Papers by William P. Alston

This is a collection of philosophical work by William P. Alston. Eventually, I hope to make it complete; if you can help me with that, please drop me a line (PDFs welcome!).

Articles

(1951) "Whitehead's Denial of Simple Location", Journal of Philosophy 48, 713-21
(1952) "Internal Relatedness and Pluralism in Whitehead", Review of Metaphysics 5, 535-58
(1954) "Are Positivists Metaphysicians?", Philosophical Review 63, 42-57
(1954) "Simple Location", Review of Metaphysics 7, 334-41
(1954) "Particulars—Bare and Qualified", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15, 253-58
(1955) "Pragmatism and the Verifiability Theory of Meaning", Philosophical Studies 6, 65-71
(1956) "Ineffability", Philosophical Review 65, 506-22
(1956) "Pragmatism and the Theory of Signs in Peirce", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17, 79-88
(1957) "Is a Sense-Datum Language Necessary?", Philosophy of Science 24, 41-45
(1958) "Ontological Commitments", Philosophical Studies 9, 8-17
(1960) "The Ontological Argument Revisited", Philosophical Review 69, 452-74
(1961) "Tillich's Concept of a Religious Symbol", in Religious Experience and Truth, ed. S. Hook (New York: New York University), 12-26
(1962) "Philosophical Analysis and Structural Linguistics", Journal of Philosophy 59, 709-20
(1962) "Ziff's Semantic Analysis", Journal of Philosophy 59, 5-20
(1963) "Meaning and Use", Philosophical Quarterly 13, 107-24
(1963) "The Quest for Meanings", Mind 72, 79-87
(1964) "Linguistic Acts", American Philosophical Quarterly 1, 1-9
(1964) "The Elucidation of Religious Statements", in Process and Divinity: Philosophical Essays Presented to Charles Hartshorne, eds. W.L. Reese & E. Freeman (LaSalle, IL: Open Court), 429-443
(1965) "Expressing", in Philosophy in America, ed. M. Black (Ithaca, NY: Cornell), 15-34
(1967) "Do Actions Have Causes?", Proceedings of the Seventh Inter-American Congress of Philosophy (Quebec: Laval University), 256-67
(1967) "Wants, Actions, and Causal Explanation", in Intentionality, Minds, and Perception, ed. H.N. Castaneda (Detroit: Wayne State University Press), 301-41
(1968) "Moral Attitudes and Moral Judgments", Nous 2, 1-23
(1969) "Feelings", Philosophical Review 78, 3-34
(1969) "Comments on ‘Creativity in Hartshorne's World View’, by Lewis E. Hahn", in Philosophy of Creativity, Monograph Series, Vol. I (Carbondale, IL: Foundations for Creative Philosophy), 15-18
(1969) "Unconscious Intellectual Dishonesty in Religion", in Intellectual Honesty and the Religious Commitment, eds. A.J. Bellinzoni, Jr. & T.V. Litzenberg, Jr. (Philadelphia: Fortress), 25-44
(1969) "Aune on Thought and Language", Nous 3, 169-83
(1970) "Toward a Logical Geography of Personality: Traits and Deeper Lying Personality Characteristics", in Mind, Science, and History, Vol. 2 of Contemporary Philosophic Thought (Albany, NY: State University of New York), 59-92
(1971) "Varieties of Privileged Access", American Philosophical Quarterly 8, 223-41
(1971) "The Place of the Explanation of Particular Facts in Science", Philosophy of Science 38, 13-34
(1971) "Comments on Kohlberg's 'From Is to Ought'", in Cognitive Development and Epistemology, ed. T. Mischel (New York: Academic), 269-84
(1971) "How Does One Tell Whether a Word Has One, Several, or Many Senses?", in Semantics: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics, and Psychology, eds. D.D. Steinberg & L.A. Jakobovits (Cambridge: Cambridge), 35-57
(1971) "Dispositions and Occurences", Canadian Journal of Philosophy 1, 125-154
(1972) "Response to Weitz", Philosophic Exchange 1, 239-47
(1972) "Can Psychology Do Without Private Data?", Behaviorism 1, 71-102
(1974) "Semantic Rules", in Semantics and Philosophy, eds. M.K. Munitz & P.K. Unger (New York: New York University), 17-48
(1974) "Conceptual Prolegomena to a Psychological Theory of Intentional Action", in Philosophy of Psychology, ed. S.C. Brown (London: MacMillan), 71-101
(1975) "Traits, Consistency And Conceptual Alternatives for Personality Theory", Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 5, 17-48
(1976) "Two Types of Foundationalism", Journal of Philosophy LXXIII, 165-185
(1976) "Has Foundationalism Been Refuted?", Philosophical Studies 29, 287-305
(1977) "Sentence Meaning and Illocutionary Act Potential", Philosophical Exchange 2, 17-35
(1977) "Self-Intervention and the Structure of Motivation", in The Self: Psychological and Philosophical Issues, ed. T. Mischel (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), 65-102
(1978) "Meta-Ethics and Meta-Epistemology", in Values and Morals, eds. A.I. Goldman & J. Kim (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel), 275-97
(1979) "Yes, Virginia, There is a Real World", in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 52, 779-808
(1980) "Some Remarks on Chisholm's Epistemology", Nous 14, 565-86
(1980) "The Bridge Between Semantics and Pragmatics", in The Signifying Animal, ed. I. Rauch & G. Carr (Bloomington, IN: Indiana), 123-34
(1980) "Irreducible Metaphors in Theology", in Experience, Reason, and God, ed. E.T. Long (Washington, DC: Catholic University), 129-48
(1980) "Level Confusions in Epistemology", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5, 135-50
(1981) "Speaking Literally About God", in Is God GOD?, Axel D. Steuer and James W. McClendon, eds. (Nashville: Abingdon Press), 146-177; reprinted in Alston's 1989 collection of essays (Vol 2) and in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings (Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger, eds.)
