Safety and Knowledge in God
In recent secular Epistemology, much attention has been paid to formulating an anti-luck or safety condition; it is now widely held that such a condition is an essential part of any satisfactory post-Gettier reflection on the nature of knowledge. In this paper, I explain the safety condition a...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2014]
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| In: |
European journal for philosophy of religion
Year: 2014, Volume: 6, Issue: 2, Pages: 81-100 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Knowability of God
/ Epistemologische Überzeugung
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| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism NBC Doctrine of God |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) Volltext (teilw. kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | In recent secular Epistemology, much attention has been paid to formulating an anti-luck or safety condition; it is now widely held that such a condition is an essential part of any satisfactory post-Gettier reflection on the nature of knowledge. In this paper, I explain the safety condition as it has emerged and then explore some implications of and for it arising from considering the God issue. It looks at the outset as if safety might be good news for a view characteristic of Reformed Epistemology, viz. the view that if Theism is true, many philosophically unsophisticated believers probably know that its true. A (tentatively-drawn) sub-conclusion of my paper though suggests that as safety does not by itself turn true belief into knowledge, the recent focus on it is not quite such good news for Reformed Epistemologists as they may have hoped: its not that safety provides a new route by which they can reach this sort of conclusion. But safety is still good news for their view at least in the sense that there is no reason arising from considering it to count these philosophically unsophisticated believers as not knowing that theres a God. I conclude by reflecting that good news for Reformed Epistemology is perhaps bad news for the discipline of Philosophy of Religion more generally, as theres a possible reflection destroys knowledge-implication to be drawn. Those who have been led to their religious beliefs in at least some philosophically unsophisticated ways seem to enjoy much safer religious beliefs than those who have been led to their religious beliefs by philosophical reflection, so the discipline as a whole will be adversely affected if safety is eventually accorded the role of a necessary condition for knowledge. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: European journal for philosophy of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.24204/ejpr.v6i2.179 |