Epistemološki vidik religioznega izkustva

diplomsko delo

Gregor Kuhar (Author), Bojan Borstner (Mentor)

Abstract

Religiozne izkušnje že od nekdaj burijo človeško domišljijo, spodbujajo špekulacije in vprašanja o njihovi naravi, o nadnaravnem, o bogu ter pogosto veljajo za nekakšen temelj vednosti. Do pojava ni ravnodušna niti moderna filozofija, natančneje spoznavna teorija, ki s pomočjo filozofskih argumentov poskuša dokazati spoznavno moč religioznih izkušenj ali tudi nasprotno tezo, da religiozne izkušnje same po sebi (brez dodatne teološke utemeljitve) ne morejo zagotoviti zanesljive vednosti. Drugo izmed zgornjih dveh tez smo poskušali dokazati tudi v tej nalogi. Najprej smo spoznali nekatera splošna vprašanja, ki zadevajo spoznavno vrednost religioznih izkušenj, nekatere definicije in klasifikacije religioznih izkušenj, pojav pa smo za namen te naloge tudi definirali in klasificirali. Nato smo spoznali različne strategije upravičenja vednosti in jih aplicirali na pojav religioznih izkušenj. Poskušali smo ugotoviti, ali so religiozne izkušnje same na sebi lahko temelj vednosti, dokaz za resničnost naših religioznih prepričanj, ali pa prinašajo t.i. intuitivno oziroma samo-evidentno vednost. Pri tem smo za namen naloge izločili reliabilistično oziroma eksternalistično strategijo upravičenja vednosti, saj pri religioznih izkušnjah - za razliko od "običajne" čutne zaznave - ne moremo trditi, da gre za izkustvo, ki bi prima facie prinašalo resnično vednost: religioznih izkušenj že zaradi njihovih pojavnih lastnosti ne moremo smatrati za prima facie zanesljiva izkustva. Tako smo za namen naloge sprejeli internalistično strategijo upravičenja vednosti, iz katere izhaja, da nam morajo biti razlogi za upravičenje spoznavne vrednosti religioznih izkušenj poznani. Nato smo podrobneje spoznali nekatere lastnosti religioznih izkušenj. Določene izmed njih (privatnost in posledična nepreverljivost izkušenj, vloga naše interpretacije in "kulturnih okvirov" pri izkušnji, zmožnost povzročanja religioznih in njim podobnih izkušenj z naravnimi pojavi) vzvratno potrjujejo naše sklepe iz prejšnjih poglavij, hkrati pa nas soočajo z naturalistično razlago pojava religioznih izkušenj, ki smo jo preučili v naslednjem koraku. Pri tem se nismo naslanjali zgolj na filozofske argumente, ampak smo (sicer zelo v grobem) spoznali nekatere psihološke in nevrološke ugotovitve. Soočili smo se tudi s tezami, da je naturalistični (znanstveni) pogled na svet ali na konkreten pojav zgolj eden izmed različnih in enakovrednih pogledov. To tezo smo zavrnili z dokazovanjem (tega vprašanja sicer nismo podrobno razdelali, temveč smo se ga zgolj površno dotaknili), da je naturalistični, predvsem pa znanstveni pristop spoznavno kvalitativno različen od drugih epistemoloških sistemov, npr. od različnih religioznih doktrin. Na podlagi teh sklepov smo nadalje izpeljali tezo, da religiozne izkušnje same po sebi (brez kakršnekoli dodatne utemeljitve) ne morejo biti temelj naše vednosti, garant za resničnost naših religioznih prepričanj, niti t.i. intuitivna oziroma samo-evidentna spoznava. Dotaknili smo se vprašanja, kaj privzetje naturalistične (znanstvene) razlage pojavov religioznih izkušenj pomeni za naša (religiozna) prepričanja. Že v uvodu smo prikazali, da sprejetje naturalistične razlage religioznih izkušenj prinaša neobhodne posledice za vsaj del naših religioznih prepričanj, saj so religije vsaj delno utemeljene tudi na prepričanju, da so določeni izbrani posamezniki izkusili oziroma spoznali boga, božanstvo ali kakšen drug aspekt nadnaravnega - kar pa religije smatrajo za vzvraten dokaz o pravilnosti njihovih religioznih doktrin, medtem ko religiozne doktrine hkrati utemeljujejo verodostojnost religioznih izkušenj. S sprejetjem naših sklepov je ta krožni sklep ovržen. V zadnjem delu naloge smo preučili tudi fenomenološko kritiko argumenta religiozne izkušnje, ki podvomi v nekatere predpostavke našega preučevanja, in poskušali ugotoviti, kaj to pomeni za naše dosedanje dokazovanje.

