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Philosophy > Philosophy > Flashcards

Philosophy Flashcards

1
Q

F.P

Karl Popper

A

Explanation of how scientific theories work (can be superseded) said all statements should be like this

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2
Q

F.P

Anthony Flew

A

ANALOGY - two explorers and the invisible and intangible gardener. Religious statements become so watered down as religious believers keep shifting the goalposts - death of a thousand qualifications
What would have to happen to disprove god?

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3
Q

FP

Hare

A

Flew did not understand the nature of religious belief. ANALOGY - lunatic and professors
Religious beliefs are our bliks - beliefs about the world which are not alternated even despite empirical evidence

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4
Q

F.P

Mitchell

A

Religious believers are not blind to the problems of faith. They recognise that certain evidence can count against belief in god but do not let is count decisively against.
ANALOGY - resistance fighter

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5
Q

Verification principle

Strong

A

Logical positivist believe in V.P
A statement is only meaningful if it can be verified by an actual experience or is a tautology.
Talking about god is meaningless

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6
Q

V.P

Problems

A

Too rigid; can’t make statements about history eg no empirical evidence about the life of Julie’s Caesar
Scientific laws are meaningless; can’t be proven that gravity is constant in all places at all times

Swinburne - universal statements cannot be verified. If we were to say “all ravens are black” this seems meaningful but can’t be proven as there may at some point be or have been a raven that was not black

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7
Q

V.P
Weak
A.J Ayer

A

Statements must be a tautology or verifiable in principle; you must suggest how it could possibly be verified.
Allows us to make statements about history and emotions and science but not religion and ethics

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8
Q

V.P
Criticisms of Ayer
Hick

A

Hick - questioned whether V.P renders religious statements meaningless ANALOGY OF TWO TRAVELLERS ARGUING ABOUT WHETHER ROAD LEADS TO CELESTIAL CITY
like the religious believer, the truth will be verified at the end of the journey. Eschatological.

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9
Q

V.P

Criticism of Ayer

A

Some argue that religious statements can be made eg about Jesus’ life
Many reject V.P as it is in itself not verifiable

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10
Q

Via Negativa

A

Statements about God cannot be made as god is utterly different to and greater than anything we can comprehend. Rather than having no knowledge of God, it is argued that we can make negative statements; we can say what God is not.

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11
Q

V.N

Plotonius

A

Used this method to describe the form of the good. He argued that good is separate to the world and unknowable

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12
Q

V.N

Pseudo - Dionysius

A

Spoke of God as being ‘beyond our assertion’ god is beyond our ability to describe. Making positive statements about god results in anthropomorphic idea of God. To say that Gos is good limits his goodness as It puts a human idea of goodness into our minds

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13
Q

V.N

Moses Maimonides

A

Making positive statements are improper and disrespectful as it brings God down to a human level. The only positive statement that can be made is to say that God exists. Description then comes from the Via Negativa

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14
Q

V.N

Strengths

A

Prevents anthropomorphic idea of God
More respectful
Supports the view that god is beyond our description

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15
Q

V.N

Weaknesses

A

Result is a very limited understanding of God
Method doesn’t work for everyday objects let alone an all powerful, transcendent God
Not a true reflection of how religious people talk about god
If we are saying something negative then the positive is implied

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16
Q

Falsification principle

A

The difficulty of religious statements is that they cannot possibly be proven false

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17
Q

Religious experience
William James
Intro

A

Religious experience is at the heart of religion, whereas religious teachings, practices and attitudes are ‘second hand’. James believed that all religious experiences indicated the probability of god, although as a pluralist, he described as the ‘spiritual’ and ‘higher aspects of th world and the self’ he was particularly interested in the effects of religious experience on people’s lives and believed the validity of the experience rests upon the effects it produces

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18
Q

Religious experience
William James
Main arguments

1) spirit vs psychology
2) definition
3) saintly examples
4) religious experience over tradition

A

1) the spiritual value of religious experience is not undone even if we find a psychological explanation for the experience. He rejected the Freudian view and saw this as an attempt to discredit religion by those who started with an antipathy towards it
2) he did not agree that there was a single feature of religious experience which defines it but understood it to be “the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider to be the divine
3) the experiences of great religious figures can set patterns for the conventional believer to study. He references examples of ‘saintliness’ in people such as st.teresa of Avila. He showed how such Christians can be strong people who help others to progress and for people to learn from
4) he believed that religious experience was more important than focusing on a study of religious institutions e.g the church as these are examples of second hand religion

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19
Q

Religious experience
William James
Four criteria

A

James acknowledges the difficulty in defining religious experience so he proposed 4 criteria which she believed to be the characteristics of all religious and mystical experience.

1) ineffable; beyond proper description
2) noetic; a direct knowledge of god which could not be achieved through experience alone
3) transient; the experience is temporary and not sustained, although it’s effects may last a long time
4) passive; experience not initiated by the mystic but rather they have a sense that something is acting upon them.

