Evidentialism is based on a particular theory of procedure in epistemology. According to this theory, there is an analogy between the legal sphere and the religious sphere. In a legal system, the guilt of a defendant is considered to be false until it is proven to be true. The prosecution should prove that someone is guilty of a crime by providing evidence. Similarly, in the religious sphere, the existence of God is considered to be false until it is proven to be true. Religious believers should prove that the existence of God is true by providing evidence.6 An example of a philosopher who argued for this version of Evidentialism was Anthony Flew.7 On this account, religious beliefs would be considered false until they are shown to be true based on evidence. As a result, …show more content…
For recent developments in this area, see the papers in Trent Dogherty (ed.), Evidentialism and its Discontents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). For a recent defence of religious belief against the challenge of Evidentialism based on the argument that knowledge of God is immediate, see: Abbas Yazdani, Evidentialism and the Rationality of Religious Belief: Responding to the Evidentialist Challenge to the Rationality of Belief in God (Saarbrücken: Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010). For a defence of religious belief based on the rejection of Evidentialism, see: Kelly James Clark, Return to Reason: A Critique of Enlightenment Evidentialism and a Defense of Reason and Belief in God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1990).
9 Peter Forrest, “The Epistemology of Religion”, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-epistemology/,
William Kingdon Clifford’s argument in “The Ethics of Belief” that it is morally wrong to form beliefs upon insufficient evidence has been widely debated. One such objection to Clifford is William James’s “The Will to Believe,” which argues, under certain circumstances, it can be morally justified to form beliefs without adequate evidence. In this paper, I shall argue that James’s position on belief is stronger than Clifford’s on the basis of being able to reveal more truths while not violating morality.
Those that argue that religious experiences are proof of the existence of God usually argue inductively. This means that they look at the subjective testimonies of individuals who claim to have had religious experiences in order to find similar characteristics and then draw the general conclusion that the experiences can only be explained in terms of the existence of God. For example Swinburne argued inductively supporting
What is Evidentialism? “As evidentialism is a thesis about epistemic justification, it is a thesis about what it takes for one to believe justifiably, or reasonably, in the sense thought to be necessary for knowledge” (Mittag). Now what does that mean in order for someone to believe in something, they must see the real proof have hardcore evidence. One famous argument about evidentialism is by William Kingdon Clifford, (born May 4, 1845, Exeter, Devon, England—died March 3, 1879, Madeira Islands, Portugal) British philosopher and mathematician. Although he was most famous for his work as a mathematician, Clifford also wrote, “The locus classicus for the ethics of belief debate is, unsurprisingly, the essay that christened it. “The Ethics of Belief” was published, in a journal called Contemporary Review.”(Chingell)
However, Inductive and Deductive Arguments could be used to prove the existence of God. An Inductive argument is a posteriori (based on experience) which is logic involving reasoning from effect to cause.
The fact that one can believe in something or a statement is based on, among other factors, the available evidence. A range of philosophers have written widely on this topic. Clifford in his Influential essay “The Ethics of Belief” defends the contention that it is always wrong for any human being to believe anything if there is insufficient evidence. He uses two stories to illustrate wrong ways through which people arrive at beliefs. William James, however, disapproves Clifford. Pascal has a different view on belief formation where he argues that reasons for believing and failing to believe in God are indecisive. The three philosophers have varied views on how beliefs are formed. This essay discusses the reasons why Clifford made the above conclusion, the position taken by James in his opposition and how the argument relates to Pascal’s Wager.
A proof is giving a reason for why we believe. The philosophical question of the existence of God has many possible arguments including: personal vs. impersonal, moral values, epistemology (teleological and ethical), and metaphysics (teleological, cosmological, ontological). And
Evidentialism, and non-evidentialism theories have presented strong arguments that are pitted against each other. For those who believe in evidentialism, they argue that for one’s conclusion to be justified there must be evidence which solidly supports the claim. However, non-evidentialism theory contrasts with this. The non-evidentialists argue that belief, when there is little, or no evidence, is enough to justify one’s conclusion. In this case, I argue that evidentialism theory is true.
First it is important to understand the type of belief we are talking about before we can truly understand Frede’s and Burnyeat’s dispute between epistemic and non-epistemic appearances. In The Outlines of Scepticism Sextus
This section provides us with two selections from the essays of William K. Clifford (1845-1879) and William James (1842-1910). Clifford's essay, The Ethics of Belief, is based on the concept of evidentialism. This concept 'holds that we should not accept any statement as true unless we have good evidence to support its truth'; (Voices of Wisdom, 346). James wrote his essay, The Will to Believe, as a response to Clifford's essay where he endorsed a philosophy called pragmatism.
The existence of a higher being or a god is a concept that has endured for thousands of years. Religious teachings help people to cope with our own mortality as well as teaching valuable moral codes. Yet for all of the effort and the distinct establishment of religion, God is still an unknown entity and we have no way of knowing definitively of his existence. St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest religious thinkers of his time and he created five proofs that he believes validate god’s existence.
4. The existence of God remains a matter of faith since it’s difficult to "prove" God to someone who does not believe.
Following the idea that trying to gather evidence for every belief is difficult, it is necessary to consider relationship and how evidentialism plays into that. In reference to a relationship, Clark states that
Scientific rationality stands as the epitome of human reasoning in the modern era; evidence matters in the assertion of truth. Society looks to the physical world to ascertain what is reasonable, and with the evolution of the scientific method, the past two centuries have also watched the devolution of religiousness. Scientific evidence must be conclusive and unambiguous, derived from true premises, repeatable experiments and observable results. And determine whether the existence of God can be sustained in the presence of scientific rationality.
This philosophical study will defend the premise of skepticism in relation to the epistemology of testimony. Skepticism provides a more evaluative and complex response to the reductionist acquisition of knowledge by rejecting any form of absolute knowledge. Reductionism provides a holistic way to describe the functions of knowledge in theories proposed by Descartes, yet these functions can be further reduced to more obscure or even non-existent causalities. More so, antireductionism is not a sufficient means of describing the underlying functions of knowledge, since it seeks to define the absolute foundations of a system of thought in a non-holistic manner. This is why skepticism is
The production of knowledge is a process that occurs through a sequence of related actions, these series of actions allows for the Ways of Knowing to interact in a way that works to develop the knowledge that is being produced. From the prescribed title we can claim that while the Ways of Knowing may appear to be acting in isolation when forming knowledge, they are actually working in a variety of different ways in the construction and formation. In some cases, the Ways of Knowing are interacting so closely together that it is often hard to differentiate between them, for example emotion and reason, or imagination and memory. Given the right circumstances faith can be isolated to a point where it can be acting by itself to produce knowledge. However, this knowledge is often deemed as unreliable, due to faith being seen as one of the more “subjective” ways of knowing. This inability to differentiate the ways of knowing from each other during the production of knowledge, raises the questions “Can any knowledge in any Area of Knowledge be produced by a single Way of Knowing?” and “Is it possible to distinguish between Ways of Knowing if they are working together?”. While reason is used in almost all production of knowledge, it is the other Ways of Knowing used that can determine whether the knowledge is reliable or not, as some Ways of Knowing are more subjective than others. This essay will attempt to