Basil George Mitchell FBA (9 April 1917 – 23 June 2011) was an English philosopher and at one time Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford.
The Justification of Religious Belief (1981), his Sarum Lectures Faith and Criticism (1992), and a collection of essays called How to Play Theological Ping-Pong (1993).
Two notable contributions to the philosophy of religion were his short essay in the "Theology and Falsification" debate between Antony Flew, R. M. Hare and himself, in which he tried to counter Flew's parable of the "invisible gardener" with his own "parable of the partisan", and his development of a "cumulative-case" method of justifying religious belief, notably in his book The Justification of Religious Belief.
Mitchell drew attention to the philosophy of John Henry Newman, notably in casting "doubt upon the credentials of science itself as an avenue to truth".
He added: "The paradigm instance of factual knowledge, by comparison with which the claims of religion were thought to be problematic, can no longer be made to serve this purpose."
Steven Holtzer and William Abraham co-edited a Festschrift for him, The Rationality of Religious Belief, which includes an appreciation of his thought and character by Oliver O'Donovan, and an essay on the Eucharist by Michael Dummett.