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Religious Experience and Rational Certainty*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Robert A. Oakes
Robert A. Oakes
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, Missouri
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Extract

The purpose of this paper is to clear up the long-standing veritable mountain of misinterpretation, perpetuated from critic to critic, concerning the admittedly problematic concept of self-authenticating (i.e. unmistakable) religious experience. While it may well be the case, as many have argued, that a sort of ‘experience’ about which one could not be mistaken is simply a logically impossible state of affairs, this cannot be known to be the case so long as what is under attack is (as I hope to show) a bogus concept, obviously absurd, having nothing whatsoever to do with the correct interpretation of ‘self-authentication’. Hence, my mission herein is essentially that of philosophical analysis or clarification of meaning. Only upon suitable clarification of this concept will we be in a position to consider the question of its possible application, i.e. whether or not there could be an instantiation of such experience. I might point out that my central concern is somewhat more explicatory than historical, though I believe that the account developed in this paper is essentially congenial with the intent of those who have been proponents of the view that there can be self-authenticating religious experience. Let us begin, then, by turning to some representative criticism of the concept in question.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 311 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

page 311 note 1 An earlier version of this paper was read at the 1973 Summer Conference in Philosophy of Religion, sponsored by the Council for Philosophical Studies, at Calvin College. I am most grateful to the participants of that conference for their very helpful comments.

page 311 note 2 Martin, C. B., Religious Belief (Ithaca, 1959), chapter 5.Google Scholar

page 312 note 1 Penelhum, Terence, Religion and Rationality (New York, 1971), p. 173.Google Scholar Though this is somewhat of a side issue, it might be well to point out the question-begging character of the a priori verificationism embraced by both Martin and Penelhum. That is, while it may be the case – as a matter of fact – that corroborative tests are always logically relevant to the question of the veridicality of any sort of experience, this is something to be shown rather than simply assumed as an analytic truth.

page 312 note 2 Ferre, Frederick, Language, Logic, and God (New York, 1961), p. 103.Google Scholar (My emphasis on last line of quote.)

page 313 note 1 It should be clear that my concern throughout this paper is with the epistemic, rather than what might be termed the ‘psychological’, concept of certainty. The latter sort of certainty is roughly equivalent to ‘complete confidence’, and is, of course, compatible with the falsity of what one is often ‘certain’ about. Being mistaken, however, is clearly incompatible with ‘epistemic certainty’ or (as I tend to put it throughout the paper) ‘rational certainty’.

page 317 note 1 Malcolm, Norman, ‘The Verification Argument’, in Philosophical Analysis: Collection of Essays, edited by Black, Max (Englewood Cliffs, 1950), p. 271.Google Scholar