John M. DePoe
CV | Dissertation | Papers | Research | Links | Contact
About Me (Briefly)
I'm a Ph.D. candidate working on the fourth year of my degree at the philosophy department in the University of Iowa. I am what they call "ABD", which stand for "All But Dissertation." I have a master's degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University and a master's degree in religion from Hardin-Simmons University, which is the same institution where I completed my undergraduate education. My areas of specialization in philosophy include epistemology, metaphysics (especially, philosophy of mind), and philosophy of religion. My secondary area of research includes early modern philosophy and philosophy of language. Among the early modern philosophers I study are Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Spinoza. In philosophy of language, I am particularly interested in the issues that surround theories of meaning and reference, especially Russell's theory of descriptions.
In my free time, I like to play chess and frisbee golf. I am enjoying my second year of marriage with my beautiful and talented wife, Jeannie. We are especially proud of our sheltie puppy, Aslan, who we think is the most intelligent and adorable dog on the planet.
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My Dissertation (briefly)
The title of my dissertation is "The Knowledge Argument for Dualism: A Defense of the Knowledge Argument and Investigation of Related Topics." The Knowledge Argument challenges the physicalist conception of the human mind by arguing that physical information by itself is not sufficient to provide complete knowledge of the mind. In effect, the Knowledge Argument intends to show that qualia, the properties that characterize what it's like to have conscious experience, cannot fit in a physicalist ontology of the mind. Consequently, a dualist ontology of the mind—one where there are irreducible mental properties such as qualia—must be the correct way to characterize the mind. This dissertation will defend the Knowledge Argument by supporting the underlying claims of the Knowledge Argument. Among other things, this will include explaining what a physicalist ontology of the mind is, how conscious experience of qualia cannot fit with that account of the mind, and how it is that we can secure knowledge of our qualitative conscious experiences.
I will also consider and respond to various strategies that physicalists give in response to the Knowledge Argument. Some of these responses include the rejection that knowledge of qualia are not entailed by complete knowledge of the human brain, that knowledge of qualia is merely know-how, knowledge of qualia is knowledge by acquaintance, knowledge of qualia is indexical knowledge, and the inability to know about qualia from physical information alone is not a problem for physicalism. The next part of the dissertation addresses the concern as to whether the Knowledge Argument can be used against the dualist position, which many of its critics claim.
The final portion of this project will use the arguments and concepts of the Knowledge Argument to address the philosophical issue of divine omniscience. Given the traditional doctrine of God’s moral perfection, God cannot go through the experience of sinning. The traditional doctrine of omniscience claims that God knows everything. But since we know what it is like to sin, it seems that we can know something that God cannot, thereby constituting a puzzle for traditional theology. I will attempt to resolve this puzzle by applying the distinctions of the Knowledge Argument to this problem.
Below, I have provided a brief chapter-by-chapter synopsis.
"The Knowledge Argument for Dualism: A Defense of the Knowledge Argument and Investigation of Related Topics"
Chapter 1: The Distinction between Physicalism and Dualism
The first part of my dissertation will explain and justify how and why I make important conceptual distinctions that are fundamental to my project. For example, I will argue for a specific way to demarcate physical from non-physical properties as well as how to characterize physicalism and property dualism. To accomplish this task, I will survey and critically assess different accounts of physicalism and dualism. Another important task in this chapter is to show a condition under which physicalism is false, which I call the Physical Knowledge Intuition.
Chapter 2: The Case for the Knowledge Argument
The second chapter will present the positive case for the Knowledge Argument. This will involve unpacking and justifying the basic intuitions that proponents of the argument intend to convey through various thought experiments. I will support the Knowledge Argument with a defense of foundational empirical knowledge acquired through one’s direct acquaintance of the “phenomenal givenness” of conscious experience. My view is that this account of foundational knowledge is sufficient to secure propositional knowledge of one’s qualitative conscious experience. I will defend the role of direct acquaintance to secure foundational knowledge against criticisms such as the Sellarsian dilemma and the problem of the speckled hen.
Chapter 3: Objections to the Knowledge Argument that Deny Mary Learns Anything New
There are two important physicalist responses that question the legitimacy of the Knowledge Argument because, they claim, the Knowledge Argument is illusory in certain ways. For example, Daniel Dennett has argued that Mary would know everything from her exhaustive physical information, and thereby she would know the character of qualitative mental states as well. Frank Jackson, the original proponent of the Knowledge Argument, has reneged his allegiance to the argument on the grounds that representational mental states have a diaphanous and illusory quality. I will examine these objections and show why they are not tenable physicalist responses to the Knowledge Argument.