Keywords

filozofija;religija;izkustvo;spoznavna vrednost;nevro-psihologija;naturalizem;zavest;epistemologija;diplomska dela;

Data

Language:	Slovenian
Year of publishing:	2010
Source:	Maribor
Typology:	2.11 - Undergraduate Thesis
Organization:	UM FF - Faculty of Arts
Publisher:	[G. Kuhar]
UDC:	1(043.2)
COBISS:	17906184
Views:	1998
Downloads:	168
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
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Other data

Secondary language:	English
Secondary title:	EPISTEMOLOGIC PERSPECTIVE OF A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
Secondary abstract:	Religious experiences have been fueling people's imagination, stimulating speculations and raising questions on their nature, supernatural and god since we can remember. They are often considered as kind of basic foundation of knowledge. Modern philosophy or, more precisely, cognitive theory, hasn't divorced this phenomenon. With the help of philosophical arguments, it tries to prove the cognitive power of religious experiences or, on the contrary, that religious experiences by themselves (i.e. without additional theological reasoning) can't provide true knowledge. We tried to prove the latter of these two hypotheses in this dissertation. Firstly, we acquaint ourselves with some of the basic questions regarding the cognitive value of religious experiences and some of their definitions and categorizations. For the purpose of this thesis we have also defined and categorized the phenomena itself. Then, we identified different strategies of knowledge justification and applied them to the phenomenon of religious experience. We have tried to discern if religious experiences by themselves can form the foundation of knowledge and provide a proof of authenticity of our religious beliefs, or if they only provide the so called intuitive or self-evident knowledge. For the purpose of this thesis, we have excluded the reliabilist or externalist strategy of knowledge justification as we cannot claim that religious experiences are a type of cognition which would prima facie bring us true knowledge: religious experiences - because of their cognitive abilities - can't be considered for prima facie reliable experiences. For the purpose of this thesis, we have thus adopted the internalist strategy of knowledge justification, which says that the reasons for justifying cognitive value of religious experience must be known to us. After that, we have discerned some attributes of religious experiences. Some of them (privacy and consequential impossibility to verify these experiences, the role of our interpretation and 'cultural frames' during the experience, the possibility of causing religious and like experiences with natural phenomena) confirm our conclusions from previous chapters and at the same time face us with the naturalist explanation of religious experience phenomenon which we have studied in our next step. Doing so, we weren't relying only on philosophical arguments, but we have also become cognizant of certain psychological and neurological ascertainments. We have also faced the theses which say that the naturalistic view (view of science) on the world or any concrete phenomenon is only one of different and equal perceptions. This thesis was rejected by arguing that the naturalistic and mainly scientific approach is qualitatively different from other epistemological systems, e.g. various religious doctrines. On the basis of these conclusions, we have further developed our thesis that religious experiences by themselves (without additional argumentation) cannot be foundation of our knowledge, justification that our religious beliefs are in fact real, and neither of the so called intuitive or self-evident cognition. We have touched the issue on what does the adopting of naturalistic (scientific) explanation of the phenomena of religious experiences means for our (religious) beliefs. In our introduction, we have shown that adopting the naturalistic explanation of religious experiences brings necessary consequences for at least one part of our religious beliefs, because religions are at least partially grounded on conviction that certain chosen individuals experienced or become cognizant of god, deity or some other aspect of the supernatural - what is in fact what religions consider as a reversal proof on correctness of their religious doctrines, while at the same time, religious doctrines establish the authenticity of religious experiences. By accepting our conclusions, we reject this circular reasoning. In the last part of our thesis we have also studied the phenomenological critic of the argument of religious experience, which doubts some of the presumptions of our study. We tried to discern what effect it has on our earlier arguing.
Secondary keywords:	religious experience;cognitive value of religious experiences;neuropsychology;naturalistic explanation;subjects of consciousness;
URN:	URN:SI:UM:
Type (COBISS):	Undergraduate thesis
Thesis comment:	Univ. v Mariboru, Filozofska fak., Oddelek za filozofijo
Pages:	120 f.
Keywords (UDC):	philosophy;psychology;filozofija;psihologija;
ID:	18814