Abstract
Victoria S. Harrison’s theory of internal pluralism approaches religious beliefs in terms of conceptual schemes. To her, this approach has the advantage of preserving core pluralist intuitions without being challenged by the usual difficulties (such as the incompatibility problem). My claim is that this is not the case. After providing a succinct presentation of internal pluralism, I show that the critique of traditional pluralist views such as Hick’s may also be addressed to Harrison. There are two main reasons in support of my claim. Firstly, a believer’s common understanding of religious experiences (both mystical and ritual) conflicts with the way in which internal pluralism understands religious belief. Such conflict implies that if internal pluralism were a sound theory, most religious beliefs would turn out to be false, and, contrary to Harrison’s intention, they would be rendered cognitively irrelevant. Secondly, internal pluralism excludes the possibility of religious disagreements. By applying to religions an epistemological approach based on conceptual schemes, doxastic dissent is actually dismantled at the cost of developing an entirely solipsistic reading of religious beliefs. In the final section of my paper, I will show that such unattractive features are consequences of the notion of conceptual scheme.
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Notes
To the best of my knowledge, the first scholar to use internal realism in philosophy of religion is Eberhard Herrmann (2003). His work appears in line with Harrison’s in terms of his main philosophical goals and his construal of the doctrine. Nonetheless, Herrmann does not focus on the issue of pluralism, nor does he address the incompatibility problem or develop a detailed account of the view. Therefore, in this paper I will leave him aside and limit my considerations exclusively to Harrison’s work.
Critics of pluralism contend that the inference from PPA and ERE to pluralism is invalid (many also hold that PPA and ERE are not sound claims; then, even if the inference to pluralism worked, the argument would not establish its conclusion). I will not address this issue here. I simply aim to show that, assuming that the best way to deal with PPA and ERE is to endorse pluralism, Harrison’s proposal cannot silence the same difficulties which trouble Hick’s one. More importantly, her theory is unattractive due to a number of peculiar features.
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Bertini, D. A Critique of Victoria S. Harrison’s Internal Realist Approach to Pluralism. Philosophia 47, 1053–1068 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-0038-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-0038-y