Multidimensional Explanation and Evaluation

Abstract

Chapter 6 turns to the third and final primary end of a future philosophy of religion: the multidimensional explanation and evaluation of religious reason-giving. By explanation I have in mind the construction of models that serve to provide reasons for or causes of the data, especially when the data are constituted by general patterns of religious reason-giving, and by evaluation I have in mind an estimation of the significance, worth, or quality of the argument or type of argument in question, both in its original context and in our context.¹ Thus through explanation we might come to understand more about the broad patterning of human reasoning about religion, and through evaluation we might learn something about those reasons that have been and still are more and less viable and valuable.²