Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:31:48.184Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Can fictionalists have faith?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2017

FINLAY MALCOLM
FINLAY MALCOLM*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9LP, UK
*
e-mail: fpmalcolm@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to non-doxastic theories of propositional faith, belief that p is not necessary for faith that p. Rather, propositional faith merely requires a ‘positive cognitive attitude’. This broad condition, however, can be satisfied by several pragmatic approaches to a domain, including fictionalism. This article shows precisely how fictionalists can have faith given non-doxastic theory, and explains why this is problematic. It then explores one means of separating the two theories, in virtue of the fact that the truth of the propositions in a discourse is of little consequence for fictionalists, whereas their truth matters deeply for the faithful. Although promising, this approach incurs several theoretical costs, hence providing a compelling reason to favour a purely doxastic account of faith.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 215 - 232
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alston, William (1996) ‘Belief, acceptance, and religious faith’, in Jordan, Jeff & Howard-Snyder, Daniel (eds) Faith, Freedom, and Rationality (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield), 3–27.Google Scholar
Alston, William (2007) ‘Audi on nondoxastic faith’, in Greco, John, Mele, Alfred, & Timmons, Mark (eds) Rationality and the Good: Critical Essays on the Ethics and Epistemology of Robert Audi (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 123–138.Google Scholar
Audi, Robert (2011) Rationality and Religious Commitment (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Bishop, John (2007) Believing By Faith: An Essay in the Epistemology and Ethics of Religious Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Bishop, John (2014) ‘Trusting others, trusting in God, trusting the world’, in Callahan, Laura Frances & O'Connor, Timothy (eds) Religious Faith and Intellectual Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 159–173.Google Scholar
Bratman, Michael (1992) ‘Practical reasoning and acceptance in a context’, Mind, 101, 1–15.Google Scholar
Buchak, Lara (2012) ‘Can it be rational to have faith?’, in Chandler, Jake & Harrison, Victoria S. (eds) Probability in the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 225–246.Google Scholar
Buchak, Lara (2014) ‘Rational faith and justified belief’, in Callahan, Laura Frances & O'Connor, Timothy (eds) Religious Faith and Intellectual Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 49–72.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. Jonathan (1992) An Essay on Belief and Acceptance (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Deng, Natalja (2015) ‘Religion for naturalists’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 78, 195–214.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel (2013) ‘Propositional faith: what it is and what it is not’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 50, 357–372.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel (2016) ‘Does faith entail belief?’, Faith and Philosophy, 33 2, 142–162.Google Scholar
James, William (1919) The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (London: Longmans, Green & Co).Google Scholar
Jay, Christopher (2014) ‘The Kantian moral hazard argument for religious fictionalism’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 75, 207–232.Google Scholar
Jay, Christopher (2016) ‘Testimony, belief and nondoxastic faith: the Humean argument for religious fictionalism’, Religious Studies, 52, 247–261.Google Scholar
Jordan, Jeff (2006) Pascal's Wager (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Kvanvig, Jonathan L. (2013) ‘Affective theism and people of faith’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 38, 109–128.Google Scholar
Le Poidevin, Robin (1996) Arguing for Atheism (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
Leng, Mary (2005) ‘Revolutionary fictionalism: a call to arms’, Philosophia Mathematica, 3, 277–293.Google Scholar
Mackie, John L. (1977) Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London: Penguin).Google Scholar
Malcolm, Finlay & Scott, Michael (2016) ‘Faith, belief and fictionalism’, in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (Early View), 1–18.Google Scholar
McKaughan, Daniel (2013) ‘Authentic faith and acknowledged risk: dissolving the problem of faith and reason’, Religious Studies, 49, 101–124.Google Scholar
McKaughan, Daniel (2014) ‘Faith as active commitment’, The Nature of Faith conference, St. Louis, available online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrgVd96h2WA.Google Scholar
Nolan, Daniel, Restall, Greg, & West, Caroline (2005) ‘Moral fictionalism versus the rest’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 83, 307–330.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (2000) Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, John L. (2005) Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, John L. (2014) ‘How to make faith a virtue’, in Callahan, Laura Frances & O'Connor, Timothy (eds) Religious Faith and Intellectual Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 74–92.Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (2001) ‘Plantinga on warrant’, Religious Studies, 37, 203–214.Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (2005) Faith and Reason, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas (1980) The Scientific Image (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar