Against Quasi-Fideism

In a series of papers, Duncan Pritchard has argued that Wittgenstein’s remarks in On Certainty (OC) provide the foundation for a quasi-fideistic account of religious belief. This account seeks to navigate a middle path between evidentialism—the view that religious belief is rational only if supported by epistemic reasons—and fideism, which holds that religious belief cannot be rationally justified precisely because it is not grounded in epistemic reasons. Central to Pritchard’s quasi-fideism is a parity argument, which asserts that religious and non-religious beliefs are on equal footing. For the rationality of both depends on their connection to a background of a-rational foundational commitments, or “hinges”. In this paper, I challenge Pritchard’s account on two fronts. First, I argue that his quasi-fideism relies on a contentious interpretation of OC, and of Wittgenstein’s views about religious discourse, making it questionable whether it can genuinely be considered an application of Wittgenstein’s views to religious epistemology. Second, I contend that quasi-fideism, as developed by Pritchard, is inherently unstable, as it risks either collapsing into fideism or permitting relativism, contrary to Pritchard’s intentions. I then explore the potential for quasi-fideism—or, at any rate, a position meant to steer a middle path between evidentialism and fideism—under an alternative interpretation of OC. While this alternative framework may offer better prospects than Pritchard’s original formulation for avoiding the pitfalls of fideism and relativism, while sidestepping evidentialism, I argue that it ultimately fails to support a parity argument between religious and non-religious beliefs. Consequently, it cannot sustain a religious epistemology that avoids both evidentialism and fideism.