A Philosophy of Faith Belief, Truth and Varieties of Commitment

Description

Faith occupies an important place in human lives. It can be directed towards God, friends, political systems and sports teams, and is said to help people through crises and to motivate people to achieve life goals. But what is faith? Philosophers and theologians have, for centuries, been concerned with questions about the rationality of faith, but more recently, have focussed on what kind of psychological attitude faith is. The authors of this book bring together, for the first time, the different elements of this recent debate, staking out the different positions and arguments, and defending a novel ‘true grit’ theory of faith, from which the rationality and language of faith are addressed from a fresh perspective. The book engages with a range of questions about the nature of faith, including: Does faith require belief? Is faith motivational? What is the relationship between faith, trust and hope? Do expressions of faith aim at the truth? And, in what sense is faith resilient? The authors defend a distinctive conception of faith involving resistance to psychological, practical and epistemic challenges, from which a novel account of the psychology and epistemology of faith is developed. The treatment of the topic draws extensively on the philosophy of mind, language and religion, and provides a map of this exciting field of study for newcomers to the philosophy of faith. A Philosophy of Faith will appeal to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and epistemology who are interested in the topic of faith. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction What Is Faith? Approaches to the Study of Faith Religious Faith Epistemology Language Matters of Agreement, Disagreement, and the True Grit Theory of Faith Chapter Overviews 1. Propositional Faith 1.1 Propositional Faith: Doxasticism vs. Nondoxasticism 1.2 Acceptance and Belief 1.3 The Transparency Condition 1.4 Doxasticism and Nondoxasticism: What Is at Issue? 1.5 Conclusion 2. Against Nondoxasticism 2.1 Faith Is not Truth-Valued 2.2 The Argument from Doubt 2.2.1 The Standard Argument from Doubt 2.2.2 Doubt and Belief: It’s a Matter of Degree 2.2.3 Doubt and Belief: Single-Minded Doubt 2.2.4 Faith Exemplars 2.3 Arguments from Language: Mental State Attributions 2.4 Pragmatic Arguments 2.5 Conclusion 3. True Grit and the Case for Doxasticism 3.1 The Problem of Sincere Endorsement 3.1.1 Norms, Faith and Bullshit 3.1.2 Respectable Bullshitting 3.1.3 Fictionalism 3.1.4 Summary 3.2 True Grit and Doxasticism 3.2.1 True Grit and Propositional Faith 3.2.2 True Grit, Acceptance and Belief 3.3 Conclusion 4. Objectual Faith 4.1 Preliminaries: the Structure and Content of Objectual Faith 4.2 The Cognitive Requirements of Objectual Faith 4.3 Reduction and Priority 4.4 Objectual Faith, Trust and True Grit 4.4.1 Objectual Faith as Trust 4.4.2 Objectual Faith without Trust 4.5 Conclusion 5. Faith, Motivation and Plans 5.1 Faith, Alignment and Plans 5.2 The Practical and Non-Cognitive Conditions on Faith 5.3 Varieties of Positivity Theory 5.4 Positivity Theory: for and against (Mostly against) 5.5 Alternative Non-Cognitive Accounts 5.5.1 Faith, Caring and Disappointment 5.5.2 Positivity and True Grit 5.6 Conclusion 6. The Epistemic Status and Scope of Faith 6.1 Three Questions: Status, Psychology and Scope 6.2 The Scope of Faith 6.2.1 Theories of Scope 6.2.2 The Revisability Theory of Scope 6.3 The Status of Faith 6.3.1 Epistemic Virtue and Vice 6.3.1 Intellectually Virtuous Epistemic Resilience: Stability and Perseverant Grit 6.3.2 Faith and Intellectual Firmness 6.4 Conclusion Index