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20
Q

Religious experience
William James
Conclusions

A

Draws on knowledge of psychology and neurology in accepting that religious experiences are psychological phenomena that occur in our minds. This doesn’t mean that they are only psychological, they may well have a supernatural element as well. He bases this on 3 key principles;

1) empiricism - his case studies supply empirical evidence of the effects of religious experience which provides us with clues as to the reality beyond what we see and hear.
2) pluralism - the experiences in different faiths led him to believe that those having experiences of the same ultimate reality and interpreting it into the second hand religious belief system which is most familiar to them
3) pragmatism - truth is not fixed - truth is whatever holds great value for us

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21
Q

Religious experience
Rudolf otto
Numinous

A

Otto believed that all religious experience was numinous in nature.
Numinous experiences are feelings of awe and wonder in the presence of almighty and transcendent god.
Numinous is described by Otto as being “mysterium: tremendum”
Mysterium due to the mystery of the experience and it’s inability to be described
Tremendum because of the awe - inspiring terror in the presence of an overwhelming being

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22
Q

Religious experience

Direct experiences

A

When god reveals himself to a person E.g Jesus revealing himself to Saul on the road to Damascus and converting him to Paul

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23
Q

RE

Indirect Experience

A

Experiences, thoughts or feelings about God that are promoted by events in daily life eg the stars, miracle of life

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24
Q

RE
Swinburne
Public experiences

A

1) ordinary - interpreting the natural world eg seeing the beauty of nature and feeling as though God is close.
2) extraordinary - events that defy normal understanding. Comparable to Hume’s definition of a miracle as ‘a transgression of the laws of nature by a particular violation of a deity’😇🙏

25
Q

R.E
Swinburne
Private experiences

A

Break down into;
1) describable - in ordinary language. This contradicts Williams’ claims that miracles must always be ineffable

2) non-describable - in ordinary language “ineffable”
3) non-specific - can be summed up as having a “hunch” the private version of ordinary experiences

26
Q

R.E
Rudolf Otto
General argument

A

These experiences provide a reference point, from then on, believers interpret the world through the experiences and the beliefs attached to it.
Ideas about God may be developed when believers reflect on their experiences, but ultimately the experience of God is inexpressible.
Otto realised that God could not be known through sensory experience or logical argument.
For Otto, god is “wholly other” he is a being that is completely different to and distinct from human beings
We are not able to know God unless he reveals himself and his revelation is felt on an emotional level

27
Q

R.E

Schleiermacher

A

Agreed with Otto that religious experiences are primarily emotional.these emotions are deeper than reason. For schleiermacher, the experiences are not numinous but are at their core a feeling of absolute dependence on the divine - it is this awareness of absolute dependence upon a ‘source of power that is distinct from the world’ that is at the heart of religion.
Theology arises afterwards as people reflect on their experiences

28
Q

R.E

St Teresa Avila criteria for R.E’s

A

St Teresa offered two tests to determine whether an experience was genuine;

1) does it fit with Christian teachings?
2) does the experience leave the individual feeling at peace?
3) if the experience does not fit this criteria, then it is from the devil

29
Q

R.E
Swinburne
Are they provable or truthful?

A

Swinburne suggests that there is no reason why claims to religious experience should be treated any differently from ordinary perpetual claims.
Swinburne offers two principles to support this;

Principle of credulity; we must accept what appears to be the case unless we have clear evidence to the contrary, such as having good reason to doubt the person, proving that God doesn’t exist, or by proving that an experience was not caused by God

Principle of testimony; unless we have positive evidence that they are misremembering or untrustworthy, we should believe the testimony of the experience

30
Q

R.E
Challenges
Psychological
Feuerback

A

The idea of God is a human projection. All the attributes of God are in our nature, they are human aspirations or desires. We create God in our image “God is man written in large letters”

31
Q

R.E
Challenges
Psychological
Freud

A

Human religious belief is a neurosis caused by childhood insecurities and the desire for a father figure to protect us.
According to Freud, religious experiences are hallucinations that have a simple psychological explanation.
Just as dreams are caused by deep desires we are unaware of, religious experiences are also a product of our subconscious and are caused by the desire for security and meaning

32
Q

R.E
Challenges
Physiological

A

Some scientists suggest that there are neurophysiological mechanisms which underlie religious experiences. They refer to the ‘casual operator’ and the ‘holistic operator’ within the brain. These seem to show up on brain scans done on meditating monks.

The fact that there is a psychological dimension to religious experience need not lead us to reject the experience completely. Some thinkers have suggested that our brains are constructed in such a way that we are almost wired up to experience God.
Those areas in the brain may be causing the experience, just simply stimulated by it.

