Cohabiting has been associated with a number of problems including sexually transmitted diseases and HIV and AIDS, abortions, sexual abuse and violence, low academic performance, increased cost of medical care and unwanted pregnancies. However, there is little documented information on the extent and the factors influencing cohabitation among the youth and especially among tertiary education students. This study therefore sought to fill this gap by investigating factors that lead to the prevalence and practice of cohabitation by tertiary education students. The (...) research adopted the interpretivist philosophy. The qualitative research methodology was employed in order to understand in greater detail the behaviors, attitudes, opinions, and beliefs of the respondents on cohabitation among tertiary education students. The study used the survey research design. Primary research was conducted using questionnaire surveys that were administered to tertiary education students who participated at the Tertiary Education Sports Association of Zimbabwe in July 2016. There were 100 questionnaires distributed and 78 questionnaires were returned making 78% response rate. The respondents were randomly sampled to participate in the study. The study reflects that cohabitation among the Tertiary education students is quite common. The study noted that it is mostly caused by lack of accommodation, problems with roommates, lack of privacy and the need to be close and intimate with one's lover. In results cohabitation exposes students to premarital sex and other consequences such as unwanted pregnancies, abortion, complications and sexually transmitted infections. The study recommends that tertiary education students should be enlightened during orientations about the dangers of cohabitation. Parents should be encouraged to visit their children and find where and whom they live with while in school. (shrink)

Conflict is inevitable in the workplace and manifests in different ways. It is a common dysfunction when working in teams. A diversity of thoughts, ideologies, and beliefs always creates a risk of disagreement and misalignment. When examining identity and positionality in the workplace, conflict is usually resolved in favor of those who have identities within the dominant White culture. In light of this common reality, an opportunity is created to examine and determine how conflict can be resolved from an inclusive (...) and equitable approach. This case study is designed to outline the tools and resources the Center for Equity and Inclusion uses with its clients when guiding organizations to resolve conflict, advance equity, and center Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) in the workplace. (shrink)

My topic in this paper is the nature of faith. Much of the discussion concerning the nature of faith proceeds by focussing on the relationship between faith and belief. In this paper, I explore a different approach. I suggest that we approach the question of what faith involves by focussing on the relationship between faith and action. When we have faith, we generally manifest it in how we act; we perform acts of (...) class='Hi'>faith: we share our secrets, rely on other’s judgment, refrain from going through our partner’s emails, let our children prepare for an important exam without our interference. Religious faith, too is manifested in acts of faith: attending worship, singing the liturgy, fasting, embarking on a pilgrimage. I argue that approaching faith by way of acts of faith, reveals that faith is a complex mental state whose elements go beyond doxastic states towards particular propositions. It also involves conative states and – perhaps more surprisingly – know how. This has consequences for the epistemology of faith: the role of testimony and experts, the importance of practices, and what we should make of Pascal’s advice for how to acquire faith. (shrink)

The point of departure of this paper is a conception of faith that is broader than traditional conceptions on which it is essentially doxastic. On the theory presupposed here, neither propositional faith nor attitudinal faith entails belief. Faith is also irreducible to hope, though it is not without some kinship to it. More positively, on the view presented here, faith entails a set of positive attitudes of a certain kind. This positive element makes it (...) natural to consider faith a kind of stance toward its object. That conception, in turn, indicates the presence of volitional elements in faith. With these points in view, the paper pursues in detail the kinds of volitional elements that are essential in faith or, at least, characteristic of certain major kinds of faith. The conception of faith as a kind of volitional stance helps to explain both the importance of faith—secular as well as religious—in human life and the resilience of faith in the encounter with counterevidence. (shrink)

Recent attacks on the compatibility of science and religion by the “militant modern atheists” have posed serious challenges for anyone who supports the human importance of religious faith. This article offers a critical analysis of their claims compared with those who do not equate faith with belief. I conclude that the militant modern atheist interpretation of faith undervalues transformative religious experiences, that more people of faith hold it for this reason than their opponents acknowledge, and (...) that meaningful dialogue between religion and science is both possible and desirable. (shrink)

