BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Grails iCalendar plugin//NONSGML Grails iCalendar plugin//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260606T053638Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20161115T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20161115T103000 SUMMARY:Are religious philosophers less analytic? UID:20260611T041906Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-bd7db559-gt5qm TZID:Europe/London LOCATION:Lakatos Building\, 7 Portugal Street\, London\, United Kingdom\, WC2A 2HJ DESCRIPTION:

Abstract: Some researchers in philosophy of religion have charged that the sub-discipline exhibits a number of features of poor health\, prominently including that &ldquo\;partisanship is so entrenched that most philosophers of religion\, instead of being alarmed by it\, just take it for granted&rdquo\; (Draper and Nichols\, 2013\, 421). And researchers in experimental philosophy of religion have presented empirical work that supports this contention\, arguing that it shows that confirmation bias plays a notable role in the acceptance of natural theological arguments among philosophers (De Cruz\, 2014\; Tobia\, 2015\; De Cruz and De Smedt\, 2016). But while these studies indicate that there is a correlation between religious belief and judgments about natural theological arguments\, they do not establish that causation runs from belief to judgment as has been claimed. In this paper I offer an alternative explanation\, suggesting that thinking style is a plausible common cause. I note that previous research has shown a significant negative correlation between analytic thinking style and both religious belief and religious engagement in the general population (Shenhav\, Rand\, and Greene\, 2012\; Gervaise and Norenzayan\, 2012\; Pennycook et al.\, 2012\, 2013\; Jack et al.\, 2016). Further\, other research has shown a significant positive correlation between analytic thinking style and training in philosophy that is independent of overall level of education (Livengood et al.\, 2010). Pulling these threads together\, I hypothesize that there is an especially strong correlation between thinking style and religiosity among philosophers. This hypothesis is tested by looking at a sample of 524 people with an advanced degree in philosophy. The results support the hypothesis\, showing a medium-large negative correlation between analytic thinking style and religious engagement that is roughly twice as strong as has been reported for the general population (r=-0.39 among men\, r=-0.34 among women). And the correlation is even stronger if we restrict to Christian theists and non-theists (r=-0.61 among men\, r=-0.62 among women).

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