In an attempt to improve upon Alexander Pruss’s work (2006, pp. 240-248), I (Weaver, 2012) have argued that if all purely contingent events could be caused and something like a Lewisian analysis of causation is true (per Lewis, 2004), then all purely contingent events have causes. I dubbed the derivation of the universality of causation the “Lewisian argument”. The Lewisian argument assumed not...

Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism aims to show that the conjunction of contemporary evolutionary theory (E) with the claim that there is no God (N) cannot be rationally accepted. Where R is the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable, the argument is: P1. The probability of R given N and E is low or inscrutable. P2. Anyone who sees (1) and accepts (N&E) has a de...

We present a general framework for analyzing the complexity of subdivisionbased algorithms whose tests are based on the sizes of regions and their distance to certain sets (often varieties) intrinsic to the problem under study. We call such tests diameterdistance tests. We illustrate that diameter-distance tests are common in the literature by proving that many interval arithmetic-based tests a...

This is an ambitious book, in two ways. First, it advocates a drastic transformation of contemporary epistemology’s scope and method. Second, it exemplifies a new way of doing epistemology, plumbing the depths of epistemic psychology by subtly characterizing the nature of, and interrelations among, a host of intellectual traits. Part I critiques standard “analytic” epistemology and expounds the...

December 2004 • Journal of Forestry Historically, many issues in US forest policy have involved heated exchanges between timber interests and environmental groups over the future of the nation’s national forests. Debate about whether national forests should produce timber and rural economic opportunities, or pursue other objectives such as ecological restoration and recreation, generally ignore...

Let f be a univariate polynomial with real coefficients, f ∈ R[X]. Subdivision methods are widely used for isolating the roots of f in a given interval. In this paper we consider evaluation-based subdivision algorithms that use using simpler primitives than well-known subdivision methods such as Sturm or Descartes methods. In particular, we study the EVAL algorithm based on an algorithm by Mitc...

The present study builds a spatial statistical model for estimating land use maps. Many approaches for modeling land use maps exist in the literatures. A representative method includes a multinomial logit model (Miller and Plantinga, 1999), in which the likelihood of placing each land use category, such as land for building and forest, into each zone is explained by selected attributes such as ...

for many religious people there is a problem of doubting various creedal statements contained in their religions. often propositional beliefs are looked upon as a necessary, though not sufficient, condition, for salvation. this causes great anxiety in doubters and raises the question of the importance of belief in religion and in life in general. it is a question that has been neglected in phil...

My dissertation consists of three essays in the Metaphysics of Modality: In "A Puzzle about Truth and Singular Propositions," I consider two theses that seem to be true and then an argument for the conclusion that they form an inconsistent pair. One thesis is that a proposition that is singular with respect to a given object implies that the object exists. This is so because the proposition pre...