Acknowledgments W ork on this project was supported by a General University Research Grant from the University of Delaware, a grant from the Pew Evangelical Scholars Program, and a fellowship from the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. I thank all of these institutions for their financial support, and I am especially grateful to the Center for Philosophy of Religion for the opportunity to spend an enjoyable and productive semester in residence. Thanks also to Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Routledge, and Blackwell Publishers (respectively) for permission to reprint small bits of the Introduction to Material Constitution: A Reader (. Many friends and colleagues have helped me to bring this project to completion. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Michael Bergmann, Crawford Elder, Robert Koons, Trenton Merricks, and Joel Pust, each of whom provided extensive and very helpful comments on the entire manuscript. I would also like to thank Fred Adams, Robin Andreasen, Chris Boorse, Jeff Brower, Andrew Cortens, Judy Crane, Tom Crisp, Terence Cuneo, Bill Hasker, Jeff Jordan, Lorraine Juliano, Brian Leiter, David Lewis, Laurie Paul, Alvin Plantinga, Bill Ramsey, Juliane Rea, Ted Sider, Jim Stone, David vanderLaan, and Brian Weatherson, for helpful conversations and comments on various portions of the manuscript. Jeremy Cushing, Dan Nairn, and Marty Strachan served as my research assistants during the summers of 1998, 2000, and 2001, and provided valuable information on the topics of pragmatism and antirealism. Lauren Hess helped in proofreading a substantial portion of the manuscript. I am also very grateful to Jody, Corrie, Lacey, and Judy Maxwell, Katie and Amy Weber, and my parents, Bob and Georgiana Rea, for generously helping our family with childcare during the summers of 1999 and 2000. Without their assistance it surely would have been at least another year before the book was finished. Finally, and most importantly, I thank my wife, Juliane, for her love, patience, support, and encouragementalways, but especially during the time I spent working on this project. end p.vii |
