Abstract
The twentieth century saw significant new developments in and significant new directions for the treatments of religious experience and religious epistemology. The philosophical discussions in these areas have now taken on significant new dimensions. While natural theology, based upon evidentialism, dominated Anglo-American analytic philosophy in the early part of the twentieth century, antievidentialism — either in the various forms of religious experience, Reformed epistemology, or fideism — became very dominant in the last few decades of the century.
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References
See, for example, Roderick Chisholm, Perceiving: A Philosophical Study (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1957).
Edmund Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis, Vol. 23, 1963. Reprinted in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Louis P. Pojman (New York: Wadsworth, 1999), pp. 142–43.
William K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief,” from Lectures and Essays, 1879. Reprinted in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Louis P. Pojman, p. 551.
William K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief,” from Lectures and Essays, 1879. Reprinted in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Louis P. Pojman, p. 554.
William K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief,” from Lectures and Essays, 1879. Reprinted in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Louis P. Pojman
William James, Pragmatism (New York: New American Library, 1907), pp. 22ff.
William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings,edited by Louis Pojman, p. 558.
William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings,edited by Louis Pojman, p. 555.
William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings,edited by Louis Pojman, p. 558.
William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings,edited by Louis Pojman, p. 559.
William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings,edited by Louis Pojman, p. 559.
Ibid., p. 556. There are many discussions that compare Pascal and James. For example, see J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 200–203.
Pascal may respond that if a person behaves religiously (for example, by praying or using holy water), then religious belief will gradually and eventually follow, but such a response seems very optimistic and belies what is known of human psychology. James maintains that there are, of course, other difficulties with Pascal’s wager. For example, obviously God may punish a person for believing on such grounds. See James, ibid., 556.
However, Nicholas Wolterstorff disagrees that evidentialism is tied so closely to natural theology. See his “The Migration of the Theistic Arguments: From Natural Theology to Evidential Apologetics,” in Rationality, Religious Belief and Moral Commitment, edited by Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 38ff. Wolterstorff attributes evidentialism to the philosophical influence of the Enlightenment.
Antony Flew,“The Presumption of Atheism,” in The Presumption of Atheism and Other Philosophical Essays on God, Freedom,and Immortality, Antony Flew (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1976), pp. 22–23.
Thus, the cumulative case argument is not simply an accumulation of different arguments. For a helpful discussion that illustrates the point nicely, see Caroline Franks Davis, The Evidential Force of Religious Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 108ff.
Basil Mitchell, The Justification of Religious Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), and Richard Swinbume, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
The following are some of the primary contemporary sources that treat the distinction between religious and mystical experiences and also address the comparison of religious experience with sense experience: George Mavrodes, Belief in God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (New York: Random House, 1970); C. B. Martin, Religious Belief (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1959); Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Study (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990); Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958); Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); William Rowe, “Religious Experience and the Principle of Credulity,” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 13, 1982, pp. 8592; Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience (London: Macmillan, 1991); T. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1960); William Wainwright, Mysticism (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981); William Wainwright, “Mysticism and Sense Perception,” Religious Studies, Vol. 9, 1973. Much of this article appears as Chapter 3 of his Mysticism and is reprinted in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, edited by Steven Cahn and David Shatz (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 1982), pp. 123–45; Keith Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Also see the discussion of William Alston’s Perceiving God below and references cited there. The source that provided the framework for much of the discussion in the twentieth century was William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1902).
Ibid., p. 246. This definition is followed closely by William Alston, discussed below, in his theory of the perception of God.
See Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958).
Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, p. 245–46. Alston uses the same theory of appearing and follows a very similar tactic in his perception of God, discussed below. Interestingly, William Rowe, who opposes claims concerning the cognitive content of religious experience, first suggests this position in “Religious Experience and the Principle of Credulity,” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 13, 1982, pp. 85–92.
Ib id., pp. 249. Also, see Otto, ibid., and William Wainwright, Mysticism (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981).
C. D. Broad, “Arguments for the Existence of God, II,” The Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 40, 1939.