Is propositional religious faith constituted by belief? Recent debate has focussed on whether faith may be constituted by a positive non-doxastic cognitive state, which can stand in place of belief. This paper sets out and defends the doxastic theory. We consider and reject three arguments commonly used in favour of non-doxastic theories of faith: (1) the argument from religious doubt; (2) the use of ‘faith’ in linguistic utterances; and (3) the possibility of pragmatic (...) class='Hi'>faith. We argue that belief is required to maintain a distinction between genuine faith, pretend faith, and fictionalist faith. (shrink)

Peter Winch's philosophy of religion is controversial, accused of mere “perspectivism” and fideism, and for avoiding discussion of any existential reference for the object of belief. This essay examines what Winch meant by a “perspective.” It first deals with problems of first person propositions of belief. For Wittgenstein and Winch belief and the fact it believes are inextricably bound together. Thus Winch argues that what is said cannot be divorced from the situation of the sayer; understanding requires (...) making shifts in perspective. Finally I compare Winch's use of religious language to Augustine's doctrine of the “inner word,” arguing that there are important parallels in Winch to pre‐Lockean theological understandings of faith. (shrink)

In this paper, I solve a puzzle generated by three conflicting claims about the relationship between faith, belief, and control: according to the Identity Thesis, faith is a type of belief, and according to Fideistic Voluntarism, we sometimes have control over whether or not we have faith, but according to Doxastic Involuntarism, we never have control over what we believe. To solve the puzzle, I argue that the Identity Thesis is true, but that either Fideistic (...) Voluntarism or Doxastic Voluntarism is false, depending on how we understand "control." I distinguish two notions of control: direct intention-based control and indirect reflective control. I argue that though we have direct intention-based control over neither belief nor faith, we have indirect reflective control over each of them. Moreover, indirect reflective control helps explain how we can be held accountable for each. (shrink)

Peter Winch's philosophy of religion is controversial, accused of mere “perspectivism” and fideism, and for avoiding discussion of any existential reference for the object of belief. This essay examines what Winch meant by a “perspective.” It first deals with problems of first person propositions of belief. For Wittgenstein and Winch belief and the fact it believes are inextricably bound together. Thus Winch argues that what is said cannot be divorced from the situation of the sayer; understanding requires (...) making shifts in perspective. Finally I compare Winch's use of religious language to Augustine's doctrine of the “inner word,” arguing that there are important parallels in Winch to pre‐Lockean theological understandings of faith. (shrink)

Preterm birth is defined as delivery occurring before 37 weeks gestation.1 Infants born prematurely have increased risks of morbidity and mortality throughout life, especially during the first year. These risks increase as the gestational age at birth decreases.2 Additionally, there are significant racial and ethnic differences in preterm birth rates. In 2022, the rate of preterm birth among non-Hispanic black women was approximately 50% higher than that observed in non-Hispanic white women.1 The outcomes for these infants are also disparate–preterm birth (...) and low birth weight are the second-leading causes of infant mortality (deaths before 1 year of age). Notably, among preterm neonates, infants born to non-Hispanic black women have a mortality rate more than double that of infants born to non-Hispanic white mothers.3 Importantly, there is a small but significant group of neonates that can be classified as severely premature (those born <28 weeks). Infants born before 28 weeks have varied and uncertain outcomes. While this group accounts for only 0.4% of preterm births, it also accounts for 40% of deaths among preterm neonates.4 As noted by Romanis and Adkins, the advent of artificial amnion and placenta technology (AAPT) holds promise for its potential to address the physiologic complications and mortality risks of extreme prematurity by introducing amniotic substitutes that mimic in vivo placental oxygenation and substrate delivery. In contrast …. (shrink)

A popular objection to theistic commitment involves the idea that faith is irrational. Specifically, some seem to put forth something like the following argument: (P1) Everyone (or almost everyone) who has faith is epistemically irrational, (P2) All theistic believers have faith, thus (C) All (or most) theistic believers are epistemically irrational. In this paper, I argue that this line of reasoning fails. I do so by considering a number of candidates for what faith might be. I (...) argue that, for each candidate, either (P1) is false or (P2) is false. Then, I make two positive suggestions for how faith can be epistemically rational but nonetheless have a unique relationship to evidence: one, that Jamesian self-justifying attitudes describe a distinctive kind of faith in oneself and others, and two, that faith is not solely based on empirical evidence. (shrink)

