ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the objection: the idea that one all makes acts of faith, scientists. The idea can be extended to science, for scientists also make acts of faith comparable to those made by religious believers. Duncan Pritchard describes this vividly by comparing religious faith with other kinds of everyday belief. If Wittgenstein is right then religious belief is on a par with everyday belief on score, in that it is in the nature of all belief, religious, that it incorporates these hinge commitments which are immune to rational evaluation. Wittgenstein's On Certainty was intended as a response to G. E. Moore's reflections on common sense. The philosopher G. E. Moore draws attention to a class of such beliefs in his defence of common sense'. Religious beliefs, like hinge beliefs, are associated with certain collective forms of life. Like hinge beliefs, they are also held with a high degree of confidence, which means they are resistant to criticism.