William Wainwright has drawn the comparison between religious experience and sense experience earlier in a similar fashion. See William Wainwright, Mysticism, Chapter 3. Much of this chapter is drawn from his “Mysticism and Sense Perception,” Religious Studies, Vol. 9, 1973, pp. 25778. The article is reprinted in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, edited by Steven Cahn and David Shatz.
Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, pp. 255–56.
One person who raises such an objection is Roderick Chisholm. See ibid., pp. 257–58.
Ibid., pp. 271–72. Swinburne thinks that there are normally no special circumstances that would legitimately make one doubt the veracity of a person’s report of religious experiences.
It is the application of POC to religious experience rather than POC itself as a general epistemological principle that is most at issue. Rowe emphasizes this point in “Religious Experience and the Principle of Credulity,” ibid.,pp. 90–91.
Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, p. 256.
J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 182.
Ibid., p. 183. It may very well be that even granting that such experience can determine that the power (being?) is friendly rather than unfriendly (God rather than Satan) is granting too much. See the discussion of William Alston’s appeal to direct reference later in this chapter.
Paul Henle, “Uses of the Ontological Argument,” Philosophical Review, Vol. 70, 1961, pp. 102ff.
William Wainwright, Mysticism,pp. 88ff.
William Rowe, “Religious Experience and the Principle of Credulity,” pp. 90ff. Also see David Conway, “Mavrodes, Martin, and the Verification of Religious Experience,” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 2, no. 3, 1971.
The problem of determining correctly the reference of “God” during a religious experience is treated in detail below in the discussion of William Alston’s Perceiving God.
For a response to Rowe, see Keith Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience, pp. 229–30.
Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 196ff.
This analysis is based upon an example used by Proudfoot, ibid., pp. 192–93.
William Wainwright, ibid., p. 86–87. It is worth noting that these criteria appear to be codified in William Alston’s notion of a Christian mystical doxastic practice (CMP), discussed below.
See Caroline Franks Davis, The Evidential Force of Religious Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), Chapter 5.
John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989). See the excerpt reprinted in Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology, edited by R. Douglas Geivett and Brendan Sweetman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 316.
John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989). See the excerpt reprinted in Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology, edited by R. Douglas Geivett and Brendan Sweetman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 316–17.
John Hick, “Religious Faith as Experiencing-As,” in Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, edited by John Hick (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964, 1990), p. 409.
See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1953), Part II, Section xi.
John Hick, “Religious Faith as Experiencing-As,” p. 409.
William P. Alston, Perceiving God (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 100. For a précis of this book, see William P. Alston, “Précis of Perceiving God,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 54, no. 4, 1994.
Several critical issues are raised by the respondents in the Alston Symposium in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,Vol. 54, no. 4, 1994, including Richard Gale, “Why Alston’s Mystical Doxastic Practice Is Subjective,” George Pappas, “Perception and Mystical Experience,” and Robert Adams, “Religious Disagreements and Doxastic Practices.” See also William Hasker, “On Justifying the Christian Practice,” The New Scholasticism, Vol. 60, 1986.
For a more constructive suggestion and optimistic outlook for Alston’s defense of CMP, see the following two articles by Philip L. Quinn: “And Thinner Theologies: Hick and Alston on Religious Diversity,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 38, 1995, pp. 145–64. Reprinted in The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, edited by Philip L. Quinn and Kevin Meeker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), especially pp. 235ff; and “Religious Diversity and Religious Toleration,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 49, 2001, pp. 1–24. Quinn’s treatment of Alston is discussed in Chapter IX.
Robert Adams suggests that more emphasis should be placed on the individual’s belief rather than the social nature of the doxastic practice, but he does not develop this point. See Robert Adams, “Religious Disagreements and Doxastic Practices,” p. 886.
Arguably, equally for Roman Catholics and non-Catholic Christians alike since the legend of St. Joan is now so thoroughly embedded in Western folklore. Other saints have reported not being so sure of the source of their religious experiences at the time that they were having them. See St. Teresa, Interior Castle (London: Thomas Baker Publishing, 1930).
