The Practice of Agnosticism
Overcoming False Dualities across Human Thought
Volume VI of the Middle Way Philosophy series, to be published by Equinox Oct 2026
This book argues for agnosticism as a practice: one which, contrary to its popular image, demands courage, and is not just about God. Agnostics defy the entrenched weight of opposing false dualities, where traditional thinking presents us with the unnecessarily restricted framing of only two options. Instead, we can reframe: applying provisionality and incrementality as an alternative to opposing positive and negative metaphysical absolutes. In addition to the debate about God, agnosticism gives an alternative to other metaphysical dualities, such as realism v idealism, mind v body, and freewill v determinism.
The Middle Way Philosophy series, of which this forms a part, has built up a case for the Middle Way as an alternative to absolutized thinking in human judgement, drawing on Buddhist practice, embodied meaning, systems, psychology and neuroscience as well as philosophy. This book then applies the Middle Way more fully to resolving the range of metaphysical dualities that have entrenched absolute thinking in philosophy – not by opposing negative metaphysical claims (like atheism or idealism) to positive ones, but by offering a genuinely practical alternative supported by evidence from a range of disciplines.
This deep agnosticism is more than the refusal of conventional agnosticism to take a stand on whether God exists or whether the mind survives bodily death. It is the willingness to embrace the fundamental bewilderment of a finite, fallible creature as the basis for leading a life that no longer clings to the superficial consolations of certainty.
Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, p.74
Contents
Introduction
1. Introductory Review Section
a. Scepticism, Embodied Meaning and Practicality
b. Absolutization and Metaphysics
c. Rationalization and Inflation of Metaphysics
d. Provisionality and Reframing
e. Agnosticism
f. False Dichotomy
g. Archetypal Concepts
2. Rationalism and Empiricism
a. Reason and Experience
b. Platonic Essentialism
c. Sufficient Reason
d. Rational Transparency
e. Naturalism
f. Ideas and Impressions
g. Induction, Abduction, Positivism and Falsification
h. Kantianism, Conventionalism, and Phenomenology
i. Agnostic Epistemology
3. Realism and Idealism
a. ‘Reality’ in Practice
b. Realism
c. Supervenience Relationships
d. Idealism
e. Interdependence and Monism
4. Mind and Body
a. Mind and Body in Practice
b. Essentialist Accounts of Minds
c. Reductionist Accounts of Minds
d. Emergent Minds
e. The Hemispheres and Philosophy of Mind
5. Theism and Atheism
a. God in Practice
b. Versions of God and the Problem of Evil
c. ‘Proofs’ of God
d. Atheism
e. Clarifying Agnosticism about God
f. Inflation of the Projected God
6. Freewill and Determinism
a. Freewill, Determinism, and Responsibility
b. Choice and Judgement
c. Determinism and Indeterminism
d. Determinism and Fatalism
e. Compatibilism
7. Facts and Values
a. Facts and Values as Practical Judgements
b. Incrementalizing and Probabilizing Values
c. Absolutizing Values and Subordinating Facts
d. Absolutizing Facts and Relativizing Values
e. Relativizing both Facts and Values
f. Aesthetic, Moral, and Political Values
Conclusion: Agnosticism as a Practice
Bibliography