Religious Language Part 2 Flashcards
What is Cognitivist?
Religious statements state facts
What is Non Cognitivist?
Religious statement do something else
What does Logical Positivist say about religious statement?
are meaningless unless they are verifiable (particularly verifiable by the use of the five senses).
There are two types of statements?
Analytical statements-which are true by definition gives evidence about what a word means
Synthetic statements, those statements that can be tested against experience. So, for something to be meaningful,
AJ Ayer argue about religious statement?
Ayer is not arguing that such statements are not important just that they are unverifiable and therefore have no factual significance
Strength of Logical positivism?
- if true meaningless is easily verified either using experience or using definitions.It is also supported by the arguments of Locke and Hume that truth and knowledge were Known via our senses
- Verification is not just a argument against God and his existence.According to verificationists both the agnostic and atheist are also making meaningless statements
Weaknesses of Logical positivism?
- Hare criticised the verification principle by stating that religious statements are no different to atheist statements. All statement like this are not claims about what is true, but are expressions of the way of life you are most committed to.
- Wittgenstein also added that you can only know what religious statements mean by looking at how they are used.
- Also the verification principle is a contradicts itself. Given that we cannot use our sense to verify the verification principle, then if the verification principle is true, the verification principle must be meaningless.
- Scientific laws become meaningless as we cannot verify them as universal. For example, we can’t verify that gravity is constant as we cannot be in every place at once.
Advantages of Verificationism?
- Clear ways to verifying a statement; either it can be verified empirically via experience or it is a tautology (true by definition)
- If you can verify something with the senses, you can be confident that you definitely have evidence and good reasons to believe it.
- It is not ‘picking on’ religious people. Both the agnostic and atheist are also making meaningless statements.
- Weak verification is Ayer’s contribution: it states that in order to be meaningful, a statement may not be verifiable but instead can be shown to be true within reasonable doubt
- Weak verification means we can make statements about history, scientific theories and human emotion but not religion and ethics.
Disadvantages of Verificationism?
The strong form of verification principle is too rigid, to the point that we cannot make statements about anything without empirical observation, (scientific claims about atoms etc.)
* Scientific laws become meaningless as we cannot verify it, e.g. I cannot verify gravity is constant as I cannot be in every place at once.
* Swinburne argued universal statements cannot be verified so seem meaningless, yet we would all agree ‘all humans are mortal’
* Comparative statements are also meaningless because they are subjective, e.g. if I see a child’s drawing as more beautiful than the Mona Lisa and someone disagrees, we are both meaningless as neither can be verified.
* Some religious statements might be verifiable in principle, such as Biblical events e.g. Jesus was crucified
* The verification principle itself is unverifiable: it isn’t a tautology nor can it be proved via experience
What does Wittgenstein say about religious language?
•Rejects of verification and Falsification
•Wittgenstein says it is a mistake to judge the meaning of all language by in test/standard.The scientific one to judge religious language
Wittgenstein say about Language how it has different meaning?
When people have a shared activity, they come to have a shared language. They may use words other people use, but they will have a very particular meaning for them.
Avatar
Bug
Easter egg
Wittgenstein view on Language?
Wittgenstein uses the term ‘form of life’ to describe how each language game is linked to a set of shared activity at give the language its rules
-So there is a language game of science.This gets its meaning from activities of scientific experimentation and peer review (Scientific form of life)
-But, there is also a language game of religion. This gets its meaning from the shared activities of prayer, worship etc. (religious form of life).
Strength of Wittgenstein?
- It is good to focus on the link between religious language and what religious people say and do
- Wittgenstein’s view isn’t as rigid and reductive as verificationism and falsification
- It does seem ridiculous to judge religious language against science
Weaknesses of Wittgenstein?
- perhaps it means that non religious people cannot understand or criticise religious people
- Perhaps it means that there is absolutely no way of criticising anything a religious person says at all
What is Anthony Flew Falsification(Symposium)?
(parable of the gardener) a statement that cannot be falsified is not really saying anything at all. Further states that religious statements are vacuous as they are empty. Flew draws a parallel line between believers and a religious person who make claims ‘God loves us’.When presented with evidence against it, it doesn’t affect their belief
