September 16, 2025Open Access

The ‘Local’ Nature of Religious Hinges and the Problem of ‘Honest Doubt’

Key Points

The argument critiques Duncan Pritchard’s parity argument, suggesting it should focus on religious hinges.
Honest doubt is criticized as religious epistemic vertigo, not accounting sufficiently for inherent doubts in belief.
A Wittgensteinian perspective supports a local understanding of religious hinges over Pritchard’s view.
The local nature of religious hinges provides a more robust explanation for the complexities of religious belief.

Abstract

I briefly address Duncan Pritchard’s ‘parity argument’ and argue that it should be pared down to parity between religious hinges and local hinges. I then object to Pritchard’s notion of ‘honest doubt’ as ‘religious epistemic vertigo’ to account—in the context of a Wittgensteinian epistemology—for the doubt that is often at the heart of religious belief. I argue that the ‘local’ nature of religious hinges offers a more plausible account.

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