Philosophy of religion, fictionalism, and religious diversity

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 68 (1-3):43-58 (2010)
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Abstract

Until recently philosophy of religion has been almost exclusively focused upon the analysis of western religious ideas. The central concern of the discipline has been the concept God , as that concept has been understood within Judaeo-Christianity. However, this narrow remit threatens to render philosophy of religion irrelevant today. To avoid this philosophy of religion should become a genuinely multicultural discipline. But how, if at all, can philosophy of religion rise to this challenge? The paper considers fictionalism about religious discourse as a possible methodological standpoint from which to practice a tradition-neutral form of philosophy of religion. However, after examining some of the problems incurred by fictionalism, the paper concludes that fictionalism and religious diversity are uneasy bedfellows; which implies that fictionalism is unlikely to be the best theory to shape the practice of philosophy of religion in a multicultural context

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Victoria S. Harrison
University of Macau

Citations of this work

Religious fictionalism.Michael Scott & Finlay Malcolm - 2018 - Philosophy Compass 13 (3):1-11.
Religion for Naturalists.Natalja Deng - 2015 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 78 (2):195-214.
The Kantian Moral Hazard Argument for religious fictionalism.Christopher Jay - 2014 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 75 (3):207-232.
Conceptions of Supreme Deity.Graham Oppy - forthcoming - Sophia:1-11.
Religious fictionalism and the problem of evil.Jon Robson - 2015 - Religious Studies 51 (3):353-360.

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Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
The Scientific Image.William Demopoulos & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (4):603.
The Myth of Morality.Richard Joyce - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fearing fictions.Kendall L. Walton - 1978 - Journal of Philosophy 75 (1):5-27.
Moral Fictionalism.Mark Eli Kalderon - 2005 - Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press.

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