20th century perspectives

Question 1

What is the Vienna Circle?

Answer 1

A group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, chaired by Moritz Schlick. The Vienna Circle had a profound influence on 20th-century philosophy, especially philosophy of science and analytic philosophy.

Question 2

What is the verification principle?

Answer 2

A statement is only meaningful if it can be proven through direct observation or by logic using deductive reasoning. All other statements are meaningless. This made all religious and ethical statements meaningless e.g. God is love is meaningless because it could not be proven true by direct observation and is not analytical.

Question 3

Who created the verification principle?

Answer 3

The verification principle came about in the 1920’s and 1930’s from a group of philosophers known as logical positivists such as Schlick. The logical positivists believed that empirical evidence was always needed to ascertain the truth of a statement unless it was an analytical statement. They came from a background where scientific truth was important and reality was in this world - following Aristotelian thinking.

Question 4

What did the logical positivists mean by a meaningful statement?

Answer 4

A statement was meaningful if it could be proven true (verified) by the senses. These are known as synthetic statements. This was known as the Verification principle.

Question 5

What are cognitive statements?

Answer 5

All statements which can be proven true through empirical evidence are known as cognitive statements. Cognitive statements are factual and add to our knowledge.

Question 6

What are meaningless statements for logical positivists?

Answer 6

All statements which were not analytically or synthetically true are meaningless e.g God is love is a meaningless statement. They are not cognitive and meaningless.

Question 7

Strengths of the verification principle -

Answer 7

• Dependence on the use of logic is good because it is not open to interpretation. Once definitions have been agreed upon, it can not be argued with.
• Knowledge must lie in this world as there are no other worlds. Truth must be found in studying this empirical world. Aristotelian thinking.
• Science can now answer questions which religion used to. Religion is just used when we can’t find an answer. Religious statements are therefore meaningless.
• We can not know of things which are outside of this world. To talk of anything being spaceless, immutable and timeless can hold no meaning because we can not grasp such concepts. There is no point in discussing them.

Question 8

Weaknesses of the verification principle -

Answer 8

• Just because a statement is logically true, it does not make it true in reality (Granny Smith)
• This world is impermanent. It is always changing and so empirical evidence is unreliable. What is true of empirical evidence at one time may not be true another time.
• Our senses can deceive us. We can not rely upon our senses for finding the truth.
• Even science does not have direct observable evidence for all of its claims e.g black holes. Also, most historical knowledge is not now directly observable, so it too must be meaningless.
• We can never test enough to know that a statement is completely true e.g “All frogs have hearts on the left side”. Unless we can test every frog which has ever lived, we can never be certain that this is true.
• A statement can be meaningful to somebody if it impacts on them in some way e.g it influences the way that they live their life. The logical positivists need to rethink the use of the term meaningful.
• The verification principle fails its own test. It cannot be proven true through observation that something is only meaningful if it can be proven true through observation!

Question 9

What did Ayer do?

Answer 9

Ayer was a logical positivist. He refined the verification principle to overcome the problems of concluding that historical and scientific statements are meaningless because they cannot be verified. He made two distinctions within the verification principle.

Question 10

What was Ayer’s first distinction within the verification principle?

Answer 10

Statements are meaningful if we can verify them in theory and in practice. In some cases, we can directly observe if something is true. However, other things are more difficult to verify in practice but could be verified in theory. In other words, we would know how to set about verifying them through sense experience or observation, even though it probably would never happen in practice.

Question 11

What was Ayer’s second distinction within the verification principle?

Answer 11

Ayer distinguished between weak and strong verification. Strong verification are those statements which can be verified by direct observation and lead to a definite conclusion. Weak verification are those statements which can not be verified by direct observation but other observations (second hand) help to verify them. This tends to lead to a probable conclusion e.g. 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust can not be observed directly by us now because it is in past but it can be verified indirectly through historical sources. Indeed historical statements nearly all come under the category of weak verification

Question 12

Strengths of Ayer

Answer 12

• Follows Aristotle’s thinking that only what we can experience can be real. There is no evidence that reality lies outside of this empirical world. This would be supported by Richard Dawkins
• Teleological argument - weak verification - looking at regularity in the world to work out god exists

Question 13

Weaknesses of Ayer -

Answer 13

• Religious experiences are strong verification for the individual.
• The Bible is weak verification as a secondary source and if Ayer is to include historical documents under this, he must include the Bible and some of the books of the Bible are historical.
• Naturalistic fallacy-assumes truth only lies in this world and in nature. What if he is wrong?

Question 14

What was Wisdom’s criticism of Ayer?