(1981) "The Christian Language-Game", in The Autonomy of Religious Belief, ed. F.J. Crosson (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame), 128-62
(1982) "Religious Experience and Religious Belief", Nous 16, 3-12
(1983) "The Role of Reason in the Regulation of Belief", in Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition, ed. H. Hart, J. Van Der Hoeven & N. Wolterstorff (Lanham, MD: University Press of America), 135-70
(1983) "What's Wrong With Immediate Knowledge?", Synthese 55, 73-95
(1983) "Comments on Fred I. Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow of Information", Brain and Behavior Sciences 6, 63-64
(1983) "Conceptual Analysis and Psychological Theory", in A Century of Psychology as Science, ed. S. Koch (New York: McGraw-Hill)
(1983) "Christian Experience and Christian Belief", in Faith and Rationality, ed. A. Plantinga & N. Wolterstorff (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame), 103-34
(1984) "Psychology and Philosophy", in Psychology and Its Allied Disciplines, ed. M.H. Bornstein (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 195-239, with N. Block
(1984) "Being-Itself and Talk About God", Center Journal 3, 9-25
(1984) "Hartshorne and Aquinas: A Via Media", in Existence and Actuality, eds. J.B. Cobb, Jr. & F.I. Gamwell (Chicago: University of Chicago), 78-98
(1984) "Identity and Cardinality: Geach and Frege", Philosophical Review 93, 553-67, with J. Bennett
(1985) "Plantinga's Epistemology of Religious Belief", in Alvin Plantinga, eds. J.E. Tomberlin and P. van Inwagen (Dordrecht: Reidel), 287-309
(1985) "Why I am a Christian", Truth 1, 97-98
(1985) "Concepts of Epistemic Justification", The Monist 68, 57-89
(1985) "Divine-Human Dialogue and the Nature of God", Faith and Philosophy 2, 5-20
(1985) "Functionalism and Theological Language", American Philosophical Quarterly 22, 221-30
(1985) "Thomas Reid on Epistemic Principles", History of Philosophical Quarterly 2, 435-52
(1985) "God's Action in the World", in Evolution and Creation, ed. E. McMullin (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame), 197-220
(1986) "Quine on Meaning", in The Philosophy of W. V. O. Quine, ed. L.E. Hahn (Open Court), 49-72
(1986) "Religious Experience as a Ground of Religious Belief", in Religious Experience and Religious Belief, eds. J. Runzo & C.K. Ihara (University Press of America), 31-51
(1986) "The Hypothetical-Deductive Model in Personality Psychology", Annals of Theoretical Psychology 4, 199-206
(1986) "Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology", Philosophical Topics 14, 179-221
(1986) "An Action-Plan Interpretation of Purposive Explanations of Actions", Theory and Decision 20, 275-99
(1986) "Epistemic Circularity", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47, 1-30
(1986) "Is Religious Belief Rational?", in The Life of Religion, eds. S.M. Harrison & R.C. Taylor (Lanham, MD: University Press of America), 1-15
(1986) "Perceiving God", Journal of Philosophy 83, 655-65
(1987) "Matching Illocutionary Act Types", in On Being and Saying, ed. J. J. Thomson (Cambridge, MA: MIT), 151-63
(1987) "Does God Have Beliefs?", Religious Studies 22, 287-306
(1988) "Locke on People and Substances", with J. Bennett, Philosophical Review 97, 25-46
(1988) "An Internalist Externalism", Synthese 74, 265-83
(1988) "Justification and Knowledge", Proceedings of the XVIIth World Congress of Philosophy (Montreal: Editions Montmorency)
(1988) "Religious Diversity and the Perceptual Knowledge of God", Faith and Philosophy 5, 433-48
(1988) "Referring to God", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 24, 113-28
(1988) "The Perception of God", Philosophical Topics 16
(1988) "The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit", in Philosophy and the Christian Faith, ed. T. V. Morris (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame), 121-50. This version is as it appeared when reprinted in Alston's 1989 collection of essays.