Chapter 4: Objections to the Knowledge Argument that Deny Mary Learns New Propositions
Most physicalists have not been able to resist the intuition that Mary learns something new. Some have responded by claiming that Mary’s new knowledge is not propositional. Instead, they claim that her knowledge is merely know-how or knowledge by acquaintance. In this chapter I will examine these attempts to undermine the Knowledge Argument and show how they cannot be used to dodge the conclusion that Mary acquires new propositional knowledge.
Chapter 5: Objections to the Knowledge Argument that Claim that Mary’s Propositional Knowledge is Consistent with Physicalism
The last stand for physicalists is to accept that Mary acquires new propositional knowledge when she is acquainted with phenomenal qualitative mental states, but to claim that this new propositional knowledge is consistent with physicalism. I will critically assess the most prominent approaches to this response. First, I will respond to those who take the new propositional knowledge to be indexical knowledge. Then, I will rebut the popularly touted "recognitional concepts" strategy used by physicalists to explain how Mary comes to know a new proposition about an old fact.
Chapter 6: The Knowledge Argument and Self-Refutation
According to some of its critics, the Knowledge Argument proves too much. Not only does it disprove physicalism, but it also can be applied to any systematic metaphysical view of the world including dualism. This chapter will explore the various ways that critics have tried to show that the Knowledge Argument is self-refuting and how each attempt involves a misunderstanding of the Knowledge Argument or the metaphysics of dualism.
Chapter 7: The Knowledge Argument and Divine Omniscience
The final chapter will apply the concepts and arguments of the Knowledge Argument to a topic in the philosophy of religion concerning the consistency of divine omniscience and experiential knowledge. Some have claimed that divine omniscience is incompatible with the claim that God cannot experience certain things (such as what it is like to sin). I will join in the recent published work that applies the ideas and concepts of the Knowledge Argument to this important philosophical topic.
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Philosophy Papers
Epistemology
*NEW* "Defeating the Self-Defeat Argument for Phenomenal Conservativism" (pre-print copy that is forthcoming in Philosophical Studies) 
Abstract: Michael Huemer has argued for the justification principle known as phenomenal conservativism by employing a transcendental argument that claims all attempts to reject phenomenal conservativism ultimately are doomed to self-defeat. My contribution presents two independent arguments against the self-defeat argument for phenomenal conservativism after briefly presenting Huemer's account of phenomenal conservativism and the justification for the self-defeat argument. My first argument suggests some ways that philosophers may reject Huemer's premise that all justified beliefs are formed on the basis of seemings. In the second argument I contend that phenomenal conservativism is not a well-motivated account of internal justification, which is a further reason to reject the self-defeat argument. Consequently, the self-defeat argument fails to show that rejecting phenomenal conservativism inevitably leads one to a self-defeating position.
"Williamson on the Evidence for Skepticism" (pre-print copy copy that is forthcoming in Southwest Philosophical Studies)
ABSTRACT: Timothy Williamson has offered a novel approach to refuting external world skepticism in his influential book, Knowledge and Its Limits. The strategy employed by Williamson is to show that skeptics falsely attribute too much self-knowledge to the epistemic agent when they claim that one's evidence is the same when in a "good case" as it would be in a similar "bad case." Williamson argues that one's evidence is not the same in a good case as it would be in a bad case. My contention is that Williamson's account fails. In order to make his case against skepticism, Williamson must attribute an overly strong conception of evidence to the skeptic, which can be avoided by appealing to a phenomenal concept of evidence. Thus, a different approach must be taken to avoid skeptical consequences.
"In Defense of Classical Foundationalism: A Critical Evaluation of Plantinga's Argument that Classical Foundationalism is Self-Refuting" (pre-print of my article in The South African Journal of Philosophy 26, no. 3 (2007): 245-51) [Direct link to journal]
ABSTRACT: In numerous works Alvin Plantinga has argued that classical foundationalism is a failed theory of knowledge due to its self-referential incoherence. Plantinga's argument, however, falls short of demonstrating that classical foundationalism is self-refuting. To bring
this to light, I will review the form of Plantinga's argument in comparison with other examples of self-refutation. Upon closer inspection, it will be clear that classical foundationalism is not self-refuting as Plantinga claims. Furthermore, I will expose another flaw in Plantinga's argument against classical foundationalism, which shows at best that Plantinga's argument cannot be reconstructed to show that classical foundationalism is improbable. While Plantinga's argument may highlight a challenge for classical foundationalism, his argument does not establish the falsity of classical foundationalism, nor does it offer any other overriding reason to reject it. Thus, Plantinga's criticisms of classical foundationalism are not sufficient by themselves to rule out
the theory's viability.
Philosophy of Religion
"The Significance of Religious Disagreement" (pre-print copy of my contribution in Taking Christian Moral Thought Seriously: The Legitimacy of Christian Thought in the Marketplace of Ideas, ed. Jeremy Evans (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Academic, forthcoming). I'm still considering whether to make a few minor changes from this text and the final version.)
