José Eduardo Porcher

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• PhD
• Research Fellow at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

This introduction outlines the motivation and significance of the first special issue dedicated to engaging philosophically with Afro-Brazilian religions in an Anglophone journal of philosophy. It traces the project’s origins, inspired by a need to diversify the philosophy of religion beyond traditional Western paradigms, and explores how Afro-Braz...

Review of African Philosophy of Religion and Western Monotheism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024) for Religious Studies

This Element introduces Afro-Brazilian religions and underscores the necessity for an expanded methodological framework to encompass these traditions in the philosophy of religion. It emphasizes the importance of incorporating overlooked sources like mythic narratives and ethnographies while acknowledging the pivotal role of material culture in cog...

In Portuguese, assento literally means “seat,” while assentamento translates to “settlement.” In Afro-Brazilian religious contexts, these terms are often used interchangeably to describe the initiatory practice of fixing the orixá within a material object. The orixás—frequently referred to as “saints” (santos) in their individualized form—first man...

Ori literally means “head” in Yoruba, a term that has been adopted into Brazilian Portuguese to carry complex spiritual and philosophical connotations in Afro-Brazilian religious contexts. While it can be used interchangeably with the Portuguese cabeça (lit., “head”), ori encompasses far more than the anatomical head. It represents a unique, indivi...

Santo literally means “saint” in Portuguese. In Afro-Brazilian religious contexts, it is used to refer to the personal, individualized instance of a deity or orixá that is inextricably tied to an initiate, fixed in a material assento (seat) or assentamento (settlement). The santo cares for and must be cared for by the initiate and, most importantly...

This article introduces a thematic issue consisting of six articles that apply philosophical reflection to the study of religion, showcasing the potential of an emerging subdiscipline: the philosophy of religious studies. This article discusses the kinds of questions raised within this subdiscipline, addresses the disconnect between philosophy and...

In this chapter, I first introduce Candomblé, discussing its social and historical context, deities, and core practices—particularly possession and sacrifice—most of which have been overlooked by philosophy. I then explore the Yoruba-derived concept of the “head” (ori), a key to understanding Candomblé’s view of the self, demonstrating how the pers...

In this paper, I argue that a special kind of hermeneutical injustice occurs when someone is not permitted to interpret their experiences in a meaning-making way. I suggest that this occurs in certain cases where the possibility that the patient has a genuine religious experience is excluded by a medical diagnosis. In such cases, it is not that an...

This article introduces a thematic issue consisting of six articles that apply philosophical reflection to the study of religion, showcasing the potential of an emerging subdiscipline: the philosophy of religious studies. This article discusses the kinds of questions raised within this subdiscipline, addresses the disconnect between philosophy and...

A particularly deep form of hermeneutical injustice arises when clinicians undermine a patient’s meaningful interpretation of their alleged psychotic symptoms within a religious framework. Cases like Femi’s (Rashed, 2010) illustrate how diagnosing and treating psychotic symptoms with religious content can perpetuate this injustice. Femi’s symptoms,...

In this article, I explore the mythic narratives of the Yoruba-derived tradition of Candomblé Nagô to discern the attributes of its Supreme Being. I introduce Candomblé, offering an overview of its central beliefs and practices, and then present theological perspectives on the Supreme Being in African Traditional Religion as a basis for comparison...

In this paper, we discuss an abductive argument for the existence of God from the experience of awe at natural beauty. If God’s creative work is a viable explanation for why we experience awe at natural beauty, and there is no satisfactory naturalistic explanation for the origins of such experiences, then we have defeasible evidence that God exists...

In this paper, I explore the mythic narratives of the Yoruba-derived tradition of Candomblé Nagô to discern the attributes of its Supreme Being. I introduce Candomblé, offering an overview of its central beliefs and practices, and then present theological perspectives on the Supreme Being in African Traditional Religion as a basis for comparison wi...

In this paper, we discuss an abductive argument for the existence of God from the experience of awe at natural beauty. If God's creative work is a viable explanation for why we experience awe at natural beauty, and there is no satisfactory naturalistic explanation for the origins of such experiences, then we have defeasible evidence that God exists...

In this paper, I identify a unique form of hermeneutical injustice that occurs when individuals are denied the opportunity to interpret their own experiences within their own religious framework. Specifically, I argue that this injustice can be observed in cases where the possibility of a genuine religious experience in a patient is dismissed solel...

This chapter connects the phenomenon of double bookkeeping to two critical debates in the philosophy of delusion: one from the analytic tradition and one from the phenomenological tradition. First, I will show how the failure of action guidance on the part of some delusions suggests an argument to the standard view that delusions are beliefs (doxas...

In this paper, we take our cue from Kevin Schilbrack’s admonishment that the philosophy of religion needs to take religious practices seriously as an object of investigation. We do so by offering Afro-Brazilian traditions as an example of the methodological poverty of current philosophical engagement with religions that are not text-based, belief-f...

Com foco nas duas principais tradições de matiz africano no Brasil, o candomblé e a umbanda, sugero que essas tradições suscitam questões específicas e envolventes para a filosofia da religião, que a disciplina precisa rever sua metodologia para abarcá-las, e que o contato entre esses mundos até então isolados pode iluminar o estudo de ambos. Farei...

In this paper, I draw on phenomenological analyses of religious voice-hearing and related experiences to elucidate the role of phenomenology in discerning benign from pathological religious experience. First, I present phenomenological discontinuities between cases of benign and pathological voice-hearing by drawing on a study of first-person accou...

