Responsible Belief: Limitations Liabilities and Melioration

Responsible Belief tackles the problem of fixing the tenacity of believers in forming holding and modifying beliefs. In conversation with the history of philosophy and religion the author attempts to expose and refute some aspects of the dominant epistemological framework for engaging belief fixation and improvement. In contrast to this framework Dr. Frazier provides a model of a responsible believing agent rooted in an ethic of the intellectual virtue tradition. In dialogue with Aristotle he proposes three principal virtues which he calls the generative the transmissive and the metamorphic. The authors alternative framework includes an examination of the role that intellectual passions play in the melioration of belief. Responsible Belief considers whether Doestoevskys claim that Beauty will save the world has a place in discussions of belief formation and revision and offers an account of its vitality in addressing the concerns raised in the book. When is belief responsible and when is it not? Complexities abound in this area of inquiry but Frazier contends that an answer must attend to the history and the psychology of a belief. In addition intellectual virtues must be front and center according to his story. Ideas from Aristotle Philo Augustine and Peirce loom large as theology joins philosophy in the quest for explanation. Readers will find here an abundance of relevant ideas as they seek a responsible portrait of responsible belief. --Paul K. Moser Professor of Philosophy Loyola University Chicago This scholarly work reflects the seasoning of a life formed in and devoted to the very things it commends. Arguing that modern epistemology with its narrow focus on justification is ill-equipped to mature people in responsible believing Frazier taps the ancient greats to propose a wider account: Humans natural inclination to truth hampered by our prideful self-deception may be wooed by the worlds intimations of beauty and restored through intellectual love and humility and a spirituality of inquiry. --Esther Lightcap Meek Professor of Philosophy Geneva College; author of Loving to Know: Introducing Covenant Epistemology and other books on knowing Robert M. Frazier is Professor of Philosophy at Geneva College Beaver Falls PA.