In the appendix of his latest book, Incontinence of the Void, Žižek presents an account of how, according to his dialectical materialism, love can overcome death. This article situates Žižek ’s argument in the context of his ontology and his theory of the subject to explicate how Žižek arrives at this position: one that appears, on the surface, to be inconsistent with a staunch materialist and atheistic stance. Building on Žižek ’s references to Kierkegaard in this appendix, I will furthermore (...) argue that the figure of the Knight of Faith from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling can be as another instantiation of the revolutionary subject of the act. This figure can be said to participate in a type of love that overcomes death insofar as its attachment to objects of desire embodies the acephalous, undead drive that is not reducible to ontic or symbolic structures of reality. (shrink)

Is propositional religious faith constituted by belief? Recent debate has focussed on whether faith may be constituted by a positive non‐doxastic cognitive state, which can stand in place of belief. This article sets out and defends the doxastic theory. We consider and reject three arguments commonly used in favour of non‐doxastic theories of faith: (1) the argument from religious doubt; (2) the use of ‘faith’ in linguistic utterances; and (3) the possibility of pragmatic (...) class='Hi'>faith. We argue that belief is required to maintain a distinction between genuine faith, pretend faith, and fictionalist faith. (shrink)

I defend the claim that propositional religious faith that p implies belief that p. While this claim might seem trivial, it has been criticized by Alston, Pojman, Audi, and McKaughan and Howard-Snyder. I begin by defending this view against four objections. In addition to criticizing the belief-plus model, each of the above philosophers have offered their own alternatives to the belief-plus model. I focus on McKaughan’s recent accounts of faith: ”trusting acceptance’ and ”hopeful affirmation’. I (...) argue, following Howard-Snyder, that hopeful affirmation fails to give sufficient conditions for faith. I then argue that there is no reason to think that the token acceptances in faith as trusting acceptance are not instances of belief. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne argues that belief is a necessary but not sufficient condition for faith, and he also argues that, while faith is voluntary, belief is involuntary. This essay is concerned with the tension arising from the involuntary aspect of faith, the Christian doctrine that human beings have an obligation to exercise faith, and the moral claim that people are only responsible for actions where they have the ability to do otherwise. Put more concisely, the (...) problem concerns the coherence of the following claims: (1) one cannot have faith, (2) one has an obligation to have faith, and (3) ought implies can. To solve this dilemma, I offer three solutions that I believe have the philosophical resources to demonstrate the consistency of these claims. Thus, I defend the claim that it is logically possible for a person to be culpable for an involuntary failure to have faith in God. (shrink)

Jonathan Wolff and Timothy Hinton have criticized a version of liberal egalitarianism, often associated with Ronald Dworkin, for promoting an account of social justice that fails to treat everyone with respect. This paper analyses Wolff’s and Hinton’s critiques, particularly with regard to how notions of self-respect and respect-standing are deployed. The paper argues that the analyses of both Wolff and Hinton display affinities with a dualist approach to social justice. A dualist approach theorizes respect as an aspect of both distributive, (...) socioeconomic injustice and cultural injustice, rather than of the former only, which is typical of liberal egalitarianism. Nancy Fraser is widely associated with such a dualist framework, so her version is used to assess Wolff’s and Hinton’s work. The paper argues that both make use of ideals and commitments from the dualist approach to justice in their respect objection. However, despite their evident sympathy for the notion of cultural injustice, both continue to theorize respect primarily as an aspect of distributive justice. Thus, for cultural justice theorists, Wolff’s and Hinton’s critiques of Dworkinian justice may leave something to be desired. (shrink)

Is belief in God reasonable? Richard Dawkins is right to say that traditional arguments for the existence of God are flawed; but so is his own disproof of the existence of God, and there are gaps in neo-Darwinian explanations of the origin of language, of life, and of the universe. The rational response is neither theism nor atheism but agnosticism. Faith in a creed is no virtue, but mere belief in God may be reasonable even if false.

