Intuition, revelation, and relativism

Abstract

This paper defends the view that philosophical propositions are merely relatively true, i.e. true relative to a doxastic perspective defined at least in part by a non‐inferential belief‐acquiring method. Here is the strategy: first, the primary way that contemporary philosophers defend their views is through the use of rational intuition, and this method delivers non‐inferential, basic beliefs which are then systematized and brought into reflective equilibrium. Second, Christian theologians use exactly the same methodology, only replacing intuition with revelation. Third, intuition and revelation yield frequently inconsistent output beliefs. Fourth, there is no defensible reason to prefer the dictates of intuition to those of Christian revelation. Fifth, the resulting dilemma means that there are true philosophical propositions, but we can't know them (scepticism), or there are no philosophical propositions and the naturalists are right (nihilism), or relativism is true. I suggest that relativism is the most palatable of these alternatives.

Keywords:

• relativism
• intuition
• revelation
• foundationalism
• basic belief
• reflective equilibrium

Notes

See particularly Hales, 1997, Bennigson, 1999, and Lynch 1998.

The sketch is more fully worked out in my Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy, in preparation.

Bonjour, 1998: pp. 98, 106.

Roderick Chisholm also argues that rational intuition yields knowledge of necessities, and traces this view to Aristotle. See Chisholm, 1977: pp. 38–9.

Hales, 2000.

Bonjour maintains that ‘appeal to apparent rational insight is epistemologically so basic and fundamental as not to admit of any sort of independent justification’ (Bonjour, 1998: p. 148). Bealer states that ‘there is no alternative but to identify intuition as a basic source of evidence’ (Bealer, 1996: p. 31).

Kant also thought that it was an a priori necessary truth, known by intuition, that space conforms to Euclidean geometry. See Kant, 1787 (1965): B41.

Locke, 1690 (1974): Bk 4, Ch. x, §5.

See Swinburne, 1992: Ch. 5.

An excellent critique of Swinburne on this and related points is Byrne, 1993.

See Alston 1991: Ch. 5.

Although Plantinga admits that he is not arguing either that God exists or that the deliverances of revelation do in fact have warrant. His 500‐page treatise Warranted Christian Belief is devoted to defending the conditional proposition that if there is a God, then Christian beliefs have warrant. See Plantinga, 2000: pp. 186–90, p. 347.

See especially John Paul II, 1998. Modern Catholic writers are not entirely uniform on this, though, as we saw in the case of Cardinal Newman.

See Humanae Vitae, §§14–15. For more on masturbation in particular, see the Roman Curia's doctrinal document (Roman Curia, 1975).

One philosopher who is a self‐avowed dualist is Robert Almeder. Interestingly, however, Almeder defends dualism on empirical grounds, not on the basis of rational intuition. See his 1992. I have criticized some of Almeder's arguments in Hales, 2001a and Hales, 2001b.

Bealer, 1996: p. 30, n. 15.

Plantinga defends Alston's peer pressure argument in Chapter 4 of Warranted Christian Belief.

See Plantinga, 2000: p. 132 and Alston, 1991: p. 220.

Tidman, 1996: pp. 169–70. Cf. Foley, 1998: p. 242.

Alston, 1991: p. 153; cf. Plantinga, 2000: p. 130.

Langford, 1966: p. 41.

For example, John Paul II writes (Fides et Ratio, §82), ‘[a] relativist philosophy would be ill‐adapted to help in the deeper exploration of the riches found in the word of God … theology needs therefore the contribution of a philosophy which does not disavow the possibility of a knowledge which is objectively true.’