Answer 14

• Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other “It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these weeds.” The other disagrees and an argument ensues. However, in Wisdom’s parable there is much more realistic evidence of a possible gardener (orderly plants in a neglected garden.)

Meaning-Religious language is based on empirical evidence (e.g. design and purpose – teleological argument – Paley and the eye) and a believer will interpret this according to their beliefs. A non believer looks at the weeds (e.g. moral and natural evil) and interprets this according to their own beliefs. This is a response to Ayer, religious language is meaningful according to the weak verification principle. Wisdom’s response is cognitive (based on observable evidence and adds to our knowledge).

Question 15

What is a strength of Wisdom?

Answer 15

Empirical evidence is used in the form of his garden analogy. A lot of other arguments for God are based on our empirical experience of the world (cosmological and teleological argument). Paley and Aquinas would support Wisdom.

Question 16

What is a weakness of Wisdom?

Answer 16

It is still a big leap to go from the fact that there are flowers to the assumption that there is a gardener. (Second hand evidence, no gardener is ever seen).
Also, Wisdom implies that there are lots of flowers (evidence of good design) and not many weeds (evidence of bad design). There is not a balance of flowers and weeds in the garden. There are far more weeds-as Mill and Paul would point out!. This is biased towards his belief in God (non believer)

Question 17

How did Hick respond to Ayer?

Answer 17

Two people are on a journey. One is convinced that it leads to the Celestial city, while the other believes that it leads nowhere: but since this is the only road there is, both must travel it. Both have similar experiences on the road, but each interprets them differently from the other. One lives in the expectation of the final destination, while the other has no such expectation. One sees the adventures on the journey as either trials and comforts sent by God, while the other simply sees them as either good fortune or bad. Only when they reach the end will the truth be known.

Meaning - When we die the truth of God’s existence will be verified, not falsified. This is known as “eschatological verification”. Religious statements will be proved true but not false at the end of our lives. He is responding to Ayer and is a cognitive response

Question 18

What are the strengths of Hick’s argument?

Answer 18

He does not make any presumptions and says that we will find out in the end, where as the others do not support this view. Also, this supports biblical evidence that there will be an afterlife e.g parable of the sheep and the goats.

Question 19

What is a weakness of Hick?

Answer 19

He does not take into account that falsification could occur as religious statements may be not true.
* Cannot be proven true until death
* What if Hindu beliefs are proven true? Reincarnation?

Question 20

What is Flew’s falsification principle background?

Answer 20

Flew was influenced by the scientific method proposed by Karl Popper. Scientists must be able to state what evidence they would used to falsify a scientific assertion. If they could not, then it was a non assertion i.e. not a statement of fact. Flew agreed with Popper. He concludes that all religious statements are non assertions. They are not cognitive. He put forward his ideas in a debate with two other scholars in 1971.

Question 21

What was Flew’s parable?

Answer 21

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, “Some gardener must tend this plot.” The other disagrees, “There is no gardener.” So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. “But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.” So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. “But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.” At last the Sceptic despairs, “But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?”

Question 22

What is the meaning of Flew’s parable?

Answer 22

He argues in this parable that religious believers will not allow any empirical evidence to falsify their beliefs despite the overwhelming evidence (all the weeds). They continue to qualify their belief in the face of opposing evidence. Flew says this is death by a thousand qualifications.

Question 23

What example did Flew give?

Answer 23

Flew gives the following example: But then we see a child dying of inoperable cancer of the throat. His earthly father is driven frantic in his efforts to help, but his Heavenly Father reveals no obvious sign of concern. Some qualification is made — God’s love is “not merely human love” or it is “an inscrutable love,” perhaps — and we realize that such suffering are quite compatible with the truth of the assertion that “God loves us as a father (but of course…).” We are reassured again. The religious believer is unable to tell you what empirical evidence could falsify their belief in God. Just what would have to happen not merely (morally and wrongly) to tempt but also (logically and rightly) to entitle us to say “God does not love us” or even “God does not exist”?

Question 24

What is a strength of Flew’s theory?

Answer 24

There is a lot of evidence to support it concerning the way that believers respond to challenges (e.g. the Theodicies, claiming that God’s love is different to ours etc).

Question 25

What is a weakness of Flew’s theory?

Answer 25

Believers would argue that God isn’t part of the empirical world and therefore there isn’t, and can’t be, any empirical evidence to falsify his existence. Flew misses the point with believers as their belief is based on faith rather than empirical evidence.

Question 26

How did Clarke respond to Flew?

