Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0003
Sanford C. Goldberg
Chapter 3 explores the prospects for resisting the sorts of arguments in which religious diversity or disagreement seem to support skepticism regarding justified (or rational) religious belief. Those religious believers who would resist can (i) argue that the principles that convict the faithful of irrationality overreach, and would establish a more widespread skepticism about rational belief; (ii) downgrade their disagreeing interlocutor(s); (iii) appeal to epistemic permissivism; or (iv) argue that the believer is no worse off, epistemically speaking, than the atheist or agnostic non-believer. After presenting what the present author regards as the best version of the argument from diversity or disagreement, the chapter argues that any believer who hopes for truth will not get much solace from any of these responses.
{"title":"How Confident Should the Religious Believer Be in the Face of Religious Pluralism?","authors":"Sanford C. Goldberg","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 3 explores the prospects for resisting the sorts of arguments in which religious diversity or disagreement seem to support skepticism regarding justified (or rational) religious belief. Those religious believers who would resist can (i) argue that the principles that convict the faithful of irrationality overreach, and would establish a more widespread skepticism about rational belief; (ii) downgrade their disagreeing interlocutor(s); (iii) appeal to epistemic permissivism; or (iv) argue that the believer is no worse off, epistemically speaking, than the atheist or agnostic non-believer. After presenting what the present author regards as the best version of the argument from diversity or disagreement, the chapter argues that any believer who hopes for truth will not get much solace from any of these responses.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134312543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0006
J. Blanchard, L. Paul
Chapter 6 considers how peer disagreement over religion presents an epistemological problem: How can confidence in any religious claims including their negations be epistemically justified? Here, it is shown that the transformative nature of religious experience poses a further problem: to transition between religious belief and skepticism is not just to adopt a different set of beliefs, but to transform into a different version of oneself. It is argued that this intensifies the problem of pluralism by adding a new dimension to religious disagreement, for we can lack epistemic and affective access to our potential religious, agnostic, or skeptical selves. Yet, access to these selves seems to be required for the purposes of decision-making that is to be both rational and authentic. Finally, the chapter reflects on the relationship between the transformative problem and what it shows about the epistemic status of religious conversion and deconversion, in which one disagrees with one’s own transformed self.
{"title":"Transformative Experience and the Problem of Religious Disagreement","authors":"J. Blanchard, L. Paul","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 6 considers how peer disagreement over religion presents an epistemological problem: How can confidence in any religious claims including their negations be epistemically justified? Here, it is shown that the transformative nature of religious experience poses a further problem: to transition between religious belief and skepticism is not just to adopt a different set of beliefs, but to transform into a different version of oneself. It is argued that this intensifies the problem of pluralism by adding a new dimension to religious disagreement, for we can lack epistemic and affective access to our potential religious, agnostic, or skeptical selves. Yet, access to these selves seems to be required for the purposes of decision-making that is to be both rational and authentic. Finally, the chapter reflects on the relationship between the transformative problem and what it shows about the epistemic status of religious conversion and deconversion, in which one disagrees with one’s own transformed self.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"144 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132637750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0001
Matthew A. Benton
Chapter 1 covers contemporary work on disagreement, detailing both the conceptual and normative issues in play in the debates in mainstream analytic epistemology, and how these relate to religious diversity and disagreement. Section 1 examines several sorts of disagreement, and considers several epistemological issues: in particular, what range of attitudes a body of evidence can support, how to understand higher-order evidence, and who counts as an epistemic “peer.” Section 2 considers how these questions surface when considering disagreements over religion, including debates over the nature of evidence and truth in religion, epistemic humility, concerns about irrelevant influences and about divine hiddenness, and arguments over exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Finally, section 3 summarizes the contributors’ essays in this volume.
{"title":"Disagreement and Religion: Problems and Prospects","authors":"Matthew A. Benton","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 1 covers contemporary work on disagreement, detailing both the conceptual and normative issues in play in the debates in mainstream analytic epistemology, and how these relate to religious diversity and disagreement. Section 1 examines several sorts of disagreement, and considers several epistemological issues: in particular, what range of attitudes a body of evidence can support, how to understand higher-order evidence, and who counts as an epistemic “peer.” Section 2 considers how these questions surface when considering disagreements over religion, including debates over the nature of evidence and truth in religion, epistemic humility, concerns about irrelevant influences and about divine hiddenness, and arguments over exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Finally, section 3 summarizes the contributors’ essays in this volume.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126267785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0009
J. Kvanvig
Chapter 9 postulates that inclusivism is a middle position between Exclusivism and Pluralism, but current formulations suffer from limitations. First, Rahner’s version is put in Christian terms, but if it is supposed to be metatheoretic, it needs a formulation that is religiously neutral in terms of truth. Second, attempts to generate such neutrality run into the difficulty of being unable to delineate exactly what distinguishes this middle position from fully relativistic Pluralism. The solution to both problems, the chapter argues, is to adopt a broader understanding of faith, one that is not centrally cognitive, one which explains why faith is a generic virtue in any context, and one which gives a way of distinguishing Inclusivism from its alternatives. The key element of the proposal is that, if faith is not centrally cognitive, there is nothing about this attitude that makes an appeal to it a partisan one with respect to the universe of faiths.
