God and the problem of evidential ambiguity / Max Baker-Hytch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baker-Hytch, Max, 1986- author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in the problems of God, 2754-8724.

Cambridge elements. Elements in the problems of God, 2754-8724

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Belief and doubt.

Ambiguity--Philosophy.

Ambiguity.

Faith.

Cosmology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (70 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

When it comes to what many of us think of as the deepest questions of existence, the answers can seem difficult to make out. This difficulty, or ambiguity, is the topic of this Element. The Element begins by offering a general account of what evidential ambiguity consists in and uses it to try to make sense of the idea that our world is religiously ambiguous in some sense. It goes on to consider the questions of how we ought to investigate the nature of ultimate reality and whether evidential ambiguity is itself a significant piece of evidence in the quest.

Contents:

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

God and the Problem of Evidential Ambiguity

Contents

1 What Is the Problem of Evidential Ambiguity?

1.1 Ultimate Reality and Worldview

1.2 A Cluster of Problems

2 The Nature and Sources of Evidential Ambiguity

2.1 Two Conceptions of Evidence

2.2 Ambiguity as a Property of the World Itself?

2.3 The Public Evidence: A Shared Frame of Reference

2.4 The Threefold Sources of Evidential Ambiguity

2.5 Reasoning Counterfactually about Evidential Ambiguity

3 Five Ways to Be Ambiguous

3.1 Characterisation #1: The Public Evidence Is Evenly Balanced

3.2 Characterisation #2: A Comparison with Moorean Beliefs and Cartesian Beliefs

3.3 Characterisation #3: The Public Evidence Can Reasonably Be Interpreted in Mutually Incompatible Ways

3.4 Characterisation #4: The Body of Facts that Comprises the Public Evidence Is Very Large and Complex

3.5 Characterisation #5: The Public Evidence Is Mixed

3.6 An Interesting and Worldview-Neutral Characterisation

4 Seeking Truth amidst Ambiguity

4.1 Some Varieties of the Involved Approach

4.2 The Conditional Importance of the Involved Approach

4.3 Challenges to the Involved Approach: WhichWorldview to Step Inside?

4.4 Some Varieties of the Detached Approach

4.5 Challenges to the Detached Approach: Not So Detached after All?

4.6 Holistic Judgments and the Weighing of the Total Evidence

5 Evidential Ambiguity as Evidence in Its Own Right

5.1 Evidential Ambiguity as Disambiguating

5.2 What Are the Evidential Ambiguity Facts?

5.3 Isolating the Evidential Contribution of Evidential Ambiguity

5.4 Why Evidential Ambiguity Is Likely, Given Naturalism-Plus-the-Primary-Facts

5.5 Why Evidential Ambiguity Is Likely, Given Theism-Plus-the-Primary-Facts

5.6 Concluding Thoughts

References

Acknowledgements.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 28 Dec 2023).

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781009269834

1009269836

9781009269865

1009269860

9781009269841

1009269844

OCLC:

1433693461