Answer 26

· In reply to Flew, a believer might want to say three things
1. It is a natural part of faith to trust in God. This is not irrational trust, because the believer is happy to believe that God has made known His love in other ways (for example, from the Incarnation and death of Christ).
2. On balance there are sufficient empirical grounds in the experience of life to support faith in God’s love.
3. To take the analogy of parental love, when we are disciplined or punished by our parents it does not logically lead us to doubt that they still love us. Why should it be different with a believer’s relationship to God, a relationship based on trust?

Question 27

How did Prevost reply to Flew?

Answer 27

To use a metaphor in reply to Flew, there is enough depth of happiness, goodness and hope in the sea of life to enable the ship of faith to float

Question 28

What is Hare’s theory in the Symposium?

Answer 28

A certain lunatic is convinced that all dons are out to murder him. The student remains convinced even when dons are nice to him. When this happens, he thinks that the dons are being devious and hypocritical, showing the need to be on his guard.

Meaning- Religious language is meaningful to the believer. We hold to beliefs despite undermining/falsifying evidence. These beliefs were termed Bliks. Bliks are meaningful because they influence the person’s attitude and the way they live their life. Religious statements are non cognitive yet meaningful.

Question 29

What are the strengths of Hare?

Answer 29

it allows non-cognitive statements to be meaningful and the importance of such statements is recognised.

Question 30

What are the weaknesses of Hare?

Answer 30

He is likening believers to lunatics. In his parable there is negative influence on their lives where as a believer may argue that the influence is positive in reality. It is not a good analogy for a believer.
Another is that it he could be said to have taken it too far with saying it is meaningful to be non cognitive where as a religious believer would say that there is some empirical evidence to support their beliefs.

Question 31

What is Mitchell’s theory in the Symposium?

Answer 31

In an occupied country during a war, a resistance fighter meets a mysterious stranger and spends a night in earnest conversation. The stranger tells the fighter to trust that he is on the side of the resistance, even if at times he might be seen helping the enemy. The fighter’s faith in the stranger is constantly tested. Despite being tempted to lose faith in the stranger, as he sometimes sees him appearing to help the enemy and sometimes not, the fighter always says to himself “The stranger knows best”. It is impossible to tell at what point the fighter might lose faith in the stranger.

Meaning-There is nothing decisive in our experience to undermine religious faith but in principle this could happen. So in theory a religious statement could be falsified (so Flew is wrong) e.g sometime in the future, decisive evidence could turn up to prove God exists is wrong. Also, belief is based upon faith, not empirical evidence and so Flew misses the point. As there could be enough empirical evidence to undermine religious belief, Mitchell is arguing that religious language is cognitive and meaningful. However, when he says that it is faith that matters, this is non cognitive and meaningful as it is not based on empirical evidence but faith.

Question 32

What are the strengths of Mitchell?

Answer 32

It incorporates both cognitive and non cognitive, this is good because this is the way that religious statements are. They are often non cognitive, on the other hand there are some philosophical arguments that uses cognitive evidence as well.
Another strength is that some religious believers do have their views falsified.

Question 33

What are the weaknesses of Mitchell?

Answer 33

The stranger tells us that he may appear to help with the evil, however in the bible God doesn’t ever appear to be evil. He may choose to still have faith because he has been honest and told it may happened, when in comparison God does not ever warn us of natural evil etc. Religious believers require great amounts of faith.
Another is that in the analogy God is depicted as a stranger. The analogy is weak because for religious believers God is not a stranger he is far from this.
He does also assume that there will be enough evidence to falsify God, this a massive assumption. There may also already be some events that have caused this falsification, for example theories such as evolution and the big bang, the tsunami. How can this not falsify the belief in a loving God?!

Question 34

What was Swinburne’s idea?

Answer 34

We can never prove that toys in a toy cupboards do not move around when we are not watching them, yet we understand the idea of toys moving and so the statement is still meaningful.

Meaning-There are statements which can not be falsified and yet we understand the meaning behind the statement. This if often the case with scientific statements concerning space!

Question 35

What is the background of religious language debates?

Answer 35

· Since Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have argued over how we gain knowledge. Some like Descartes sided with Plato and said we could not trust sense experience, true knowledge comes from the mind and reason (rationalism). Others, such as Locke, Hume and the logical positivists sided with Aristotle and said true knowledge comes from the senses and experience of this empirical world (empiricism). Hume said that any language which could not be verified empirically or was not mathematically true should be “Committed to the flames…for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion”

Question 36

What did Kant believe?

Answer 36

Kant was somewhere in the middle and argued that the empiricist stand was too simple. He said that the human mind was not passive when receiving sense data from this world and that there was a world outside of human reach-the noumenal world.

Question 37

What did Moore believe?

