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On Extending Mavrodes' Analysis of the Logic of Religious Belief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

L. Hughes Cox
L. Hughes Cox
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, Centenary College of Louisiana
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Extract

No fruitful discussion of the logic of religious belief can afford to ignore George Mavrodes' classification of propositional concepts, i.e. concepts predicable of propositions singly (p) or in sets (S), as an analytical tool for pinning down the ‘person-oriented’ and ‘content-oriented’ factors in such ‘epistemic activities’ as religious proving, experiencing, and verifying. Mavrodes shows in particular that the formal model of logical soundness, i.e. valid form and true premises, has but limited application to proving, experiencing, and verifying as ways of giving good reasons for religious belief. In this essay, I will show how Mavrodes' analysis of the logic of religious belief can be extended by substituting a procedural model of logical soundness for the truth-functionally formal model that he adopts. I will show further why it is desirable and, in certain instances, vital to extend his analysis in this manner. Along the way, I will explain why the extension that I am advocating augments Mavrodes' original analysis without substantially altering it or sacrificing any of its original analytical virtues.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 99 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

page 99 note 1 See Mavrodes, George I., Belief in God (New York: Random House, 1970). Subsequent references to this source will be given parenthetically in the text.Google Scholar

page 101 note 1 See Toulmin, Stephen, The Uses Of Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969). Subsequent references to this source will be given parenthetically in the text.Google Scholar

page 104 note 1 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Springfield, Mass.: G. and C. Merriam, 1960), p. 22.Google Scholar

page 104 note 2 Mavrodes, George I., ‘Some Recent Philosophical Theology’, The Review of Metaphysics, XXIV, no. 1 (September, 1970), 107.Google Scholar

page 104 note 3 See Pepper, Stephen, World Hypotheses (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966). Subsequent references to this source wi11 be given parenthetically in the text.Google Scholar

page 105 note 1 See Toulmin, Stephen, Foresight and Understanding (New York: Harper and Row, 1961)Google Scholar; see also Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 145–6.Google Scholar

page 106 note 1 Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947), p. 150. Subsequent references to this source wi11 be given parenthetically in the text.Google Scholar

page 107 note 1 For a general discussion of these points see Toulmin, Stephen, The Philosophy of Science (New York: Harper and Row, 1960)Google Scholar; see also Toulmin, Stephen, Foresight and Understanding (New York: Harper and Row, 1961).Google Scholar

page 107 note 2 Toulmin, Stephen, The Philosophy of Science (New York, Harper and Row, 1960), pp. 78–80.Google Scholar