{"title":"How to Be an Inclusivist","authors":"J. Kvanvig","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 9 postulates that inclusivism is a middle position between Exclusivism and Pluralism, but current formulations suffer from limitations. First, Rahner’s version is put in Christian terms, but if it is supposed to be metatheoretic, it needs a formulation that is religiously neutral in terms of truth. Second, attempts to generate such neutrality run into the difficulty of being unable to delineate exactly what distinguishes this middle position from fully relativistic Pluralism. The solution to both problems, the chapter argues, is to adopt a broader understanding of faith, one that is not centrally cognitive, one which explains why faith is a generic virtue in any context, and one which gives a way of distinguishing Inclusivism from its alternatives. The key element of the proposal is that, if faith is not centrally cognitive, there is nothing about this attitude that makes an appeal to it a partisan one with respect to the universe of faiths.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122884786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0004
M. Turnbull
Chapter 4 addresses the fact that in discussions of religious disagreement, some epistemologists have suggested that religious disagreement is distinctive. More specifically, they have argued that religious disagreement has certain features which make it possible for theists to resist conciliatory arguments that they must adjust their religious beliefs in response to finding that peers disagree with them. The chapter considers what its author takes to be the two most prominent features which are claimed to make religious disagreement distinct: religious evidence and evaluative standards in religious contexts. It argues that these two features fail to distinguish religious disagreement in the ways they have been taken to. However, it shows that the view that religious disagreement is not a unique form of disagreement makes religious disagreement less, rather than more, worrisome to the theist who would prefer to rationally remain steadfast in her religious beliefs.
{"title":"Religious Disagreement Is Not Unique","authors":"M. Turnbull","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 4 addresses the fact that in discussions of religious disagreement, some epistemologists have suggested that religious disagreement is distinctive. More specifically, they have argued that religious disagreement has certain features which make it possible for theists to resist conciliatory arguments that they must adjust their religious beliefs in response to finding that peers disagree with them. The chapter considers what its author takes to be the two most prominent features which are claimed to make religious disagreement distinct: religious evidence and evaluative standards in religious contexts. It argues that these two features fail to distinguish religious disagreement in the ways they have been taken to. However, it shows that the view that religious disagreement is not a unique form of disagreement makes religious disagreement less, rather than more, worrisome to the theist who would prefer to rationally remain steadfast in her religious beliefs.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"319 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132293338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0011
Isaac Choi
Chapter 11 explores whether the majority opinion in Christian theology should be deferred to, or strongly preferred, whether it be the majority opinion over the history of the church (as in G. K. Chesterton’s “democracy of the dead”) or the majority opinion of contemporary theologians. It is argued that because of the vast differences in accessible evidence between past and present-day theologians, diachronic majority opinion is not a good indicator of where the truth lies. In the synchronic case, ignorance of minority arguments, biases, selection effects, and the difficulty to deciding who gets to vote present many opportunities for majorities to be wrong. Finally, it is considered whether the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit could rescue the democracy of the dead, but the conclusion is reached that given the gentle way God corrects us, diachronic majority opinion, apart from belief in a very basic set of truths, is not epistemically bolstered by the Spirit.
{"title":"Democracy of the Dead? The Relevance of Majority Opinion in Theology","authors":"Isaac Choi","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 11 explores whether the majority opinion in Christian theology should be deferred to, or strongly preferred, whether it be the majority opinion over the history of the church (as in G. K. Chesterton’s “democracy of the dead”) or the majority opinion of contemporary theologians. It is argued that because of the vast differences in accessible evidence between past and present-day theologians, diachronic majority opinion is not a good indicator of where the truth lies. In the synchronic case, ignorance of minority arguments, biases, selection effects, and the difficulty to deciding who gets to vote present many opportunities for majorities to be wrong. Finally, it is considered whether the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit could rescue the democracy of the dead, but the conclusion is reached that given the gentle way God corrects us, diachronic majority opinion, apart from belief in a very basic set of truths, is not epistemically bolstered by the Spirit.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126181619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0010
Katherine Dormandy
Chapter 10 addresses how religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic benefits. But religious communities typically think believers should be loyal to God; and since engaging with religious disagreement opens oneself to considering negative beliefs about God, doing so is disloyal. The chapter discusses two arguments that aim to show that religious disagreement is typically disloyal. It then argues that religious disagreement is not typically disloyal, and can in fact be loyal. Finally, the chapter argues for a superior form of loyalty that is epistemically oriented: concerned with knowing the other party as she really is.
