religious language Flashcards
what is non-cognitivism?
religious claims do not aim to describe the world through assertions which may be truth-apt.
- rather, they express non-belief like attitudes towards the world such as emotions, desires, faith
what is cognitivism?
religious claims aim to describe how the world/reality is: they express beliefs and are truth-apt
what is the verification principle?
a cognitively meaningful sentence is either 1) an analytic truth or 2) empirically verifiable.
what is the weak and strong version of the verification principle?
weak - a statement is meaningful if there are some observations relevent to determining the truth/falsity for certain
strong - a statement is meaningful if we can directly verify it by observation-statements and therefore establish its truth/falsity for certain
what is the criticism that the verification principle is too strong?
it outlaws religious language from the realm of the meaningful and also makes much of what humans speak meaningless including inner feelings and sensations.
- sutherland describes it as conceptually restrictive - it rules out nonsense and could eventually distinguish human thought
what is unfalsifiability?
there are no possible states of affairs that would count against the assertion or which would induce the speaker to withdraw it and to admit that it had been mistaken.
what is the criticism that the verification principle makes itself meaningless?
according to its own criterion, the principle of verification is itself meaningless
- it claims that for any proposition to be meaningful it must either be verifiable or true by definition.
- but the principle is not true by definition and we cannot recognise its truth just by examining the meanings of the terms it uses
what happens if a religious claim is unfalisifiable?
if there are no circumstances whereby the person making the claim would concede that there was evidence to disprove this claim
what is eschatological verification?
Hick claims that religious statements can be verified through eschatological verification:
1) the removal of rational doubt concerning a claim
2) based on some kind of experience which
3) can only happen at the end of time/ after our death
what is the parable of the celestial city?
used to illustrate how eschatolgical verification is possible:
men A and B are travelling down a road. A believes that it ends at the celestial city and B believed it led nowhere. during their journey they are met with both delight and danger. A interprets the good as encouragements and the bad as trials of his purpose and B believes they just are.
when they turn the last corner it will be apparant that one of them has been right e.g. afterlife.
how does Hick answer the question of whether it is the same person in the afterlife?
1) he asks us to imagine X disappearing in america while the exact double (same memories) appears in australia. same person?
2) X dies in america and the double appears in australia
3) X dies in america but appears in the afterlife. if the person is the same in 1 and 2 then they must be the same here too.
these are meant to show that resurrection is logically possible
what criticism questions the conclusions hick draws?
each scenario produces a duplicate person in a new location - not the same person.
- if X did not die but then the double appeared in another country we would not say that this is the same person.
- god could put a double of me in heaven but that is not me and for my personal identity to survive the process of death, there would have to be bodily continuity
what is the criticism that we cannot verify post-mortem?
we cannot verify post mortem the religious claims here.
- god exists can only be verified through recognition but it may not be possible to recognise something we have not seen before and we cannot comprehend (god is said to be beyond human understanding)
what is the logical form of flew’s falisification?
p1) if an utterance U is a genuine assertion then its meaning is equivilant to the meaning of denial of its negation (notU)
c1) therefore, U is meaningful/meaningless if notU is meaningful/meaningless
p2) for notU to be meaningful there must be possible/concievable conditions that would support notU and therefore, woudl count against U
p3) for religious utterances there are no such possible/conceivable conditions; no conditoins that would count against them or which would induce the speaker to withdraw and to admit that it had been a mistake
c2) religious utterances do not make genuine, meaningful assertions
what example does flew use for unfalsifiability?
god exists = seems unfalsifiable given that whatever possible conditions obtain or are conceived of, the speaker will not withdraw their claim.
- whatever evidence presented, the person would continue to make their claim
what does flew use to show his falsification principle?
he uses wisdom’s parable of the gardener
two people are in a clearing in a jungle and do not observe a gardener. A believes there is not a gardener but B believes the gardener must come at night. they stay all night but no gardener apears A takes this as there is no gardener but B believes the gardener is invisible. they put an electric fence and sniffer dogs but there is no evidence for the gardener. B believes that the gardener is also odourless and intangible
this means there will be no direct evidence for him.
what is the point of the parable of the invisible gardener?
the non-believer questions how the believers claim is different from there is no gardener.
- the believer begins with the assertion that there is a gardener but modfies it so much that it ends up not being an assertion at all
he thinks that religious assertions are not meaningful
what is mitchell’s argument?
he argues that religious beliefs are not provisional hypotheses like scientific statements but they are not vacuous formulae that the believer holds regardless of any evidence to the contrary
- they are significant articles of faith that the believer is invested in so doesn’t withdraw from as soon as there is evidence to the contrary.
what is the resistance fighter argument?
your country has been invaded and a member of the resistance movement hoping to overthrow.
- you meet a man claiming to be a resistance leader and he convinces you to trust him and over months he acts for the resistance but sometimes against it.
- but you do not give up even though there is evidence agianst it
what is hare’s argument?
he agrees that religious statements are unfalsifiable but that doesn’t mean they are not saying anything meaningful
- religious statements are bliks which are attitudes towards reality
what is an argument for bliks?
a lunatic student has the blik that all teachers want to kill me which he maintains regardless of the evidence against it
