Commentary: Religious credence is not factual belief.

Konrad Talmont-Kaminski

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01544

Abstract

Van Leeuwen (2014) claims religious credences are not factual beliefs. He holds that while factual beliefs alone (i) guide behavior in all relevant practical settings, (ii) support inferences between religious credences and (iii) are evidentially vulnerable; religious credences instead (a) have a perceived normative orientation, (b) are open to free elaboration and (c) are vulnerable to special authority. However, it is relatively easy to think of potential counterexamples to that seemingly neat dichotomy, as Van Leeuwen allows. Thus, rituals—such as rain dances—often have purported mundane effects that render beliefs regarding them evidentially vulnerable. The beliefs regarding such rituals must support inferences between factual claims about the details of the ritual to be performed and its efficacy, and certainly do guide ritual behavior in the relevant practical setting. The literature on ritual failure seems to bear out such a more heterogenous view of religious beliefs (Husken, 2007).

Highlights

Psychology Faculty, University of Finance and Management, Warsaw, Poland Keywords: religious credence, religious belief, prosocial belief, prosocial religion, science-religion distinction
Van Leeuwen does not really provide any evidence that the triplets of traits he identifies do regularly co-occur in the property space occupied by various propositional attitudes
To show that a relatively clear distinction does exist—that factual beliefs and religious credences are clearly separable attractor positions in this space—it would be necessary to plot a representative sample of propositional attitudes in the property space and see whether they do cluster

Summary

Introduction

Psychology Faculty, University of Finance and Management, Warsaw, Poland Keywords: religious credence, religious belief, prosocial belief, prosocial religion, science-religion distinction. A commentary on Religious credence is not factual belief by Van Leeuwen, N. Van Leeuwen (2014) claims religious credences are not factual beliefs.

Results

Conclusion