For Alston’s comparison of SP and CMP on this score, see Perceiving God,Chapter 3 and pp. 250ff.
For further criticism of Alston on the grounds that nonsensory perception of God is subjective, see Richard Gale, “Why Alston’s Mystical Doxastic Practice Is Subjective,” pp. 869–75.
William Alston, Perceiving God,pp. 96–97.
While Alston distinguishes between S’s being justified and S’s knowing that he is justified in believing that he is being appeared to by God, still unless there is some indication of what might be the criterion for determining whether S is right or wrong in believing that the properties that x presents in appearing to S are sufficient for identifying God, then there is no reason to maintain that it is reasonable to believe that S is being appeared to by God.
Richard Gale, “Why Alston’s Mystical Doxastic Practice Is Subjective,” pp. 871ff.
Richard B. Miller, “The Reference of `God,”` Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 3, no. 1, 1986.
William P. Alston, “Referring to God,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion,Vol. 24, no. 3, November 1988, pp. 10–12. Reprinted in Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology, William P. Alston (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989).
See Keith Donnellan, “Reference and Definite Descriptions,” in Readings in the Philosophy of Language,edited by Jay Rosenberg and Charles Travis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall), p. 198, and James F. Harris, “The Causal Theory of Reference and Religious Language,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 29, 1991, pp. 82–83.
Harris, See Keith Donnellan, “Reference and Definite Descriptions,” in Readings in the Philosophy of Language,edited by Jay Rosenberg and Charles Travis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall), p. 198, and James F. Harris, “The Causal Theory of Reference and Religious Language,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 29, 1991, p. 83.
See Keith Donnellan, “Reference and Definite Descriptions,” in Readings in the Philosophy of Language,edited by Jay Rosenberg and Charles Travis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall), p. 198, and James F. Harris, “The Causal Theory of Reference and Religious Language,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 29, 1991, pp. 83–84.
See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Section 79.
James Harris, “The Causal Theory of Reference and Religious Language,” pp. 84–85. 89 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Section 79.
Plantinga has developed his position in a number of different writings, including the following: “Is Belief in God Rational?” in Rationality and Religious Belief, edited by C. F. Delaney (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979); “Is Belief in God Properly Basic,” Nous,Vol. 15, 1981, pp. 41–51; “Rationality and Religious Belief,” in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, edited by Steven Cahn and David Shatz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). Parts of this article come from two previous articles: “Reason and Belief in God,” in Faith and Rationality, edited by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983); and “Epistemic Justification,” Nous,Vol. 20, 1986, pp. 3–18. See especially “Rationality and Religious Belief,” pp. 25562.
Alvin Plantinga, “Rationality and Religious Belief,” p. 24.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Introduction,” in Faith and Rationality, edited by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), p. 6.
Alvin Plantings, “Rationality and Religious Belief,” pp. 48ff.
Alvin Plantinga, “The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology,” Christian Scholar’s Review, Vol. 11, no. 3, 1982. Page numbers refer to reprint in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, edited by Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Nicholas Wolterstorff, “The Migration of the Theistic Arguments: From Natural Theology to Evidentialist Apologetics,” in Rationality, Religious Belief,and Moral Commitment, edited by Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986); and “The Reformed Tradition,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), pp. 165–70.
Alvin Plantinga, “Rationality and Religious Belief,” pp. 76–77.
Terence Penelhum, God and Skepticism (Dordrecht, Netherlands: D. Reidel, 1983), p. 30 and pp. 146–47. Penelhum groups Plantinga with Pascal and Kierkegaard as an evangelical fideist — a label that Plantinga disavows (see his “Reason and Belief in God,” p. 90). The question of fideism aside, Penelhum’s parity argument does capture Plantinga’s general epistemological strategy of treating belief in God in the same manner as secular, common-sense beliefs, so I will use this designation for Plantinga’s approach. I discuss the issue of fideism below.
Alvin Plantinga, “Rationality and Religious Belief,” p. 271.
