This article discusses Elizabeth Anscombe's faith and her concept of faith, and the bearing of this on what it is for belief to be reasonable. Reasonableness requires that we make a rough distinction between what can and cannot be taken seriously. At the margin we will rightly be influenced by thinkers such as Anscombe who were well able to appreciate the philosophical consensus but were also prepared to disturb it. She disturbed it in a particular way: by asserting Christian teachings robustly inimical to peace of mind. However she rejected many traditional defences of these teachings as presupposing a faulty understanding of rationality. The article attempts to assess what a more adequate understanding might be.
Philosophy, the journal of The Royal Institute of Philosophy is published by Cambridge University Press quarterly in January, April, July and October. The editorial policy of the journal pursues the aims of the Institute: to promote the study of philosophy in all its branches: logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, social and political philosophy and the philosophies of religion, science, history, language, mind and education. Contributors are expected to avoid all needless technicality.
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Philosophy
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