ABSTRACT: The significance of epistemic disagreement has become a topic of great interest among epistemologists in the past five years. One of the most obvious places where we see disagreement is in our religious beliefs. This paper investigates the epistemic significance of religious disagreement. How does disagreement impact one's justification in holding religious beliefs? Can a Christian rationally believe in Christianity in the face of disagreement? This essay will attempt to show that disagreement decreases justification as an answer to the former question, while offering a positive answer to the latter question.
"Vindicating a Bayesian Approach to Miracles: A Response to Jordan Howard Sobel's Reading of Hume" (Published in Philosophia Christi 10, no. 1 (2008): 229-38. Posted with the permission of the Philosophia Christi editorial office.)
ABSTRACT: This paper defends a Bayesian approach to confirming a miracle against Jordan Howard Sobel's recent novel interpretation of Hume's criticisms. In his book, Logic and Theism, Sobel offers an intriguing and original way to apply Hume's criticisms against the possibility of having sufficient evidence to confirm a miracle. The key idea behind Sobel's approach is to employ infinitesimal probabilities to neutralize the cumulative effects of positive evidence for any miracle. This paper aims to undermine Sobel's use of infinitesimal probabilities to block a Bayesian approach to confirming a miracle.
"How to Confirm a Miracle: A Bayesian Approach" (Paper given at the 2007 central APA)
"Theism, Atheism, and the Metaphysics of Free Will" (pre-print of my article in Southwest Philosophical Studies 27 (2005): 36-44)
ABSTRACT: Certain atheists and theists have alleged that their philosophical worldviews provide a better means for explaining a strong account of human freedom. Prominent
atheists who claim that only atheism can give a reasonable account of freedom include Antony Flew and Jean-Paul Sartre. J. P. Moreland contends that only theism can account for free will. My thesis is that arguments for and against belief in God cannot be decided on the grounds of these types of free will arguments.
"Human Freedom and Divine Foreknowledge: An Analysis of Selected Solutions"
This is my thesis from my master's degree in religion. The introduction lays out the necessary groundwork and definitions to tackle this difficult issue. Chapter 1, "A Plethora of Solutions," critically evaluates the merits of atheism, divine timelessness, and Augustinianism to solve the given problem. Chapter 2 focuses entirely on a description and critique of open theism. In chapter 3 I explain and defend Molinism against popular critiques (including the grounding objection). I wrote this over two years ago. I am still a Molinist, but I've learned much about philosophy over these years and would change much of my thesis to strengthen and clarify its points.
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Research
In addition to the research in metaphysics and epistemology from my dissertation on the Knowledge Argument, I have a few projects which are at various stages in preparation for publication. In epistemology, I am working on a paper that gives my response to Michael Bergmann's dilemma for internalism, which is nearing its final stages for publication submission. In this paper, I show how the weak awareness conferred through direct acquaintance is sufficient for providing justification that makes a difference from the subject's perspective, while avoiding vicious regress problems that plague other forms of internalism. Also, I have a paper on George Berkeley's continuity argument for God's existence, which received good reviews on its first pass through peer-review, but which needs to be revised before resubmitting it. My thesis is that Berkeley's continuity argument for God's existence has been misunderstood and with the right account of Berkeley's views on continuity the misunderstandings can be removed. I currently have a number of proposed essays that are part of a book on philosophical theology that is under review. My contributions include essays on "Faith and Reason," "Miracles," "Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom," and the "Argument from Reason." I am in the process of brainstorming a paper on the problem of evil, which aims to show that the free will defense can be expanded to cover so-called "natural evils" without appealing to the free will of supernatural beings. I have several other ideas for papers that I shouldn't begin to explain until I have them worked out in more detail.
(I have kept the description of many of these projects somewhat vague in order to prevent referees in the blind review process to discern that the piece they are reviewing is my work since that would defeat the blind review process. If you would like more details about any of these projects, I would welcome inquiries through e-mail.)
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Links
University of Iowa
Philosophy
Philosophers
Iowa City
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Contact
On the off-chance you want to contact John by e-mail, follow these instructions. Take my first name, then add the "at" sign, and place after that my first and last name (with no spaces) with the final part of dot com. Got it? It should look something like this, but with the appropriate substitutions (I'm counting on some ingenuity on the part of the one who is trying to contact me):
[my first name][at][my first name & last name w/no spaces][dot com]
I apologize if this is confusing, but I've found this to be the best way to weed out spam mail (and perhaps some unwanted inquiries from the not-so-bright). If you do send me an e-mail, please be patient. Even though I read everything that is sent to me, I don't always have time to respond to all the unsolicited messages I receive. Don't take it personally if I don't write back. It's not meant to be that way.
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