Burley, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-7446-3564 (2023) Is there such a thing as religious belief? Implicit Religion, 25 (1-2). pp. 33-52. ISSN 1463-9955
Abstract
Whether there is such a thing as religious belief has been queried by philosophers who think the attitudes that get called religious beliefs are radically different from standard types of belief. It is sometimes claimed that so-called religious beliefs are, for example, resistant to experiential evidence in ways that genuine types of belief are not. A recent proponent of this contention, Brian Clack (2016), has argued that the lack of connection between religious attitudes and the world of everyday experience entails that these attitudes should be classified as “belief-like imaginings” rather than as bona fide beliefs. While admitting that contentions such as this prompt useful reflection upon the specificities of religious belief, I argue that the view that what are ordinarily called religious beliefs are not really beliefs amounts to an unwarranted linguistic stipulation. The concept of belief has a diversity of applications rather than being restricted to the narrow subset which dubious empiricist assumptions might lead us to privilege.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2023. This is an author produced version of an article published in Implicit Religion. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Brian Clack, empiricism, religious belief, Ludwig Wittgenstein |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > Theology and Religious Studies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 25 Apr 2023 11:26 |
Last Modified: | 20 Dec 2023 13:33 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Equinox Publishing Ltd |
Identification Number: | 10.1558/imre.24309 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:198498 |
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