Are Beliefs about God Theoretical Beliefs? Reflections on Aquinas and Kant
Religious Studies 32 (2):233 - 258 (1996)
| Abstract | The need to address our question arises from two sources, one in Kant and the other in a certain type of response to so-called Reformed epistemology. The first source consists in a tendency to distinguish theoretical beliefs from practical beliefs (commitments to the world's being a certain way versus commitments to certain pictures to live by), and to treat theistic belief as mere practical belief. We trace this tendency in Kant's corpus, and compare and contrast it with Aquinas's view and a more conservative Kantian view. We reject the theistic-belief-as-mere-practical-belief view: it is bad descriptive anthropology, it embraces a misguided ideal of a fragmented self unattainable by human beings, and it will deter people from the most desirable sort of faith. The second source consists in the idea that since theistic beliefs function as answers to why-questions, their epistemic status hangs on whether they meet certain distinctively explanatory standards, whatever support they might receive from other sources. We argue that this is a non-sequitur and suggest questions for further research. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Aquinas Kant Reformed epistemology theism belief | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
  |
| External links |
 Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesMark S. McLeod (1993). Rationality and Theistic Belief: An Essay on Reformed Epistemology. Cornell University Press.
Derek S. Jeffreys (1997). How Reformed is Reformed Epistemology? Alvin Plantinga and Calvin's ‘Sensus Divinitatis’. Religious Studies 33 (4):419-431.
Patrick Kain (2010). Practical Cognition, Intuition, and the Fact of Reason. In Benjamin Lipscomb & James Krueger (eds.), Kant's Moral Metaphysics: God, Freedom, and Immortality. de Gruyter.
Michael Bergmann (2006). Epistemic Circularity and Common Sense: A Reply to Reed. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (1):198–207.
Warren Zev Harvey (2012). Shlomo Pines on Maimonides, Spinoza, and Kant. Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 20 (2):173-182.
Hamid Vahid (2009). The Epistemology of Belief. Palgrave Macmillan.
David J. Owens (2003). Does Belief Have an Aim? Philosophical Studies 115 (3):283-305.
Daniel Howard-Snyder (2012). Foundationalism. In Andrew Cullison (ed.), The Continuum Companion to Epistemology. Continuum.
Bryan Frances (2008). Spirituality, Expertise, and Philosophers. In Jon Kvanvig (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. Oxford.
Santiago Echeverri (2013). Is Perception a Source of Reasons? Theoria 79 (1):22-56.
Andrew Chignell (2007). Belief in Kant. Philosophical Review 116 (3):323-360.
Jack C. Lyons (2005). Perceptual Belief and Nonexperiential Looks. Philosophical Perspectives 19 (1):237-256.
Jeff Malpas (2008). On Not Giving Up the World - Davidson and the Grounds of Belief. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 16 (2):201 – 215.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-05-29Total downloads11 ( #99,698 of 551,105 )Recent downloads (6 months)7 ( #10,467 of 551,105 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