Answer 37

· Moore in the 20th century wrote an article “In defence of common sense”. In this articles he questioned both the rationalist and empiricist views, particularly their arguments over language. He says that there are certain “banal” (obvious) statements for which it makes no sense to doubt e.g. “this is a radiator”. He says that these statements are true because we have agreed upon them. We should only look for empirical evidence for statements which are not agreed and not banal.

Question 38

What is the background of Wittgenstein?

Answer 38

· Wrote a book “on Certainty” where he agreed with Moore that it was not right to question banal statements. However, he did not agree that these statements were necessarily true. “Moore has every right to say there’s a tree in front of him. Naturally he may be wrong”. So we may agree upon something, but it does not mean that it is true.

Question 39

What is Wittgenstein’s language game idea?

Answer 39

· When it comes to language, we learn certain rules which we agree upon. When we learn language, we learn a “form of life”. There are certain rules that we must learn before we can question banal statements e.g. a child learns the words “Dad” “chair” etc. They won’t question these. It is only when they are older that they will question “Are you my Dad?”. So we must learn the rules of the game before we can make judgements. It does not make sense to question the rules. Therefore, there are no indubitable (unquestionable) truths which can be reached through language alone.
· The rules of language can change over time and in different contexts e.g. each sports game has its own language. Each religion has its own language and there are language games within the different groups of a religion e.g. A Catholic will refer in mass to the body of Jesus when blessing the bread. A verificationist would miss the point if they asked for empirical evidence to prove this!! Wittgenstein says “For a blunder, that is too big.” So language is meaningful once you have understood the language game and “depth of grammar” within the life from in which it is being used. If you don’t understand the rules, you will make blunders!!
· Wittgenstein would criticise Richard Dawkins for likening God to a teapot which circles around Pluto. This is a blunder because it is not understanding how theists use the term God-God is outside, not within the universe.
· Wittgenstein believed that there may be truth outside of the language game but we will never know what this truth is, so we should not spend time discussing/pondering it. “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

Question 40

How did Felicity McCutcheon support Wittgenstein?

Answer 40

· In her article Religion as a language game” she explains that Wittgenstein says that we cannot establish meaning by setting up relationships between words and objects e.g. we cannot point to two apples and say that this means “two” or people might think that the two apples means two! Equally, words do not always have just one meaning e.g. the word game means something different when applied to football, rugby, cards etc. Therefore, meaning is established by language users, not by reality. Something is meaningful if other language users understand us.
· Says that we can get meaning wrong e.g.”God has green eyes” would be to get meaning wrong. This is mistaken because it be wrong to say this within particular language game of talking about God. Believers never talk about God having green eyes or flat feet etc.
Also, McCutcheon agrees that something can be meaningful and yet false at the same time e.g. if we say “that is a hand” on an archaeological dig, this is meaningful but it could be false

Question 41

What are the strengths of Wittgenstein?

Answer 41

Wittgenstein can be supported with evidence of how we use language and how we can make language mistakes. It is easy not to understand a language game and people often mistake religious language e.g. think of God as being like Father Christmas and so believe God cannot exist. We have all experienced not understanding a language game e.g. the game of football and its language.
2. Wittgenstein’s ideas should lead to more tolerance (appreciation of different language games and trying to understand them) and an understanding of why people are intolerant-because they have misunderstood the religious language game e.g. believing that Jews think they are superior whereas for Jews, being the chosen people brings burdens and responsibilities.
3. Wittgenstein has responded well to the verificationist challenge. He has maintained meaning and shown that some language has little to do with empirical facts but is to do with the way it is used and understood by others.
4. Wittgenstein never denies truth outside of the language game and so “God exists” could still be an absolute truth. This is more positive than Hare for religious believers who calls their beliefs bliks.

Question 42

What are the weaknesses of Wittgenstein?

Answer 42

1. Wittgenstein led the way to anti realism ( which denied any truth outside of the language game (DZ Phillips) which many believers would not find acceptable. They would not be prepared to die for a belief which was only true within their language game and not for anyone outside of it.
2. To say that you can only make a mistake when it comes to meaning and to say that we should not speak of what we do not know is not satisfactory when it comes to extremism. When it comes to extremism, we would not want to say that it is right within the context of the language game. We would want to justify that it is wrong by looking at absolute truths e.g God is loving which Wittgenstein would not want us to engage in.
3. May not always lead to tolerance - is he right to say that we should always talk about absolute truths? Could understand a language game and still be opposed to their beliefs - FGM

Question 43

What is epistemic imperialism?

Answer 43

empiricism is the main source of knowledge

Question 44

What did Stephen Jay Gould say? (strength of Wittgenstein?

Answer 44

Non-overlapping magisteria - science and religion each represent different areas of inquiry. Science covers the empirical world while religion covers questions of moral meaning and ethical value