God and other minds

Religious Studies 46 (3):331-351 (2010)
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Abstract

I reconsider the idea that there is an analogy between belief in other minds and belief in God, and examine two approaches to the relevant beliefs. The 'explanatory inductive' approach raises difficulties in both contexts, and involves questionable assumptions. The 'expressivist' approach is more promising, and presupposes a more satisfactory metaphysical framework in the first context. Its application to God is similarly insightful, and offers an intellectually respectable, albeit resistible, version of the doctrine that nature is a book of lessons

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Fiona Ellis
University of Roehampton

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References found in this work

Mind and World.John Henry McDowell - 1994 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
The miracle of theism: arguments for and against the existence of God.J. L. Mackie - 1982 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Bernard Williams.
Other Minds.Anita Avramides - 2000 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Brian McLaughlin, Ansgar Beckermann & Sven Walter.
Rethinking other minds: Wittgenstein and Levinas on expression.Søren Overgaard - 2005 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 48 (3):249 – 274.

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