Using Philosophy to understand
the limits of the empirical sciences
Articles and publications of Dennis Bonnette, PhD.
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Journal articles using philosophy to demonstrate the limits of the empirical sciences
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Philosophical article reviews.
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According to a Pew Research Center Survey, the number of American atheists has roughly doubled in the period from 2007 to 2014. Impacting this demographic change has been the influence of naturalistic explanations that explain the world without reference to any transcendent deities or supernatural powers. Such changes were abetted by the progressive secularization of American culture and education following the 1962 Supreme Court decision that removed prayer from the public schools.
While atheistic materialism found its philosophical roots in the positivism of the 19th and early 20th centuries, today that it nearly dominates the public arena in the form of leading scientists who proclaim that natural science can offer all the rational explanations of the universe, including its very existence. The so-called “new atheists,” such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett, have done much to blunt religion’s traditional social influence by attacking it as superstitious irrationalism. Whatever cannot be empirically verified, such as God, free will, or the human spiritual soul, is rejected by atheists as unscientific nonsense.
MATERIALISM’S FAILURE: HYLEMORPHISM’S VINDICATION
Scientific materialists propose certain epistemological and ontological claims, allegedly in the name of natural science, that conflict with man’s common sense experience of the world. This article will show (1) that such claims are not based on […]HELL AND GOD’S GOODNESS
Although this article will address the content of certain theological doctrines, it is written from a purely philosophical perspective. This is the same method used consistently in my book, Origin of the Human Species – third edition,i in which I examine […]WHEN SCIENCE OVERTHREW PHILOSOPHY
According to a Pew Research Center Survey, the number of American atheists has roughly doubled in the period from 2007 to 2014. Impacting this demographic change has been the influence of naturalistic explanations that explain the world without reference […]WHY HUMANS ARE MORE THAN MERE ANIMALS
Ever since the time of Charles Darwin’s thunderous appearance on the human stage, evolutionary materialists have envisioned a world in which man appears without any rational need either for the God of classical theism or for a spiritual and immortal […]ABORTION ETHICS: NATURAL LAW VS. NATURALISM
This article will examine (1) natural law’s and (2) naturalism’s opposing views on abortion. Their diverse philosophies determine radically divergent abortion ethics, which will be examined solely through natural reasoning. PERTINENT THOMISTIC DOCTRINES […]