The Relational and Doxastic Approach to Religious Diversity

The main purpose of my paper is to work out an experiential notion of religious diversity. This means characterising religious diversity in terms of relational and doxastic features. Such a proposal differs from mainstream approaches to religious beliefs (at least from a philosophical viewpoint) because these handle the epistemic dimension of faith as a purely epistemic matter. On the contrary, my idea consists of highlighting how the epistemic evaluation of opposing religious propositions is the outcome of an interpersonal process of evidence sharing wherein the particularities of the involved individuals matter. In the introductory section, I will define the topic of my paper. In the subsequent one, I will characterise how the mainstream approach to religious diversity and my own contrast. In the third section, I will develop in a few details the main reasons for why the epistemic approach is unsatisfactory. In the fourth one, I will provide a thought experiment for religious diversity, and I will set forth my considerations about what the thought experiment shows, with a focus on issues about the epistemology of religious disagreements. I will conclude my paper with a brief overview of the main consequences of my proposal.