The Many Faces of Religious Truth: Hilary Putnam's Pragmatic Pluralism on Religion

by N Brunsveld

Overview

Religious statements can be true or false, and are not merely arbitrary or personally meaningful. That is the core thesis of this work in pragmatist philosophy of religion. Other contemporary approaches are deficient, as they have problematic ways of understanding truth and experience. The argument in this study draws on Hilary Putnam's work in such fields as ethics, epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, however, Putnam doesn't fully acknowledge how religious statements, similar to other statements, depend on an interaction of our language and the world. This would make religious truth a matter of convention. Drawing on another source of inspiration for Putnam, William James, Niek Brunsveld shows how religious claims can have truth value.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789042933774
Publisher:	Peeters Publishing
Publication date:	01/03/2017
Series:	Studies in Philosophical Theology , #57
Pages:	281
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Niel Brunsveld obtained graduate degrees in Theology/Ethics from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and K.U.Leuven, Belgium. He was a Junor Fellow (Special Research Fund) at K.U.Leuven before starting as a PhD-candidate at Utreeht University's Faculty of Humanities in 2008. In 2010/2011, he was Fulbright Visiting Researcher at Harvard University's Faculty of Divinity. His paper on 'Putnam on truth (again). Conceptual truth in religion and morality, and the risk of relativism' received the Hilary Putnam International Young Scholars Essay Prize in 2011. He successfully defended his PhD-thesis in 2012 (cum laude). In 2013. Brunsveld completed an MBA (with honors) that focused on ethics and innovation, at Bentley University, Waltham MA. He now is Senior Policy Adviser, Research & Innovation, at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 Introduction: The truth-value of religious propositions 1

Part 1 Religious Realism and Antirealism on the Truth-Value of Religious Propositions 17

2 Religious realism on the truth-value of religious propositions 19

3 Religious antirealism on the truth-value of religious propositions 47

4 Truth and experience as challenges for religious realism and antirealism 65

Part 2 Hilary Putnam's Pragmatic Pluralist Perspective on Truth and Experience 75

5 Putnam's criticism of metaphysical realist and antirealist notions of truth and experience 77

6 Putnam's pragmatic pluralist perspective on truth 113

7 Putnam's pragmatic pluralist perspective on experience 139

8 Putnam's pragmatic pluralist perspective on the face of truth-value 163

Part 3 Towards A Pragmatic Pluralist Perspective on The Truth-Value of Religious Propositions 181

9 Putnam's Wittgenstein-inspired perspective on the truth-value of religious propositions 183

10 William James's Varieties on the cognitive value of religious experiences 199

11 Pragmatic pluralism on the truth-value of propositions revisited 221

12 Conclusion: Religious pragmatic pluralism on the truth-value of religious propositions 231

Bibliography 263

Index of Names 273