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Is omniscience impossible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2012

RIK PEELS*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

In a recent paper, Dennis Whitcomb argues that omniscience is impossible. But if there cannot be any omniscient beings, then God, at least as traditionally conceived, does not exist. The objection is, roughly, that the thesis that there is an omniscient being, in conjunction with some principles about grounding, such as its transitivity and irreflexivity, entails a contradiction. Since each of these principles is highly plausible, divine omniscience has to go. In this article, I argue that Whitcomb's argument, if sound, has several unacceptable consequences. Among others, it implies that nobody knows that someone has knowledge, that, for most of us, all of our beliefs are false, and that there are no truths. This reductio all by itself provides sufficient reason to reject the argument. However, I also provide a diagnosis of where precisely the argument goes wrong. I argue that Whitcomb's crucial notion of grounding actually covers two distinct relations and that the principle of transitivity is true only for cases in which one of these relations holds rather than both of them.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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References

Fine, Kit (1995) ‘Ontological dependence’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 95, 269290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Kit (2010) ‘Some puzzles of ground’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 51, 97118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitcomb, Dennis (2012) ‘Grounding and omniscience’, in Kvanvig, Jonathan L. (ed.) Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 173201.Google Scholar