Knowledge, Belief, and God - New Insights in Religious Epistemology

Recent decades have seen a fertile period of theorizing within mainstream epistemology which has had a dramatic impact on how epistemology is done. Investigations into contextualist and pragmatic dimensions of knowledge suggest radically new ways of meeting skeptical challenges and of understanding the relation between the epistemological and practical environment. New insights from social epistemology and formal epistemology about defeat, testimony, a priority, probability, and the nature of evidence all have a potentially revolutionary effect on how we understand our epistemological place in the world. Religion is the place where such rethinking can potentially have its deepest impact and importance. Yet there has been surprisingly little infiltration of these new ideas into philosophy of religion and the epistemology of religious belief.

Knowledge, Belief, and God incorporates these myriad new developments in mainstream epistemology, and extends these developments to questions and arguments in religious epistemology. The investigations proposed in this volume offer substantial new life, breadth, and sophistication to issues in the philosophy of religion and analytic theology. They pose original questions and shed new light on long-standing issues in religious epistemology; and these developments will in turn generate contributions to epistemology itself, since religious belief provides a vital testing ground for recent epistemological ideas.

List of contents

• Introduction


• I. Historical


• 1: Charity Anderson: Hume, Defeat, and Miracle Reports


• 2: Richard Cross: Testimony, Error, and Reasonable Belief in Medieval Religious Epistemology


• 3: Billy Dunaway: Duns Scotus' Epistemic Argument against Divine Illumination


• 4: Dani Rabinowitz: Knowledge and the Cathartic Value of Repentance


• II. Formal


• 5: Isaac Choi: Infinite Cardinalities, Measuring Knowledge, and Probabilities in Fine-Tuning Arguments


• 6: Hans Halvorson: A Theological Critique of the Fine-Tuning Argument


• 7: John Hawthorne and Yoaav Isaacs: Fine-Tuning Fine-Tuning


• 8: Roger White: Reasoning with Plenitude


• III. Social


• 9: Max Baker-Hytch: Testimony Amidst Diversity


• 10: Rachel Elizabeth Fraser: Testimonial Pessimism


• 11: Jennifer Lackey: Experts and Peer Disagreement


• 12: Paulina Sliwa: Know How and Acts of Faith


• IV. Rational


• 13: Matthew A. Benton: Pragmatic Encroachment and Theistic Knowledge


• 14: Keith DeRose: Delusions of Knowledge Concerning God's Existence: A Skeptical Look at Religious Experience


• 15: Margot Strohminger and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri: Moderate Modal Skepticism


• 16: Richard Swinburne: Phenomenal Conservatism and Religious Experience

About the author

Matthew A. Benton is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Seattle Pacific University. Prior to that he held postdoctoral research fellowships at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Oxford. He earned his PhD in philosophy from Rutgers University.

John Hawthorne is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, and formerly Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford.

Dani Rabinowitz earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Oxford; he then held a Junior Research Fellowship at Somerville College, Oxford. He is currently a trainee solicitor with Clifford Chance LLP.

Summary

Recent decades have seen a fertile period of theorizing within mainstream epistemology which has had a dramatic impact on how epistemology is done. Investigations into contextualist and pragmatic dimensions of knowledge suggest radically new ways of meeting skeptical challenges and of understanding the relation between the epistemological and practical environment. New insights from social epistemology and formal epistemology about defeat, testimony, a priority, probability, and the nature of evidence all have a potentially revolutionary effect on how we understand our epistemological place in the world. Religion is the place where such rethinking can potentially have its deepest impact and importance. Yet there has been surprisingly little infiltration of these new ideas into philosophy of religion and the epistemology of religious belief.

Knowledge, Belief, and God incorporates these myriad new developments in mainstream epistemology, and extends these developments to questions and arguments in religious epistemology. The investigations proposed in this volume offer substantial new life, breadth, and sophistication to issues in the philosophy of religion and analytic theology. They pose original questions and shed new light on long-standing issues in religious epistemology; and these developments will in turn generate contributions to epistemology itself, since religious belief provides a vital testing ground for recent epistemological ideas.

Additional text

This collection is, on the whole, a sizable step forward in the epistemology of religion ... and warmly recommended. The editors have engaged a cast of high-powered, creative, analytic philosophers who go well beyond what are now the stock battles on the topic.

Report

an overall very high standard of ... contributions ... a fascinating field of discussion beyond the familiar or even well-trodden paths of the continentental tradition and reformed epistemology. Matthias Ruf, Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences

Product details

• Authors: Matthew A. Benton, Matthew A. (Seattle Pacific University) Ha Benton
• Assisted by: Matthew A. Benton (Editor), John Hawthorne (Editor), Dani Rabinowitz (Editor)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2018
• EAN: 9780198798705
• ISBN: 978-0-19-879870-5
• No. of pages: 356
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > Miscellaneous; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Religionsphilosophie, PHILOSOPHY / Religious, PHILOSOPHY / Epistemology, Philosophy