(1988) "Divine and Human Action", in Divine and Human Action, ed. T. V. Morris (Ithaca: Cornell), 257-80
(1988) "A 'Doxastic Practice' Approach to Epistemology", in Knowledge and Skepticism, eds. M. Clay & K. Lehrer (Boulder, CO: Westview)
(1988) "The Deontological Conception of Epistemic Justification", Philosophical Perspectives 2, 257-99
(1989) "Goldman on Epistemic Justification", Philosophia 19, 115-31
(1989) "Reply to Daniels", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49, 501-06
(1989) "Foley's Theory of Epistemic Rationality", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50, 135-47
(1990) "Externalist Theories of Perception", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50, Supplement, 73-97
(1990) "Searle on Illocutionary Acts", in John Searle and His Critics, eds. E. Lepore & R. Van Gulick (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), 57-80
(1990) "How to Think About Divine Action", in Divine Action, eds. B. Hebblethwaite & E. Henderson (Edinburgh: T & T Clark), 51-70
(1990) "Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists", in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy, ed. M.D. Beaty (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame), 303-26
(1990) "Reid on Perception and Conception", in The Philosophy of Thomas Reid, eds. M. Dalgarno & E. Matthews (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 35-47
(1991) "Higher Level Requirements for Epistemic Justification", in The Opened Curtain, eds. K. Lehrer & E. Sosa (Boulder, CO: Westview)
(1991) "The Fulfillment of Promises as Evidence for Religious Belief", Logos 12, 1-26
(1991) "The Inductive Argument from Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition", Philosophical Perspectives 5, 29-67.
(1992) "Knowledge of God", in Faith, Reason, and Skepticism, ed. M. Hester (Philadelphia: Temple), 6-49
(1992) "The Autonomy of Religious Experience", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 31, 67-87
(1992) "The Place of Experience in the Grounds of Religious Belief", in Our Knowledge of God, ed. K.J. Clark (Norwell, MA: Kluwer)
(1992) "Literal and Non-Literal in Reports of Mystical Experience", in Mysticism and Language, ed. S.T. Katz (New York: Oxford), 80-102
(1993) "Reply to Pasnau", Philosophical Studies 72, 35-43
(1993) "Epistemic Desiderata", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53, 527-51
(1993) "Divine Action, Human Freedom, and the Laws of Nature", in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. R.J. Russell, N. Murphy, & C.J. Isham (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications), 185-207
(1993) "John Hick: Faith and Knowledge", in God, Truth, and Reality: Essays in Honour of John Hick, ed. A. Sharma (New York: St. Martin's), 24-30
(1993) "Aquinas on Theological Predication: A Look Backward and a Look Forward", in Reasoned Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, ed. E. Stump (Ithaca, NY: Cornell), 145-78
(1993) "On Knowing That We Know: The Application to Religious Knowledge", in Christian Perspectives on Religious Knowledge, eds. C.S. Evans & M. Westphal (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 15-39
(1994) "Swinburne's Argument for Dualism", Faith and Philosophy 11, 127-33, with T.W. Smythe
(1994) "A Philosopher's Way Back to the Faith", in God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason, ed. T.V. Morris (New York: Oxford), 19-30
(1994) "Belief Forming Practices and the Social", in Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge, ed. F.F. Schmitt (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), 29-51
(1994) "Response to Critics" (concerning Perceiving God), Religious Studies 30, 171-80
(1994) "Swinburne on Faith and Belief", in Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honor of Richard Swinburne, ed. A.G. Padgett (Oxford: Clarendon), 21-37
(1994) "Précis of Perceiving God" & "Reply to Commentators", in a Book Symposium on Perceiving God, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54, 863-68 & 891-99
(1994) "Illocutionary Acts and Linguistic Meaning", in Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives, ed. S.L. Tsohatzidis (London: Routledge), 29-49
(1994) "Divine Action: Shadow or Substance", in The God Who Acts: Philosophical and Theological Explorations, ed. T.F. Tracy (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State), 41-62
(1995) "Reply to Critics", in a Symposium on Perceiving God in Journal of Philosophical Research 20, 67-81
(1995) "Truth and Sentence Meaning", in Man, Meaning, and Morality, ed. R.S. Mishra (Indian Council of Philosophical Research), 91-110
(1995) "Taking the Curse Off Language Games: A Realist Account of Doxastic Practices", in Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief, eds. T. Tessin & M. von der Ruhr (New York: St. Martin's), 16-47
(1995) "How to Think About Reliability", Philosophical Topics 23, 1: 1-29
(1995) "Realism and the Christian Faith", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 38, 37-60
(1996) "Religious Experience as Perception of God", in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, ed M. Peterson et al (New York: Oxford).
