Our people

Dr Nevin Climenhaga

Senior Research Fellow

I received my Ph.D. in 2017 from the Philosophy Department at the University of Notre Dame (USA), with a graduate minor in History and Philosophy of Science. I joined ACU in 2018, after completing a one-year postdoc at Notre Dame as the Managing Editor for Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Before coming to Notre Dame, I received an M.A. in Philosophy from Western Michigan University and a B.A. in Humanities and Peace & Conflict Studies from Messiah University.

My research interests include epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and ethics. I have articles published or forthcoming on the nature of knowledge, the nature of probability, the use of probability in historical reasoning, Bayesian measures of confirmation, inference to the best explanation, causal inference, the use of intuitions in philosophy, divine providence and human free will, the problem of evil, and religious narrative in art. In a current book project, I defend the classical infallibilist conception of knowledge in the Western philosophical tradition, according to which knowledge is a kind of direct apprehension of reality. I see knowledge, so understood, as playing a foundational role in determining the rationality of belief and credence, in that we ought to be confident in a given proposition to the extent that it is made probable by what we know. Some other current projects explore the relation of epistemic and physical probability and the role of statistical and character evidence in the law.

Select publications

• "An Unsurpassable World," in Optimism and the Best Possible World: A Philosophical History, ed. Justin Daeley (Routledge, forthcoming)

• "If We Can't Tell What Theism Predicts, We Can't Tell Whether God Exists: Skeptical Theism and Bayesian Arguments from Evil," Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 11 (forthcoming), ed. Lara Buchak and Dean Zimmerman.

• "Evidence and Inductive Inference," in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence (Routledge, 2024), ed. Clayton Littlejohn and Maria Lasonen-Aarnio

• "How Infallibilists Can Have It All," The Monist (forthcoming)

• "Epistemic Probabilities are Degrees of Support, not Degrees of (Rational) Belief," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming)

• "Molinism: Explaining our Freedom Away" (first author; with Daniel Rubio), Mind (Vol. 131: 522, 2022), pp. 459-485

• "A Cumulative Case Argument for Infallibilism," in Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered (Routledge, 2021), ed. Christos Kyriacou and Kevin Wallbridge, pp. 57-79

• "Causal Inference from Noise" (first author; with Lane DesAutels & Grant Ramsey), Noûs (Vol. 55: 1, 2021), pp. 152-170

• "Papias's Prologue and the Probability of Parallels," Journal of Biblical Literature (Vol. 139: 3, 2020), pp. 591-596

• 'Infinite Value and the Best of All Possible Worlds', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research97 no. 2 (2018): 367-392.

• 'Intuitions Are Used as Evidence in Philosophy', Mind 127 no.1 (2018): 69-104.

Accolades and awards

• "Intuitions are Used as Evidence in Philosophy" one of three Mind articles named in Oxford University Press' 2018 "Best of Philosophy" collection.

Public engagement

Public Philosophy Articles

• When are Intuitions a Good Guide to Reality?, Institute of Art and Ideas (2023)
• Can We Know God? New Insights from Religious Epistemology, John Templeton Foundation (2020)
• The Concept of Probability is Not as Simple as You Think, Aeon Magazine (2019)

Videos

• Interview with YouTube channel Christian Idealism on probability and natural theology (2023)

• Interview with YouTube channel Adherent Apologetics on skeptical theism (2022)

• Interview with podcast Open to Truth on probabilistic reasoning (2020)

• Interview with YouTube channel Capturing Christianity on probability and philosophy of religion (2020)

Appointments and affiliations

• Senior Lecturer (Level C), Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University (since 2024)

• Research Fellow (Level C), Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University (2020-2024)

• Research Fellow (Level B), Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University (2019-2020)

• Research Fellow (Level B), Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University (2018-2019)

• Postdoc, Managing Editor for Studies in History and Philosophy of Science: University of Notre Dame (2017-2018)

Editorial roles

• Associate Editor, Australasian Journal of Philosophy (from 2022)

• Managing Editor for Studies in History and Philosophy of Science(2017-2018)

• Journal reviewer (2014-) for Analysis, American Philosophical Quarterly, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, British Journal for Philosophy of Science, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Dialectica, Episteme, Ergo, Erkenntnis, Ethics and Global Politics, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Faith and Philosophy, Grazer Philosophische Studien, Journal of Analytic Theology, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Political Philosophy, Mind, Mind & Language, The Monist, Noûs, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophia, Philosophia Christi, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophy of Science, Religious Studies, Res Philosophica, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Sophia, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Theoria

• Book reviewer for Cambridge University Press (2021), Oxford University Press (2022)

• Book chapter reviewer for edited collections by Routledge University Press (2020), Oxford University Press (2020)

• Book proposal reviewer for Routledge University Press (2022), Oxford University Press (2023)