Some take the import of Reformed epistemology to be positive while others take it to be purely negative, that is, some take Reformed epistemology to build a positive case for the Reformed platform while others take it to simply shift the burden of proof to those who would oppose the Reformed platform. See especially Richard Grigg, “Theism and Proper Basicality: A Response to Plantinga,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 14, 1983, pp. 123–27. My own reading of Plantinga is that he attempts to build a positive case for the Reformed platform, but this reading is not uncontroversial. See, for example, Mark McLeod, “The Analogy Argument for the Proper Basicality of Belief in God,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 21, 1987, pp. 3–20.
Alvin Plantinga, “Rationality and Religious Belief,” ibid., p. 273.
Terence Penelhum, Reason and Religious Faith (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995), p. 95. The fact that Plantinga himself anticipates this objection and tries to respond to it has not prevented his critics from pressing the issue, and several have, including David Basinger, “Reformed Epistemology and Hick’s Religious Pluralism,” in Philosophy of Religion, edited by Michael Peterson et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 336–46; Jay M. Van Hook, “Knowledge, Belief, and Reformed Epistemology,” The Reformed Journal, Vol. 32, 1981, p. 16; and William Alston, “Plantinga’s Epistemology of Religious Belief,” in Alvin Plantinga, edited by J. E. Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen (Dordrecht, Among: D. Reidel, 1985), pp. 300–301. For the effects of Plantinga’s position on relativism and religious pluralism, see William Lad Sessions, “Plantinga’s Box,” Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 8, no. 1, 1991, pp. 51–66.
An example taken from the cartoon strip `Peanuts“ and, ironically, an example I’ve used in class for over twenty years to illustrate Hume’s point of how the evidence for the argument from design underdetermines the appropriate analogy to be used.
Alvin Plantinga, “The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology,” p. 318.
See Gary Gutting, Religious Belief and Skepticism (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 83.
See Gary Gutting, Religious Belief and Skepticism (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982)
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Reason within the Bounds of Religion (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1976), p. 64.
Ibid., p. 66. It should be noted that Wolterstorff intends that control beliefs should function generally this way for the Christian scholar in his weighing of such scientific theories as Copernican astronomy and Darwinian evolutionary theory. See ibid., p. 77.
Terence Penelhum, God and Skepticism, pp. 146ff.
Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” p. 90.
For further comparison of Penelhum and Plantinga on this point and discussion of different forms of the parity argument, see Richard Askew, “On Fideism and Alvin Plantinga,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 23, 1988, pp. 3–16.
Stephen Wykstra, “Review of Faith and Rationality,” Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 3, 1986, p. 209.
For further discussion of this point, see Robert Pargetter, “Experience, Proper Basicality, and Belief in God,” in Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology,edited by R. Douglas Geivett and Brendan Sweetman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 150–67.
Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). The earlier volumes were Warrant and Proper Function (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) and Warrant: The Current Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
There are different interpretations of Kierkegaard on this point. See, for example, C. Stephen Evans, “Kierkegaard and Plantinga on Belief in God: Subjectivity as the Ground of Properly Basic Religious Beliefs,” Faith and Philosophy,Vol. 5, no. 1, 1988, pp. 25–39, and “The Epistemological Significance of Transformative Religious Experiences: A Kierkegaardian Exploration,” Faith and Philosophy,Vol. 8, no. 2, 1991, pp. 180–92; and Marilyn Gaye Piety, “Kierkegaard on Rationality,” Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 10, no. 3, 1993, pp. 365–79.
For a discussion of different forms of fideism, see Terence Penelhum, “Fideism,” in A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, edited by Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), pp. 376–82.
Norman Malcolm develops this point regarding the limit of explanation more fully in Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), Chapter 6. Also see Peter Winch’s comments in the same volume in his discussion of Malcolm’s essay, pp. 103ff. Winch makes the important point that it was the particular kind of explanation that depends upon a theory of meaning that Wittgenstein opposed (according to which the meaning of a word is given in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, that is, essentialism). The important thing is not simply that explanation comes to an end but that confusions about the nature of language and meaning make philosophers ignore or resist this fact.
