Religious Beliefs as World-View Beliefs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v10i3.2592Abstract
In this paper, I defend a moderately cognitive account of religious beliefs. Religious beliefs are interpreted as “worldview beliefs”, which I explicate as being indispensable to our everyday and scientific practice; my reading is nonetheless distinct from non-cognitivist readings of “worldview belief” which occasionally appear in the literature. I start with a brief analysis of a recent German contribution to the debate which on the one hand (rightly) insists on the priority of epistemic reasons for or against religious beliefs, but on the other hand contends that religious beliefs are worldview beliefs (section 1). This leads me to explicate a special sense of worldview beliefs, as well as their cognitive role (2). After that, I shed some light on a special epistemological characteristic of worldview beliefs, namely the strong involvement of “free certitude” in their acceptance. I explore the implications for the possible role of arguments for worldview beliefs, especially for worldview beliefs concerning theism (3).References
Beckermann, Ansgar. 2013. Glaube. Berlin, Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
Craig, William L. 1979. The Kalām Cosmological Argument. London: Palgrave. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-04154-1.
—. 2008. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
Craig, William L., and James D. Sinclair. 2009. “The Kalam Cosmological Argument”. In The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William L. Craig and James P. Moreland, 101–201. Chichester, U.K., Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Doyle, John P., and William C. Charron. 1993. “On the Self-Refuting Statement “There is no Truth”: A Medieval Treatment”. Vivarium 31, no. 2: 241–66. doi:10.1163/156853493X00033.
Ferré, Frederick. 1961. Language, Logic, and God. London: Eyre&Spottiswoode.
John Greco. 2018. “Transmitting Faith (and Garbage)”, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 10, no. 3: 85-104. doi:10.24204/ejpr.v10i3.2604.
Isaye, Gaston. 1954. “La justification critique par rétorsion”. Revue Philosophique de Louvain 52, no. 34: 205–33. doi:10.3406/phlou.1954.4490.
Jäger, Christoph. 2003. “Wittgenstein über Gewissheit und religiösen Glauben”. In Die Sprachen der Religion, edited by Florian Uhl and Artur R. Boelderl, 221–56. Berlin: Parerga.
Körner, Stephan. 1984. Metaphysics: Its Structure and Function. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Löffler, Winfried. 2013. Einführung in die Religionsphilosophie. Darmstadt: WBG.
—. 2015. “An Underrated Merit of Plantinga’s Philosophy”. In Plantinga’s ‘Warranted Christian Belief’: Critical Essays with a Reply by Alvin Plantinga, edited by Dieter Schönecker, 65–81. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
—. forthcoming. “Weltbildsätze: Nicht beweisbar, aber auch nicht irrational”.
In (Ir-)Rationaler Glaube, edited by R. Jaster and P. Schulte. Paderborn: Mentis.
Muck, Otto. 1999. Rationalität und Weltanschauung. Philosophische Untersuchungen. Edited by Winfried Löffler. Innsbruck, Wien: Tyrolia.
