Lexington Books
Pages: 308
Trim: 6 x 8¾
978-1-4985-5017-8 • Hardback • December 2018 • $110.00 • (£85.00)
978-1-4985-5019-2 • Paperback • July 2020 • $39.99 • (£31.00)
978-1-4985-5018-5 • eBook • July 2020 • $38.00 • (£29.00)
Guy Axtell is professor of philosophy at Radford University.
Part I
Religious Cognition and Philosophy of Luck
1 Types of Religious Luck: A Working Taxonomy
2 The New Problem of Religious Luck
Part II
Applications and Implications of Inductive Risk
3 Enemy in the Mirror: The Need for Comparative Fundamentalism
4 We Are All of the Common Herd: Montaigne and the Psychology of our ‘Importunate Presumptions’
5 Scaling the ‘Brick Wall’: Measuring and Censuring Strongly Fideistic Religious Orientation
6 The Pattern Stops Here? Counter-Inductive Thinking, Counter-Intuitive Ideas, and Cognitive Science of Religion
In this book, Guy Axtell joins this important conversation about lucky belief, with an eye toward the religious case. He focuses on the epistemic justification of religious belief: the "de jure question" (p. 6). Axtell's main target is religious exclusivism -- a doctrinal or soteriological uniqueness that sets a particular religion apart from other religions. . . . Overall, the contingency of belief is a fascinating issue that deserves serious consideration. I'm hopeful that Axtell's book draws more attention to the intriguing problems raised by religious luck.
— Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
A thought-provoking, historically-informed, and highly distinctive take on the important questions raised by religious luck, this is a welcome addition to the literature.
— Duncan Pritchard, University of Edinburgh