Internalism as Distinct Aspect of Phillips’ Religious Epistemology of Wittgenstein

Abstract

As a Wittgensteinian fideist, Phillip’s approach to the epistemology of religious propositions is different from Wittgenstein’s approach. In this paper, first through description and analysis of Philips’s approach to three concept and problem of non-realism, the way of life and theory of language games it has been showed that he takes internalist approach to those concepts and problems which is contrary to Wittgenstein’s externalist and contextualist approach, though his internalist approach is a moderate internalism. His moderate internalism has its roots in his distinction between the meaningfulness and and justification religious beliefs and reducing justification religious beliefs to language games. Besides that, he considers the religious way of life different from other ways of life. Our critical review of his approach shows that his absolute distinction between meaningfulness and justification of religious beliefs is a problematic distinction.

Keywords

• internalism
• externalism
• philips
• wittgenstein
• justification