The main purpose of this dissertation is to examine critically and discuss the role of imagination in science and religion, with particular emphasis on its possible epistemic, creative, and meaning-making functions. In order to answer my research questions, I apply theories and concepts from contemporary philosophy of mind on scientific and religious practices. This framework allows me to explore the mental state of imagination, not as an isolated phenomenon but, rather, as one of many mental states that co-exist and interplay (...) in our cogntive architecture. Based on the philosophical discourse of philosophy of mind, four types of imagination are indentified and conceptualized: sensory, propositional, experiential, and creative imagination. These categories are then employed on five phenomena that can be found in scientific and religious environments: metaphors, models, thought experiments, aspect perception, and - in the religious case - rituals. In relation to the concept of religious "seeing" I consider how imaginings may influence visionary experiences and visualization, and compare these phenomena with cases of scientific visualization and eureka experiences. In regard to scientific and religious models, a distinction is made between, on the one hand, two notions of truth and, on the other hand, truth-independent meaning-making. In light of these categories, I differentiate between, and critically discuss, the use of imagination in doxastic, non-doxastic and fictionalist accounts. In light of this investigation, I formulate and defend the position of interactivism, which acknowledges a constant interplay between different attitudes and mental states. In my examination of rituals and scientific and religious thought experiments, special attention is given to the mental capacity to recreate the experiences that are entailed in an imagined scenario. At the end of the investigation, I consider the possible impact that my study might have on how we view science and religion as well as the dialogue bewteen these two fields. (shrink)

This paper explores the way some contemporary feminist Pagan practitioners talk about nature and goddess. I see these feminist Pagans as providing an example of a religion of nature, much like that of Donald Crosby’s that focuses on nature as the ultimate. However, unlike Crosby’s religion of nature, which could be perceived as isolationist, these feminist Witches’ willingness to maintain theistic language through religious fictionalism, even though non-realist, supports their community participation in an increasingly realist Pagan context.

The purpose of this article is to articulate the possibility of semantic non-doxastic agnostic religious faith. Robin Le Poidevin, who introduced the idea of semantic religious agnosticism, defines it as being agnostic about which parts of religion to treat in realist terms and which parts to treat in fictionalist terms. I take Le Poidevin’s view and argue that it is consistent with a non-doxastic attitude toward the object of faith such as acceptance. I then explore the similarities and differences between (...) my account and a prominent version of non-doxastic faith found in the work of Daniel Howard-Snyder. One advantage of my theory of faith is that it allows a person to be even more sceptical about religion than other versions of agnosticism while simultaneously avoiding some of the problems frequently associated with religious fictionalism. (shrink)

In this paper, I relate key features of Adolf Reinach’s abundant ontology of propositional states of affairs of his to Armstrong’s—or an Armstrongian—state of affairs ontology, with special regard to finding out how sparse or abundant the latter is with respect to negative states of affairs. After introducing the issue, I clarify the notion of a propositional state of affairs, paying special attention to the notion of abstract versus concrete. I show how Reinach’s states of affairs are propositional, and how (...) they compare with Chisholm’s well-known propositional states of affairs. In the next section, I outline Reinach’s five roles for states of affairs and show that only one of them is relevant to Armstrongian state of affairs ontology. In the following section, I utilise this role to create a ranking of state of affairs ontologies according to how abundant they are. It is, however, unclear which level Armstrongian state of affairs ontology is at, since it is unclear if, like Reinach’s ontology, it includes negative states of affairs. In the final section, I argue that the answer is a qualified ‘yes’, i.e. it does not occupy the sparsest level. (shrink)

Religious fictionalism is the theory that it is morally and intellectually legitimate to affirm religious sentences and to engage in public and private religious practices, without believing the content of religious claims. This article discusses the main features of fictionalism, contrasts hermeneutic, and revolutionary kinds of fictionalism and explores possible historical and recent examples of religious fictionalism. Such examples are found in recent theories of faith, pragmatic approaches to religion, and mystical traditions in religious theology.

