Religious language in the 20th century Flashcards
Who were the logical positivists/Vienna Circle?
A group of mathematicians, scientists and philosophers who analysed language to decide what was meaningful and worth discussing.
What do the logical positivists say about religious language?
It is not meaningful, as it cannot be tested by the five senses
What is a cognitive statement?
Aim to literally describe how the world is, and can be true or false.
What is a non-cognitive statement?
Does not aim to convey facts, it is used to describe emotions, feelings and spirituality.
What did Comte and Mill say that influenced the logical positivists?
They were impressed by the power of science and believed it should be universally extended to all areas of intellectual enquiry.
How did Hume’s fork influence the logical positivists?
There are 2 types of knowledge - analytical (true/false by definition) and synthetic (can be observed and then verified).
These two statements can never cross.
What is Bertrand Russells’ teapot analogy?
If someone claimed that there is a teapot orbiting the sun in space which can’t be detected by a telescope - it would be unreasonable to expect people to believe in this - it can’t be disproven.
The burden of proof falls on the person making the claim - not others to disprove.
How did Russel’s teapot influence the logical positivists?
You can’t expect people to believe in something that can’t be disproven - there must be empirical evidence.
What does the strong verification principle say a statement requires to be meaningful?
It is only meaningful if it can be verified by experience (synthetic/empirical) or if it is true by definition (analytic/a tautology)
Why does the strong verification principle not work?
You can’t make statements about history (as they can’t immediately be verified by empirical evidence).
You can’t make statements about scientific laws as they are based on theory, you assume they will always act in the same way.
What are Swinburne’s examples of things that can’t be verified but we all accept?
‘all humans are mortal’ and ‘all ravens are black’ - these can’t be verified in practice but we consider them to be meaningful.
What is Swinburne’s toy analogy?
What if toys come alive when humans aren’t in the room, but return to normal when they are there.
This is unable to be verified or falsified but still could be true.
What is Brummer and DZ Phillips’ criticisms of the strong verification principle?
Faith statements shouldn’t be treated in the same way as scientific claims, the verification principle is too narrow.
What is Ayer’s weak verification principle?
He deemed the strong verification principle as too restrictive.
So, he adds that theoretical statements can be verified and therefore meaningful.
Ayer quote on weak verification
“God talk is evidently nonsense”
How does Hick criticise verificationism?
Eschatologically, religious language is verifiable.
Believers would be able to verify statements around God/heaven at the end of life.
Therefore religious language isn’t meaningless.
Explain what Wittgenstein means by language games?
Language is used in a similar way to games - there are similarities in phrases we use in different contexts.
But if two people are in the same language game, the language they are using is meaningful.
What does Culpitt argue about religious language?
All language doesn’t point to an objective true or false reality - its meaning depends on the form of life they’re used.
What does Phillips say about religious language?
Language could be non-cognitive, depending on the form of life its used. Factual statements are cognitive but music/art aren’t.
Both can still be meaningful.
What does Ayer say about ethical discussions?
They are non-cognitive.
But they are meaningful when running and observing society.
Religious statements are still “literally meaningless”
Does Aquinas say religious language is cognitive or non-cognitive?
Cognitive.
Even through it has to be used analogically, there are truth claims surrounding creation/existence.
Why might William James argue that religious language is cognitive?
religious experiences point to something greater through their effects.
BUT…he des say that they do not necessarily prove God’s existence.
What would Kant say about religious language being cognitive or non-cognitive?
Non-cogntitive?
God is so beyond us that we can’t make factual claims.
What is a traditional/conservative approach to the Bible?
The message of the Bible is the true and authentic message of God.
Therefore, cognitive.
What is a liberal approach to the Bible?
The Bible needs to be interpreted for our own times - it presents a non-literal view of the world.
Therefore. non-cognitive.
What is a fundamentalist approach to the Bible?
The Bible is factual and cognitive.
What is Hick’s parable of the celestial city?
He explains this through the parable of the celestial city.
Two travellers are on a road (representing life), one believes a celestial city (representing afterlife) is at the end, but the other doesn’t.
When they reach the end, Hick remarks they will discover that one had been right all along.
So there is a way to verify religious language when we reach the end of the road of life, when we die.
What is Ayer’s criticism of Hick’s Eschatological verification?
We do not know an afterlife is a place which exists where one might do relevant observations to verify religious language.
If death is annihilation there won’t be a moment of realisation of that. So if there is no afterlife, we won’t be able to verify religious language as either true or false.
Therefore, we cannot say that there is a way to verify religious language.
It’s not sufficient to simply imagine a scenario where the relevant observation-conditions exist. We need to actually know that they do exist.
Explain the term Wittgensteinian fideism
Religion is purely a matter of faith.
It is a totally separate language game to science which is a matter of a posteriori reason.
What is a weakness of Wittgenstein’s language games?
Suggests that when a religious person says ‘God exists’ they aren’t actually claiming that God exists in objective reality in a scientific sense.
They are just expressing their participation in a certain form of life. They are speaking in a certain way due to internalising a set of behavioural rules developed in a culture over time.
