Notre Dame Studies in the Philosophy of Rellan

THE AUTONOMY OF RELIGIOUS BELIE

A Critical Inquiry

Frederick rosson, editor

This collection of original essays deals with the meaning and truth of religious language. The background of the dis cussion is found in the linguistic analysis of Wittgenstein and others, for whom, as a form of life, language is seen as an organic part of the life of a human group. But the language of a people is characterized by an internal heterogeneity of "language-games" of different discourses-scientific, moral, religious-each having its own rales of what can be meaning fully said.

The essays in this work touch on the consequences of this situation and assess its import for religious belief. J. M. Cameron argues from examples of Christianity that the use fulness of understanding religion as a form of life is undeni able but limited. According to Louis Mackey, sacred scripture and not philosophy reveals and conceals the meaning of the world.

Further essays discuss the confusions of externaliam and internalism (D. Z. Phillips), religion and groundless believing (Kai Nielsen), belief in God as a certain manner of perceiv- ing the world (Kenneth Sayre), and the question of whether Christian discourse is a distinct language-game (William Al- ston).