Abstract
AbstractMy main aim in this paper is to contribute to the elucidation of the nature of non-religious faith. I start by summarising several well-known arguments that belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for faith. I then try to identify the nature of the positive cognitive attitude towards p that is involved in having faith that p. After dismissing some candidates for the role, I explore the idea that faith and hope are similar attitudes. On this basis, I then advance a new characterisation of faith. Finally, I turn to the question of the rationality of faith. I argue that faith is intrinsically irrational because it is an intrinsically incoherent propositional attitude, but that there is nonetheless a sense in which faith is neither intrinsically epistemically irrational nor intrinsically practically irrational.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference29 articles.
1. Alston, W. (1996). Belief, acceptance, and religious faith. In J. Jordan & D. Howard-Snyder (Eds.), Faith, freedom, and rationality (pp. 3–27). Rowman & Littlefield.
2. Alston, W. (2007). Audi on Non-Doxastic Faith. In M. Timmons, J. Greco, & A. Mele (Eds.), Rationality and the good. critical essays on the ethics and epistemology of Robert Audi (pp. 123–139). Oxford University Press.
3. Audi, R. (2008). Belief, faith and acceptance. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 63, 87–102.
4. Blöser, C. (2019). Hope as an irreducible concept. Ratio, 32, 205–214.
5. Buchak, L. (2014). Rational faith and justified belief. In L. Callahan & T. O’Connor (Eds.), Religious faith and intellectual virtue (pp. 49–72). Oxford University Press.