Religious Language 2

Question 1

Hume’s Fork

Answer 1

All concepts are divisible into two distinct categories: what can be proves using logic and what can be proves using observation/sense experience. That which can be proved using logic is a priori, analytic, necessary, while that proves using observation will be a posteriori, synthetic, contingent.

Question 2

Cognitivism

Answer 2

Facts and knowledge

Question 3

Non-cognitivism

Answer 3

Things that we could never know such as values and feelings

Question 4

Logical Positivists

Answer 4

A group of philosophers concerned with the relationship between the use of language and knowledge, rejecting as meaningless that which was non-cognitive.

Question 5

Wittgenstein on what is meaningful

Answer 5

Meaningful language is connected with the things we know from our senses.

Question 6

Verification

Answer 6

Claims are only meaningful if they can be proven true or false. Associated with the claims of the sciences.

Question 7

The Verification Principle as formalised by A.J.Ayer

Answer 7

A statement which cannot be conclusively verified is simply devoid of meaning. Statements can only be meaningful if they can be demonstrated- either analytic propositions that are true by definition, or synthetic propositions, which are true by confirmation of the senses.
Religious claims are non-cognitive and impossible to verify, and therefore are meaningless. It is not necessarily that they are false, it is just that they cannot mean anything.

Question 8

“No sentence which describes the nature of a transcendent God…

Answer 8

can possess any literal significance”

Question 9

Weak verification principle

Answer 9

There are some things that are not technically provable, like historical events of which there are records but no one has witnessed and we cannot subject the hypothesis to any new or further forms of testing. Therefore, Ayer proposed that we might know things by setting up sensible standards for evidence, like eye witnesses and multiple sources. We do not have to check every bit of knowledge with our logic or senses.

Question 10

Criticisms of Verification

Answer 10

• Hick- talk of God might be verifiable in principle. Convincing evidence is not apparent now but could be in the future- the whole idea of final judgement implies that God will be seen and known. Eschatological verification.
• Swinburne argues there are propositions which no-one knows how to verify but still are not meaningless. For example, saying all ravens are at all times black. There is always a possibility of a white one.
• The principle contradicts itself- the claim that a statement is only meaningful if it can be verified analytically or synthetically cannot itself be verified analytically or synthetically.

Question 11

Falsification- Karl Popper’ approach

Answer 11

For statements to be meaningful it must be possible to them to conflict with observations (either practically or in principle). To say all swans are white and attempt to verify it would require verifying that at no point in time no at any place in the universe did a non-white swan ever exist, whereas to falsify it one would only need to see a non-white swan. Scientific statements must be able to conflict with observations.

Question 12

Falsification- Anthony Flew

Answer 12

Language is only meaningful if we can conceive of some evidence which might count against it. It is only meaningful to say schoolwork is fun because students might be able to show contradictory information. The problem with god-talk is that it often implies it could never be falsified. For a belief to be about reality, it must be falsifiable, so even though religious language expresses beliefs, as they are unfalsifiable, religious language fails to have cognitive meaning.

Question 13

R.M.Hare’s Bliks

Answer 13

A blik is a non rational belief which can never be falsified. For example, a student is convinced that his philosophy teacher is trying to kill him even though there is no evidence for it. Bliks are not necessarily untrue but they are groundless. It is this way too for religious language.
While the blik is unfalsifiable, it still has meaning for the believer- it is a mistake to treat religious statements as though they are like other statements.

Question 14

Hare’s critique of verification and falsification

Answer 14

If religious language was not an attempt to describe reality then it is not actually making a statement at all, and therefore it would not make sense to get to the stage of calling it unverifiable or unfalsifiable. Religious language does not express an attempt to describe reality but is instead a non-cognitive expression of a person’s Blik, meaning their feelings and attitude. The expression of attitudes is not an attempt to describe the world, therefore they cannot be true or false. And because Bliks affect our beliefs and behaviour, they are meaningful.

Question 15

Hick’s responses to ‘bliks’ and Hare

Answer 15

Argues that there are reasons behind religious beliefs, like experiences and scripture- therefore religious beliefs is based on reason. He objects that there is no way to distinguish between sane or insane bliss and the judgement that religion is insane could only ever be arbitrary.

Question 16

Flew’s Gardener

Answer 16

Two people are walking in a forest and see a clearing. One suggests that there must exist a gardener who cares for the clearing, the other argues there is no gardener. They wait to watch and see nothing, and the first proposes the gardener may be invisible. They set up an electric fence, still nothing. The first proposes the gardener must be invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, with no scent or sound, to which to other despairs there is nothing left of the original assertion- how does such a gardener differ from imaginary or even no gardener at all.
Anything can be qualified under new directions, until so many new requirements have been made the original assertion has been lost completely.

Question 17

Basil Mitchell’s Stranger

Answer 17

In time of war, a member of the resistance meets one night a stranger who impresses him deeply. The never meet again. Sometimes the stranger is seen helping members of the resistance, and the partisan is grateful, and sometimes helps hand over people to the other side, and still the partisan believes the stranger is on the side of the resistance. His friends ask him what the stranger would have to do to admit he was wrong.
Agrees that for a belief to be meaningful it must be possible for some observation to count against it. But just because there are some observations that count against a certain belief, we do not automatically have to reject that belief. (e.g. we can accept that the existence of evil counts as evidence against God’s existence, and so ‘God exists’ in falsifiable and meaningful, without withdrawing belief in God.

Question 18

Wittgenstein’s Language Games

Answer 18

In order to question the meaning of language you need to do it within the context of the ‘game’ it is being used in. Each game has its own set of rules- the meaning of the language comes from its use. It would make no sense/have no meaning to discuss football using terms of rugby. e.g. Saying the word ‘queen’ when talking about chess means something different to using it when talking about the monarchy of a country. ‘Nirvana’ means different things when playing the game of music as opposed to Buddhism. If one team is playing football while the other is playing rugby, any goals scored are meaningless. It is not that they didn’t happen, but because both teams are playing under different contexts, it simply cannot count.
Words have no objective reference points, they simply reflect systems of behaviour. Function/use is more important than meaning.

Question 19

How can language work

Answer 19

Through language games. Meaning only comes out of contact- we must know what game our terms are participating in. You have to observe convention to have meaningful discussions. To understand language you must understand how it is used.
Surface/depth grammar is important- the bus passes the bus stop vs the peace of the lord passes all understanding. asking for a raise vs asking god for prosperity.

Question 20

Coherence theory of truth

Answer 20

How language is meaningful- statement are true if they fit with other statements and beliefs which are internally consistent. Therefore the ‘game’ of religious language cannot be criticised because internally, it is coherent and intelligible.

Question 21

Language Games- D.Z. Phillips

Answer 21

Religion cannot be either grounded or criticised in reason- it is a system all of its own. The reality of God or religion does not lie in the abstract issue of whether God exists, but instead is located in the words and practice of religion. What God is, is defined by the language game of faith. We have to take part to find out.

Question 22

Criticisms of Language Games

Answer 22

• reject that language can be objective and scientific- our language can never convey truth in an absolute sense
• implies that there could be no progress in philosophical debates
• could justify extremism or superstition, irrationalism and blind faith, if people can be allowed to use say that the game of religious language requires no justification

Question 23

Religious Language- Lacewing

Answer 23

Wittgenstein’s interpretation contradicts what most religious believers believe- they use religious language to state truths. RL is both factual and expressive.