God: Religion and Philosophy Reconceived^[5]

Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-1-107-61532-8

• The Evidence for God: Religious Knowledge Reexamined^[6]

Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-521-73628-2

• The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology^[7]

Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 304 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-88903-2

Winner of the 2011 Alpha Sigma Nu (Honor Society of Jesuit Colleges and Universities) Book Award for Philosophy

• The Theory of Knowledge: A Thematic Introduction (with D.H. Mulder and J.D. Trout)^[8]

New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. 212 pages. Translated by Marcelo Brandao Cipolla as A Teoria Do Conhecimentio: Uma Introducao Tematica. Sao Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2004. 233 pages.

• Philosophy After Objectivity^[9]

New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. 267 pages. Paperback edition, 1999. Electronic version published in NetLibrary, 2002.

• Knowledge and Evidence^[10]

Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Cambridge Studies in Philosophy Series (Series Editor: Sydney Shoemaker). 285 pages. Paperback edition, 1991.

• Empirical Justification^[11]

Boston/Dordrecht: D. Reidel (Kluwer/Springer) Publishing Company, 1985. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, Vol. 34 (Series Editors: Keith Lehrer and Wilfrid Sellars). 263 pages. Published also in Reidel's Pallas Paperback Series, 1985.

Edited books

• The Testimony of the Spirit: New Essays (with Doug Geivett). New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2017.
• The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil (with Chad Meister). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2017.
• The Wisdom of the Christian Faith ^[12] (with Michael McFall). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Jesus and Philosophy: New Essays.^[13] Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. (An anthology of ten previously unpublished essays on what Jesus has to do with philosophy.)
• The Rationality of Theism^[14] (with Paul Copan). London/New York: Routledge Ltd., 2003. (A 292-page anthology of previously unpublished essays by thirteen authors on evidence for Christian theism.)
• Divine Hiddenness: New Essays^[15] (with Daniel Howard-Snyder). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. (A 242-page anthology of previously unpublished essays by eleven authors on the idea of a God who hides.)
• Oxford Handbook of Epistemology.^[16] New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. (A 595-page anthology of previously unpublished essays by nineteen authors, in the series Oxford Handbooks of Philosophy, a series of which Paul Moser is the General Editor.) Also in Oxford Scholarship Online, 2004.
• Human Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Approaches^[17] (with A. vander Nat). New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, 1995, 2002.  (A 582-page anthology with a 28-page general introduction and five section introductions and bibliographies; second edition, 1995; third edition, 2002.)
• Moral Relativism^[18] (with T.L. Carson). New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. (A 337-page anthology on contemporary ethical relativism, with a 21-page general introduction and a 6-page topical bibliography.)
• Morality and the Good Life^[19] (with T.L. Carson). New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. (A 522-page anthology on contemporary ethical theory, with a 22-page general introduction and a 16-page topical bibliography.)
• Empirical Knowledge: Readings in Contemporary Epistemology^[20]   Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, Publishers, 1986, 1996. (A 468-page anthology with a 34-page general introduction and a 17-page topical bibliography; Second Edition, 1996.)
• Contemporary Materialism^[21] (with J.D. Trout). London/New York: Routledge Ltd., 1995. (A 378-page anthology with a 32-page general introduction and a topical bibliography.)
• Contemporary Approaches to Philosophy^[22] (with D.H. Mulder). New York/Toronto: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993. (A 488-page anthology on metaphilosophy, with a 13-page general introduction, four section introductions, and a 15-page topical bibliography; now distributed by Prentice-Hall, Inc.)
• Reality In Focus: Contemporary Readings on Metaphysics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., A Division of Simon & Schuster, Publishers, 1990. (A 456-page anthology with an 11-page general introduction and five section introductions and bibliographies.)
• Rationality In Action: Contemporary Approaches.^[23] Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. (A 493-page anthology with a 10-page general introduction, three section introductions, and a topical bibliography.)
• A Priori Knowledge.^[24] Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Oxford Readings in Philosophy Series. (A 222-page anthology with a 14-page general introduction and a 10-page bibliography.)

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

1. ↑ Home page
2. ↑ American Philosophical Quarterly
3. ↑ John Oman, The Natural and the Supernatural. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931.
4. ↑ H. H. Farmer, The World and God. London: Nisbet, 1936.
5. ↑ http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/isbn/item7068135/?site_locale=en_US
6. ↑ http://www.cup.es/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521736282
7. ↑ http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521120081
8. ↑ http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Epistemology/?view=usa&ci=9780195094664
9. ↑ http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Metaphysics/?view=usa&ci=9780195130942
10. ↑ http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521423632
11. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/9027720428/
12. ↑ http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/isbn/item6869911/The%20Wisdom%20of%20the%20Christian%20Faith/?site_locale=en_US
13. ↑ http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521694865
14. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415263328/
15. ↑ http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521006101
16. ↑ http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Epistemology/?view=usa&ci=9780195301700
17. ↑ http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Epistemology/?view=usa&ci=9780195149661
18. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195131304/
19. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195105389/
20. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0847682048/
21. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415108640/
22. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0023841710/
23. ↑ http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521385985
24. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0198750838/