On the notion of responsibility employed by John Passmore in his classic Man’s Responsibility for Nature, the relationship of responsibility can only hold between persons (human beings, subjects), or groups and communities of them, and other persons. And in this relationship the persons that are responsible 'to' other persons are responsible 'for' how their actions affect these other persons, not to the direct object of these actions (in this case: nature). If this is correct, we cannot be responsible to nature (...) without conceiving of it as a ‘pseudo-person’, as Passmore calls it. However, non-anthropocentric environmental ethics requires such a moral relationship. The question is, therefore, how this can be allowed in a metaphysically acceptable way. To answer this I first provide an account of what it means to stand in the relation of being ‘responsible to’. Next, I describe two major paradigmatic examples of the metaphysics of nature that perfectly match the thesis that we can, and should, be responsible to nature (the Spinoza-inspired view and the Gaia hypothesis). Unfortunately, they have to be rejected for common sense or naturalist reasons. Finally, I therefore defend a 'fictionalist' view of nature (as person-like) that allows for this relationship. (shrink)

I explore some of the reasons why, under specific circumstances, it may be rational to make-believe or imagine certain religious beliefs. Adopting a jargon familiar to certain contemporary philosophers, my main concern here is to assess what reasons can be given for adopting a fictionalist stance towards some religious beliefs. My understanding of fictionalism does not involve solely a propositional attitude but a broader stance, which may include certain acts of pretence. I also argue that a plausible reason to be (...) fictionalist about a specific set of religious beliefs and practices has to do with the value of some artistic creations; namely, those that require the adoption of a religious point of view for their understanding. (shrink)

When a Christian refers to the future full realization of the kingdom of God in an afterlife, it is typically assumed that she is expressing beliefs about the existence and activity of God in conjunction with supernatural beliefs about an otherworldly realm and the possibility of one’s personal survival after bodily death. In other words, the religious language is interpreted in a realist fashion and the religious person here is construed as a religious believer. A corollary of this widely-held realist (...) view is the assumption that if one were to conclude that there is no good reason to believe the asserted claims—for example, no reason to believe that we may survive our bodily deaths in a heavenly realm—then there is no reason to engage in the use of such religious language and the practices which accompany it. I argue that this assumption is false—that there is a meaningful way to use such language in a religious context that does not rest on believing supernatural claims. Against the backdrop of Kant’s discussion of a kingdom of ends understood as a regulative ideal, I argue that religious discourse about the kingdom of God being brought to fruition may be reinterpreted as a useful fiction to draw our attention to and engage our emotions with a distinctive ideal of restorative justice. Though I and others have previously offered fictionalist accounts of language about God, I extend the view here to some religious language about the afterlife. (shrink)

Some naturalists feel an affinity with some religions, or with a particular religion. They may have previously belonged to it, and/or been raised in it, and/or be close to people who belong to it, and/or simply feel attracted to its practices, texts and traditions. This raises the question of whether and to what extent a naturalist can lead the life of a religious believer. The sparse literature on this topic focuses on religious fictionalism. I also frame the debate in these (...) terms. I ask what religious fictionalism might amount to, reject some possible versions of it and endorse a different one. I then examine the existing proposals, by Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Lipton, Andrew Eshleman and Howard Wettstein, and show that even on my version of religious fictionalism, much of what has been described by these authors is still possible. (shrink)

In this paper I do three things. Firstly, I defend the view that in his most familiar arguments about morality and the theological postulates, the arguments which appeal to the epistemological doctrines of the first Critique, Kant is as much of a fictionalist as anybody not working explicitly with that conceptual apparatus could be: his notion of faith as subjectively and not objectively grounded is precisely what fictionalists are concerned with in their talk of nondoxastic attitudes. Secondly, I reconstruct a (...) logically distinct argument to a fictionalist conclusion which I argue Kant also gives us, this time an argument to the conclusion that it is a good thing if our commitment to the existence of God is nondoxastic. And finally, I argue that this argument is of continuing interest, to Kantians and non-Kantians alike, not only because it raises interesting questions about the relation of morality to belief in God (which go in the opposite direction to most discussions, which focus on whether and to what extent belief in God can be an aid to morality), but also because this ‘Moral Hazard Argument’ seems to be available to religious realists and non-realists alike, thus suggesting that religious fictionalism is not by any means just an interesting version of religious non-realism. (shrink)

This is a survey of contemporary work on ‘fictionalism in metaphysics’, a term that is taken to signify both the place of fictionalism as a distinctive anti‐realist metaphysics in which usefulness rather than truth is the norm of acceptance, and the fact that philosophers have given fictionalist treatments of a range of specifically metaphysical notions.

