RELIGIOUS COGNITION AS INTERPRETED EXPERIENCE: AN EXAMINATION OF IAN BARBOUR'S COMPARISON OF THE EPISTEMIC STRUCTURES OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION |
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Authors: | William A Rottschaefer |
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Institution: | William A. Rottschaefer is associate professor of philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon 97219. |
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Abstract: | Abstract. Using as a model contemporary analyses of scientific cognition, Ian Harbour has claimed that religious cognition is neither immediate nor inferential but has the structure of interpreted experience. Although I contend that Barbour has failed to establish his claim, I believe his views about the similarities between scientific and religious cognition are well founded. Thus on that basis I offer an alternative proposal that theistic religious cognition is essentially inferential and that religious experience is in fact the use of inferentially acquired religious beliefs to interpret ordinary nonreligious experiences. |
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