33
Q

R.E
Challenges
Difficulties of interpretation

A

Religious experiences tend to be described in terms of peoples prior religious faith
Eg a catholic may interpret their experiences as caused by the Virgin Mary, whereas a Hindu is unlikely to give this explanation.

34
Q

R.E
Challenges
Immanuel Kant

A

Our sense can only experience things in the empirical realm which Kant refers to as phenomena. There may be a reality beyond out experience (noumena) but it is impossible to experience it as a matter of logic

35
Q

Miracles
Definitions
Thomas Aquinas

A

Defined miracles as ‘that which has a divine cause, not that which a human person fails to understand’
This seems to challenge ‘miracles of chance’ wherein something is proclaimed to be a miracle due to how unlikely it was, such as R.F.Holland’s child caught on a railway track thing.

36
Q

Miracles
Definitions
David Hume

A

Hume defined miracles as “a transgression of the laws of nature by a particular violation of the deity”

This is known as the violation definition as it’s key claim is that a miracle is a violation or breaking of a natural law

37
Q

Miracles
Definitions
Swinburne

A

Defined a miracle as “an occurrence of a non-repeatable counter instance to a law of nature”

38
Q

Miracles
Definitions
Objections to the violation definition

A

The violation definition assumes that we know what the laws of nature are; scientific knowledge is constantly changing.
Unless we know exactly all the laws of nature, we are unable to comment on whether something is a miracle, however unusual.

39
Q

Miracles
Bible miracles
Rudolph bultman

A

The theory of demythology, which proposes that the bible’s stories are myths, and it is the moral messages in them that matter, not the literal truth of the stories themselves.

40
Q

Miracles
David Hume
Theoretical argument

A

Miracles are impossible. The laws of nature that we experience are uniform and constant; we assume that these laws will not be changed in the future and that they have been constant in the past.
Hume suggests that we establish cause and effect relationships based on our experiences of the world - this leads us to make predictions about what will happen in similar events in the future.

> The more experiences that we have of “normal events” seems to make miracles less likely, yet there is no way of absolutely disproving them.
Hume suggests that the only evidence we have for miracles is the testimonies and accounts written by other people
He says that we ought only to believe a miracle story if it would be more incredible that all witnesses were mistaken than if the event were true.

41
Q

Miracles
David Hume
Practical arguments

A

1) miracles do not generally have too many sane and educated witnesses.
2) we have a natural interest in things that are unusual - this tendency is exploited in religious people. Hume suggests that some religious people know that the stories they recount are false, but continue to spread them because it is a good cause
3) Hume suggests that it is mainly amongst the ‘ignorant and barbarous nations’ that miracles are reported and believed - these things don’t appear so frequently in modern times
4) almost all religious faiths carry miracle stories, yet they cannot all be right

42
Q

Miracles
Responses to David Hume
Swinburne

A

> said that laws of nature are generalisations! not specific rules
laws of nature are ‘corrigible’ and can change, as our understanding of the world is not perfect
asked what Hume meant by “ignorant and barbarous nations”
says there is evidence of miracle such as physical traces and defying of science.

43
Q

Miracles

Wiles

A

> any occasion where God intervenes with the natural order of things to help individuals or groups would raise the issue of consistency and fairness
he believed that such a God would be arbitrary and partisan.
wiles believed that there was a single miracle of creation as God’s creation was good and does not require intervention in the form of specific miracles.
in creating the world, God put into place certain natural laws, therefore miraculous events would be very rare by definition. If this were not so, we could have no confidence in the laws of nature and our lives would be difficult, never knowing whether God might intervene or not
wiles argued that God would be unfair to perform a miracle such as the water into wine when there was so much pain and suffering in the world which appears to go unhelped.
For wiles, biblical miracles are seen as symbolic acts which teach believers about the nature of God and the importance of obedience

44
Q

Miracles

Paul Tillich

A

Spoke of ‘contingency’ saying that miracles were a sign pointing to God (noetic) and that consequently it was not the miracle that mattered but the message.
E.g if one mans from thousands has his life saved, this intended as a sign towards the knowledge that God can save people, the fact that the man is alive is not the point.
He described miracles as a “sign event in an ecstatic experience”

45
Q

Miracles

R.F. Holland

A

Gave the example of a child playing on a railway, who becomes stuck. A train is heading towards the child, around the corner in such a way that the train driver would not be able to see the child and stop in time. However, the train driver passes out after a heavy lunch which increases blood pressure and causes a blood clot to come unstuck and head towards his brain, the train therefore stops in time.
To the mother, this would be a miraculous event.

