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Blanshard's Ethics of Belief and Metaphysical Postulates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Winfred George Phillips
Winfred George Phillips
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Trinity University, 715 Stadium Drive, San Antonio, Texas 78212
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Extract

In Brand Blanshard's major defence of reason in religion, Reason and Belief, he criticizes both Roman Catholics and Protestants for advocating contradictory theological doctrines and for believing beyond what the evidence supports. Claiming belief to be an ethical matter, with one morally responsible for one's religious beliefs, he holds that one is morally obligated in such metaphysical matters to believe only what the evidence warrants. Blanshard finds that religious beliefs typically fail to meet the standard of this ethics of belief, and thus his ethics appears inhospitable to religious belief.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 139 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 Blanshard, Brand, Reason and Belief (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974), pp. 37–56.Google Scholar

2 Ibid. pp. 59–79.

3 Ibid. pp. 80–106.

4 Ibid. pp. 150–9.

5 Ibid. pp. 160–6.

6 Ibid. pp. 197–242, 265–77, 300–3.

7 Ibid. p. 401.

8 Ibid. p. 402.

9 Ibid. pp. 402–3.

10 Ibid. pp. 405–7.

11 Ibid. pp. 410–11, 427.

12 Ibid. pp. 432–3.

13 Ibid. p. 564.

14 Blanshard, Brand, The Nature of Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1940), 151–2.Google Scholar

15 Ibid. 167–74, 225.

16 Ibid. 1530–7.

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18 Ibid. 1486–90.

19 Ibid. II 23–4.

20 Ibid. I 490–I.

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28 Schilpp, Paul Arthur, ed., The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard (La Salle: Open court, 1980), p. 592.Google Scholar

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32 Ibid. pp. 504–5.

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35 Ibid. p. 623.

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44 Ibid. pp. 623–4.

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53 Ibid. pp. 4–5.