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The Passions and Religious Belief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2019

John Cottingham
John Cottingham*
Affiliation:
University of Roehampton, London
*
jgcottingham@mac.com
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Abstract

Much contemporary philosophy of religion suffers from an overly abstract and intellectualized methodology. A more ‘humane’ approach would acknowledge the vital contribution of the emotions and passions to a proper cognitive grasp of the nature of the cosmos and our place within it. The point is illustrated by reference to a number of writers, including Descartes, whose path to knowledge of God, often thought to depend on dispassionate argument alone, in fact relies on a synergy between intellect and emotions.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 85: Passions and the Emotions , July 2019 , pp. 57 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2019 

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References

1 The creed of Sherlock Holmes, in Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 12.

2 Plato, Phaedrus [c. 370 BCE], 246a–254e.

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43 See Cottingham, John, Philosophy and the Good Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Ch. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 ‘Das Gebäude Deines Stolzes ist abzutragen. Und das gibt furchtbare Arbeit.’ From a MS of 1937, in Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 30.