Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-30T04:32:15.727Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mapping the epistemic arguments for religious toleration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2020

GILLES BEAUCHAMP Open the ORCID record for GILLES BEAUCHAMP [Opens in a new window]
GILLES BEAUCHAMP*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, McGill University, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montréal, Québec, H3A 2T7, Canada
*
e-mail: gilles.beauchamp2@mail.mcgill.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the literature on toleration, epistemic arguments are commonly equated with John Stuart Mill's fallibilism according to which toleration of opinions is a necessary means to the attainment of truth. This conflation does not capture the variety of those arguments and it results from the fact that a proper analysis of epistemic arguments for religious toleration and a systematic account of their different types are still lacking. The purpose of this article is to provide such an analysis and to argue that those arguments come in four different types, which I name fallibilism, religious belief-forming process, epistemic parity, and differentiated access to religious truth or divine message. I also offer a mapping of those different types of arguments using the standard epistemic notions of justification, truth, and belief coupled with a distinction of focus in the epistemological approach – whether individually or socially focused.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 217 - 235
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abou El Fadl, Khaled (2002) ‘The place of tolerance in Islam’, in Cohen, Joshua & Lague, Ian (eds) The Place of Tolerance in Islam (Boston MA: Beacon Press), 3–23.Google Scholar
Alston, William P. (1991) Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Basinger, David (2008) ‘How religious diversity can and does foster religious tolerance’, in Kraft, James & Basinger, David (eds) Religious Tolerance through Humility: Thinking with Philip Quinn (Aldershot & Burlington VT: Ashgate), 29–42.Google Scholar
Bayle, Pierre (2005) A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23: ‘Compel Them to Come in, That My House May Be Full’, Kilcullen, John & Kukathas, Chandran (eds) (Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund).Google Scholar
Bayle, Pierre (2014) De la tolérance: commentaire philosophique, Gros, Jean-Michel (ed.) (Paris: Honoré Champion).Google Scholar
Cohen, Andrew Jason (2004) ‘What toleration is’, Ethics, 115, 68–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Stewart (1988) ‘How to be a fallibilist’, Philosophical Perspectives, 2, 91–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Côté-Bouchard, Charles (2012) Peut-on Être Blâmé Pour Ses Croyances? Le Déontologisme Épistémique Face Au Problème de l'involontarisme Doxastique, Master's thesis (Montréal: Papyrus Université de Montréal).Google Scholar
Craig, William Lane (2008) ‘Is uncertainty a sound foundation for religious tolerance?’, in Kraft, James & Basinger, David (eds) Religious Tolerance through Humility: Thinking with Philip Quinn (Aldershot & Burlington VT: Ashgate), 13–27.Google Scholar
Dilhac, Marc-Antoine (2014) La tolérance, un risque pour la démocratie? Théorie d'un impératif politique (Paris: Vrin).Google Scholar
Dougherty, Trent (2011) ‘Fallibilism’, in Bernecker, Sven & Pritchard, Duncan (eds) The Routledge Companion to Epistemology (London: Routledge), 132–143.Google Scholar
Goldman, Alvin, & Blanchard, Thomas (2016) ‘Social epistemology’, in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University), <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/epistemology-social/>.Google Scholar
Grube, Dirk-Martin (2015a) ‘Justified religious difference: a constructive approach to religious diversity’, International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 76, 419–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grube, Dirk-Martin (2015b) ‘Reply to the respondents to “justified religious difference: a constructive approach to religious diversity”’, International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 76, 458–486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hieronymi, Pamela (2006) ‘Controling attitudes’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 87, 45–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalin, Ibrahim (2008) ‘Sources of tolerance and intolerance in Islam: the case of the people of the book’, in Neusner, Jacob & Chilton, Bruce (eds) Religious Tolerance in World Religions (West Conshohocken PA: Templeton Foundation Press), 239–273.Google Scholar
King, Nathan L. (2008) ‘Religious diversity and its challenges to religious belief’, Philosophy Compass, 3, 830–853.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Preston T. (1998) Toleration (London& Portland OR: Frank Cass).Google Scholar
Kraft, James (2006) ‘Religious tolerance through religious diversity and epistemic humility’, Sophia, 45, 101–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraft, James (2008) ‘Epistemic humility in the face of “violent religions”: calming the seesaw’, in Kraft, James & Basinger, David (eds) Religious Tolerance through Humility: Thinking with Philip Quinn (Aldershot & Burlington VT: Ashgate), 65–73.Google Scholar
Kraft, James (2012) The Epistemology of Religious Disagreement: A Better Understanding (New York NY: Palgrave Macmillan).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, Jennifer (2014) ‘Taking religious disagreement seriously’, in Callahan, Laura Frances & O'Connor, Timothy (eds) Religious Faith and Intellectual Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 299–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leiter, Brian (2013) Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Locke, John (2003) Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, Shapiro, Ian (ed.) (New Haven CT & London: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
McKim, Robert (2012) On Religious Diversity (New York NY: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John Stuart (2003) On Liberty, Bromwich, David & Kateb, George (eds) (New Haven CT & London: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Nicholson, Peter P. (1985) ‘Toleration as a moral ideal’, in Horton, John & Mendus, Susan (eds) Aspects of Toleration: Philosophical Studies (London& New York NY: Methuen), 158–173.Google Scholar
Quinn, Philip L. (2001) ‘Religious diversity and religious toleration’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 50, 57–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John (1999) A Theory of Justice (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John (2005) Political Liberalism (New York NY: Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Schmidt-Leukel, Perry (2005) ‘Exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism: the tripolar typology – clarified and reaffirmed’, in Knitter, Paul F. (ed.) The Myth of Religious Superiority: Multifaith Explorations of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books), 13–27.Google Scholar
Spitz, Jean-Fabien (2007) ‘Introduction’, in Locke, John, Lettre sur la tolérance (Paris: Flammarion), 11–97.Google Scholar
Walwyn, William (2003) ‘The Compassionate Samaritane (1644)’, in Wootton, David (ed.) Divine Right and Democracy: An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England (Indianapolis IN: Hackett), 247–72.Google Scholar