On the Nature (and Irrationality) of Non-religious Faith

Erkenntnis (forthcoming)
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Abstract

My main aim in this paper is to contribute to the elucidation of the nature of non-religious faith. I start by summarising several well-known arguments that belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for faith. I then try to identify the nature of the positive cognitive attitude towards p that is involved in having faith that p. After dismissing some candidates for the role, I explore the idea that faith and hope are similar attitudes. On this basis, I then advance a new characterisation of faith. Finally, I turn to the question of the rationality of faith. I argue that faith is intrinsically irrational because it is an intrinsically incoherent propositional attitude, but that there is nonetheless a sense in which faith is neither intrinsically epistemically irrational nor intrinsically practically irrational.

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Benoit Gaultier
University of Zürich

Citations of this work

Faith is Weakly Positive.Elizabeth Grace Jackson - 2025 - Synthese 205 (17):1-19.

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References found in this work

Belief and Settledness.Wooram Lee - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (6):1094-1119.
Outright Belief.Ralph Wedgwood - 2012 - Dialectica 66 (3):309–329.
Propositional faith: what it is and what it is not.Daniel Howard-Snyder - 1995 - American Philosophical Quarterly 50 (4):357-372.

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