Abstract

This dissertation focuses on a number of issues concerning the epistemic value of religious experience, with frequent references to recent work on this topic by William Alston, Richard Gale, and many others. The dissertation begins with a defense of talk about rights, obligation, and permission in epistemic discourse. Chapter One ends with the presentation of two epistemological theses: that the testimony of mystics could serve as an epistemic ground for the religious beliefs of non-mystics; that reason nevertheless requires different things of the two regarding the mystics' private experiences. Together, these two theses comprise a moderate form of epistemic relativism with respect to evidence. Chapter Two defends this relativism against objections from the epistemology of testimony, "cognitivity verificationism," and truth-conducivity. Chapter Three makes use of some theories of reference and intentional identity in an exploration of the relationship between religious experience and the other grounds for religious belief. Chapter Four considers what has to be true of some object for it to be experienced, and what has to be true of some experience for it to confer knowledge. Finally, Chapter Five describes the way in which Alston deals with the epistemological difficulties raised by the phenomenon of widespread religious diversity, explores several problems he does not address, and appropriates some suggestions of Keith Yandell's to help flesh out his talk of "inter-system winnowing devices."