Detachment, Rationality and Evidence: Towards a More Humane Religious Epistemology

¹ A version of this paper was delivered at a conference on Religious Epistemology held at Heythrop College, University of  London, in June 2015. I am grateful to the organizer, Stephen Law, and to participants for helpful discussion. The paper draws extensively on material from my How to Believe (London: Bloomsbury, 2015).

² By Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement [Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790], Part I, Bk 2, §26.

³ Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations [Philosophische Untersuchungen, 1953], transl. Anscombe, G. E. M. (New York: Macmillan, 1958), §115.

⁴ Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §109.

⁵ Wittgenstein, ‘A Lecture on Ethics’ [1929], Philosophical Review (1965), 8.

⁶ Wittgenstein, , manuscript of 1947, in Culture and Value (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 73.

⁷ Kant, Immanuel, Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysic that will be able to present itself as a Science [Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, 1783], ed. Zöller, G. and Lucas, P. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), Part II; cf. Moore, Adrian, The Evolution of Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 120.

⁸ Heaney, Seamus, ‘Joy or Night’, in Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971–2001(London: Faber, 2002).

⁹ Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time [Sein und Zeit, 1927], transl. Macquarrie, J. and Robinson, E. (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), §219.

¹⁰ Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies [Duineser Elegien, 1923], First Elegy (transl. JC).

¹¹ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell [1790].

¹² Cf. John Calvin, Institutes [Christianae religionis institutio, 1536].

¹³ This final section of the paper draws on material from my ‘Transcending science: humane models of religious understanding’, in Ellis, F. (ed.), New Models of Religious Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 23–41 .

¹⁴ See Financial Times 17 October 2014, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9474020c-54c2-11e4-bac2-00144feab7de.html#axzz3HAHgd3MI

¹⁵ McGilchrist, Iain, The Master and His Emissary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 93 (slightly adapted).

¹⁶ Stump, Eleonore, Wandering in Darkness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 24–25 .

¹⁷ See Cottingham, John, Philosophy of Religion: Towards a More Humane Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

¹⁸ See Heidegger, Being and Time, H 137. See also Steiner, George, Heidegger (London: Fontana, 2nd edn, 1992), 55.

¹⁹ Pascal, Blaise, Pascal, Pensées [1670], ed. Lafuma, L. (Paris: Seuil, 1962), no. 427.

²⁰ Moser, Paul, The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 47.

²¹ Nussbaum, Martha, Love's Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 282.