A Contextualist Account of Ascriptions of Faith

Abstract Is there a necessary epistemic condition for ascriptions of faith that P to be appropriate? The primary aim of this article is to address this question by developing a contextualist account of ascriptions of faith. We argue that the ascription of faith that P to a subject S in a context C is semantically appropriate only if there is a salient relevant alternative to P for S in C. We also explore the implications of the contextualist account for the debate on the possession of faith. One group of philosophers argues that having faith that P is incompatible with possessing knowledge that P, while another group disagrees, maintaining that one can simultaneously have faith and knowledge that P. The second aim of the article is to argue that the linguistic facts (at least those discussed in this article) about ascriptions of faith are not sufficient to establish that either group of philosophers is on the right track.