Religious language: twentieth century perspective and philosophical comparisons

Question 1

What is a analytic statement?

Answer 1

is a statement of definition; it tells us how words are being used. It does not need any experience to support it.

Question 2

What is a synthetic statement?

Answer 2

A synthetic statement adds something to our knowledge, and experience can be used to support it.

Question 3

what is a cognitive use of language?

Answer 3

A cognitive use of language involves things that can be known and that could be either true or false.

Question 4

What is a non- cognitive use of language?

Answer 4

Non- cognitive use of language are not about things that can be known, but instead work in other ways. For example, they might express emotions, ask questions, give commands or make associations.

Question 5

What are there questions about in religious language regarding both cognitive and non cognitive use of language?

Answer 5

Whether statements should be understood as cognitive or non cognitive.

Question 6

What is logical cognitivism?

Answer 6

It began in the early twentieth century, with discussions amongst the Vienna circle.

Question 7

What is the Vienna circle?

Answer 7

The Vienna circle wanted to clarify the kinds of statements that have meaning, and the kinds which only sound meaningful but are in fact ‘empty’.

Question 8

The logical positivists presented what challenge?

Answer 8

They presented a challenge to religious believers by claiming that religious language is not true no false but meaningless.
Aj ayer led the challenge in his book language truth and logic (1936)

Question 9

According to logical positivists a proposition is only meaningful if it is what?

Answer 9

If it is analytic, or if it is capable of being tested using the five sense (empirical testing). This rule is known as the verification principle.

Question 10

Religious language is dismissed as what by logical positivists?

Answer 10

Dismissed as meaningless by logical positivists because claims such as ‘God made the world’ cannot be tested empirically, and are not analytic.

Question 11

why may many people reject the verification principle?

Answer 11

Because it fails its own test- It cannot be tested for meaningfulness using the five senses.
The verification principle classifies as meaningless a lot more than religious language- ethical statements, for example, cannot be verified empirically.

Question 12

Who was Wittgenstein?

Answer 12

He was a twentieth- century philosopher who aimed to work out the limits of what can be known, conceptualised and expressed in language.
He explored ways I which language can have meaning.
His earlier work inspired the Vienna circle .

Question 13

what did Wittgenstein think?

Answer 13

He thought that we can understand how language can be meaningful if we think of it using the analogy game.

Question 14

Wittgenstein said language is meaningful for who?

Answer 14

Language is meaningful to people who use it when they are participating in a shared ‘ language game’ such as chess or train driving.

Question 15

what does Wittgenstein mean by a ‘Lebensform’ or ‘ form of life’?

Answer 15

It is a context in which language might be used. Language has meaning in context, and people outside that context might not understand it so easily.

Question 16

within ‘Lebensform’ there is what?

Answer 16

There are rules for language usage and everyone understands them.

Question 17

Propositions are not simply what?

Answer 17

They are not simply ‘ meaningful’ or ‘ meaningless’ to everyone, they can be meaningful to some but not to others. Meaning is subjective.
Religious language can therefore be meaningful to those who are in Lebensform of religion, even if they are meaningless to those outside it.

Question 18

Later thinkers have adopted what?

Answer 18

Aspects of Wittgenstein’s theory thought to suggest that religious language could be non- cognitive.

Question 19

What is flew and the falsification principle?

Answer 19

Antony Flews ideas were presented at a symposium in Oxford In a paper called ‘theology and falsification’ in 1950. He wanted to take the debate about meaningfulness of religious language to a new territory.

Question 20

What did Flew use to illustrate his argument?

Answer 20

He used a parable by John Wisdom to illustrate his argument. A sceptic and a believer have different views about the existence of a gardener who visits a clearing in a jungle, because the gardener cannot be detected using the five senses.

Question 21

Nothing the sceptic offers as evidence against the existence of the gardener, will convince the believer, why is this?

Answer 21

The believer in response to the sceptic keeps qualifying his statements about the characteristics of the invisible gardener to accommodate each challenge.

Question 22

Flew argues that religious believers behave in what way?

Answer 22

Flew argues that religious believers behave in the same way, refusing to accept any counter- evidence to their claims about God.
Flew says that religious truth- claims end with a ‘ death by a thousand qualifications’. The assertions are modified until they assert nothing.

