Quasi-Fideism and Sceptical Fideism

Abstract

My interest is in the relationship between the contemporary account of the epistemology of religious belief, known as quasi-fideism, and the sceptical fideism that has been so important, historically, in motivating fideistic ideas. I argue that we can profitably construe quasi-fideism along sceptical fideist lines, in that it is a proposal that is naturally understood as both arising within the context of a sceptical investigation and as exhibiting core features that it shares with Pyrrhonian scepticism. Moreover, I suggest that sceptical fideism, properly rendered, is inclined towards the kind of restricted fideism that is essential to quasifideism. Popkin's (1965;2003) magisterial work on the history of sceptical thought is One of the enduring insights of Richard