Garth L. Hallett – författare

Garth Hallett explores the thesis that if belief in other minds is rational and true (as it surely is), so too is belief in God. When appropriately restricted to a single, sound, other minds belief, his thesis -- that charts a 'middle way' between rival positions laid out by Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne -- makes a strong case that belief in God and belief in other minds is epistemically comparable. Clearly and accessibly written, this work should appeal to students and scholars in philosophy of religion and theology.

This book provides a full treatment of an issue which is particularly pressing: when the claims of the nearest (e.g. parents, children, spouses, friends) conflict with the claims of the neediest, as they constantly do, where should preference go? Professor Hallett focuses first on a specific, representative case, pitting the lesser need of a son against the greater need of starving strangers. He brings to bear on this single paradigm all the resources of theological and philosophical reflection - scriptures, patristic teaching, the Thomistic tradition, current debates - and from this single example he sheds light on a wide range of comparable cases, both private and public. This distinctive strategy leads to distinctive and challenging results, and at the same time helps to clarify the traditional 'order of charity' and the celebrated 'preferential option for the poor'.

This book provides a full treatment of an issue which is particularly pressing: when the claims of the nearest (e.g. parents, children, spouses, friends) conflict with the claims of the neediest, as they constantly do, where should preference go? Professor Hallett focuses first on a specific, representative case, pitting the lesser need of a son against the greater need of starving strangers. He brings to bear on this single paradigm all the resources of theological and philosophical reflection - scriptures, patristic teaching, the Thomistic tradition, current debates - and from this single example he sheds light on a wide range of comparable cases, both private and public. This distinctive strategy leads to distinctive and challenging results, and at the same time helps to clarify the traditional 'order of charity' and the celebrated 'preferential option for the poor'.

Invisible Language: Its Incalcuable Significance for Philosophy reveals that although the use of language is visible or audible, the medium employed boasts neither of these attributes. Garth L. Hallet suggests that from Plato until now, the intangibility of language has exercised a far more profound influence in philosophy than even Wittgenstein came close to demonstrating. Indeed, without that pervasive factor of language, the history of philosophy would have been undeniably different. Yet philosophy is, and can legitimately aspire to be, much more than a struggle between language and human comprehension of it. Ultimately, this book suggests that philosophy’s positive possibilities, so often obscured by linguistically-inattentive practice, reach as far as human thought can reach.

Argues that many philosophical commitments to hidden "essences" are based on misunderstandings of language, and that Wittgenstein's view of meaning as use dissolves these essentialist assumptions across logic, epistemology, and metaphysics.What if much of contemporary philosophy rests on a mistake about language?In Essentialism, Garth L. Hallett mounts a sustained and wide-ranging challenge to the assumption that things in the world must share hidden "essences" in order for our concepts to meaningfully apply. Drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein's insights into language, use, and meaning, Hallett argues that much of modern essentialist thinking stems not from discovery, but from a misunderstanding of how language actually works.Across seven tightly argued chapters, the book traces the rise, persistence, and transformation of essentialist thought—from classical and medieval analogies to contemporary debates in epistemology, philosophy of language, and modal metaphysics. Figures such as Kripke, Gettier, Dretske, and Carnap are engaged critically, alongside broader patterns in philosophical reasoning that continue to reintroduce essentialist assumptions under new forms.Hallett not only diagnoses these recurring confusions but also asks why they remain so resilient. His answer is both philosophical and therapeutic: the problem is not simply that essentialism is false, but that certain entrenched habits of thought make it feel unavoidable.Engaging, methodical, and philosophically provocative, this work challenges readers to reconsider what it means for concepts to have boundaries—and whether those boundaries were ever as fixed as philosophy has long assumed.

Explores the role language plays in the relationship between reality and utterance.How much authority should language, the medium of communication, be accorded as a determinant of truth and therefore of what we say? Garth L. Hallett argues that, although never explicitly debated, this is the most significant issue of linguistic philosophy. Here, for the first time, he traces the issue's story. Starting with representative thinkers-Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Frege, and the early Wittgenstein-who contested language's authority, the narrative then focuses on thinkers such as Carnap, Tarski, the later Wittgenstein, Flew, Russell, Malcolm, Austin, Kripke, Putnam, Strawson, Quine, and Habermas who, in different ways and to varying degrees, accorded language more authority. Implicit in this account is a challenge to philosophy as still widely practiced.

Explores the role language plays in the relationship between reality and utterance.How much authority should language, the medium of communication, be accorded as a determinant of truth and therefore of what we say? Garth L. Hallett argues that, although never explicitly debated, this is the most significant issue of linguistic philosophy. Here, for the first time, he traces the issue's story. Starting with representative thinkers-Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Frege, and the early Wittgenstein-who contested language's authority, the narrative then focuses on thinkers such as Carnap, Tarski, the later Wittgenstein, Flew, Russell, Malcolm, Austin, Kripke, Putnam, Strawson, Quine, and Habermas who, in different ways and to varying degrees, accorded language more authority. Implicit in this account is a challenge to philosophy as still widely practiced.

In this title, Garth L. Hallett provides the first thorough, systematic exposition and defense of proportionalism in Christian ethics. Prominent in both philosophical and theological ethics, proportionalism judges the morality of acts by their proportion of good and evil. Hallett proposes judging acts using a norm he calls Value Maximization. He defines this norm and offers a full response to such critics of all forms of proportionalism as Finnis and Grisez. The author assesses the norm's moral and theological validity in and of itself; in dialogue with the encyclical Veritatis Splendor; and in comparison with various rival viewpoints, stressing natural law, divine commands, respect for persons, inviolable goods, proportionate ends, irreducible rights, and agent-centered ethics. He appraises the norm's overall significance, showing its rootedness in Christian tradition, its inclusiveness and amplitude, and its relevance to those seeking a foundation for Christian ethical thought and moral activity.

Explores the use of language in Christian theology.In this wide-ranging work, Garth L. Hallett offers a guided tour through fundamental issues regarding the use of language in theology. His preliminary discussions-on language and thought, language and truth, the authority of language, making sense, the relationship between sense and possibility-prepare linguistic reflection on such topics as inference and argument, universal factual and moral claims, defining and saying what things are, verbal versus nonverbal agreement and disagreement, interfaith dialogue, theological language, and metaphor. Hallett employs a wealth of distinctly Christian examples in these considerations, including love, faith, God, religion, the Eucharist, the afterlife, divine law, evil, the Incarnation, the Trinity, the holy, and many others. In the course of this fascinating exploration, readers should learn to find their way more surely in a vast, complex terrain, and mystery will emerge both diminished and deepened. In addition, at the end of each chapter Hallett provides a series of intriguing quotations that invite further reflection.