Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-tn8tq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-30T04:53:38.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Semantic holism and the insider–outsider problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2011

MARK Q. GARDINER  and
STEVEN ENGLER
MARK Q. GARDINER
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB, T3E 6K6, Canada e-mail: mgardiner@mtroyal.ca, sengler@mtroyal.ca
STEVEN ENGLER
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB, T3E 6K6, Canada e-mail: mgardiner@mtroyal.ca, sengler@mtroyal.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that – despite the value of distinguishing between insiders and outsiders in a contingent and relative sense – there is no fundamental insider–outsider problem. We distinguish weak and strong versions of ‘insiderism’ (privileged versus monopolistic access to knowledge) and then sociological and religious versions of the latter. After reviewing critiques of the sociological version, we offer a holistic semantic critique of the religious version (i.e. the view that religious experience and/or language offers sui generis access to knowledge). We argue that all evidence for mental states is overt, public, and observable, and, hence, that there can be no significant difference in the access to knowledge of insiders and outsiders.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 2012 , pp. 239 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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

Davidson, D. (1967) ‘Truth and meaning’, in Davidson, , Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 17–35.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1973) ‘Radical interpretation’, in Davidson, , Inquiries into Meaning and Truth (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 125–139.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1974a) ‘Belief and the basis of meaning’, Synthese, 27, 309–323.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1974b) ‘On the very idea of a conceptual scheme’, in Davidson, , Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 183–198.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1978) ‘What metaphors mean’, in Davidson, , Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 245–264.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1982) ‘Rational animals’, in Davidson, , Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 95–105.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1986a) ‘A coherence theory of truth and knowledge’, in LePore, E. (ed.) Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), 307–319.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1986b) ‘A nice derangement of epitaphs’, in LePore, E. (ed.) Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Oxford: Blackwell), 433–446.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1990) ‘The structure and content of truth’, The Journal of Philosophy, 87, 279–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. (1991) ‘Epistemology externalized’, Dialectica, 45, 191–202.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1996) ‘The folly of trying to define truth’, The Journal of Philosophy, 93, 263–278.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1999) ‘Interpretation: hard in theory, easy in practice’, in Caro, M. D. (ed.) Interpretations and Causes: New Perspectives on Donald Davidson's Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers), 31–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, M. (2004) ‘The ins and outs of religious cognition’, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 16, 241–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliade, M. (1968) The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Trask, Willard R. (New York: Harvest Books).Google Scholar
Engler, S. (2006) ‘Review of A religião do cérebro: as novas descobertas da neurociência a respeito da fé humana’, Religious Studies Review, 32, 54.Google Scholar
Engler, S. and Gardiner, M. Q. (2010) ‘Ten implications of semantic holism for theories of religion’, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 22, 275–284.Google Scholar
Engler, S. and Gardiner, M. Q. (forthcoming) ‘Translation’, in Segal, R. A. and von Stuckrad, K. (eds) Vocabulary for the Study of Religion (Leiden and Boston: Brill).Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. and Lepore, E. (1992) Holism: A Shopper's Guide (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Frankenberry, N. K. (2002) ‘Religion as a “mobile army of metaphors”’, in Frankenberry, N. K. (ed.) Radical Interpretation in Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 171–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geach, P. T. (1965) ‘Assertion’, The Philosophical Review, 74, 449–465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godlove, T. F. Jr. (1999) ‘Religious discourse and first person authority’, in McCutcheon, R. T. (ed.) The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Cassell), 164–178.Google Scholar
Haj, S. (2009) Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Jensen, J. S. (2011) ‘Revisiting the “insider–outsider” debate: dismantling a pseudo-problem in the study of religion’, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 23, 29–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knott, K. (2010) ‘Insider/outsider perspectives’, in Hinnells, J. R. (ed.) The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion (London and New York: Routledge), 259–273.Google Scholar
Kripke, S. A. (1982) Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Lawson, E. T. and McCauley, R. N. (1990) Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Malpas, J. E. (1992) Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning: Holism, Truth, Interpretation (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Marino, R. Jr. (2005) A religião do cérebro: as novas descobertas da neurociência a respeito da fé humana (São Paulo: Editora Gente).Google Scholar
McCutcheon, R. T. (1999) The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Cassell).Google Scholar
Merton, R. K. (1972) ‘Insiders and outsiders: a chapter in the sociology of knowledge’, American Journal of Sociology, 78, 9–47.Google Scholar
Otto, R. (1958) [1917] The Idea of the Holy, trans. Harvey, J. W. (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Proudfoot, W. (1985) Religious Experience (Berkeley CA: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1960) Word and Object (Cambridge MA: Technology Press).Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1980) From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-philosophical Essays (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryba, T. (2007) ‘Phenomenology as insider trading: some stipulations for the religious “skin trade”’, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 19, 255–280.Google Scholar
Smith, W. C. (1981) Towards a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion (Philadelphia PA: Westminster Press).Google Scholar
Tarski, A. (1944) ‘The semantic conception of truth: and the foundations of semantics’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 4, 341–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tillich, P. (1957) Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. (1972) Philosophical Investigations, trans. Anscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar