Can we acquire knowledge of ultimate reality?

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Can humans acquire knowledge of ultimate reality, even significant or comprehensive knowledge? I argue that for all we know we can, and that is so whether ultimate reality is divine or non-divine. My strategy involves arguing that we are ignorant, in the sense of lacking public or shared knowledge, about which possibilities, if any, obtain for humans to acquire knowledge of ultimate reality. This follows from a deep feature of our epistemic situation—that our current psychology strongly constrains what we can conceive about the extent to which human intellectual and other psychological capacities might develop in the future. This mean that many possibilities for such development remain open to us epistemically, including the possibility that we might come to understand vastly more about ultimate reality than we currently do, even if ultimate reality is divine. I also argue that there is room to rationally hope that that is so.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationModels of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities
EditorsJ. Diller, A. Kasher
Place of PublicationDordrecht
PublisherSpringer Netherlands
Pages81-91
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9789400752191
ISBN (Print)9789400752184
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2013

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Arts and Humanities

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