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Most epistemologists agree that epistemic justification is required for knowledge. This requirement is usually formulated in one of two ways: (JR1) S knows that p only if S is justified in believing that p. (JR2) S knows that p only if S's belief that p is justified. Surprisingly (JR1) and (JR2) are generally regarded as synonymous formulations of the justification condition. In Chapter 1, I argue that such a synonymy thesis is mistaken and that, in fact, (JR1) and (JR2) specify substantively different requirements. (JR1) requires that the person be justified, whereas (JR2) requires that the belief in question be justified, and intuitively, these constitute different requirements. Thus, it is concluded that (JR1) and (JR2) employ inherently different kinds of epistemic justification in their respective analysantia. I dub them "personal justification" and "doxastic justification", respectively. The remainder of the dissertation is devoted to demonstrating both the legitimacy and the importance of the personal/doxastic justification distinction. For example, the distinction helps account for the divergent intuitions that regularly arise regarding justificatory evaluations in demon-world contexts. In Chapters 2 and 3 I provide analyses for doxastic and personal justification. Chapter 2 spells out an externalist reliabilist account of doxastic justification which safely avoids demon-world counterexamples. Chapter 3 advances an internalist coherence account of personal justification. In defending this coherence theory, I argue that all foundation theories are false and that the regress argument on which they are predicated is unsound. In Chapter 4, I propose an analysis of ordinary knowledge which only requires doxastic justification. Nevertheless personal justification plays a negative, undermining role in the analysis. I then demonstrate that this analysis of knowledge is immune to typical Gettier examples. It also remains unscathed by Harman's beefed-up Gettier cases. Finally, I consider a stronger analysis of knowledge requiring both doxastic and personal justification. Though the latter analysis proves too strong for ordinary knowledge, it remains interesting as an analysis of a more intellectualistic kind of knowledge. The final chapter examines the internalist/externalist controversy and demonstrates that this controversy is yet another manifestation of the personal/doxastic justification conflation.

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This project examined, by qualitative investigation, the actual content and mechanics of ghost beliefs in Britain today. Through questionnaire, personal interview, and email correspondence, the beliefs and experiences of 227 people were assessed, and considered against historical and international analogous material. The research began with some basic questions: who believes; what do they believe; how do they narrate their stories; and how do they understand this in the context of other beliefs? This research found a broad social spread of ghost belief. The circulation of ghost narratives takes place within social groups defined in part by their seriousness about the discussion. This does not preclude jokes, disagreements or the discrediting of specific events, so long as the discussion considers ghosts attentively and seriously. Informants brought a sophisticated range of influences to bear on narratives and their interpretation, including some scientific knowledge and understanding. Informants discussed a broad range of phenomena within a consideration of ‘ghosts’: there is no easy correlation of a narrator’s interpretation and the kind of manifestation being described. Some accounts were related as polished stories, but this did not impact directly on their belief content. The interrelationship between oral narrative and artistic representation highlights the shaping and exchange of stories to accommodate belief content. This ability to adjust between apparently different registers of discussion also illustrates how ghost beliefs fit the structures of other, more institutional, belief systems held by informants. A key finding, considering sociological discussions of secularisation and historiographical associations of heterodox beliefs with political radicalism, is that personal folk beliefs are slower developing and more conservative than institutional forms, which respond more quickly to socio-economic changes. Immediate institutional responses to changed conditions may not, therefore, correlate directly with a corresponding change in ghost belief.

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The study expounds the views of Macmurray, Baillie and Oman on religious belief in the context of their other epistemological, anthropological and theological convictions. It is shown that each of the writers argues that religious belief is a response to a feature of everyday experience (human alienation, moral intuition and the sense of the holy respectively), that each of them takes the view that religious belief functions in order to achieve a valued end (community, willing obedience to divinely ordained duties and the on-going development of moral personality) which is regarded as both the will of God and essential to human flourishing, and that they also hold that religious beliefs may be confirmed in relation to the valued end which they aim to promote. I argue that whilst each is not without their lacunas and inadequacies, the three writers provide insights which may be useful in understanding religious belief in a Christian context. I maintain, for instance, that Macmurray's argument that religion is a derivative response to a critical dimension of ordinary experience is an illuminating perspective. Again, it is argued that there are resources in Baillie's work to help in the articulation of the view that Christian belief is a response to an a priori encounter with the divine presence in experience. Again, Oman's emphasis on the role of feeling in the disclosure of the divine is plausible, and his analysis of the nature of religious belief is particularly rich in illuminating insights. An important argument that runs through the thesis is that it is plausible to think that there are preconceptual experiences that are cognitively important. In this sense, the study aims to help underpin an experiential approach in the face of those critics who deny the conceptual possibility of such primal experiences.

The purpose of this thesis is to make an unbiased presentation of the many facets of Byron's religious beliefs.

The thesis is a study of the faith motif in John's Gospel. A modified narrative criticism has been employed to investigate the faith motif. The theoretical foundation is laid briefly in chapter 2. The investigation has demonstrated that faith is the main motif in the Book of Belief (chs. 1-12). The structure of the Book of Belief reflects faith as the central concept. The setting not only brings the readers back to the life situation in Jesus' time but also relates closely to the faith motif. The characters who are the carriers of the faith motif Eire divided, as the plot shows, into two opposing groups, i.e. the believers and unbelievers. They have exposed the multifarious dimensions of the faith motif. In Chapter 3 the characters dramatize the personal, communal and universal aspects of the faith motif. Chapter 4 shows how the axlu emerges and how the characters dramatize not only the okvoaov to participate in the divine community but also how one's relationship with Jesus who is the object of faith entails transforming his words into deeds. In Chapter 5 the characters dramatize that faith in Jesus entails witnessing about him and is essentially relationship with him. The characters embedded in the narrative world have dramatized that the Gospel is written to initiate faith and to deepen faith in Jesus. The characters dramatize the evangelistic and edificatory aspects of faith. Faith in Jesus means relating to him and consequently causes a believer to join the universal community of believers and at the same time to be integrated into the divine community. Faith is essentially relationship with new communities in and through one's relationship with Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.