Is religious language cognitive? Flashcards
Hume’s fork
has two types of knowledge
- matters of fact
- relations between ideas
where do logical positivists deduce
there are two types of meaningful language :
- synthetic language - dependent upon evidence
- analytic propositions - proposition true by definition /by words used
what do logical positivists conclude about metaphysics?
metaphysics and theology are meaningless as no evidence to support them (synthetic) or true by definition (not analytical)
what is the verification principle?
- meaning of statement is method of verification
- verification by sense experience
- taken by Vienna circle claiming that metaphysical/theological language is meaningless as neither are matters of logic/provable by empirical evidence
what is cognitive language?
language cognitive if conveys factual info and most cognitive statements are synthetic
example : ‘the houses of parliament are located in Westminster’ cognitive as gives claim to factual info
what is non-cognitive language?
to say that a statement is non-cognitive is to say that it’s inappropriate to ask whether or not its factual. may convey emotions/give moral claims
example : ‘i am happy because i love this place’
challenges of verification & falsification principle
- for Ayer a statement is only meaningful if is analytic or empirically verifiable
- verification in practice -> happens when there’s direct sense experience to support a statement, example : ‘there is a purple fire-breathing dragon next door wearing green tights & a real scarf, smoking a cigar’
- verification in principle -> happens when we know a statement can in principle be tested empirically, example : ‘there is intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy’ as we know sense experience would prove it
strength of verification principle
- straightforward in what it demands : meaningful statements either true by definition (tautologies) or else verifiable (in principle) by sense experience. it brackets out all questions of emotion/commitment concentrating only on facts
- demands sense of reality : regardless of opinion on VP points out major issue with religious language namely that people can make religious statement without attempts to justify it
weakness of verification principle
- demands too narrow : may be straightforward but doesn’t mean it’s right, it rules out all sorts of language being meaningless(include moral statements, religious lang etc). only works as arguments when discussing matters of fact , not those of interpretations, hopes
- valid criticism of some rl but religion makes clear proposition on god : point that the universe either explains its own existence else its existence is explained by an external creative mind. this is a reasonable hypothesis based on our observation that minds are creative so could just be one supremely creative mind
challenges to verification principle : ayer’s VP allows “verification in principal”
- its’ enough to know in theory that a statement can be verified to render it meaningful. in that case, some argue bible can supply verification in principle for religious statements as Gospels claim to be witness to life, death, resurrection of Jesus
- many historians accept that eyewitness accounts from a particular period in a nation’s history are in principle acceptable evidence to verify the history so same can be said on eye witness of Jesus
challenges to verification principle : ayer’s VP is in itself not verifiable in principle
- most serious threat is it’s not verifiable in principle itself
- was presented as a way of dealing with statements that claim to be factually significant but VP itself fails its own criteria for deciding what is a factual statement
- by own criteria it’s meaningless and cannot be used to comment on how meaningful religious language is
evaluation of verification principle
- if VP is a factual statement then it’s meaningless as there’s no observations that would verify it
- it’s not a logical statement as there’s no logical truths in principle requiring it to be true
parable of invisible gardener
a sceptic and believer come across a gardener that is well kept and represents the world and do a series of tests to find the gardener but despite the amount of tests the gardener (represent God) cannot be seen but doesn’t decrease the faith the believer has
meaning : believer in parable allow for nothing to falsify his belief that there’s a gardener who loves/cares for his garden like how a religious believer allow nothing to falsify his belief there’s a god
strength of falsification principle
where religion makes important factual claims, Flew shows these are empty because all evidence against such claim is ignorant by the believer. these cease to be real assertions as they die ‘the death of a thousand qualifications’
weakness of falsification principle
- attempts to confine ‘meaningfulness’ to factual propositions but there’s a whole realm of human experience that can’t be confined this way. world of empirical facts is utterly different world to that of art, drama etc as they’re vehicles of expressing people’s insight into life through emotion, hopes etc. they’re personal and cannot be easily described using only facts
- when religious believers make claims about God they’re not making wild speculations but assume there’s no truth to be known on origin of universe so god is a reasonable explanation. flew later came to acknowledge this suggesting complexity of evolutionary biology points to existence of creative intelligence. falsification too rigid in its understanding of truth
