The Realist Hope: A Critique of Anti-Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology

Taking into consideration analytical, continental, historical, post-modern and contemporary thinkers, Insole provides a powerful defense of a realist construal of religious discourse. Insole argues that anti-realism tends towards absolutism and hubris. Where truth is exhausted by our beliefs about truth, there is no conceptual space for doubting those beliefs; only a conception of truth as absolute, given and accessible can guarantee the very humility, sense of fallibility and sensitivity to difference that the anti-realist rightly values.Cutting through some of the tired and well-rehearsed debates in this area, Insole provides a fresh perspective on approaches influenced by Wittgenstein, Kant, and apophatic theology. The defense of realism offered is unusual in being both analytically precise, and theologically sensitive, with a view to some of the wider and less well-explored cultural, ethical and political implications of the debate.

Christopher J. Insole is Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge, UK.