It is standardly assumed that a religious commitment needs to be based upon religious belief, if it is to be rationally acceptable. In this thesis, that assumption is rejected. I argue for the feasibility of belief-less religion, with a focus on the approach commonly known as “non-doxasticism”. According to non-doxasticism, a religious life might be properly based on some cognitive attitude weaker than belief, like hope, acceptance or belief-less assumption. It provides a way of being religious open exclusively to the (...) agnostic. This thesis consists of an introductory essay and five independent papers. The aim of the introductory essay is to provide a general background and set the stage for the discussion in the papers. Its first major part is about the rationality of religious belief. I assess three major ways of providing rational justification for religious belief: natural theology, the reformed epistemology of A. Plantinga and W. Alston, and voluntarism as advocated by B. Pascal and W. James. I highlight some of the most serious problems associated with these approaches, and argue that these problems are enough to warrant an exploration of belief-less alternatives. The second major part of the introductory essayintroduces belief-less religion and its two main forms: fictionalism and non-doxasticism. Both approaches are presented in some detail, including important accounts and current developments. While I would not deny thatboth approaches can be defended as intellectually feasible and rationally acceptable ways of being religious, I also explain why I think non-doxasticism is to be preferred over fictionalism. Paper I and II concerns the account of non-doxastic religion offered by J. L. Schellenberg. Paper I raises some problems for Schellenberg’s analysis of propositional faith, and presents a way of handling these problems by making faith occasional. Paper II argues that non-doxasticism should be focused on traditional religion rathar than Schellenberg’s simple ultimism. Paper III and IV concerns non-doxasticism on a more general level. Paper III argues for the superiority of non-doxasticism over fictionalism. It contains the argument for exclusive availability, according to which only non-doxasticism is rationally available to the pro-religious agnostic. Paper IV explores the notion of rational, non-doxastic faith, and argues for three desiderata any such faith must meet. Unlike the other papers, Paper V is primarily connected to the first part of the introductory essay, and it concerns the scope and limit of natural theology. It is tentatively argued that perfect being theism lies outside the scope of natural theology, and that its most prominent arguments at best support some kind of deism. (shrink)

It is commonly supposed that a certain kind of belief is necessary for religious experience. Yet it is not clear that this must be so. In this article, I defend the possibility that a subject could have a genuine emotional religious experience without thereby necessarily believing that the purported object of her experience corresponds to reality and/or is the cause of her experience. Imaginative engagement, I argue, may evoke emotional religious experiences that may be said to be both genuine and (...) appropriate, despite not necessarily including beliefs of the aforementioned kind.I go on to maintain that such religious engagement is compatible not only with non-belief but also with disbelief. (shrink)

Within contemporary philosophy, practical consequences of agnosticism about the existence of God have mostly been discussed on the margins of other topics—such as the nature of faith or the problem of divine hiddenness. The aim of this article is to present the existing views on the practical upshots of suspending one's judgment on God's existence, briefly discussing the way in which agnosticism relates to practical atheism, non‐doxastic faith, fictionalism, apophaticism, and spiritual inquiry.

Toward the end of his life, Derrida complained that he had been ‘read less and less well over almost twenty years, like my religion about which nobody understands anything'. Derrida, ever the trickster and shape-shifter, had outwitted his audience and even his ardent following by declaring himself religious. This seemed to oddly contradict the universal image of Derridean deconstruction as nihilistic, relativistic, subjectivistic and anti-religious. But Derrida disagrees with this impression of his work, claiming that deconstruction has always been affirmative (...) and has always delivered a yes to life. Deconstruction, according to the late Derrida, is a way of doing truth, of keeping things authentic and open to the possibility of transcendence. He wanted to unravel and deconstruct, not to arrive at nothing, but to affirm a sacred reality that he sensed was undeconstructible. This paper is concerned with the ‘other' Derrida that few seem to know. (shrink)

The waters part at the Crossing of the Red Sea by the Hebrews. Water is turned into wine by Jesus at the Wedding Feast at Cana. For Christians, these miraculous events have really or truly happened. But aren't miracles rather fictions full of deep meaning? Aren’t Christians invited to pretend (make-believe) that miracles have taken place? Aren’t miracles fictions? Fictionalism answer positively to these questions. This account is sometimes presupposed in the hermeneutics of the biblical narrative. Fictionalism can be theological, (...) that is global: God himself is fiction; it can be partial: only miracles are fictions, not God. The article shows that a Christian may not adhere to fictionalism and must assume the reality of miracles. The Christian may not make them a matter of simple interpretation and deep meaning. He must believe that the waters parted when the Jewish people fled Egypt, that Jesus did indeed turn the water into wine in Cana. (shrink)

Le Poidevin’s ‘new agnosticism’ concerns partaking in religious life while being uncertain whether religious discourse is fictional or not. Le Poidevin has offered two distinct versions of the new agnosticism, ‘semantic agnosticism’ and ‘meta-linguistic agnosticism’. I suggest that the first, ‘semantic agnosticism’, should be rejected, mainly because it involves a highly questionable view of truth and fails to properly distinguish fictional existence from real existence. The second, ‘meta-linguistic agnosticism’ seems acceptable as a view of religious discourse but not as a (...) foundation for a religious life. A meta-linguistic agnostic will not be able to take the proper attitude towards religious propositions, since what is the proper attitude varies greatly between realism and fictionalism. Even more importantly, she will not know when it is rationally permissible to perform religious actions, because she will not know whether real-life concerns should take precedence or not. Le Poidevin’s meta-linguistic agnostic is also a truth-agnostic, and I conclude that adding meta-linguistic agnosticism to truth-agnosticism only complicates matters without offering any benefits. (shrink)

This paper provides a survey of contemporary religious naturalism. It presents reductive and non‐reductive versions of religious naturalism, and some arguments in favour of this naturalistic perspective. Finally, it discusses three crucial demarcation issues that contemporary religious naturalism faces.

