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RS Year 2 > Religious Language - Wittgenstein > Flashcards

Religious Language - Wittgenstein Flashcards

1
Q

religious language

A

propositions like ‘god created the world’ or concepts like ‘heaven’ or ‘sin’
- ritual and emotional and ethical language use may have a different function

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2
Q

what is the problem of religious language for abrahamic religions

A
  • problem for Abrahamic religions as it can undermine them
  • they proclaim truths on God in written texts and oral teachings –> speech on God is essential to personal religious faith and organised celebration in these traditions
  • without solution to problem of RL, speech on God is questioned –> if you cannot speak about b
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3
Q

main arguments for and against the religious language debate

A

DOES RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE MEAN ANYTHING
- for: old tradition of the religious that you can speak/write about God as he is a reality
- Against: logical positivists, statements about God have no meaning because they dont relate to anything that is real

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4
Q

cognitive language (and relation to meaning)

A
  • communicates knowledge and facts
  • correspondence theory of truth
  • bivalent: true or false
  • ‘the door is in the corner’ –> factual belief that can be known as true or false
  • determines meaningfulness of a statement (more cog more meaning)
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5
Q

non cognitive language

A
  • can be interpreted in others ways
  • symbols, metaphors, non-literal
  • coherence theory of truth
  • non bivalent, could be true or false
  • I believe in love, expression of value I hold not known
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6
Q

Summarise a theory of meaning

A
  • constituent parts of a sentence needs to be recognisable for the sentence to be meaningful
  • meaningfulness needs two conditions: words are menaingful and are combined in ways that follow certain rules (like the rules of grammar)
  • also need to try and communicate something –> cannot be empty of significance, needs to be clearly communicating something
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7
Q

religious language and the metaphysical

A
  • general interpretations of life
  • claims on the supernatural: cannot be accounted for by ordinary metaphysical world
  • cannot be explained with natural language, science or empirical facts (metaphysics)
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8
Q

challenges with religious language

A
  1. religious propositions are often contradictory or paradoxical –> does it means claims like ‘God is omnipotent’ are incoherent and meaningless
  2. God is transcendent: God is a concept beyond our understanding so our language is inadequate for describing him
  3. how can we talk about God anthropomorphically if he is a being out of space and time
  4. how do we interpret uses of religious language –> is it literal or is there another layer of faith
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9
Q

early wittgenstein views on language

A
  • philosophical problems would be solved if the language people used was more precise and limited to statements for which there could be evidence
  • language is a picture to the world –> words let us make pictures of facts
  • whatever can be shows to correspond to some observable reality cannot be meaningfully spoken about
  • approach to language presented as precise but narrowly defined tool for describing the phenomenal world (world we experience)
  • ‘the world is all that is the case’

problems with lang:
1. we dont know what we mean, so we confuse others
2. people may take what we mean too literally

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10
Q

what parts of religious language are non cog

A
  • truth claims
  • concepts
  • supernatural and metaphysics –> do not correspond in reality
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11
Q

what parts of religious language are cognitive

A
  • religious facts
  • being able to prove truth claims (if i die then i can know if there is a god)
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12
Q

is witt work cog or noncog

A
  • meaningful lang is cog
  • cognitive: believes it should be limtied to statements with evidence
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13
Q

discuss ‘the world is all that is the case’ (early Witt on religious lang)

A
  • all we can talk about is what we can see
  • metaphysics is disregarded by witt as we cannot meaningfully talk about it
  • this is because they extend beyond the world
  • rel lang is non cog, problematic and meaningless
  • BUT could have different meaning as COHERENT truth
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14
Q

should we discuss the mystical parts of life

A

yes –> easier to communicate, cannot affect us as not physical, words are meaningless
- words are not the way to encounter metaP
- gods transcendence is supported by religion
- importance of silence in religion: ‘be still and know that I am god’ in psalms
- early witt against rel texts

no –> limits humans, robotic communications is cognitive fact but loses value, words signpost to the point of metaphysics
- can get new way of thinking with each interpretation

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15
Q

late wittgenstein

A
  • meaningful language is non cognitive
  • meaning of language is found in the way it is used and language is a tool for getting something done
  • this leads to an internalist account of meaning –> meaning lies in use, not a reference to some external existing entity
  • need to view it in context to see which is correct
  • we have to pay attention to how religious language functions, not dismiss it as bogus, or outdated science
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16
Q

language games and witt

A
  • language has meaning has a meaning in a particular social context, and each context is governed by a set of rules; in the same way that different games are governed by different rules
  • language only makes sense when you understand the purpose of it
  • rules for the use of language or not right or wrong, but are useful for the job you intend them to do
  • you cannot criticise other people’s use of language without understanding the full intention, context and meaning of that use
17
Q

language games and rel language

A
  • rel lang is its own language game, with rules such as praying, praising, extolling, blessing, cursing
  • contains a multiplicity of language games within its own context, language of believing community
  • rel lang regulates the believers life, but can be used or left alone –> I believe in God and I do not believe in God are not contradictory
  • not like scientific lang, using evidence is not part of the game –> verification and falsification principle are irrelevant
  • their mistake is to take the language game of science and apply to religion
  • religious language –> meaningful to those who want to use that game by immersing themselves in the religious ‘form of life’
18
Q

how do we understand religious language through witt’s language games

A
  • we should not try to separate the meaning of religious beliefs from the community of people who use them and live by them
  • ‘God’ is therefore not to be understood as a scientific hypothesis about the possible existence of a being, but a word used within the religious community to denote the creative power within everything
  • god is what god means for religious peple

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