Gastvortrag von Sylwia Wilczewska, PhD (University Lublin): „Practical agnosticism as a non-doxastic attitude“ [Einladung]

Seminarraum VI der Theologischen Fakultät (Karl-Rahner-Platz 3, 1. Stock)

Within the epistemology of religion, it has often been assumed that the practical implication of suspending one‘s judgement on the existence of God is (1) practical atheism, (2) practical theism (non-doxastic faith), or (3) the state of indecision between practical theism and practical atheism. In my view, the default practical implication of agnosticism on God‘s existence is better understood as a separate non-doxastic attitude different from practical atheism and not involving non-doxastic faith but also not reducible to the state of indecision between the two. I argue that (a.) such account is supported by the analogies between agnosticism and apophaticism on the one hand and agnosticism and fictionalism on the other, and that (b.) it does not rule out the account of agnosticism as the attitude of inquiry. I also briefly describe the advantages the account of agnosticism as a separate non-doxastic attitude may have for modelling some sociological facts concerning contemporary spiritual phenomena – e.g. the rise of postsecularism or the SBNR movement.

Sylwia Wilczewska is a research assistant at the Faculty of Philosophy of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, where she acquired her PhD in philosophy. Her primary research area is the philosophy of religion, and her current research concentrates on the epistemic and practical issues surrounding agnosticism in religious epistemology.