{"title":"The Loyalty of Religious Disagreement","authors":"Katherine Dormandy","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 10 addresses how religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic benefits. But religious communities typically think believers should be loyal to God; and since engaging with religious disagreement opens oneself to considering negative beliefs about God, doing so is disloyal. The chapter discusses two arguments that aim to show that religious disagreement is typically disloyal. It then argues that religious disagreement is not typically disloyal, and can in fact be loyal. Finally, the chapter argues for a superior form of loyalty that is epistemically oriented: concerned with knowing the other party as she really is.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124580496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0008
J. Pittard
Many epistemologists argue that responses to disagreement should exhibit a certain kind of epistemic impartiality. “Strong conciliationists” claim that we ought to give equal weight to the views of those who, judged from a dispute-neutral perspective, appear to be our “epistemic peers” with respect to some disputed matter. Using a Bayesian framework, Chapter 8 considers whether there is a plausible epistemic impartiality principle that would require us to give up confident religious (or irreligious) belief in favor of religious skepticism. It is argued that the strong conciliationist’s epistemic impartiality is untenable, at least in contexts like the religious domain where the primary questions under dispute cannot be cleanly separated from questions about what qualifications are needed to reliably assess those primary questions. The chapter recommends instead a rationalist view on which rational insight can sustain justified confidence even when impartial grounds are lacking. It closes by defending the “religious acceptability” of this rationalist epistemology.
{"title":"Rationalist Resistance to Disagreement-Motivated Religious Skepticism","authors":"J. Pittard","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Many epistemologists argue that responses to disagreement should exhibit a certain kind of epistemic impartiality. “Strong conciliationists” claim that we ought to give equal weight to the views of those who, judged from a dispute-neutral perspective, appear to be our “epistemic peers” with respect to some disputed matter. Using a Bayesian framework, Chapter 8 considers whether there is a plausible epistemic impartiality principle that would require us to give up confident religious (or irreligious) belief in favor of religious skepticism. It is argued that the strong conciliationist’s epistemic impartiality is untenable, at least in contexts like the religious domain where the primary questions under dispute cannot be cleanly separated from questions about what qualifications are needed to reliably assess those primary questions. The chapter recommends instead a rationalist view on which rational insight can sustain justified confidence even when impartial grounds are lacking. It closes by defending the “religious acceptability” of this rationalist epistemology.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125062285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0005
Richard Feldman
Chapter 5 considers the question: Is there something distinctive about religious disagreement that makes it a suitable topic for examination? Religious disagreement may seem to differ from other disagreements, at least to the extent that devoting specific attention to religious disagreement does seem warranted. Yet, it is argued here, that there is nothing special about disagreement as compared with other cases of mixed evidence, and further, that there are no principles governing religious disagreements that differ from those governing other disagreements. Typically, one should be conciliatory toward those who disagree by reducing one’s confidence, because learning about others who disagree tends to shift the weight of one’s evidence, even if only slightly, away from what one already believes. Nevertheless, the chapter examines complications concerning how difficult it may be to discern such evidential pressure, particularly when it bears on one’s fundamental or “core” religious beliefs.
{"title":"Is There Something Special About Religious Disagreement?","authors":"Richard Feldman","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 5 considers the question: Is there something distinctive about religious disagreement that makes it a suitable topic for examination? Religious disagreement may seem to differ from other disagreements, at least to the extent that devoting specific attention to religious disagreement does seem warranted. Yet, it is argued here, that there is nothing special about disagreement as compared with other cases of mixed evidence, and further, that there are no principles governing religious disagreements that differ from those governing other disagreements. Typically, one should be conciliatory toward those who disagree by reducing one’s confidence, because learning about others who disagree tends to shift the weight of one’s evidence, even if only slightly, away from what one already believes. Nevertheless, the chapter examines complications concerning how difficult it may be to discern such evidential pressure, particularly when it bears on one’s fundamental or “core” religious beliefs.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"2014 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125688112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-30DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0007
Nathan L. King
Chapter 7 considers how, in an intellectual setting that calls for humility, the religious apologist faces a dilemma about the rational force of her arguments. She will typically think that they render her own beliefs rational, even in the face of disagreement. Should the apologist think that those who disagree with her—even after hearing her arguments—are rational in denying her beliefs, or in suspending judgment about them? Both affirmative and negative answers to these questions come with potential costs—thus, the dilemma. One path subjects the apologist to charges of arrogance, suggesting she has “knockdown arguments” for her views. The second path threatens to make the apologist’s enterprise incoherent, undermining the very beliefs for which she argues. The chapter aims to show that the apologist cannot sensibly isolate her views about religious disagreement and apologetic strategy from her views about other issues in epistemology and the philosophy of religion.
{"title":"The Apologist’s Dilemma","authors":"Nathan L. King","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198849865.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 7 considers how, in an intellectual setting that calls for humility, the religious apologist faces a dilemma about the rational force of her arguments. She will typically think that they render her own beliefs rational, even in the face of disagreement. Should the apologist think that those who disagree with her—even after hearing her arguments—are rational in denying her beliefs, or in suspending judgment about them? Both affirmative and negative answers to these questions come with potential costs—thus, the dilemma. One path subjects the apologist to charges of arrogance, suggesting she has “knockdown arguments” for her views. The second path threatens to make the apologist’s enterprise incoherent, undermining the very beliefs for which she argues. The chapter aims to show that the apologist cannot sensibly isolate her views about religious disagreement and apologetic strategy from her views about other issues in epistemology and the philosophy of religion.","PeriodicalId":190347,"journal":{"name":"Religious Disagreement and Pluralism","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133064164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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