{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/19572"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/19572","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Religious belief and the problems of cognitivity and commitment: A reappraisal based on contemporary philosophy of science","abstract":"Chapter One surveys two prominent perspectives, each held by representative philosophers and theologians: a neo-positivist perspective that religious belief (RB) is not rational and a neo-Wittgensteinian perspective that RB may be rational but only as determined by criteria internal to RB. Both perspective sharply differentiate religion from science, maintaining that religious beliefs are either not cognitive or cognitively different and that religious commitment (RC) must be absolute. I suggest that both perspectives utilize inadequate and unnecessary perceptions of science as well as religion.","abstract_html":"Chapter One surveys two prominent perspectives, each held by representative philosophers and theologians: a neo-positivist perspective that religious belief (RB) is not rational and a neo-Wittgensteinian perspective that RB may be rational but only as determined by criteria internal to RB. Both perspective sharply differentiate religion from science, maintaining that religious beliefs are either not cognitive or cognitively different and that religious commitment (RC) must be absolute. I suggest that both perspectives utilize inadequate and unnecessary perceptions of science as well as religion.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Knopp, Richard Alan"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Philosophy","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["McKim, Robert"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-07T12:11:49Z","date_published":"2011-05-07T12:11:49Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:14Z","subjects":["Religion, Philosophy of","Philosophy","Theology"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 1991 Knopp, Richard Alan"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI9136638","(UMI)AAI9136638"],"render_values":[{"text":"AAI9136638","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"(UMI)AAI9136638","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19572","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["McKim, Robert"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Knopp, Richard Alan"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-07T12:11:49Z","10000-01-01","1991"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Philosophy"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Religion, Philosophy of","Philosophy","Theology"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 1991 Knopp, Richard Alan"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI9136638","(UMI)AAI9136638","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19572"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Chapter One surveys two prominent perspectives, each held by representative philosophers and theologians: a neo-positivist perspective that religious belief (RB) is not rational and a neo-Wittgensteinian perspective that RB may be rational but only as determined by criteria internal to RB. Both perspective sharply differentiate religion from science, maintaining that religious beliefs are either not cognitive or cognitively different and that religious commitment (RC) must be absolute. I suggest that both perspectives utilize inadequate and unnecessary perceptions of science as well as religion.","Chapter Two exposes some prominent problems with the views of science utilized by the neo-positivists and neo-Wittgensteinians. It examines Thomas Kuhn's ideas on objectivity, commitment, incommensurability, and theory preference and Karl Popper's thoughts on falsifiability, rationality, justification, and theory choice. It offers some preliminary possibilities regarding how the changing picture of science might affect the issues of cognitivity, criticizability, and justification within the philosophy of religion.","\"Chapter Three focuses on the cognitive content of RB. It advocates the idea that some core beliefs, in some religious traditions, are \"\"comparably cognitive\"\" to scientific theories. It discusses the cognitivity of metaphors, models, and paradigms; and it explores the cognitive similarities between \"\"God\"\" and scientific theoretical entities. It maintains that some religious traditions include empirically testable core beliefs due to their \"\"semantic entailment\"\" (a notion adapted from Raeburne Heimbeck) and due to the heuristic nature of theological doctrines (a la Philip Hefner).\"","\"Chapter Four analyzes the character of RC. A theological objection developed by Karl Barth against viewing RB as rationally criticizable or defensible is presented, and the view that ligitimate RC may be strong but not unconditional is defended. It rejects the ideas that RB is not supposed to be falsifiable (James Kellenberger) and that neither science nor religion has empirically testable first-order principles (John Miller). W. W. Bartley's theory of rationality as criticizability is adapted and directed toward RB/RC. Some specific lessons learned from the philosophy of science are applied to RB/RC in an effort to avoid both foundationalism and fideism. It concludes that the \"\"leap\"\" to RB/RC need not be irrational or blind.\"","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:11:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9136638.pdf: 24078511 bytes, checksum: b77d682425edf8a338140317906a3ee3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1991","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:37:57Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:15:41-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Religious belief and the problems of cognitivity and commitment: A reappraisal based on contemporary philosophy of science"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["McKim, Robert"],"dc:creator":["Knopp, Richard Alan"],"dc:date":["2011-05-07T12:11:49Z","10000-01-01","1991"],"dc:description":["Chapter One surveys two prominent perspectives, each held by representative philosophers and theologians: a neo-positivist perspective that religious belief (RB) is not rational and a neo-Wittgensteinian perspective that RB may be rational but only as determined by criteria internal to RB. Both perspective sharply differentiate religion from science, maintaining that religious beliefs are either not cognitive or cognitively different and that religious commitment (RC) must be absolute. I suggest that both perspectives utilize inadequate and unnecessary perceptions of science as well as religion.","Chapter Two exposes some prominent problems with the views of science utilized by the neo-positivists and neo-Wittgensteinians. It examines Thomas Kuhn's ideas on objectivity, commitment, incommensurability, and theory preference and Karl Popper's thoughts on falsifiability, rationality, justification, and theory choice. It offers some preliminary possibilities regarding how the changing picture of science might affect the issues of cognitivity, criticizability, and justification within the philosophy of religion.","\"Chapter Three focuses on the cognitive content of RB. It advocates the idea that some core beliefs, in some religious traditions, are \"\"comparably cognitive\"\" to scientific theories. It discusses the cognitivity of metaphors, models, and paradigms; and it explores the cognitive similarities between \"\"God\"\" and scientific theoretical entities. It maintains that some religious traditions include empirically testable core beliefs due to their \"\"semantic entailment\"\" (a notion adapted from Raeburne Heimbeck) and due to the heuristic nature of theological doctrines (a la Philip Hefner).\"","\"Chapter Four analyzes the character of RC. A theological objection developed by Karl Barth against viewing RB as rationally criticizable or defensible is presented, and the view that ligitimate RC may be strong but not unconditional is defended. It rejects the ideas that RB is not supposed to be falsifiable (James Kellenberger) and that neither science nor religion has empirically testable first-order principles (John Miller). W. W. Bartley's theory of rationality as criticizability is adapted and directed toward RB/RC. Some specific lessons learned from the philosophy of science are applied to RB/RC in an effort to avoid both foundationalism and fideism. It concludes that the \"\"leap\"\" to RB/RC need not be irrational or blind.\"","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:11:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9136638.pdf: 24078511 bytes, checksum: b77d682425edf8a338140317906a3ee3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1991","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:37:57Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:15:41-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"],"dc:identifier":["AAI9136638","(UMI)AAI9136638","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19572"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 1991 Knopp, Richard Alan"],"dc:subject":["Religion, Philosophy of","Philosophy","Theology"],"dc:title":["Religious belief and the problems of cognitivity and commitment: A reappraisal based on contemporary philosophy of science"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Philosophy"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:14Z"}