The Realist Hope: A Critique of Anti-Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology

by Insole,Christopher J.

• ISBN13: 9780754654872
• ISBN10: 0754654877
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-03-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Taking into consideration analytical, continental, historical, post-modern and contemporary thinkers, Insole provides a powerful defense of a realist construal of religious discourse. Insole argues that anti-realism tends towards absolutism and hubris. Where truth is exhausted by our beliefs about truth, there is no conceptual space for doubting those beliefs; only a conception of truth as absolute, given and accessible can guarantee the very humility, sense of fallibility and sensitivity to difference that the anti-realist rightly values.Cutting through some of the tired and well-rehearsed debates in this area, Insole provides a fresh perspective on approaches influenced by Wittgenstein, Kant, and apophatic theology. The defense of realism offered is unusual in being both analytically precise, and theologically sensitive, with a view to some of the wider and less well-explored cultural, ethical and political implications of the debate.

Author Biography

Christopher J. Insole is Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
1 Introduction	1	(10)
The scope of the argument	1	(4)
Detailed summary of the book's argument	5	(6)
2 The Scope and Meaning of Religious Language	11	(18)
Interpreting the behaviour of religious believers	13	(2)
Improving the philosophy: Simon Blackburn's quasi-realism	15	(5)
Characterizing the scope of the religious language game	20	(4)
Wittgenstein, verificationism and the Wittgensteinians	24	(5)
3 The Relativity of Truth to Language Games	29	(13)
The reconstructed Wittgensteinian approach	30	(1)
D.Z. Phillips and the reconstructed Wittgensteinian approach	31	(2)
Arguing for relativist realism	33	(1)
Family resemblance and particularism	34	(1)
Scepticism about rule following	35	(7)
4 Truth in Italics	42	(28)
An argument arising from the redundancy of truth	47	(4)
An epistemic conception of truth	51	(2)
The model-theoretic argument	53	(1)
Critique	54	(2)
Conceptual relativity	56	(6)
Identifying truth with ideal epistemic conditions	62	(3)
The theological dangers of an epistemic conception of truth	65	(5)
5 Worldmaking	70	(27)
First temptation: the rich diversity of possible world-views	71	(1)
Second temptation: word and concept contingency	72	(3)
Third temptation: the extent of mental organizing	75	(5)
Fourth temptation: the inability to give a substantive account of the correspondence relation	80	(4)
Fifth temptation: the explanatory and charitable power of relativist truth	84	(12)
Final remarks	96	(1)
6 Rumours of Kant	97	(20)
Re-Kanting Kantianism	99	(1)
Misunderstanding Kantian incoherence: Alvin Plantings and Peter Byrne	100	(3)
Kant's reasons for adopting transcendental idealism	103	(1)
The two-realm interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism	104	(6)
The one-realm interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism	110	(5)
Summary	115	(2)
7 Hick and the Noumenal Jam-Pot	117	(18)
Analysis and evaluation	120	(1)
Hick and the world	121	(3)
Hick's noumenal God	124	(3)
Substantial and formal properties	127	(6)
Summary	133	(2)
8 Kaufman and the Kantian Mystery	135	(13)
Constructing Kaufman	137	(6)
Regulative or noumenal – but not both	143	(5)
9 The New Apophaticism and the Return of the Anthropomorphic	148	(12)
The apophatic narcissistic self	150	(7)
The apophatic God and democracy	157	(3)
10 Violence, Breaking and Gift: Realism and Postmodern Philosophy of Religion	160	(12)
Paul D. Janz: tragedy, the cross and realism	160	(4)
Religion and realism 'after metaphysics': remembering the ontological difference	164	(2)
James K.A. Smith: incarnation as the condition of possibility for realism	166	(6)
11 The Brokenness of Divine Language	172	(15)
An argument for radical indeterminacy	173	(3)
J.F. Ross: talking about God and predicate schemas	176	(2)
Speaking anthropomorphically	178	(9)
12 Why Anti-realism Breaks up Relationships	187	(516)
First movement: just realism some political ramifications of anti-realism	188	(5)
Second movement: feminism and the appeal to realism in ethics	193	(2)
Third movement: why realism about God matters	195	(2)
Fourth movement: a non-reductive account of human nature and society as an analogue for realism about God	197	(2)
Fifth movement: the gap between our beliefs and reality	199	(504)
References	703
Index	209