In this paper I evaluate Zamulinski’s recent attempt to rebut an argument to the conclusion that having any kind of religious faith violates a moral duty. I agree with Zamulinski that the argument is unsound, but I disagree on where it goes wrong. I criticize Zamulinski’s alternative construal of Christian faith as existential commitment to fundamental assumptions. It does not follow that we should accept the moral argument against religious faith, for at least two reasons. First, Zamulinski’s (...) Cliffordian ethics of belief is defective in several regards. Second, the truth of doxastic involuntarism and the possibility of doxastic excuse conditions can be used to demonstrate that the argument is unconvincing. (shrink)

This article deals with two types of Christian faith in the light of the challenges posed by the ethics of belief. It is proposed that the difficulties with Clifford’s formulation of that ethic can best be handled if the ethic is interpreted in terms of role-specific intellectual integrity. But the ethic still poses issues for the traditional interpretation of Christian faith when it is conceived as a series of discrete but related propositions, especially historical propositions. For as (...) so conceived, the believer makes claims that fall within the province of an intellectual discipline, history, that requires evidence and rules of procedure for the adjudication of such claims. It is noteworthy how few Christian theologians and philosophers of religion deal with the issue in these terms. Alvin Plantinga is a noteworthy exception and his views are examined and criticized because, among other things, his conclusion is that any believer without having any training in biblical languages or historical studies can know that the New Testament narratives are true. The article then considers a second conception of Christian faith in which this conflict does not arise. One finds it in the works of Schleiermacher, Wittgenstein, and, surprisingly, in the conception of faith found in the early writings of Karl Barth. (shrink)

One can have faith in someone, believe in someone and trust someone, and these notions seem closely related. Any account of faith should then address its relation to trust and belief. Like trust, faith can similarly have propositional and relational forms. One can have faith that God is good and faith in God; one can trust that another will do something and trust them to do it. Starting from a comparison between these forms of (...) faith and trust, this paper proposes a philosophical analysis of faith and its relation to trust and belief. (shrink)

My main aim in this paper is to contribute to the elucidation of the nature of non-religious faith. I start by summarising several well-known arguments that belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for faith. I then try to identify the nature of the positive cognitive attitude towards p that is involved in having faith that p. After dismissing some candidates for the role, I explore the idea that faith and hope are similar attitudes. On this (...) basis, I then advance a new characterisation of faith. Finally, I turn to the question of the rationality of faith. I argue that faith is intrinsically irrational because it is an intrinsically incoherent propositional attitude, but that there is nonetheless a sense in which faith is neither intrinsically epistemically irrational nor intrinsically practically irrational. (shrink)

This article deals with two types of Christian faith in the light of the challenges posed by the ethics of belief. It is proposed that the difficulties with Clifford’s formulation of that ethic can best be handled if the ethic is interpreted in terms of role-specific intellectual integrity. But the ethic still poses issues for the traditional interpretation of Christian faith when it is conceived as a series of discrete but related propositions, especially historical propositions. For as (...) so conceived, the believer makes claims that fall within the province of an intellectual discipline, history, that requires evidence and rules of procedure for the adjudication of such claims. It is noteworthy how few Christian theologians and philosophers of religion deal with the issue in these terms. Alvin Plantinga is a noteworthy exception and his views are examined and criticized because, among other things, his conclusion is that any believer without having any training in biblical languages or historical studies can know that the New Testament narratives are true. The article then considers a second conception of Christian faith in which this conflict does not arise. One finds it in the works of Schleiermacher, Wittgenstein, and, surprisingly, in the conception of faith found in the early writings of Karl Barth. (shrink)

An objection frequently brought against critical or satirical expressions, especially when these target religions, is that they are ‘offensive’. In this article, I indicate why the existence of diverse and conflicting beliefs gives people an incentive to formulate their complaints in the language of offence. But I also cast doubt on whether people, in saying they are offended really mean to present that as the foundation of their complaint and, if they do, whether their complaint should weigh with us. These (...) doubts do not apply to everything we might find offensive; in particular, they do not apply to simple cases of ‘sensory offence’; but they do apply to ‘belief-based offence’. Relying on offence also implies, inequitably, that different faiths should be differently protected depending on their susceptibility to offence; and the faithful themselves should worry about the flimsiness of claims based on ‘bare knowledge’ offence. I propose a principle of respect for beliefs as a differently grounded and more plausible reason for curbing our treatment of others’ beliefs. However, that principle has a limited compass and is hemmed in by the claims of free expression. It is also less suited to dictating the content of law than to influencing our conduct within the law. (shrink)

Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticism is that faith seems compatible with doubt in a way that belief is not. Thus, it seems possible to have faith without belief, and several non-doxasticist accounts of faith are motivated inter alia by the need to account for this type of doubt. I provide three avenues of response: (1) favored cases of faith without belief beg the (...) question by stipulating faith-that-p-without-belief-that-p, or if the non-doxasticist provides evidence that there is faith without belief, this evidence points to either (2) no-faith-that-p-because-disbelief-that-p or (3) faith-that-p-with-belief-that-p. (shrink)

Clinical Ethics, Ahead of Print. The migration of health-care professionals has often produced morally charged discussions among ethicists, politicians, and policy makers in the migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries because of its devastating effects on the health of those left behind in the countries of origin.This movement of skilled professionals – their decision to leaving their countries of origin in search of better work environments – has created a phenomenon that has been described as brain drain. Although the migration of health (...) workers continue to bring prosperity to millions of people around the world, they have also evoked hopelessness in many more people. Thus, questions of global justice manifest themselves when it comes to the matters of brain drain and the just distribution of health and healthcare professionals. (shrink)

Flavin‐containing monooxygenases (FMOs), traditionally known for detoxifying xenobiotics, are now recognized for their involvement in endogenous metabolism. We recently discovered that an isoform of FMO, fmo‐2 in Caenorhabditis elegans, alters endogenous metabolism to impact longevity and stress tolerance. Increased expression of fmo‐2 in C. elegans modifies the flux through the key pathway known as One Carbon Metabolism (OCM). This modified flux results in a decrease in the ratio of S‐adenosyl‐methionine (SAM) to S‐adenosyl‐homocysteine (SAH), consequently diminishing methylation capacity. Here we discuss (...) how FMO‐2‐mediated formate production during tryptophan metabolism may serve as a trigger for changing the flux in OCM. We suggest formate bridges tryptophan and OCM, altering metabolic flux away from methylation during fmo‐2 overexpression. Additionally, we highlight how these metabolic results intersect with the mTOR and AMPK pathways, in addition to mitochondrial metabolism. In conclusion, the goal of this essay is to bring attention to the central role of FMO enzymes but lack of understanding of their mechanisms. We justify a call for a deeper understanding of FMO enzyme's role in metabolic rewiring through tryptophan/formate or other yet unidentified substrates. Additionally, we emphasize the identification of novel drugs and microbes to induce FMO activity and extend lifespan. (shrink)

It is common for young Christians to go off to college assured in their beliefs but, in the course of their first year or two, they meet what appears to them to be powerful defenses of scientific naturalism and crushing critiques of the basic Christian story (BCS), and many are thrown into doubt. They think to themselves something like this: "To be honest, I am troubled about the BCS. While the problem of evil, the apparent cultural basis for the diversity (...) of religions, the explanatory breadth of contemporary science, naturalistic explanations of religious experience and miracle reports, and textual and historical criticism of the Bible, among other things, don’t make me believe the BCS is false , I am in serious doubt about it, so much so that I lack belief of it. In that case, how can I have Christian faith? And if I don’t have faith, how can I keep on praying, attending church, affirming the creed, confessing my sins, taking the sacraments, singing the hymns and songs, and so on? I can’t, unless I’m a hypocrite. So integrity requires me to drop the whole thing and get out." Of course, our student is not alone. Many Christians find themselves for some portion of their lives somewhere on the trajectory from doubt to getting out. Indeed, Christians in the West struggle with intellectual doubt more than they used to, especially university-educated Christians. What should we say to them? Some will say “Get out!,” welcoming the development as a path to liberation. We explore a different response in this essay. (shrink)

Modern philosophical accounts of faith and reason have often been characterized by the idea that faith in God should be epistemically grounded in the belief that God exists. This idea only partially characterizes the Christian view of faith, at least if we consider Aquinas’s thought, which has often been taken as an exemplary way of handling the relationship between faith and reason. I argue that, even though evidence for God’s existence plays a significant role in (...) Aquinas’s reflections, this is only part of his view of the relation between faith and reason. Unlike many modern interpreters of his works, Aquinas sees not only the role played by reason in arguing for faith, but also the autonomy of faith—the fact that faith stands by itself—and the influence that it can exert on the use of reason, including his discussion of the preambles of faith. (shrink)

Sorne people use “faith” to refer to an action, some to a passion, and sorne to a composite of the two. “Faith” is also sometimes used interchangeably with “belief.” This paper is an effort to identify and overcorne some of the problems caused by these facts. I pursue this end by distinguishing several meanings of “belief,” and by distinguishing actional faith, passional faith, and faithfulness from one another. I argue that much can be gained (...) by restricting the meaning of “faith” to the concept of a non-evidential doxastic passion that can be caused by any number of things, including God, if God exists. (shrink)

Sorne people use “faith” to refer to an action, some to a passion, and sorne to a composite of the two. “Faith” is also sometimes used interchangeably with “belief.” This paper is an effort to identify and overcorne some of the problems caused by these facts. I pursue this end by distinguishing several meanings of “belief,” and by distinguishing actional faith, passional faith, and faithfulness from one another. I argue that much can be gained (...) by restricting the meaning of “faith” to the concept of a non-evidential doxastic passion that can be caused by any number of things, including God, if God exists. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article provides a Global South perspective on marginalised migrant youth and higher educational aspirations, with a specific focus on South Africa. We use data from a case study in Johannesburg to illustrate how marginalised migrant youth experience particular forms of disadvantage in their endeavours to realise their educational aspirations. Yet, educational opportunities and the achievement of educational aspirations may enhance dimensions important for individual wellbeing. Through education, marginalised migrant youth become better positioned to pursue what they have reason to (...) value, including escaping poverty in both their home and host countries. Using the human development and capability lens, the paper also presents what the disadvantages experienced by marginalised migrant youth may mean for human development. We argue that constrained educational aspirations can result in corrosive disadvantage and ultimately systemic poverty. We conclude the paper by highlighting how the capability approach could be used to inform social and educational policies in contexts of marginalisation. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall examine William Alston's influential view that the cognitive element in religious faith should be identified with ‘acceptance’ rather than ‘belief’. Although I am sympathetic to Alston's reluctance to regard belief as essential to faith, I shall argue that one can redescribe the cases that Alston invokes in support of his claim in terms of the standard notion of degrees‐of‐belief without loss. It will be further argued that, given Alston's constraints, his (...) notion of acceptance, if not identical to belief, is at least a species of belief. (shrink)

The rituals practiced by the initiated and learned by the “chosen ones” so that they can be perpetuated, have generated the existence of two worlds. The first is that of immediate impact, on the first level of perception, amendable in its circumstantial data. The second world is the treasurer of recognizable factors in many similar situations, in stages different from manifestation and elements of the unique, the unusual. The second level has established itself as a human need to periodically immerse (...) in the sacred time. The initiation into the mysteries held by the world of the sacred is made by those who know how to practice it. They are the perfomers of narrative sequences, which are intended to reinstate the practices, rituals, customs, traditions and beliefs in today’s world. To support our claim, we are going to refer to four surveys, conducted on different, but conjunct topics which have confirmed the hypothesis formulated by us in the early 1990s: folk beliefs, ignored during the communist period and banned within the audiovisual, have merged with religious beliefs and have survived as a second level of perceiving the ritual sequence. The study highlights the syncretism of the two fields, religious faith and folk beliefs, and the role of mass media in promoting them in order to revitalize the collective memory and to contribute to the literacy of the younger generation. The principles of the Orthodox Christian catechesis explain the presence of the priest in the existential ceremonies. (shrink)

Women constitute the majority of both the leadership and the membership of local toxic waste activist organizations; yet, gender and the fight against toxic hazards are rarely analyzed together in studies on gender or on environmental issues. This absence of rigorous analysis of gender issues in toxic waste activism is particularly noticeable since many scholars already make note that women predominate in this movement. This article is an attempt to understand how women activists transcend private pain, fear, and disempowerment and (...) become powerful forces for change by organizing against toxic waste in their communities. This article systematically looks at these connections by examining data from survey research and case studies. The authors are particularly interested in the transformation of self of these women, with an emphasis on “ways of knowing.” They also examine the potential of existing social movement theories to explain women's activism against toxic waste. (shrink)

Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that utilizes data about self and context to gain an understanding of the connectivity between self and others. This introductory article exposes the reader to our own praxis of collaborative autoethnography which we used to interrogate how we navigate the US academy as immigrant women faculty. Before introducing the articles in this special issue, we explore the autoethnography continuum, provide sample areas covered by autoethnographers, and explicate the practice of collaborative autoethnography. We conclude (...) this piece with implications for future use of autoethnography as research method. (shrink)

Preface ix Acknowledgements xi 1 Introduction: towards an acceptable fideism 1 The metaquestion: what is the issue about the ‘justifiability’ of religious belief? 4 Faith-beliefs 6 Overview of the argument 8 Glossary of special terms 18 2 The ‘justifiability’ of faith-beliefs: an ultimately moral issue 26 A standard view: the concern is for epistemic justifiability 26 The problem of doxastic control 28 The impossibility of believing at will 29 Indirect control over beliefs 30 ‘Holding true’ and ‘taking (...) to be true’ 33 A second—direct—locus of doxastic control 35 Moral doxastic responsibilities 41 The moral significance of faith-beliefs 47 Linking moral to epistemic justifiability: reinstating the standard view? 48 3 The epistemic justifiability of faith-beliefs: an ambiguity thesis 53 Plausibility of requiring epistemic for moral justifiability under a realist interpretation of faith-beliefs 53 Interpreting the link principle: epistemic entitlement as requiring evidential justification 55 Evidentialist requirements specified by an implicit evidential practice 65 Rational empiricist evidential practice 66 Applying rational empiricist evidential practice to theistic faith-beliefs: an ambiguity thesis 68 vi contents 4 Responses to evidential ambiguity: isolationist and Reformed epistemologies 77 Two strategies for defending the moral probity of theistic faith-belief in the face of evidential ambiguity 78 Appealing to a special theistic evidential practice/improved epistemologies 79 An isolationist epistemology 79 Reformed epistemology 86 Conclusion: the need for a fideist response to ambiguity 99 5 Faith as doxastic venture 101 Agenda for a defence of doxastic venture 102 The nature of theistic faith 103 The doxastic venture model 106 The psychological possibility of doxastic venture 111 A Jamesian account 112 ‘Passionally’ caused beliefs 113 6 Believing by faith: a Jamesian position 122 An initial hypothesis for a Jamesian thesis on permissible doxastic venture 123 The notion of a ‘genuine option’ 125 A ‘degrees of belief ’ challenge 128 Evidentially undecidable forced options 129 Permissible doxastic venture: supra- not counter-evidential 135 How theistic religion could present essentially evidentially undecidable genuine options: the notion of a highest-order framing principle 137 Restricting thesis ( Ji) to faith-propositions: thesis ( J) 145 7 Integrationist values: limiting permissible doxastic venture 151 Can counter-evidential fideism be non-arbitrarily excluded? 151 A coherence requirement and integrationist values 155 Moral integration of faith-commitments 163 Implications for reflective faith-believers 167 Coda: A reflection on Abraham as forebear in faith 170 contents vii 8 Arguments for supra-evidential fideism 174 The importance of defending the epistemic permissibility of faith-ventures 176 Strategies for supporting fideism 178 An ‘assimilation to personal relations cases’ strategy: experimental ventures in interpersonal trust 180 The ‘assimilation to personal relations cases’ strategy: cases where ‘faith in a fact can help create a fact’ 182 A consequentialist strategy 185 A note on Pascal’s Wager 187 The tu quoque strategy 189 Is hard-line evidentialism self-undermining? 190 Attitudes to passional doxastic inclinations 194 Epistemological externalism again: a presumption in favour of fideism? 196 Scepticism about passional doxastic inclinations as guides to truth: how passions may be schooled 197 The significance of scientific theories of passional motivations for faith-commitment 204 An impasse? 206 9 A moral preference for modest fideism? 208 Implications of accepting ( J+) for orthodox and revisionary theistic faith-ventures 209 The apparent fideist/evidentialist impasse and its implications 211 Beyond impasse? Direct moral evaluation of the fideist/evidentialist debate 215 Self-acceptance and authenticity 216 Hard-line evidentialism as grounded in doctrinaire naturalism 220 Coherence amongst moral and religious passional commitments 225 Conclusion 227 Bibliography 230 Index 237. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of religion have turned their attention to the topic of faith. Given the ubiquity of the word “faith” both in and out of religious contexts, many of them have chosen to begin their forays by offering an analysis of faith. But it seems that there are many kinds of faith: religious faith, non‐religious faith, interpersonal faith, and propositional faith, to name a few. In this article, I discuss (...) analyses of faith that have been offered and point out the dimensions along which they differ. (shrink)

Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems and world view that relate humanity to spirituality and sometimes also with moral values. It may be said that it is a belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe. Many religions have narratives, symbols and sacred history and traditions that are intended to give a meaning of life or to explain the origin of the life and the universe. They (...) tend to drive morality, ethics, faith and religious laws and or preferred a lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature. But in the present world religious faiths are treated like a brand. The process of branding involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. In a society overrun by commercial clutter, religion has become yet another product sold in the consumer marketplace, and faiths of all kinds must compete with a myriad of more entertaining and more convenient leisure activities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 314-334 [Access article in PDF] The Epistemology of Cognitive Literary Studies F. Elizabeth Hart I Literary scholars have begun incorporating the insights of cognitive science into literary studies, bringing to bear on questions of literary experience the results of explorations within a wide range of fields that define today's cognitive science. The investigation of the human mind and its reasoning processes encompasses a rich (...) variety of empirical and speculative disciplines, including cognitive psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, evolutionary psychology, developmental psychology, computer science, philosophy, and anthropology. These disciplines are all related to one another by the questions they ask about the brain and mind and the ground they cover in staking out their research agendas; but each also contributes uniquely in terms of individual scope and focus. Literary critics, eavesdropping on this maturing coalition, are now producing critical works that apply cognitive research to a similarly impressive range of literary concerns, with results so far that seem to span the gap between traditional and more contemporary literary critical approaches.All such criticism is dependent on scientific studies of the brain and mind and so accepts axiomatically some degree of epistemological efficacy in scientific empiricism. But this acceptance has not been naive or uncritical and has, in fact, been at times carefully qualified by critics' sensitivity to debate--to the lack of consensus among cognitive scientists, and to the fact that cognitive science is itself in its infancy stage, with its own practitioners often openly tentative about their results and descriptive capabilities. As it happens, such debate, in recent years, has even proven beneficial for literary scholarship since an important [End Page 314] paradigm shift has taken place that now makes some aspects of cognitive science more compatible than ever with the interests of literary studies. This is because, whereas an earlier phase of cognitive science focused its energies on Artificial Intelligence and on theories of language and psychology that supported AI, grounding its theories implicitly in a metaphor of the mind as a computer, today's cognitive scientists tend to concentrate instead on the more organic metaphor of the "embodiment" of mind, that is, of the mind's substantive indebtedness to its bodily, social, and cultural contexts, and on the figurative phenomena of metaphor, metonymy, image schemata, "fields," "frames," other "integrative mental spaces" (as they are called), and the gradient structures and prototypical bases of semantic categories, all of which contribute to recasting human reason into a set of highly imaginative--not logical but figural--processes. 1 For literary theory and criticism, this shift in cognitive science toward "the body in the mind" 2 --tantamount to a wholesale rejection of philosophical rationalism--has given rise to a new kind of interdisciplinary practice, to the potential for a sincere engagement between diverse sciences and even between literature and science that stretches all the bounds of what literary scholars generally mean when they speak of being interdisciplinary (e.g., exchanges with history, art history, anthropology, film studies, sociology).In the discussion that follows, I would like to explore this new interdisciplinarity in literary studies by examining its epistemological implications. I begin with a description of the kinds of criticism now being produced under the rubric of cognitive literary criticism or--to reflect the field's scope more accurately--cognitive and cognitive-evolutionary criticism. This description is not intended as a comprehensive or evaluative survey, since in-depth review articles of extant works are available elsewhere. 3 Rather, I hope to familiarize my readers with the basic orientations of this theory and criticism so that they can grasp the epistemological relations that will become the essay's focus. To lay a further groundwork for this focus, I will review various uses of the term "cognitive" (or "cognitivism") in the scholarship and offer an analysis of its meanings, first in cognitive science and then in literary theory. Building, then, on what "cognitive" might signify for literary studies, I show how a literary approach based on today's cognitive science is uniquely situated among other approaches because of its underlying theory of human... (shrink)