Non-evidential believing and permissivism about evidence: A reply to Dan-Johan Eklund

Joshua Cockayne; David Efird; Daniel V Molto; Richard Anthony Stuart Tamburro; Jack Warman

doi:10.1017/S0034412515000517

Non-evidential believing and permissivism about evidence: A reply to Dan-Johan Eklund

Joshua Cockayne, David Efird, Daniel V Molto, Richard Anthony Stuart Tamburro, Jack Warman

Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

In response to John Bishop's (2007) account of passionally caused believing, Dan-Johan Eklund (2014) argues that conscious non-evidential believing is (conceptually) impossible, that is, it's (conceptually) impossible consciously to believe that p whilst acknowledging that the relevant evidence doesn't support p's being true, for it conflicts with belief being a truth-oriented attitude, or so he argues. In this article, we present Eklund's case against Bishop's account of passionally caused believing, and we argue that it's unpersuasive, at least to those who accept permissivism about evidence, that is, that it's possible for there to be more than one rational response to a given body of evidence. We do this through a novel application of a case of nurtured belief, that is, of a person holding a belief simply because she was caused to do so by her upbringing, and we use it to show exactly where Eklund's argument goes wrong. We conclude by drawing a general lesson drawn from this debate: if permissivism about evidence is true, then belief being truth-oriented is consistent with non-evidential believing being possible.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-10
Number of pages	10
Journal	Religious Studies
Early online date	15 Oct 2015
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412515000517
Publication status	Published - 2015

Bibliographical note

© Cambridge University Press 2015. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

Access to Document

10.1017/S0034412515000517

Reply to Dan-Johan-Eklund--revised final
© Cambridge University Press 2015. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.
Accepted author manuscript, 112 KB

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=10005930&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0034412515000517

Cite this

@article{40d43e10cd4242158d01beace2b8ef78,

title = "Non-evidential believing and permissivism about evidence: A reply to Dan-Johan Eklund",

abstract = "In response to John Bishop's (2007) account of passionally caused believing, Dan-Johan Eklund (2014) argues that conscious non-evidential believing is (conceptually) impossible, that is, it's (conceptually) impossible consciously to believe that p whilst acknowledging that the relevant evidence doesn't support p's being true, for it conflicts with belief being a truth-oriented attitude, or so he argues. In this article, we present Eklund's case against Bishop's account of passionally caused believing, and we argue that it's unpersuasive, at least to those who accept permissivism about evidence, that is, that it's possible for there to be more than one rational response to a given body of evidence. We do this through a novel application of a case of nurtured belief, that is, of a person holding a belief simply because she was caused to do so by her upbringing, and we use it to show exactly where Eklund's argument goes wrong. We conclude by drawing a general lesson drawn from this debate: if permissivism about evidence is true, then belief being truth-oriented is consistent with non-evidential believing being possible.",

author = "Joshua Cockayne and David Efird and Molto, {Daniel V} and Tamburro, {Richard Anthony Stuart} and Jack Warman",

note = "{\textcopyright} Cambridge University Press 2015. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher{\textquoteright}s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.",

year = "2015",

doi = "10.1017/S0034412515000517",

language = "English",

pages = "1--10",

journal = "Religious Studies",

issn = "0034-4125",

publisher = "Cambridge University Press",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Non-evidential believing and permissivism about evidence

T2 - A reply to Dan-Johan Eklund

AU - Cockayne, Joshua

AU - Efird, David

AU - Molto, Daniel V

AU - Tamburro, Richard Anthony Stuart

AU - Warman, Jack

N1 - © Cambridge University Press 2015. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - In response to John Bishop's (2007) account of passionally caused believing, Dan-Johan Eklund (2014) argues that conscious non-evidential believing is (conceptually) impossible, that is, it's (conceptually) impossible consciously to believe that p whilst acknowledging that the relevant evidence doesn't support p's being true, for it conflicts with belief being a truth-oriented attitude, or so he argues. In this article, we present Eklund's case against Bishop's account of passionally caused believing, and we argue that it's unpersuasive, at least to those who accept permissivism about evidence, that is, that it's possible for there to be more than one rational response to a given body of evidence. We do this through a novel application of a case of nurtured belief, that is, of a person holding a belief simply because she was caused to do so by her upbringing, and we use it to show exactly where Eklund's argument goes wrong. We conclude by drawing a general lesson drawn from this debate: if permissivism about evidence is true, then belief being truth-oriented is consistent with non-evidential believing being possible.

AB - In response to John Bishop's (2007) account of passionally caused believing, Dan-Johan Eklund (2014) argues that conscious non-evidential believing is (conceptually) impossible, that is, it's (conceptually) impossible consciously to believe that p whilst acknowledging that the relevant evidence doesn't support p's being true, for it conflicts with belief being a truth-oriented attitude, or so he argues. In this article, we present Eklund's case against Bishop's account of passionally caused believing, and we argue that it's unpersuasive, at least to those who accept permissivism about evidence, that is, that it's possible for there to be more than one rational response to a given body of evidence. We do this through a novel application of a case of nurtured belief, that is, of a person holding a belief simply because she was caused to do so by her upbringing, and we use it to show exactly where Eklund's argument goes wrong. We conclude by drawing a general lesson drawn from this debate: if permissivism about evidence is true, then belief being truth-oriented is consistent with non-evidential believing being possible.

U2 - 10.1017/S0034412515000517

DO - 10.1017/S0034412515000517

M3 - Article

SN - 0034-4125

SP - 1

EP - 10

JO - Religious Studies

JF - Religious Studies

ER -