Faith as an Epistemic Disposition

Faith: Serving Emotional Epistemic-Goals Rather than Evidence-Coherence

Emotional epistemic goals are an alternative to evidencecoherence, whereby beliefs are held for their aid in achieving some desired subjective goal, independent of the beliefs’ veracity. Some prior research has presumed that deference to “faith” constitutes an emotional goal. However, the epistemic nature of faith and its relation to evidence has been the focus of philosophical debate, both his...

Faith as doxastic venture

A ‘doxastic venture’ model of faith – according to which having faith involves believing beyond what is rationally justifiable – can be defended only on condition that such venturesome believing is both possible and ethically acceptable. I show how a development of the position argued by William James in ‘The will to believe ’ can succeed in meeting these conditions. A Jamesian defence of doxas...

English some as an epistemic indefinite

Symmetry as an Epistemic Notion (Twice Over)

Symmetries in physics are a guide to reality. That much is well known. But what is less well known is why symmetry is a guide to reality. What justifies inferences that draw conclusions about reality from premises about symmetries? I argue that answering this question reveals that symmetry is an epistemic notion twice over. First, these inferences must proceed via epistemic lemmas: premises abo...

Practical faith and affirmative faith; an inquiry on the essence of fait

  The word faith, religiously considered, has different meanings. Its general application in the sense of living based on Divine religion absolutely and more general than the function of the parts of human body that makes the essence of faith. In a particular application, it means hearty affirmation called the head of faith by which is established the essence of faith. The application of faith...