(1996) "Belief, Acceptance, and Religious Faith", in Faith, Freedom, and Rationality, eds. J. Jordan & D. Howard-Snyder (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), 10-27
(1997) "The Holy Spirit and the Trinity", in Philosophy and Theological Discourse, ed. S.T. Davis (London: Macmillan)
(1997) "Biblical Criticism and the Resurrection", in The Resurrection, eds. S.T. Davis, D. Kendall & G. O'Collins (Oxford: Oxford)
(1997) "Chisholm on the Epistemology of Perception", in The Philosophy of Roderick M. Chisholm, ed. L.E. Hahn (Chicago: Open Court)
(1997) "Realism and the Tasks of Epistemology", in Realism/Antirealism and Epistemology, ed. C.B. Kulp (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield)
(1998) "God and Religious Experience", in Philosophy of Religion: A Guide to the Subject, ed. B. Davies (London: Cassell), 65-69
(1998) "Some Reflections on the Early Days of the Society of Christian Philosophers", Faith and Philosophy 15, 141-43
(1999) "Perceptual Knowledge", in The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, eds. J. Greco & E. Sosa (Malden, MA: Blackwell), 223-42
(1999) "Back to the Theory of Appearing", Philosophical Perspectives 13, 81-103
(1999) "What is Distinctive About the Epistemology of Religious Belief?", Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, ed. K.L. Stoehr (Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy Documentation Center)
(1999) "The Distinctiveness of the Epistemology of Religious Belief", in The Rationality of Theism, eds. G. Brüntrup & R.K. Tacelli (Dordrecht: Kluwer)
(1999) "Substance and the Trinity", in The Trinity, eds. S.T. Davis, D. Kendall, SJ & G. O'Collins, SJ (Oxford: Oxford, )
(2000) "Realism and Antirealism", in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, eds. A. Hastings, A. Mason & H. Pyper (Oxford: Oxford), 593-96
(2001) "Doing Epistemology Without Justification", Philosophical Topics 29: 1-18
(2001) "A Realist Conception of Truth", in The Nature of Truth: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. M. Lynch (Cambridge, MA: MIT), 41-66
(2001) "Literal Talk of God: Its Possibility and Function", in This is My Name Forever, ed. A.F. Kimel, Jr. (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity), 136-60
(2001) "Religious Beliefs and Values", Faith and Philosophy 18, 36-49
(2001) "Doing Epistemology Without Justification", Philosophical Topics 28, 1-18
(2002) "Truth: Concept and Property", in What Is Truth?, ed. R. Schantz (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter), 11-26
(2002) "Sellars and the 'Myth of the Given'", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65, 69-86 Version presented at the Eastern Division APA Meeting, Washington DC, December 1998
(2002) "Plantinga, Naturalism, and Defeat", in Naturalism Defeated?: Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, ed. J. Beilby (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 176-203
(2002) "What Metaphysical Realism Is Not", in Realism and Antirealism, ed. W.P. Alston (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 97-115
(2002) "What Euthyphro Should Have Said", in Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide, ed. W.L. Craig (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), 283-298.
(2002) "Truth: Concept and Property", in What is Truth?, ed. R. Shantz (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter), 11-26.
(2003) "Historical Criticism of the Synoptic Gospels", in 'Behind' the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation, eds. C. Bartholomew, C.S. Evans, M. Healy, and M. Rae (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 151-80.
(2003) "Religious Language and Verificationism", in The Rationality of Theism, eds. P. Copan and P.K. Moser (London and New York: Routledge), 17-34.
(2004) "Does Religious Experience Justify Religious Belief?<>", debate with E. Fales in Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, eds. M. Peterson and R. Vanarrogon (Oxford: Blackwell), 135-63.
(2005) "Mysticism and Perceptual Awareness of God", in The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion, ed. William E. Mann (London: Wiley-Blackwell), 198-219.
(2005) "Perception and Representation", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Thanks to Michael Bergmann for encouraging me to put this together and Daniel Howard-Snyder for an Alston bibliography. Thanks also to Greg Welty. Books, book reviews and miscellany to come -- eventually! I maintain similar collections of papers by John Martin Fischer, David Lewis, Peter van Inwagen, and Alvin Plantinga.

(Last updated: 20 January 2024)