Ninian Smart and the Dialectic of Religious Beliefs and Experiences

Document Type : Original Research

Authors
Masoud Sadeghi 1
Fatemah Qalkhanbaz 2
1 Assistant Professor of University of Tehran, Iran
2 MA of Philosophy of Religion, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
10.30497/prr.2013.1478
Abstract
In recent philosophical analysis of religious experience and discussion on the relation of beliefs and experiences, Ninian Smart is said to be, amongst such other philosophers as Katz and Hick, a maximal constructivist. Distinguishing theistic and non-theistic contexts of experiences, Smart suggests a two poles theory of religious experience, and draws attention to different levels of interpretation. He holds that cultural-religious contexts, including religious beliefs, influence religious experience, but it is not led to fully determine experience. Accordingly, he takes a position between essentialism and maximal constructivism. This position could call minimal constructivism.
Keywords
religious experience
interpretation
Essentialism
Constructivism
Ninian Smart
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Philosophy of Religion Research
Volume 11, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
November 2014
Pages 99-122