Abstract
Evidentialism is generally taken to be a position which is not friendly to a religious epistemology. However, in this paper, I will argue for a religious epistemology which is compatible with fundamental tenets of an evidentialist position on epistemic justification. It is a position which entails both a “will to believe” which goes beyond the standard evidentialist principles governing the appropriate doxastic attitude towards a proposition, but nonetheless satisfies epistemic principles at the basis of an evidentialist position on justification. If my argument is successful, a proponent of a conception of religious faith may be able to have her cake and eat it too: namely, she may be able to fundamentally accept both the evidentialist demand that epistemically rational belief fit, or be supported by evidence as well as the position that rational faith is willing belief beyond what one’s evidence strictly demands.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
James F. Ross has defended the position of cognitive voluntarism in many articles. See, e.g., his “Cognitive Finality” in Linda Zagzebski, ed. Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, (1993), 226–255. See also Zeis (1994). Whether cognitive voluntarism is a viable position is an issue that is beyond the scope of the discussion in this paper. Nonetheless, it is clear that a position on faith which is derived from Augustine, which is the sort of position which I attempt to articulate here, must be one which includes a cognitive voluntarist perspective. See Eugene TeSelle’s entry on “Faith” in the Encylopedia on Ausgustine, pp. 347–350.
Translated by Norman Kretzmann in, “Faith Seeks, Understanding Finds,” Christian Philosophy, ed. Thomas P. Flint (Notre Dame: ND Press, 1990), p. 25.
See Feldman (2000).
Conee and Feldman (2004).
Ibid. p. 102. EC is the revised version of principle EJ (p. 83), which is that a “Doxastic attitude D toward proposition p is epistemically justified for S at t if and only if having D at t toward p fits the evidence that S has at t.” Feldman and Conee revised EJ to the notion of “fit” in EJ. They claim that this is the sort of justification which is characteristically epistemic and basic to an evidentialist epistemology (p. 254).
Ibid.
Conee distinguishes between epistemic justification and on other sorts of justification, e.g., moral or prudential, on the basis that epistemic justification always has some bearing on the truth of the belief. See “The Truth Connection,” in Evidentialism, p. 243.
Conee, “The Truth Connection,” p. 248.
Ibid, p. 249.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid, p. 250.
Ibid, p. 252.
Ibid., p.257.
Ibid, p. 258.
As TeSelle puts it in op. cit., for Augustine “…belief is without error or ignorance.” p. 348. It is clear that TeSelle uses “belief” here as a synonym for “faith”.
Haack (1993). Since Haack introduced foundherentism, other philosophers have followed her lead in taking a middle way through the standard dichotomies of foundationalism/coherentism and internalism/externalism. In fact, Earl Conee himself is sympathetic to this view. See his “The Basic Nature of Epistemic Justification,” The Monist 71, 389–404 (1988).
I think that my modification of Haack’s foundherentist position clearly incorporates the implications which Augustine draws from the credo ut intelligam dictum. These implications are the following: (1) the attempt to gain knowledge or understanding without faith is futile. (2) Faith is a stage on the way to knowledge. Faith is not yet understanding, but it seeks understanding. (3) the quest for knowledge prompted by faith is not only legitimate, but gains an independent validity and moves beyond mere faith. See TeSelle, op. cit., pp. 347–348.
Thanks to William H. Marshner for giving me the clue for myth and thereby focusing my attention on applying the crossword puzzle analogy to the religious diversity issue.
Haack, p. 27.
Alston (1993). In this article, Alston identifies "higher level requirements" as one of four prominent candidates of "putatively necessary conditions of justification" (pp. 528–529).
The distinction between first and second order desires and volitions is developed by Harry Frankfurt in his “The Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy, lxviii, no. 1 (Jan. 1971): 5–20.
Confessions Book 8, Chapter 12.
In his “Heeding Misleading Evidence” in Evidentialism, p. 267, Conee argues that “…any alleged knowledge that could survive the acquisition of defeating contrary evidence against its basis would have the tenacity of dogma, not knowledge.” The distinction between the position which I argue for here and Conee’s position in this article is, I think, this. If someone assents to a proposition on the basis of what he takes to be faith, he would have to take such a basis to be true and well-founded. However, since one can be wrong about it being actually grounded in faith, the mere fact that if it is grounded by faith it must be true does not justify his dismissing all defeating contrary evidence and resorting to blind dogmatic adherence. I think such an attitude would be contrary to the faith which seeks understanding. Nonetheless, if he does take his belief to be grounded in faith, the fact that if it is then it must be true will justify a more critical attitude toward defeating contrary evidence than if he takes his belief to be grounded by some source other than faith.
References
Alston, W. P. (1993). Epistemic desiderata. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 53(3), 527–551.
Conee, E., & Feldman, R. (2004). “Evidentialism” In Evidentialism (p. 101). Oxford: OUP.
Feldman, R. (2000). The ethics of belief. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60(3), 667–695.
Haack, S. (1993). Evidence and Inquiry (p. 19). Cambridge: Blackwell.
Zeis, J. (1994). Volitionalism and the virtue of faith. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, LXVII(1), 57–71.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zeis, J. Believing in order to know. Int J Philos Relig 80, 207–223 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9577-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9577-y