For a more complete listing of additional tenets of Wittgensteinian fideism, see Kai Nielsen, “Wittgensteinian Fideism,” Philosophy,Vol. 42, no. 161, 1967, pp. 192–93.
Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1958), and “Understanding a Primitive Society,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 1, 1964, pp. 307–25. Page numbers refer to the reprint in Rationality,edited by Bryan R. Wilson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970). Norman Malcolm, “Anselm’s Ontological Arguments,” Philosophical Review, Vol. 69, no. 1, January 1960 (page numbers refer to the reprint in Malcolm’s Knowledge and Certainty [Englewood, Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963]), and “The Groundlessness of Belief,” in Reason and Religion, edited by Stuart Brown (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), which is reprinted in Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology,edited by R. Douglas Geivett and Brendan Sweetman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 92–103, to which the page numbers here refer.
See Malcolm, “The Groundlessness of Belief,” pp. 92–94.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), § 192.
Malcolm, “The Groundlessness of Belief,” p. 96–98.
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Section 292, and Malcolm, ibid., p. 97.
Malcolm, “The Groundlessness of Belief,” p. 98. Also see Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), Chapter 6.
See Patrick Sherry, “Is Religion a `Form of Life’?” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 9, no. 2, 1972, especially pp. 164ff. Sherry distinguishes what he calls the relativist/conventionalist and the pragmatic/empiricist interpretations of Wittgenstein. Winch and Phillips fall into the more radical relativist/conventionalist group. Further criticism of the relativist/conventionalist interpretation of Wittgenstein and defense of universal epistemological notions such as truth and reason are found in Patrick Sherry, Religion,Truth and Language Games (London: Macmillan, 1977), and William P. Alston, “The Christian Language-Game,” in The Autonomy of Religious Belief (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. 128–62. As I discuss below, the degree of autonomy enjoyed by language-games and the nature of the relationships among different language-games are complex and difficult issues. For further discussion of Malcolm’s claims of the groundlessness of religious belief, see the exchange from the 1975 symposium among Malcolm, Colin Lyas, and Basil Mitchell in Reason and Religion, edited by Stuart C. Brown (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977).
Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. The same ideas are further developed in his “Understanding a Primitive Society,” pp. 78–111.
E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft,Oracles and Magic among the Azande (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937).
Peter Winch, “Understanding a Primitive Society,” pp. 10–11.
I have argued this point more fully in James F. Harris, Against Relativism (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1992), pp. 100ff.
Phillips distinguishes his view from that of Braithwaite and calls Braithwaite’ s views “confused.” See his Religion without Explanation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976), pp. 140ff.
Michael J. Coughlan, “Wittgenstein, Language, and Religious Belief,” in God in Language, edited by Robert P. Scharlemann and Gilbert E. M. Ogutu (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987), p. 149.
For example, see D. Z. Phillips, The Concept of Prayer (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965); Religion without Explanation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976); and Faith and Philosophical Inquiry (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970). Also see “Religious Beliefs and Language-Games,” in The Philosophy of Wittgenstein.: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Religion, edited by John Canfield (New York: Garland, 1986), and in Faith and Philosophical Inquiry as Chapter V.
Throughout this discussion of language-game fideism, I use the expressions “the religious language-game” and “the theistic language-game.” Determining the boundaries and varieties of language-games is not an issue I can address here. W. D. Hudson uses the expression “the theistic language-game” and calls Christianity a language-game in Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Bearing of His Philosophy upon Religious Belief (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1968), pp. 69 and 70. As I have noted above, Malcolm describes religion and science as two different language-games in “The Groundlessness of Belief,” ibid., p. 100, and specifically includes nontheistic Buddhism as part of the religious language-game, ibid., p. 101. Phillips speaks of “religious language-games” (in the plural). For further discussion of this point, see R. H. Bell, “Wittgenstein and Descriptive Theology,” Religious Studies, Oct. 1969, and Patrick Sherry, “Is Religion a Form of Life,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 9, no. 2, 1972. There is obviously not a single language-game of religion or a single language-game of theism and, hence, no single grammar of religious language. It may be helpful to think of a religion or theism as aggregates of different language-games. Religion and science would then differ not by each being a different discrete language-game but by each being different aggregates of different language-games, some of which may be common to the two different aggregates
However, as Phillips has indicated in correspondence, “no additional `entity”` does not necessarily mean “no addition at all.” Certainly, when the theist affirms God’s existence, he is affirming something “additional” about the world. Compare what Wittgenstein said about pain: it is not a “something,” but it is not a “nothing” either.