Com foco nas duas principais tradições de matiz africano no Brasil, o candomblé e a umbanda, sugiro que essas tradições suscitam questões específicas e envolventes para a filosofia da religião, que a disciplina precisa rever sua metodologia para abarcá-las, e que o contato entre esses mundos até então isolados pode iluminar o estudo de ambos. Farei...

In this paper, we present an abductive argument for the existence of God from the experience of awe at natural beauty. If God's creative work is a viable explanation for why we experience awe at natural beauty, and there is no satisfactory naturalistic explanation for the origins of such experiences, then we have defeasible evidence that God exists...

In this paper, I draw on phenomenological analyses of religious voice-hearing and related experiences to elucidate the role of phenomenology in discerning benign from pathological religious experience. First, I present phenomenological discontinuities between cases of benign and pathological voice-hearing by drawing on a study of first-person accou...

Doxasticism about delusion is the theoretical stance according to which delusion is a kind of belief. Although doxasticism is taken for granted in the psychiatric literature, it has been a point of contention in the philosophical literature, where it has met with many objections and alternative accounts. In this paper, I aim to show how double book...

Doxasticism about delusion is the theoretical stance according to which delusion is a kind of belief. Although doxasticism is taken for granted in the psychiatric literature, it has been a point of contention in the philosophical literature, where it has met with many objections and alternative accounts. In this paper, I aim to show how double book...

My aim in this paper is to consider the question ‘Why is belief in God not a delusion?’. In the first half of the paper, I distinguish two kinds of religious belief: institutional and personal religious belief. I then review how cognitive science accounts for cultural processes in the acquisition and transmission of institutional religious beliefs....

The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) is a multidisciplinary academic field that draws from religious studies, sociology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, and evolutionary biology. In the last twenty-five years, CSR has anchored the study of religion in up-to-date scientific explanations of human cognitive architecture,...

My aim in this paper is to flesh out why it is counterintuitive to pathologize all religious belief. I will do this by examining the role of cultural learning in the acquisition of religious belief and that of cultural exemption in the attribution of mental dysfunction. Toward this end, I do not concern myself specifically with belief in God (or go...

Neste capítulo, meu objetivo é mostrar que ‘delírio’ é um termo altamente ambíguo e que os fenômenos ao qual este refere são variegados. Finalmente, tenho por objetivo esclarecer por que filósofos têm se interessado pelo delírio, cada vez mais se juntado a psiquiatras e psicólogos no esforço de chegar a um entendimento compreensivo dos fenômenos qu...

Clinical delusions are widely characterized as being pathological beliefs in both the clinical literature and in common sense. Recently, a philosophical debate has emerged between defenders of the commonsense position (doxasticists) and their opponents, who have the burden of pointing toward alternative characterizations (anti-doxasticists). In thi...

In this paper I discuss the scientific respectability of delusion as a psychiatric category. First, I present the essentialist objection to the natural kindhood of psychiatric categories, as well as non-essentialism about natural kinds as a response to that objection. Second, I present a nuanced classification of kinds of kinds. Third, drawing on t...

Although delusion is one of the central concepts of psychopathology, it stills eludes precise conceptualization. In this paper, I present certain basic issues concerning the classification and definition of delusion, as well as its ontological status. By examining these issues, I aim to shed light on the ambiguity of the clinical term ‘delusion’ an...

My primary aim is to assess the prospects for a scientific theory of delusion through the examination of the scientific respectability of this psychiatric category—a status which is arguably put in jeopardy by the fact that the detection and attribution of delusion seem to stem not from causal classification but from the application of what we may...

Clinical delusions have traditionally been characterized as beliefs in psychiatry. However, philosophers have recently engaged with the empirical literature and produced a number of objections to the so-called doxastic status of delusion, stemming mainly from the mismatch between the functional role of delusions and that expected of beliefs. In res...

Neste artigo, examinarei a controversia sobre como melhor definir o delirio—um sintoma central de patologias como a esquizofrenia e a demencia—e apresentarei algumas das principais dificuldades envolvidas em sua caracterizacao como crencas. A partir disso, tirarei conclusoes sobre os limites do vocabulario mentalista da dita psicologia do senso com...

I assess Tamar Gendler's (2007) account of self-deception according to which its characteristic state is not belief, but imaginative pretense. After giving an overview of the literature and presenting the conceptual puzzles engendered by the notion of self-deception, I introduce Gendler's account, which emerges as a rival to practically all extant...

The traditional conception of self-deception takes it for an intrapersonal form of interpersonal deception. However, since the same subject is at the same time deceived and deceived, this means attributing the agent a pair of contradictory beliefs. In the course of defending a deflationary conception of self-deception, Mele (1997) has challenged tr...

The question of how psychiatric classifications are made up and to what they refer has attracted the attention of philosophers in recent years. In this paper, I review the claims of authors who discuss psychiatric classification in terms referring both to the philosophical tradition of natural kinds and to the sociological tradition of social const...

O objetivo deste texto é apresentar algumas das formas em que a ficção pode contribuir para o enriquecimento do ensino de filosofia e o desenvolvimento intelectual de alunos e professores do ensino médio. No seu decorrer irei oferecer três sugestões práticas: o uso de passagens (ou obras) filosóficas com valor literário; o uso de obras literárias q...

Self-deception poses serious difficulties for belief attribution because the behavior of the self-deceived is deeply conflicted: some of it supports the attribution of a certain belief, while some of it supports the contrary attribution. Theorists have resorted either to attributing both beliefs to the self-deceived, or to postulating an unconsciou...