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Faith as extended knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2017

KEGAN J. SHAW
KEGAN J. SHAW*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, Old College, South Bridge, EH8 9YL, UK
*
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

You don't know that p unless it's on account of your cognitive abilities that you believe truly that p. Virtue epistemologists think there's some such ability constraint on knowledge. This looks to be in considerable tension, though, with putative faith-based knowledge. For at least on a popular Christian conception, when you believe something truly on the basis of faith this isn't because of anything you're naturally competent to do. Rather, faith-based beliefs are entirely a product of divine agency. Appearances to the contrary, I argue in this article that there's no deep tension between faith-based knowledge and virtue epistemology. Not if we learn to conceive of faith as a kind of extended knowledge.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 17 - 35
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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