Religious Language Cognitivist Theories Flashcards
Cognitivist theories
Focus on the meaningfulness of religious language.
They are only meaningful if linked in some way to the real world. They describe the world truly or falsely.
Two cognitive theories that look at the meaningfulness of religious language
Verificationism
Falsificationism.
Ayer, Verification theory of meaning
A sentence is only meaningful if it can pass a kind of test he calls the ‘verification principle’
Verification principle
Only meaningful if it is a tautology (analytic statement) or in principle (synthetic statement). All other statements are meaningless.
Analytic statements
True by definition. They give us no new information about the world and usually say the same thing but in different ways. “all bachelors are males”
Synthetic statements
Not true by definition, need to verify these by using sense experience. “all bachelors are happy”, we would need to test this. Tell us things about the world we didn’t know.
Criticism of the verification principle
Scientific/historical statements would be classed as meaningless. “The battle of hastings took place in 1066”
Strong verification
A statement is meaningful if we can verify it by observation and therefore be certain whether its true or false.
Weak verification
A statement is meaningful if there are some observations that can establish the probable truth of the statement. This allows scientific rules/historical statements to be meaningful.
Verification principle and religion
“God is transcendent” Ayer says there’s no factual content because it is neither analytic or empirically verifiable.
Key quote- Ayer
It is important not to confuse this view of religious assertions with the view that is adopted by atheists. For, if there assertion that there is a God is nonsensical, then the atheists’ assertion that there is no God is equally nonsensical.
Criticisms of verification
It is impossible to verify the verification principle. Ayer argues back that its a recommendation to religious language rather than a factual statement.
Eschatological verification
Hick agrees with Ayer that only factually significant statements are meaningful but argues verification doesn’t rule out religious statements as they can be verified in principle. (Ayer accepts)
The parable of the celestial city- Hick
Two men are walking down an unknown road, one thinks it will lead to a celestial city and the other thinks it leads to nowhere. There are moments of delight and danger. The celestial guy thinks it is encouragements and obstacles to test endurance, the other believes none of this. Hick
Analysis of the parable of the celestial city
It points to the possibility of eschatological verification. If god exists then there will be an afterlife and our religious claims can be verified and are therefore meaningful.
