Religious Language
- Created by: 11wardem
- Created on: 24-10-17 10:21
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- Religious Language
- Logical Positivism
- Strong Verification Principle
- Accepts only direct verifiable statments
- Vienna Circle
- A fact is either true or false
- Meaningful statements
- Analytical propositions
- Contain all info within the statement (2+2=4)
- Synthetic statements
- Factual statements confirmed by a posteriori
- Analytical propositions
- Statement of fact = meaning and need to be verified
- Weak Verification Principle
- A statement is factual if sense experience can go some way to confirming it
- AJ Ayer
- "If the term God is a metaphysical term then it cannot be probable that God exists. The statement isn't true or false, so it's meaningless"
- Denies God's existence as no way to prove it
- Empirical statements fell short of VP as they can't be verified empirically
- "If the term God is a metaphysical term then it cannot be probable that God exists. The statement isn't true or false, so it's meaningless"
- Argue that statements about God have no meaning as they don't relate to facts
- Statements only have meaning if they're verifiable or tautologies
- Believe the aim of philosophers should be analysis of language
- Evaluating the Verification Principle
- Could be argued that 'statements are meaningful if they are verified by sense experience' cannot be verified by sense experience
- John Hick supported eschatological verification; a statement can be verifiable if true but not falsifiable if false
- It's possible for statements to be meaningful without being verified
- Swinburne uses the toys in the cupboard analogy. It's a meaningful statement because it can be understood
- Could be argued that 'statements are meaningful if they are verified by sense experience' cannot be verified by sense experience
- Strong Verification Principle
- Falsification Principle
- To assert something is to deny something else
- R.M Hare
- Religious beliefs are 'Bliks'
- Because of the impact they have on the way people look at the world.
- Parable of the lunatic
- Lunatic convinced all dons want to kill him regardless of friends showing him nice dons
- Thinks the dons are plotting against him
- Lunatic convinced all dons want to kill him regardless of friends showing him nice dons
- Criticisms
- John Hick
- Religious beliefs based upon reason
- Hare claims distinction between sane and insane 'bliks' but also claims they're unfalsifiable
- If we can't prove/disproe then we can't call them sane/insane either
- John Hick
- Religious beliefs are 'Bliks'
- Antony Flew
- Parable of the Gardener
- 2 explorers. 1 thinks gardener tends to land, other doesn't. Put up defences but no proof of Gardener. 1 still thinks gardener exists.
- Religious statements are pointless
- Statements are meaningful if can be verified or falsified
- Parable of the Gardener
- Basil Mitchell
- Parable of the Partisan
- Stranger meets resistance worker and trusts him even though the worker seems to be going against stranger
- Flew was wrong; religious statements are meaningful
- Believers don't allow anything to conclusively falsify God
- But they show there are problematic parts of religious belief that'll be revealed at the end of time
- Believers don't allow anything to conclusively falsify God
- Criticisms
- Weak analogy of faith in God when it comes to the problem of evil
- Debatable of the extent the stranger gets over the problem of falsification
- As relgious believers won't allow anything to go against their faith
- Parable of the Partisan
- Evaluation
- Swinburne = factual statements can be falsified but existential ones cannot
- Supported by R.M Hare's bliks
- Ayer was against: statements cannot be conclusively falsified any more than they can be verified
- Is it right to compare religious language with scientific statements?
- Religion is not to do with assertions but rather it should be understood as symbolic
- Swinburne = factual statements can be falsified but existential ones cannot
- Via Negativa
- The 'Negative Way': a way of talking about God which says what he is not rather that what he is
- Attempts to address the issue that God is transcendent so we cannot say what God is
- Evaluating Via Negativa
- It recognises that it's difficult to imagine what our concepts can mean when applied to God
- Does it actually get us any closer to understanding the true nature of God?
- Avoids anthropomorphism and supports the ideas of God's transcendence
- How can we be sure there is anything to be talked about? (Flew's gardener)
- Our understanding of the word 'good' is usually linked to what it is for a human to be 'good'
- God is not human so what can 'good' mean when it is applied to him?
- Symbols
- Symbols can lose their meaning if societies change
- Paul Tillich
- Religious language is symbolic, God cannot be known personally but symbols help
- Analogy
- Aquinas
- Equivocal language is meaningless
- Univocal language is problematic as it limits God
- Analogy of Attribution
- Words may be applied to God and humans
- Analogy of proportionality
- Words used of God are proportional to Gods extended rationality
- Aquinas
- The Language Games
- To be part of the game you must know the rules
- D.Z. Phillips
- Developed Wittgenstein's approach
- Religious statements cannot be understood in a literal way
- Strengths
- Enables different peoples beliefs to be meaningful
- Truth is understood to be relative
- Weaknesses
- Any statement can become meaningful
- It alienates those outside of the game
- Logical Positivism
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