Bydgoszcz, Poland, 1-2 June  2016, Przystań Bydgoszcz (Marina), Tamka 1

An International Conference organized by the Department of Philosophy of Casimir the Great University (Bydgoszcz, Poland) and the Laboratoire d’Histoire des Sciences et de Philosophie-Archives Poincaré (Université de Lorraine/CNRS, Nancy, France).

Organizers : Darek Łukasiewicz & Roger Pouivet

 

At the end of his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume says: “If we take in our hand any volume—of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance—let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning about quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experiential reasoning about matters of fact and existence? No. Then throw it in the fire, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” 

In part, “divinity”means theology, especially understood as an academic discipline, and theology has long been understood as related to metaphysics, especially scholastic metaphysics. Therefore, what Hume claimsis that theology is not epistemologically respectable. The reason is that it does not contain the kind of propositions that can be found, according to Hume, in strictly formal disciplines, orthe kind of propositions that can be found in empirical and scientific disciplines, based on experience. There would thus be epistemological standards, related to the possibility of verification, whose respectjustifies a claim to knowledge, and even simply to intellectual respectability. Theology would not meet these standards. One claim opposed to theology, particularly by Positivists, is that we have no proof of the existence of its main object, God. It cannot be experienced and any experience of the divine one pretends to have could be reinterpreted as an illusion or hallucination. This account was accepted enthusiastically, above all by those for whom theology makes no sense, and seems to be still central in what has been called “New Atheism”. Epistemological naturalism, the thesis that all acceptable explanation must belong to the natural sciences and adopt their methodology, also encourages the claim that theology is devoid of epistemological respectability. But such a claim may also encourage breaking the link between theology and epistemologyand renouncing any claim to objectivity in the religious field. It is left to experience, sentiment andinteriority. Setting the link between epistemology and theology is therefore significant to the nature of religion; it leads to a more intellectual or more phenomenal conception thereof.

The first question in this conference will be whether theology is epistemologically respectable, that is to say if it can meet the standards of rational thought. But are these standards identifiable and are they common to all realities under investigation? Are these standards independent of the context of thought and inquiry?Could they be specific in religious contexts? Another question that might be raised is whether theologyis not empty rhetoric which only imitates serious discourse; is it perhaps a form of language inside a community of believers? All these problemscould be addressed in general orin relation toclassical theological issues, those of the Resurrection, the Trinity, the Atonement, the Incarnation and others.They could be discussed non-historically or in relation to some authors or periods. To resume, questions of the first type belong to the Epistemology of Theology.

But there is a second type of questions, which is the counterpart (or even the converse) of the former. Could it also be that epistemology needs theology? This is the question of a possible Theology of Epistemology. Don’t we need a divine warrant of knowledge bya truthful God? How is it possible to escape the skeptical threat without a benevolent God? Even if contemporary epistemology has largely neglected the issue of a divine warrant of knowledge, does that mean that it is no longer relevant? According to Descartes, an atheist can be clearly aware that “the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles”. But heclaims that “this awareness [cognitionem] of his is not true knowledge [scientiam], since no act of awareness [cognitio] that can be rendered doubtful seems fit to be called knowledge [scientia].” (Second Replies to the Metaphysical Meditations). Like the issues concerning the epistemology of theology, the question of a theology of epistemology can be examined and discussed in all its generality or through special problems like, for example, the nature of intuition, the interpretation of Descartes, but also Augustine, Reid or contemporary Alvin Plantinga. Could we be knowledgeable beings without a wise Author of nature? Of course, it could also be defended that the secularization of epistemology has been an important step forward, and that its naturalization is a better way to do epistemology than its “theologization”.

This conference is the fourth in what appears to be a series in epistemological exploration. The first, “Scientific Knowledge and Common Knowledge” was organized in Bydgoszcz in 2007 (andedited by Dariusz Łukasiewicz & Roger Pouivet, Scientific Knowledge and Common Knowledge,Epigram Publishing House & Kazimierz Wielki University Press, Bydgoszcz, 2009). It examined the relationship between scientific knowledge and common knowledge. The second, “The Right to Believe: Perspectives in Religious Epistemology” organized in Bydgoszcz in 2010 (edited by Dariusz Łukasiewicz & Roger Pouivet, The Right to Believe, Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt, 2012) discussed the question of whether we have the epistemological right to have religious beliefs. The third, “The Epistemology of Atheism” in Nancy in 2013 (edited by Dariusz Łukasiewicz & Roger Pouivet, The European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, to appear) was devoted to good (or bad) reasons to reject religious beliefs. Around these issues of religious epistemology a community of scholarshas formed, which remains relatively stable but may also be enlarged, depending on the subject, thus providing an excellent example of international cooperation, especially between France(Nancy) and Poland (Bydgoszcz), ranging over a long period of time and allowing to monitor work and research development.