Michael G. Harvey 
Skepticism, Relativism, and Religious Knowledge [EPUB ebook] 
A Kierkegaardian Perspective Informed by Wittgenstein’s Philosophy

Skepticism, Relativism, and Religious Knowledge examines the challenges of skepticism and relativism to religious knowledge after the demise of classical foundationalism. Whereas skepticism doubts our capacity to know truth, relativism doubts whether we can find a sufficiently objective perspective to adjudicate strong disagreement about truth. Thus relativism involves skepticism about rationality rather than truth. In developing a critique of responses to these challenges by Karl Barth and Reformed epistemology, Michael G. Harvey develops a Kierkegaardian perspective on religious knowledge informed by Wittgenstein’s philosophy. This perspective is based on a hermeneutical model of rationality that appeals to what we hold in common rather than private and parochial foundations in order to settle disagreement. Although doubt is necessary to produce more truth-preserving beliefs, we must scrutinize our doubts as well as beliefs in order to prevent the belief-forming mechanism of doubt from degenerating into a general mood of skepticism about rationality and truth. More fundamentally, we must realize that skepticism and relativism are rooted in attitudes of alienation. Whereas epistemology aims at a non-alienated view of the world, Christianity aims at a non-alienated way of living through faith that enables both our beliefs and lives to correspond with the truth.

About the author

Stanley Hauerwas is professor emeritus of ethics at Duke University where he held the Gilbert T. Rowe chair for more than twenty years. Among his numerous publications are Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified (1998) and Living Gently in a Violent World, with Jean Vanier (2008). His latest publication is Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism of Karl Barth (University of Virginia Press, 2023).