William Alston

William Payne Alston (1921–2009) was an American philosopher whose work shaped contemporary epistemology, philosophy of language, and the epistemology of religious experience.

Epistemology: The philosophical study of knowledge, justification, and rational belief. Alston’s work belongs chiefly to this field, especially its debates about justification.
Perceiving God: The claim that people can have perceptual awareness of God through religious experience. Alston develops this claim by comparing mystical perception with ordinary perception.
Alvin Plantinga: An American philosopher known for work on epistemology, metaphysics, and the rationality of religious belief. Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology addresses related questions about rational belief in God.
Evidentialism: The view that a belief is rational only when supported by adequate evidence. Alston disputes demands that religious beliefs require evidence independent of religious practice.
Epistemic justification: The normative status that makes a belief rational or permissible to hold. His theory of doxastic practices explains how beliefs can acquire justification.
Mysticism: Religious traditions and experiences centered on direct awareness of ultimate or divine reality. Mystical reports provide major examples for Alston’s account of religious perception.
Nicholas Wolterstorff: An American philosopher whose work spans epistemology, aesthetics, and Christian philosophy. Wolterstorff shared Alston’s engagement with analytic philosophy and religious belief.
Religious skepticism: Doubt that religious claims or beliefs can be known or rationally justified. Alston argues that religious experience can resist skeptical challenges without proof.
Perception: The process by which sensory systems represent features of the surrounding world. Alston treats perceptual experience as a model for assessing religious experience.
Religious epistemology: The study of knowledge, justification, and rational belief concerning religious claims. Alston’s defense of religious experience is a defining contribution to this field.

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