Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion , livre ebook

243

pages

English

Ebooks

2011

Écrit par
L. Schellenberg J.

Publié par
Cornell University Press

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243

pages

English

Ebooks

2011

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Cornell University Press

Date de parution

15 décembre 2011

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780801462337

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

"There is no attempt here to lay down as inviolable or to legislate certain ways of looking at things or ways of proceeding for philosophers of religion, only proposals for how to deal with a range of basic issues-proposals that I hope will ignite much fruitful discussion and which, in any case, I shall take as a basis for my own ongoing work in the field."-from the PrefaceProviding an original and systematic treatment of foundational issues in philosophy of religion, J. L. Schellenberg's new book addresses the structure of religious and irreligious belief, the varieties of religious skepticism, and the nature of religion itself. From the author's searching analysis of faith emerges a novel understanding of propositional faith as requiring the absence of belief. Schellenberg asks what the aims of the field should be, setting out a series of principles for carrying out some of the most important of these aims.His account of justification considers not only belief but also other responses to religious claims and distinguishes the justification of responses, propositions, and persons. Throughout Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion, Schellenberg is laying the groundwork for an elaboration of his own vision while at the same time suggesting how philosophers might rethink assumptions guiding most of today's work in analytic philosophy of religion.

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Publié par

Cornell University Press

Date de parution

15 décembre 2011

EAN13

9780801462337

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion

Prolegomena to a

Philosophy of Religion

J . L . S C H E L L E N B E R G

Cornell University Press

ithaca and london

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2005 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Schellenberg, J. L. Prolegomena to a philosophy of religion / J. L. Schellenberg. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN13: 9780801443589 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN10: 080144358X (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Religion—Philosophy. I. Title. BL51.S426 2005 210—dc22 2005013977

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publish ing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

for regina the love of my life

Contents

Preface

1. On Religion 1. Why Discuss This Issue? 1 2. Religion and the Religions 3 3. The Family Resemblance Approach 7 4. A Definition of “Religion”? 12 5. Defining “Religion” for Philosophy 23 6. From Theism to Ultimism 37 2. On Belief 1. Propositional Belief as a Form of Thought 40 2. A Contrary View: Belief as Confidence 50 3. ThoughtPlus? 59 4. The Involuntariness of Propositional Belief 65 5. A Distinct Impression: Affective Belief 67 3. On Religious Belief and Religious Disbelief 1. Propositional Religious Belief 75 2. Affective Religious Belief 85 3. Propositional Religious Disbelief 88 4. Affective Religious Disbelief 91 4. On Religious Skepticism 1. Doubts and Doubting 95 2. Four Types of Religious Skepticism 97 3. Passive and Active Skepticism 101 5. On Religious Faith (I) 1. Finding “Faith” 107 2. Faith and Action: The Nature of Trust 109

vii

106

viii

Contents

3. Is Trust Present in All Forms of Religion? 120 4. Trust and the Nature of Faith 123 5. Faith: Propositional and Operational 125 6. On Religious Faith (II) 1. Propositional Faith as a Nonbelieving State 129 2. Some Operational Corollaries 139 3. Related Views 141 4. Religious Language and the Voluntariness of Faith 147 5. Replies to Religious Objections 160 7. On the Aims of Philosophy of Religion 1. The Received View: Meaning and Justification 168 2. The Nature of Justification 173 3. Building on the Received View: Theory and Practices 184 4. The Aims of Philosophy of Religion—A Proposal 191 8. On Principles of Evaluation in Philosophy of Religion 1. Some Principles of Response Justification 197 2. Truth or Consequences? 206 3. Evaluating Responses to Ultimism: Priority and Strategy 220

Index

127

167

195

223

Preface

A few years ago, in a fit of optimism, I sought to develop in a sin gle book certain new thoughts I had conceived on the reconciliation of reason and religion. But the manuscript I completed will remain unpub lished, as it turned out to be impossible to do well between two covers all that I had in mind to do. In the wake of this discovery I devised a different plan, the first part of which has now been put into effect. To provide a proper basis for what lay ahead, so it immediately seemed to me, this first part of the plan should involve considering more fully than I had previ ously done some foundational issues concerning the nature of religion, belief, skepticism, faith (and so on) which kept cropping up in my work. But recognizing that there is in philosophy no thorough and systematic treatment of these issues—or of these issues together with certain others apparently belonging to the same general category, concerning the iden tity and aims and principles of assessment of philosophy of religion—I soon arrived at the richer idea of writing something that might both serve as my opening volley and open up this overlooked subfield of founda 1 tions or prolegomena.

1 Despite much talk of religious belief and religious faith, for example, relatively little reflection has been devoted to determining exactly what faith is and what makes a state of belief religious, or to identifying the standards by which assessments of religious belief and religious faith are to be made. Still more rare are attempts to deal with various fundamen tals at once, in a sensitive and systematic way. (Some recent works, it is true, seem to be moving in this direction. I think particularly of Richard Swinburne’sFaith and Reason [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981] and William Alston’s “Belief, Acceptance, and Religious Faith,” inFaith, Freedom, and Rationality,ed. Jeff Jordan and Daniel HowardSnyder [Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996]. But it is illuminating to observe that both these works have been neglected. Moreover, it must be said that even in them there is

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