3 Review(s)

This title defends a new type of epistemology, the Critical Trust Approach, and then applies it to the experience of God in the contemporary multicultural context. The question of whether religious experience can be trusted has been hotly debated in epistemology and philosophy of religion in recent years. Kwan surveys this contemporary philosophical debate, provides in-depth analysis of the crucial issues, and offers arguments for an affirmative answer to the above question. Kwan first argues against traditional empiricist epistemologies and defends Swinburne's Principle of Credulity which holds that we should trust our experiences unless there are special considerations to the contrary. The Principle of Credulity is renamed the Principle of Critical Trust to highlight the need for balance between trust and criticism and is used as the foundation for a new approach to epistemology, the Critical Trust Approach (CTA), which maintains an emphasis on experience but attempts to break loose of the straightjacket of traditional empiricism by broadening the evidential base of experience. Kwan then widens his focus by looking at theistic experience in the contemporary multicultural context."Continuum Studies in Philosophy of Religion" presents scholarly monographs offering cutting-edge research and debate to students and scholars in philosophy of religion. The series engages with the central questions and issues within the field, including the problem of evil, the cosmological, teleological, moral, and ontological arguments for the existence of God, divine foreknowledge, and the coherence of theism. It also incorporates volumes on the following metaphysical issues as and when they directly impact on the philosophy of religion: the existence and nature of the soul, the existence and nature of free will, natural law, the meaning of life, and science and religion.