This book is a defence of the philosophy of common sense in the spirit of Thomas Reid and G.E. Moore, drawing on the work of Aristotle, evolutionary biology and psychology, and historical studies on the origins of early modern philosophy. It defines and explores common sense beliefs, and defends them from challenges from prominent philosophers.

Guthrie contends that religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Religion, he says, consists of seeing the world as human like. He offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience.

It is argued that standard accounts of the epistemology of religious commitmentfail to be properly sensitive to certain important features of the nature of religious conviction. Once one takes these features of religious conviction seriously, then it becomes clear that we are not to conceive of the epistemology of religious conviction along completely rational lines.But the moral to extract from this is not fideism, or even a more moderate proposal that casts the epistemic standing of basic religious beliefs along nonrational (...) lines. Rather, one needs to recognise that in an important sense religious convictions are not beliefs at all, but that this is compatible with the idea that many other religious commitments are beliefs. This picture of the nature of religious commitment is shown to fit snugly with the Wittgensteinian account of hinge commitments, such that all rational belief essentially presupposes certain basic arational hinge commitments, along lines originally suggested by John Henry Newman. We are thus able to marshal a parity-style argument in defence of religious commitment. Although religious belief presupposes basic arational religious convictions, it is not on this score epistemically amiss since all belief presupposes basic arational convictions, or hinge commitments. The resulting view of the epistemology of religious commitment is a position I call quasi-fideism. (shrink)

Does it make sense to think of eternal life not as an unending continuation of life subsequent to death but as fully actualized in one’s present mortal and finite life? After outlining conceptual and moral reasons for being troubled by the notion of an endless life, this article draws upon the thought of major Christian theologians and philosophers of religion to expound the idea of eternal life as a possession exclusively of the life one is presently living. Supplementing the claims (...) of religious thinkers with notions of four-dimensionalism and eternalism from theoretical physics and the philosophy of time, and considering important objections to the conception of eternal life in question, I argue for both the conception’s intelligibility and its ethical and spiritual profundity. (shrink)

This paper presents the concept of ‘religious certainty’ I have developed by drawing inspiration from Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘certainty’. After describing the particular traits of religious certainty, this paper addresses two difficulties derived from this concept. On the one hand, it explains why religious certainty functions as such even though all its consequences are far from being absolutely clear; on the other hand, it clarifies why, unlike the rest of certainties, the loss of religious certainty does not result in the (...) collapse of the world-picture made up of all certainties. Subsequently, it analyzes to what extent the teacher can teach religious certainty by acting as a facilitator for its acquisition–if desired—particularly bearing in mind that religious certainty cannot be attained at will. These basic teaching guidelines have several advantages. First, they make it possible to know the nature of religious certainty even better. Second, and most importantly, the fact of having adopted the perspective of a teacher who tries inculcating a religious certainty contributes to detecting and preventing forms of indoctrination that, arguably, might go unnoticed even when attempting to properly present religious certainty—or rather, this way of being religious—in current schools to foster understanding thereof. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that hinge propositions are ways of acting that constitute abilities or skills. My starting point is Moyal-Sharrock's account of hinge propositions. However, Moyal-Sharrock's account leaves gaps to be filled, as it does not offer a unified explanation of the origin of our ungrounded grounds. Her account also lacks resources to respond to the issue of demarcation, since it does not provide a criterion for distinguishing ways of acting that can legitimately fulfill the role of ungrounded (...) grounds from those that cannot. Without an answer to this issue, the relativistic threat is serious. I then propose that by narrowing the ways of acting to those that are constitutive of abilities, we can deal with the relativistic threat. I provide an ecological approach to abilities through which I explain why abilities are reality-soaked and therefore why the ways of acting that constitute them are legitimate ungrounded grounds. Based on that approach, I provide an answer to the issue of demarcation that defuses the relativistic threat. (shrink)

This paper argues that considerations about causal origins of the universe do not favour theism over naturalism. Indeed, if the only data that is relevant to the choice between theism and naturalism is data about causal origins, then it turns out that considerations about causal origins favour naturalism over theism.

دی. زد. فیلیپس یکی از فیلسوفان سرشناس در حوزۀ ناواقع‌گرایی زبان دین است. او بسیار تحت تأثیر هیوم بوده و معتقد است هیوم توانسته در سه مرحله براهین خداشناسی را مخدوش کند. اگرچه او این نقدها را موفق می‌داند، با تمسک به هرمنوتیک تأمل معتقد است که می‌توان از هیوم فراتر رفت و به تأمل در مفاهیم دینی پرداخت. او از این طریق راه خود را از طرفداران هرمنوتیک سوءظن و احیاء جدا می‌کند. فیلیپس معتقد است برای فهم دین باید (...) به تأمل فلسفی درباره مفاهیم دینی پرداخت و به سبک زندگی دین‌داران توجه داشت. اما بر خلاف ادعای خودش، تفاسیرش از آموزه‌های دینی مثل وجود خدا، دعا و جاودانگی مطابق باور دین‌داران نیست و با نظر آنها فاصله زیادی دارد. به علاوه وی به انواع تقریرهای برهان نظم توجه ندارد و لذا بررسی‌های او در این زمینه ناقص است. در نهایت می‌توان گفت، اگرچه وی سعی کرده در برابر پوزیتیویست‌ها به مخالفت برخیزد، ولی نظام فلسفی او به گونه‌ای نیست که بتواند از معیارهای آنها فراتر رود. (shrink)