TY - JOUR
T1 - Faith and traditions
AU - Buchak, Lara
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper benefited greatly from comments by Ravit Dotan, A.G. Holdier, and Dan Speak; and from discussions at Rutgers University, the University of Manchester, Boston College, Oxford University, Princeton University, and Azusa Pacific University. It was also made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (the opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation).
Funding Information:
This paper benefited greatly from comments by Ravit Dotan, A.G. Holdier, and Dan Speak; and from discussions at Rutgers University, the University of Manchester, Boston College, Oxford University, Princeton University, and Azusa Pacific University. It was also made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (the opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation). Faith has not always been treated as a respectable propositional attitude among philosophers. The reasons for doubt regarding faith's respectability are not far to seek. First, faith has been taken by many to be an intrinsically irrational attitude since the person with faith has an improper attitude toward evidence. Second, faith has often appeared to be a useless attitude since there is no effectual role for it in our cognitive psychology that cannot be played by other more respectable propositional attitudes like belief and desire. According to my account of faith, the risky-commitment account, having faith requires stopping one's search for evidence and making a commitment—and maintaining that commitment even in the face of counter-evidence.2See Buchak (2012), Buchak (2014), Buchak (2017), Buchak (2021). I have been at pains to argue that even though faith entails a kind of resistance to counterevidence, this attitude can be rational under certain conditions. In other words, I have defended (and will continue to defend here) the claim that faith is not an intrinsically irrational attitude. See Buchak (2012), Buchak (2014), Buchak (2017), Buchak (2021). There is more to be said in favor of faith than that it can sometimes be rational. I will show in this paper that faith can help us understand an important phenomenon arising in epistemic life: allegiance to, and break from, a tradition. This phenomenon has three central features. First, individuals who adhere to a tradition seem to respond dogmatically to evidence against their tradition. Second, individuals from different traditions appear to see the same evidence differently. And third, conversion from one tradition to another is qualitatively different from ordinary belief change: it is felt as a ‘break’ rather than smooth and gradual. I will show that, contrary to initial appearances, these features can all emerge from individuals acting rationally—in particular, from individuals rationally having faith in the core assumptions of their traditions.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Authors. Noûs published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
PY - 2023/9
Y1 - 2023/9
N2 - One phenomenon arising in epistemic life is allegiance to, and break from, a tradition. This phenomenon has three central features. First, individuals who adhere to a tradition seem to respond dogmatically to evidence against their tradition. Second, individuals from different traditions appear to see the same evidence differently. And third, conversion from one tradition to another appears to be different in kind from ordinary belief shift. This paper uses recent work on the nature and rationality of faith to show that these features can all emerge from individuals acting rationally—in particular, from individuals rationally having faith in the core assumptions of their traditions. One upshot is that we don't need to employ the idea of incommensurability to explain these features.
AB - One phenomenon arising in epistemic life is allegiance to, and break from, a tradition. This phenomenon has three central features. First, individuals who adhere to a tradition seem to respond dogmatically to evidence against their tradition. Second, individuals from different traditions appear to see the same evidence differently. And third, conversion from one tradition to another appears to be different in kind from ordinary belief shift. This paper uses recent work on the nature and rationality of faith to show that these features can all emerge from individuals acting rationally—in particular, from individuals rationally having faith in the core assumptions of their traditions. One upshot is that we don't need to employ the idea of incommensurability to explain these features.
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U2 - 10.1111/nous.12427
DO - 10.1111/nous.12427
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85135185896
SN - 0029-4624
VL - 57
SP - 740
EP - 759
JO - Nous
JF - Nous
IS - 3
ER -