Religous language Flashcards
What is Cognitive Language?
Factual information and most of its information is synthetic e.g the Eiffel Tower is in Paris
What is non-cognitive language?
It is not dependent on whether it can be shown to be empirically true. This type of language includes statements of emotion,morality,insight.
Ayers verification principle
Aver developed his Verification Principle from his adoption of the Vienna Circle’s philosophy of Logical Positivism.
There are two types of meaningful language:
1 Analytic statements are true by definition.
2 Synthetic statements are empirically verifiable.
All other statements (e.g. ethical, theological, aesthetic) are empty of meaning.
Ayer originally distinguished between verification in practice and in principle.
• Verification in practice is possible only when statements can be conclusively established empirically.
• Ayer recognised that at the present we might not have sufficiently established scientific knowledge to be able to verify something.
• Verification in principle is possible when it can be stated what observations would make the statement verifiable in practice and doing so could be possible at some point in the future.
O For example, the statement that there are mountains on the far side
of the moon.
• When Ayer was writing Language, Truth and Logic, this could not be verified.
O Nevertheless, it was possible to state what observations would make it probable.
Ayer concluded that any statements unverifiable in practice or principle have no factual meaning.
• He termed any such statement a ‘pseudo-proposition’
• This applies to statements such as ‘God exists’ or ‘God is loving.
• He claimed that ethical statements are simply statements of approval or disapproval.
Ayer was not concerned with whether or not religious statements were true. The central claims of theism and atheism alike are neither true nor false; they are simply meaningless and so all talk of them is pointless.
What is a key quotation of Aj Ayer?
“The term ‘god’ is a metaphysical term, then it cannot even be probable that God exists”
Strengths of Verification Principle
-The principle is straightforward focusing on facts that can be directly or indirectly verified.
-Ayer points to the need to be clear in one’s use of language. Some religious claims are obscure and unsupported it has made philosophers of religion think carefully about the nature of religious language
Weaknesses of The verification principle
•Karl popper said that the verification method is flawed science. He famines that science works primarily through falsification
• The Verification Principle itself is meaningless, since it is not empirically verifiable. Any weakening of the VP conditions or any reassessment of its meaning such as that made by Ayer, that the principle is a recommendation rather than a factual statement
Glee’s Falsification Principle
Antony Flew developed his version of the Falsification Principle from the thinking of philosopher and scientist Karl Popper.
It was this statement that underlay Flew’s approach to religious language:
• Something can be counted as scientific only if it is possible that there could be evidence to falsify it.
This has been applied to the making of factual cognitive claims and has been used to challenge the validity of religious language.
• Flew set out to consider whether or not theological statements were scientific, i.e. genuine assertions.
• To support his view that they were not, he adopted and slanted in a negative way John Wisdom’s ‘Parable of the Gardener’.
O Each test carried out fails to give any empirical evidence of a gardener, but one of the two explorers insists there is one, coming up with a reason for evidence not having been forthcoming.
• The parable ends with the other explorer saying, ‘Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?’
• Flew claimed that in the same way, religious believers will go to any lengths to stop anything counting against their faith claims.
• These cannot be falsified as they are continually modified (weakened) to accommodate any challenge.
• In the end, religious statements undergo ‘death of a thousand qualifications’.
• Religious statements are therefore empty.
Strengths of Falsification Principle
Flew points to the approach of some believers to religious beliefs: they are blinkered and refuse to take seriously challenges to those beliefs, instead finding some excuse for God, such as when faced with a small child dying of an agonising disease.
Weaknesses of Falsification Principle
Many aspects of experience are not in the same category as scientific fact and have deep significance for humans: Flew’s category is too rigid.
In any case, it is not true that religious believers allow nothing to falsify their claims. The problem of evil makes many question or even lose their faith.
eschatological verification with reference to Hick
Hick claimed two things for religious language:
• Its claims are cognitive.
• They are therefore subject to verification.
His ‘Parable of the Celestial City’ follows a similar line of argument to Flew’s ‘Parable of the Gardener’ but comes to a different conclusion.
• There is no evidence for whether or not the road leads to a Celestial City.
• Their views on this dictate the way they travel along it.
• At the end of the journey, all will be made clear: one will be right and the other wrong.
Hick’s parable makes the point that there is a truth to know and that it will be revealed after death.
Strengths, weaknesses and counter responses to Hicks argument
STRENGTHS
-Hicks claim that heaven is a real possibility
-it gives good support to the view that religious claims are cognitive as if we do ‘wake up’ in a resurrected body; then we shall know that many other claims made by Christianity are true
WEAKNESSES
- this does not mean it is true or even a strong possibility. Atheists would dismiss the parable.
- this does not work like standard falsifcation. This is a statement which will be verified if true but can never be falsified because of its nature
COUNTER RESPONSE
-this is evidence for life after death
near death experiences
memories of reincarnation
-Hicks pointed to statements in mathematics that cannot be falsified
-the atheists claim relating to life after death is similar: it could be falsified but never verified.
Blik- Hare
-term used by hare for a fixed and unalterable view of the world that is not an assertion but is non-cognitive and nonfalsifiable.
-parable of lunatic; Hare described a lunatic who believes that all university professors want to kill him; no amount of evidence of kindly professors will dissuade him from this view.
-it is meaningfull
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES- HARE
STRENGTHS:
-It explains why there are different ‘factual’ claims in the different religions: they are in fact bliks, not cognitive statements. This also explains why people are not convinced by evidence that seems to challenge their views.
It supports the view that religion gives a view that is used to interpret the whole of life in a range of distinctive ways.
WEAKNESSES
-It makes religion very subjective as it all depends on how you see something. As Flew pointed out, most theists regard their faith statements as cognitive. If there are no factual truths, then Christianity’s significance is simply what psychological and sociological benefits it might have.
language game with reference to Wittgenstein
-Wittgenstein’s name for the idea that language has a meaning within a particular social context, each context being governed by rules in the same way that different games are governed by different rules.
-The meaning of a statement is nothing to do with verification/ falsification but with the context in which it occurs.
-Each context has its own rules.
-RL cannot be claimed to be true or false, its meaning is defined by the user within their religious languge game.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES - Wittegenstein language games
STRENGTHS
-It allows a range of meaning for language rather than trying to put it in one box.
-It allows for religious statements to be ‘belief in’.
WEAKNESSES
-It is virtually impossible to enter into debate with those coming from another language game, e.g. that of atheism.
-This is important, but most religious believers think that religious claims are also cognitive.
