Science, religion, and virtue: Toward excellence in dialogue

This dissertation challenges the conflict thesis between science and religion promoted by philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Philip Kitcher. I analyze their conflict thesis as an epistemological disagreement about the nature of inquiry. Alvin Plantinga argues that a fideistic method of reasoning is required to make sense of science, while Philip Kitcher promotes a scientisim as the only way to make sense of religion. I argue that fideism and scientism are acceptable in a disciplinary context of inquiry. However, the investigation of the relationship between science and religion is an interdisciplinary context of inquiry where fideism and scientism instigate conflict. Therefore, conflict between science and religion is an artifact of Plantinga's and Kitcher's extension of disciplinary forms of inquiry into an interdisciplinary context. I look to the work of virtue epistemology, having identified the nature of inquiry as a primary cause of their conflict, to help distinguish disciplinary from interdisciplinary forms of inquiry. Disciplinary forms of inquiry are inquires where intellectual faculty virtues are more prominent than character virtues. Thus, one finds a consensus in disciplinary inquiry in how to proceed with research, e.g., Plantinga's fideism and Kitcher's scientism. Interdisciplinary research is a form of inquiry where the method of inquiry itself is in question, a form of inquiry has not been agreed to in terms of how to proceed with inquiry. Thus, intellectual character virtues take precedence to faculty virtues as agents are navigating the borders of different forms of inquiry. This distinction allows me to understand Plantinga and Kitcher as engaging in excellent disciplinary research but less-than-excellent interdisciplinary research. The dissertation concludes with showing how their work represents poor instances of interdisciplinary research, providing a positive example in the work of Michael Ruse.