Hyperspace and The Best World Problem : A Reply To Hud Hudson

Hud Hudson’s The Metaphysics of Hyperspace provides a fascinating, well-argued tour through wide range of important problems and debates in contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of religion. The chapters are largely self-contained; but one overarching theme is that belief in what we might call the Hyperspace Hypothesis affords enough theoretical utility that, for those with the right sorts of background beliefs, there are multiple inference-to-the-best-explanation arguments to be had for the conclusion that the hypothesis is true. The arguments on this score are interesting and original. Each merits serious attention. But there is no way to do all of them justice in a short symposium paper like this one. Thus, I shall restrict my attention to just one of them—one of three ‘‘explicitly religious reasons for believing in hyperspace.’’ According to Hudson, belief in hyperspace can provide the resources for buttressing one of two traditional responses to what might be called the Best World Problem. Moreover, if he is right, it turns out that an unadvertised side-benefit is that belief in hyperspace provides an answer to an argument for atheism that arises in connection with the Best World Problem and that has received a great deal of recent attention. In this paper, however, I shall argue that belief in hyperspace in fact provides neither of these benefits. I’ll begin by briefly sketching the Best World Problem and the argument for atheism that arises in connection with it; and I’ll then explain how belief in hyperspace is supposed to help solve the Best World Problem and to answer the atheistic argument. I will then argue—in the familiar tradition of trying to show respect and affection for one’s friends by objecting vigorously to their arguments and conclusions—that belief in hyperspace in fact offers no help with respect to either the Best World Problem or the atheistic argument, and that even if it did, this fact would not count as reason to believe in hyperspace. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXXVI No. 2, March 2008 2008 International Phenomenological Society