Religious experience and behaviour practice questions.

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James calls mystical states noetic. In his account this means that they

• cannot be put into words by the person who undergoes them
• fade after a short time and cannot be sustained by an effort of will
• are received as states of insight into truth, not merely as feelings
• come upon the subject as though the will were held in abeyance by a superior power

Answer: are received as states of insight into truth, not merely as feelings

The noetic quality is James's name for the sense that a mystical state delivers knowledge; ineffability, transiency and passivity are the other three marks, and only the noetic quality makes an epistemic claim on behalf of the experience.

A researcher argues that the point of a communal rite is not what the participants believe about it but the way it renews their commitment to a shared order. This account of religious behaviour is best described as

• functionalist, explaining a rite by what it does for the group
• psychoanalytic, explaining a rite as a displaced infantile wish
• cognitivist, treating a rite as the expression of literal beliefs about the world
• individualist, treating a rite as a report of a private inner experience

Answer: functionalist, explaining a rite by what it does for the group

Functionalist accounts locate the meaning of religious behaviour in its social effects rather than in the doctrines of the participants, which is why such an account can stand whether or not the beliefs involved are true.

Swinburne's principle of testimony, as distinct from his principle of credulity, states that

• an apparent experience is probably veridical unless there is special reason for doubt
• reports by others of what they experienced are probably accurate
• a claim counts as evidence only if independent observers can check it
• an experience supports a belief only when it can be repeated under controlled conditions

Answer: reports by others of what they experienced are probably accurate

Credulity concerns the weight of one's own apparent experience, testimony the weight of other people's reports; the argument from religious experience needs both principles, since most readers have not had the experiences at issue themselves.

A tradition in which membership is settled mainly by the correct performance of ritual obligations rather than by assent to a creed is best described as placing its weight on

• orthodoxy, that is right belief
• fideism, that is faith held without evidential support
• apophaticism, that is description of the divine only by denial
• orthopraxy, that is right practice

Answer: orthopraxy, that is right practice

Orthopraxy and orthodoxy differ over what makes someone a member in good standing, practice or belief; the distinction matters because criticisms that treat religion as a body of factual claims apply far less directly to traditions organised around practice.

Two accounts of mysticism disagree about reports from different traditions. One holds that beneath the varying descriptions lies a single kind of experience; the other holds that a mystic's tradition supplies the concepts and expectations that shape what is undergone. The second, constructivist position claims that

• mystics deliberately adjust their reports to satisfy the authorities of their own tradition
• mystical experiences never occur outside organised religious institutions
• reports from different traditions are in fact identical once translation errors are corrected
• the tradition enters the experience itself, so there is no uninterpreted core to be compared

Answer: the tradition enters the experience itself, so there is no uninterpreted core to be compared

The dispute is about whether experience can be separated from its interpretation. Note that the constructivist is not accusing anyone of dishonesty: the claim is that expectation and vocabulary shape perception, which is why cross-tradition comparison cannot simply subtract the descriptions.

Alston argues that forming beliefs about God on the basis of religious experience is a doxastic practice comparable with forming beliefs about physical objects on the basis of sense perception. The point of the comparison is that

• religious experience is as widely shared and as reliable as ordinary sense perception
• the objects of religious experience can be examined by the same instruments as physical objects
• sense perception can be justified without circularity, so a believer may borrow the justification it enjoys
• neither practice can be justified without circularity, so religious practice cannot fairly be held to that demand

Answer: neither practice can be justified without circularity, so religious practice cannot fairly be held to that demand

The argument is a parity argument: any defence of sense perception uses perceptual beliefs, so demanding a non-circular defence of religious practice applies a standard nothing meets. The standard objection is that the two practices differ in cross-checking and in agreement among practitioners, which is what makes the parity imperfect.