Question 23

Flew says that a statement needs to be in what to be meaningful?

Answer 23

That a statement needs to be in principle falsifiable if it is to be meaningful. We have to know what evidence, if any, would count against our assertions if they are to be meaningful assertions at all.

Question 24

R.M Hare is a response to flew, what does he say?

Answer 24

He said that we all have unfalsifiable ‘bliks’. ‘blik’ was a word he made up to mean a way of framing a understanding to the world. Theism is unfalsifiable but so is atheism.

Question 25

Hare gave what story in order to illustrate his argument?

Answer 25

He gave a story of a paranoid ‘lunatic’ in order to illustrate his argument and show that we all have subjective ways of understanding the world.
Hare is suggesting that religious belief and religious claims are non- cognitive expressions of preference.

Question 26

How did Basil Mitchell respond to Flew?

Answer 26

He responded to flew by saying that we have to make commitments to trust and believe in things even when the evidence is ambiguous or lacking.

Question 27

What story did Mitchell tell to illustrate his point?

Answer 27

Mitchell told a story of a partisan in wartime to illustrate his point and to show that sometimes it is necessary to have faith despite the existence of some counter- evidence.

Question 28

Mitchell argues that religious language is what?

Answer 28

That it is cognitive even if people do not have readily available facts to support their beliefs.

Question 29

What do both Aquinas and Wittgenstein demonstrate?

Answer 29

Both take a position that does not dismiss the possibility that religious language has meaning.

Question 30

key difference between Aquinas and Wittgenstein? ( issues Aquinas raised)

Answer 30

Aquinas tackled issues raised in the thirteenth century of how religious language could be meaningful without making God too small.

Question 31

Aquinas proposed thinking in terms of what?

Answer 31

analogy

Question 32

Aquinas took what approach to religious language?

Answer 32

He took a cognitive approach to religious language, believing that religious language refers to factual truth.

Question 33

Key difference between Aquinas and Wittgenstein? ( issues Wittgenstein raised)

Answer 33

Wittgenstein tackled issues in the twentieth century of whether religious language could be meaningful without being empirically verifiable.

Question 34

How did Wittgenstein propose thinking?

Answer 34

Wittgenstein proposed thinking in terms of language games.

Question 35

What approach did Wittgenstein take to religious language?

Answer 35

Wittgenstein took a more non- cognitive approach to religious language, concentrating on how it is used in context.

Question 36

The influence of non- cognitive approaches to religious language…….

Answer 36

On the interpretation of sacred texts

Question 37

Non- cognitive approaches to religious language became more popular when?

Answer 37

In the twentieth century.

Question 38

Non- cognitive approaches suggest what?

Answer 38

They suggest that instead of interpreting texts such as the Bible as factual, historical accounts, it is more helpful to understand them in other ways as tools for learning and coming to a personal decision about spiritual matters.

Question 39

What did Rudolf Bultmann suggest ?

Answer 39

He suggested demythologising the Bible, by which he meant looking past stories with magical or miraculous content and seeing the Bible as calling people to make a personal decision.

Question 40

Which books help to support the non- cognitive language approach?

Answer 40

‘Honest to God’ and ‘the myth of God Incarnate’ caused controversy in their suggestions that ideas such as Jesus and God incarnate need not to be understood as factually true.

Question 41

However cognitive approaches have what?

Answer 41

Cognitive approaches to biblical texts have continued to be more popular amongst Christians that non- cognitive approaches.

Question 42

Define empirical?

Answer 42

Available to be experienced by the five senses.

Question 43

Define cognitive?

Answer 43

Having a factual quality that is available to knowledge, where words are labels for things in the world.

Question 44

Define non- cognitive?

Answer 44

Not having a factual quality that is available to knowledge; words are tools used to achieve something rather than labels for things.

Question 45

Define logical positivism?

Answer 45

a movement that claimed that assertions have to be capable of being tested empirically if they are to be meaningful.

Question 46

Define verification?

Answer 46

providing evidence to determine that something is true.

Question 47

Define falsification?

Answer 47

Providing evidence to determine that something is false.