Disagreement in Religion

This chapter demonstrates the relevance of the conclusions in Chaps. 6 and 7 to real-world cases of disagreement. It examines the nature of religious disagreement in the context of (inter)religious dialog. After considering some general tenets and suppositions of such dialog, it turns to the debate on peer disagreement in religion. Paralleling the discussion of Davidson in Chaps. 6 and 7 , it argues that the specification of disagreements requires argumentative dialog where reasons for belief must be balanced against reasons for attributing specific beliefs to the dialog partner. A pivotal consequence of the Davidsonian insights is that the specification of religious disagreement requires shared epistemic criteria. At the same time, however, those shared criteria enabling the specification of disagreement are also what makes its resolution possible.