This paper examines different functions of metaphors in religious language. In order to do that it will be analyzed in which ways metaphorical language can be understood as irreducible. First, it will be argued that metaphors communicate more than just propositional contents. They also frame their targets with an imagistic perspective that cannot be reduced to a literal paraphrase. Furthermore, there are also cases where metaphors are used to fill gaps of what can be expressed with literal language. In order (...) to clarify this function of catachresis the notion of de re metaphors will be introduced. With those metaphors we can convey contents that we cannot conceptualize independently from a certain context of utterance. Hence, with such metaphors we can reach beyond the limits of our conceptual repertoire which is a crucial function for religious language. Finally, the consistency and plausibility of the radical position that all assertions about God are irreducibly and necessarily metaphorical if they are supposed to be true will be discussed on the basis of the results of the former considerations about the irreducibility of metaphors. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

نظریه‌های معنای زندگی را در یک تقسیم‌بندی کلان و اجمالی می‌توان به دو دستۀ دیدگاه‌های طبیعت‌گرا و غیرطبیعت‌گرا افراز کرد. یکی از اشکالات همیشگی وارد بر دیدگاه‌های طبیعت‌گرا ناتوانی آنها در حل معضل پوچی است؛ طبیعت‌گرایی خوش‌بینانه عنوان ایده‌ای است که مدعی شده بر مبنای پیشرفت‌های علمی و دستاوردهای فناورانه می‌توان، در عین پای‌بندی به طبیعت‌گرایی، از معضل پوچی رهایی یافت. در این مقاله، با تأکید بر دیدگاه‌های لئو تولستوی و تامس نیگل دربارۀ معضل پوچی، طبیعت‌گرایی خوش‌بینانه، بر مبنای دیدگاه (...) دن ویجرز، با یک صورت‌بندی استدلالی تقریر می‌شود. همچنین، به منظور داوری دربارۀ کارآمدی طبیعت‌گرایی خوش‌بینانه در رهایی یافتن از معضل پوچی، مبانی و پیشفرض‌های معناشناختی، معرفت‌شناختی، و انسان‌شناختی آن از جمله جعل‌گرایی، علم‌گرایی و فیزیکالیسم مورد بررسی و واکاوی قرار می‌گیرد و نشان داده می‌شود که این دیدگاه، بر خلاف ادعای مطرح‌شده از سوی ویجرز، قابلیت حل معضل پوچی را ندارد، بلکه مؤیدی بر ناتوانی طبیعت‌گرایی در حل معضل پوچی است. (shrink)

در این مقاله سعی شده است فهم دینی کرکگور از «سوبژکتیویته» با استناد به گفته‌های او به ویژه در دست‌نوشته‌ها و سایر نوشته‌هایش تبیین شود. او مفاهیم کلیدی نظیر «مسیحیت»، «حقیقت»، «شور»، «خدا»، و «ایمان» را برای توصیف و تبیین «سوبژکتیویته» به کار می‌برد. برای مثال تلقی وی از مسیحیت به مثابۀ «سوبژکتیویته» با تلقی رایج و عمدتاً تاریخی از مسیحیت که عمدتاً درک ابژکتیو از آن دارند کاملاً متفاوت است. مسیحیت از نظر این متفکر عمدتاً در قالب آموزه‌ها مطرح (...) می‌شود و چیزی که برای او حائز اهمیت است مسیحی شدن است، نه این که مسیحیت چیست. کرکگور به دنبال آن است که در برابر سوبژکتیویتۀ فلسفی فلسفۀ مدرن نظیر تفکر دکارتی و کانتی موضعی انتقادی اتخاذ کند. باید گفت که کرکگور با سوبژکتیویته سروکار دارد، نه سوبژکتیویسم که یک مسئلۀ معرفت شناختی است و او علاقه‌ای به آن ندارد. بنابراین هدف این مقاله این است که ماهیت دینی سوبژکتیویته و فهم دینی از آن را در نوشته‌های این متفکر دانمارکی نشان دهد. (shrink)