> holland referred to miracles as “coincidence events given religious significance”

46
Q

Miracles

Dawkins

A

Miracles are just coincidences. He claims that science can explain nearly all miracles, and therefore God is not necessary

47
Q

Life after death

Plato

A

Dualist - the soul is imprisoned in the body
> argued that the soul is more important than the body; the body is part of the empirical world and subject to change.
This is why Plato believed that the body and it’s senses cannot be a reliable guide to truth. *the body allows us to gain opinions via our senses! the soul enables us to have knowledge.
> since the soul cannot change, it cannot come into or out do existence, it is eternal

48
Q

Life after death
Plato
Argument from knowledge

A

> ARGUMENT FROM KNOWLEDGE - the soul was originally in the realm of the forms, therefore when you learn something, you are simply remembering the forms.

49
Q

Life after death
Plato
Argument from opposites

A

> ARGUMENT FROM OPPOSITES - the body and soul are opposites, life and death are opposite things. Plato argues that death is a thing rather than a nothing and this leads him to suggest that death is an event; the soul leaving the body

50
Q

Life after death
Plato
Charioteer

A

Chariot analogy;
The soul is a chariot driver, horses are mind and body. Horses try to pull in different directions but the soul controls them
Injustice come from disharmony in the soul; the charioteer not being in charge

51
Q

Life after death

Aristotle

A

> for Aristotle the soul is the formal cause of the body! it is the characteristics and attributes that we each have.
it is not an addition to the body , the body is the raw material, like the marble of a sculpture, the soul is the form! like the characteristics of the sculpture when it’s finished
the soul cannot be divided from the body the body is not just a prison as Plato suggested! but it is essential to us. We are body and soul.
if the body were an axe! the soul would be its ability to chop.
There can be no soul present without the body.👌

52
Q

Life after death
Aristotle
Types of soul

A

Every type of living creature has a soul.
Our particular soul is a human soul with human properties
> Aristotle suggests that human souls are made up of an irrational part and a rational part
> irrational part consists of abilities that plants and animals have. It is made up of a vegetable element and an appetitive element.
> plants have only then vegetative element which is essentially the ability to gain nutrients
> for Aristotle! the human soul is different as it has the ability to reason - this is what separates humans and animals

53
Q

Life after death

Aristotle and the afterlife

A

It may appear that Aristotle does not believe in life after death.
However, there is evidence that he feels the ability to reason some way survives after death.
If this is the case, it does not mean that our identity or personality survives after death, but a kind of abstract property of intellect or reasoning carries on without us

54
Q

Life after death

Descartes

A

Realised that it was logically impossible to doubt all things including the existence of the body. However, it is not possible to doubt that “I” exist as a “thinking thing”
Whenever I think, there must something doing the thinking, Descartes calls this the mind or soul.
Hence is the body can be doubted and the soul proved, this suggests that they are different things.

55
Q

Life after death

Richard Dawkins

A

> we are purely a product of our genes. Our bodies enable our genes to survive and ultimately our genes are passed on via reproduction. All our genes are concerned with is survival and replication.
the idea of a “soul” is a mythical concept invented by the ancients to explain the mysteries of consciousness. He believed that scientists will eventually be able to unlock the mystery of consciousness. This will mean that there will be no need to believe in old-fashioned religious ideas, such as the soul
Dawkins says that death should not be feared. It is the ‘extinguishing’ of our consciousness and will be no different to the time before we were born, we will not know about it or experience it.

56
Q

Life after death

John Hick

A

Rejects the traditional belief in body-soul dualism by adopting a materialist position and arguing that this does not weaken the possibility of life after death.
> When we talk about the soul, we are really describing mental characteristics or aspects of our personality.

57
Q

Life after death
John hick
Traducianism

A

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that individual souls are created an implanted by God.
>However, Hick questioned whether an idea that was denounced as heresay might not provide a better understanding.
> the 3rd century bishop Tertullian had argued that souls were passed down from parents. This concept was known as traducianism.
> this idea seems more in keeping with modern science and fits with Hick’s idea that the soul doesn’t refer to something extra implanted by God.

58
Q

Life after death
John Hick
Replica theory

A

Humans are psycho- physical unity; the death of the body is the death of the person, there is no separate soul to live on -> Hick argues that this does not rule out our existence after death.
> it is logically possible for an all-powerful God to recreate us in another world.
Hick defends this view with three thought experiments;
1) suppose John Smith were to disappear in London and be recreated in New York - presumably we would believe that he was the same person who disappeared in London. There would be tests that could be done to establish that the ‘replica’ was identical.

2) suppose that John smith were to die in London and be recreated in New York. Presumably we would identify John .smith as being the person in New York rather than the body in London
3) finally, suppose that John Smith dies in London and is burned. Is it not logically possible that God could recreate him in another world? Hick argues that this is close to what St. Paul teaches about the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15.

In each example, hick argued that the key to identity is true memories. If the recreated replica remembers their former existence, there are ground for claiming that it is the same person.

59
Q

Life after death

Arguments against

A

> belief in the afterlife is no more than wishful thinking

> no evidence - falsification, verification

Philosophy (2 decks)

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