Can fictionalists have faith? It all depends

Abstract

Can fictionalists have faith? It all depends on how we disambiguate ‘fictionalists’ and on what faith is. I consider the matter in light of my own theory. After clarifying its central terms, I distinguish two fictionalists – atheistic and agnostic – and I argue that, even though no atheistic fictionalist can have faith on my theory, agnostic fictionalists arguably can. After rejecting Finlay Malcolm's reasons for thinking this is a problem, I use his paradigmatic agnostic fictionalist as a foil to explore a variety of ways in which to describe agnostic fictionalists, none of whom pose a problem for my theory.

Three Arguments to Think that Faith Does Not Entail Belief

“…14–15). I address that argument and others elsewhere (Howard‐Snyder, , ). Understanding why their criticisms of my arguments fail will, I hope, exhibit the plausibility of nondoxasticism and thereby improve our understanding of faith.…”

Agnosticism II: Actions and attitudes

“…Some authors defend the possibility that fictionalists—especially those who embrace agnosticism—have (non‐doxastic) faith; Daniel Howard‐Snyder points out that, on a sufficiently broad understanding of agnostic fictionalism, even Jesus seems to have been an agnostic fictionalist at an especially difficult point of his life (see Howard‐Snyder, 2018, pp. 18–19).…”

Faith, fictionalism and bullshit

“…Alston's paper ignited debate but he was not the first to propose that propositional faith may lack belief, see Pojman (1986) and Audi (1991). 3 See Malcolm and Scott (2017), for a response see Howard-Synder (2018). 4 See Brown and Cappelen (2011) for an overview.…”

“…See Liggins () for an overview of fictionalism, Scott and Malcolm (2018) for an overview of religious fictionalism. Malcolm and Scott () consider whether non‐doxasticism leads to revolutionary religious fictionalism and Howard‐Snyder () for a response; see also Malcolm () and Howard‐Synder (). This is a distinct argument, focussed on whether the conditions for non‐doxastic faith are so modest that revolutionary fictionalists, employing methods of pretence and immersion, can satisfy them.…”