See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics,Psychology and Religious Belief,edited by Cyril Barrett (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), pp. 53–72.
D. Z. Phillips, “Religious Beliefs and Language-Games,” p. 223.
See Phillips, ibid.,and The Concept of Prayer,Chapter I.
Michael Coughlan, “Wittgenstein, Language, and Religious Beliefs,” p. 159.
See D. Z. Phillips, “Religious Beliefs and Language-Games,” p. 111.
See, for example, R. W. Hepburn, “From World to God,” Mind, Vol. 72, 1963; Kai Nielson, “Wittgensteinian Fideism,” Philosophy,July 1967, reprinted in John Canfield, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein (New York: Garland, 1986), and Kai Nielsen, “A Critique of Wittgensteinian Fideism,” in The Autonomy of Religious Belie: A Critical Inquiry, edited by Frederick Crosson (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). This last piece also appears in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings,Third Edition, edited by William L. Rowe and William J. Wainwright (Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998).
In correspondence with the author. What this position ignores is that claims about the grammar of a language-game must rely upon someone’s intuitions.
Peter Winch, Trying to Make Sense (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), pp. 134ff.
Peter Winch, Trying to Make Sense (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), pp. 135–36.
William P. Alston, “Taking the Curse Off Language-Games: A Realist Account of Doxastic Practices,” in Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief, edited by Timothy Tessin and Mario von der Ruhr (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), pp. 24–25.
Ibid., pp. 30ff. For discussion of the differences between Phillips and Alston, see M. Jamie Ferreira, “Universal Criteria and the Autonomy of Religious Belief,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 15, 1984, pp. 3–12.
D. Z. Phillips, Religion without Explanation, p.174. Phillips explicitly anticipates the charge of defending a “disguised atheism” on pp. 149ff.
Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, p. 59. Quoted by Phillips in Religion without Explanation, pp. 174–75.
For a full discussion of such criticisms and Phillips’s reply, see his Belief Change and Forms of Life (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1986), Chapter 2.
Ibid., p. 33. See pp. 26–33 for Phillips’s complete reply. Also see D. Z. Phillips, “Belief, Change and Forms of Life: The Confusions of Externalism and Intemalism” in The Autonomy of Religious Belief, edited by Frederick J. Crossen (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), for detailed textual references for his views regarding the possibility of criticizing religious beliefs, especially pp. 85–90.
This line of criticism has been urged by others: See W. D. Hudson, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Bearing of His Philosophy upon Religious Belief, pp. 68ff; Patrick Sherry, “Is Religion a `Form of Life’?” pp. 165; and Kai Nielsen, “Wittgensteinian Fidesim,” p. 209.
Further discussions of Wittgensteinian language-games and religious beliefs are found in Richard Bell, “Theology as Grammar: Is God an Object of Understanding,” Religious Studies, Vol. 11, 1975, pp. 307–17; Alan Brunton, “A Model for the Religious Philosophy of D. Z. Phillips,” Analysis, Vol. 31, 1970–71, pp. 43–48; Dallas M. High, “Belief, Falsification, and Wittgenstein,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 3, 1972, pp. 240–50; James Kellenberger, “The Language-Game View of Religion and Religious Certainty,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 2, no. 2, 1972, pp. 255–75; and Fergus Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
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Harris, J.F. (2002). Religious Experience and Religious Epistemology. In: Analytic Philosophy of Religion. Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0719-0_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0719-0_4
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