Howson, Colin

Colin Howson (1945-2020) was a British philosopher of science and probability theorist who made significant contributions to Bayesian epistemology and its application to religious questions. Educated at Oxford and the London School of Economics, where he later served as Professor of Philosophy, Howson specialized in the foundations of probability and scientific reasoning. His work "Objecting to God" (2011) applied rigorous probabilistic analysis to traditional arguments for and against God's existence, examining how Bayesian reasoning affects the evaluation of religious claims. Howson argued that many classical theistic arguments fail when subjected to proper probabilistic scrutiny, while also critiquing certain atheistic arguments on similar grounds. His approach represented a significant contribution to the philosophy of religion by bringing sophisticated tools from probability theory and philosophy of science to bear on perennial theological questions, demonstrating how formal epistemology could illuminate debates about religious belief.