Michael C. Rea

Michael C. Rea is an analytic philosopher, who is currently working as a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He specializes in metaphysics and philosophy of religion and has competence in epistemology and applied ethics as well.^[1]

The argument against naturalism

Michael Rea argues that naturalists are not justified in accepting either realism about material objects, or realism about other minds, or materialism.^[2] This constitutes a pragmatic case against being a naturalist. These problems can be avoided by the adoption of a supernaturalist research program that "legitimates belief in some sort of supernatural being".^[3]

Rea's understanding of naturalism

According to Rea, naturalism is primarily a research program.^[4] By a research program he means a particular set of dispositions to "trust certain ways of acquiring information with respect to various topics and to distrust others".^[5] The core of naturalism is, therefore, something attitudinal.^[6] He argues that research programs "cannot be adopted on the basis of evidence".^[7] This claim suggests that the naturalist commitment to science is just a secular faith, no better epistemically than standard religion.^[8]

Works

• World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Clarendon), 2002
• Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (with Michael Murray). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Metaphysics: The Basics, London: Routledge (under contract)

Edited works

• Material Constitution: A Reader. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997. ISBN 978-0847683840
• Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, 5th edition (with Louis P. Pojman). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2007. ISBN 978-0495095040
• Critical Concepts in Philosophy: Metaphysics, 5 vols., London: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 978-0415397513
• Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (with Thomas P. Flint). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0199289202
• Analytic Theology: New Essays in Theological Method (with Oliver Crisp). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0199203567
• Arguing About Metaphysics. New York: Routledge, 2009. ISBN 978-0415958257
• Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity (with Thomas McCall), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0199216215
• Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0199237463
• Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham (with Michael Bergmann and Michael Murray). Oxford University Press, under contract. ISBN 978-0199576739

External links

• http://www.nd.edu/~mrea/

References

1. ^ http://www.nd.edu/~mrea/
2. ^ Michael C. Rea: World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Nturalism, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 8. Discussed in a Book Review by Andrew Melnik in Mind, Volume 113, Number 451, July 2004, pp. 575-581.
3. ^ World Without Design, p. 213-214. Melnik 2004, p. 575-576.
4. ^ World Without Design, p. 73.
5. ^ World Without Design, p. 2.
6. ^ Melnik 2004, p. 576.
7. ^ World Without Design, pp. 6-7.
8. ^ Melnik 2004: 577.

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