Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience
E730162
Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience is a philosophical work by William Alston that argues for the epistemic legitimacy of religious experience as a source of justified belief in God.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8389360 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience Context triple: [William Alston, notableWork, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience]
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A.
Thoughts on Religious Experience
Thoughts on Religious Experience is a classic 19th-century Christian theological work by Archibald Alexander that examines the nature, authenticity, and psychological aspects of religious conversion and spiritual life.
-
B.
A Christian Theory of Knowledge
A Christian Theory of Knowledge is a foundational work of Reformed presuppositional apologetics in which Cornelius Van Til develops a distinctly Christian approach to epistemology and the nature of human knowledge.
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C.
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion is a posthumously published collection of G. W. F. Hegel’s university lectures that systematically interpret the historical religions through the lens of his idealist philosophical system.
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D.
God and Other Minds
"God and Other Minds" is a 1967 philosophical work by Alvin Plantinga that argues belief in God can be rationally justified in a way analogous to belief in other minds.
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E.
Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism
"Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism" is a philosophical work that develops Charles Hartshorne’s process-oriented, neoclassical conception of God and offers a rigorous logical defense of theism.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience Target entity description: Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience is a philosophical work by William Alston that argues for the epistemic legitimacy of religious experience as a source of justified belief in God.
-
A.
Thoughts on Religious Experience
Thoughts on Religious Experience is a classic 19th-century Christian theological work by Archibald Alexander that examines the nature, authenticity, and psychological aspects of religious conversion and spiritual life.
-
B.
A Christian Theory of Knowledge
A Christian Theory of Knowledge is a foundational work of Reformed presuppositional apologetics in which Cornelius Van Til develops a distinctly Christian approach to epistemology and the nature of human knowledge.
-
C.
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion is a posthumously published collection of G. W. F. Hegel’s university lectures that systematically interpret the historical religions through the lens of his idealist philosophical system.
-
D.
God and Other Minds
"God and Other Minds" is a 1967 philosophical work by Alvin Plantinga that argues belief in God can be rationally justified in a way analogous to belief in other minds.
-
E.
Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism
"Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism" is a philosophical work that develops Charles Hartshorne’s process-oriented, neoclassical conception of God and offers a rigorous logical defense of theism.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (43)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | book ⓘ |
| addresses |
comparison between religious and sensory perception
ⓘ
problem of circularity in epistemic justification ⓘ skepticism about religious experience ⓘ |
| argument |
Christian mystical practice is an epistemically acceptable doxastic practice
ⓘ
doxastic practices can be rational without non-circular proof of their reliability ⓘ mystical perception is analogous to sense perception in its epistemic role ⓘ religious experience can provide prima facie justified belief in God ⓘ |
| author |
William Alston
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
William P. Alston NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| fieldOfStudy |
epistemology
ⓘ
philosophy of religion ⓘ |
| genre | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| influenced |
contemporary philosophy of religion
ⓘ
debates on religious experience and justification ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Reformed epistemology
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
epistemology of perception ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
epistemologists
ⓘ
philosophers of religion ⓘ theologians ⓘ |
| keyConcept |
doxastic practices
ⓘ
epistemic justification ⓘ mystical perception ⓘ prima facie justification ⓘ religious experience ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
epistemology
ⓘ
epistemology of religious experience NERFINISHED ⓘ justification of belief in God ⓘ philosophy of religion ⓘ religious experience ⓘ |
| philosophicalClaim |
it is rational to trust a socially established doxastic practice absent defeaters
ⓘ
no doxastic practice can be non-circularly justified ⓘ religious experiences can confer justification without inferential argument ⓘ |
| philosophicalStance |
externalist tendencies in epistemology
ⓘ
fallibilism about justification ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| positionOnBeliefInGod | argues that belief in God can be justified by experience ⓘ |
| positionOnReligiousExperience | defends epistemic legitimacy of religious experience ⓘ |
| relatedWorkOfAuthor | William P. Alston NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| subject |
Christian theism
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
God NERFINISHED ⓘ religious epistemology ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience Description of subject: Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience is a philosophical work by William Alston that argues for the epistemic legitimacy of religious experience as a source of justified belief in God.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.