Religious Language

Religious Language

1. Non-Cognitive

   • Analogy
   • Symbol
   • Myth

2. Cognitive

   • Verification Priciple
     • In order to distinguish what is meaningful, came up with verification principle – we know the meaning of a statement if we know the conditions in which the statement is true or false, otherwise meaningless
       • God, ethics, art & metaphysics meaningless as can’t be verified empirically
       • Existence of God is a meaningless issue as it cannot be discussed (death of 1000 qualifications)
       • This opened a debate on the function of Rel. Lang. – some claimed it served diff function from other speech & in this context of infinite, language is meaningful vs. logical positivists
       •  RL used to consider things beyond existence- discussion of God not based on common ground, equivocal leads to diff interpretations & understandings of words used
       • Evaluation
         • Kuhn - what is considered truth now in science will later be proved wrong. Same as RL, can’t anchor theory to science
         • Hick - eschatological verification + ontological argument is tautological
         • .Similar to ethical naturalism
         • Emphasis on empiricism – Plato + idealism
         • Bultmann’s demythologising the Bible is a propositional approach
     • Weak Verification
       • Later realised that we accept some scientific & historical propositions which haven’t been verified w/ certainty + influenced by meeting the Vienna circle – strong and weak verification.
       • Different from VC by arguing we don’t have to conclusively prove something by direct observation, just suggest how it could be verified
       • Allows statements of emotion & scientific predictions to be meaningful while religion is still not
       • Ayer eventually accepted it was to broad allowing for anything to count as meaningful
       • Evaluation
         • Some religious principles e.g. Jesus’ life is provable + couldn’t you argue for design argument?
         • Using scientific principles to explain religion = science vs. religion debate
         • Intuitive idea that statements that lack verification lack substance (Wittgenstein ‘if we cnn never go wrong then can we ever go right?’)
   • Falsification principle (Flew)
     • 1. Originates in Popper’s philosophy of science – statements are scientific if our empirical experiences could potentially falsify them. This is what distinguishes science from non-science, as that which is impossible to disprove is not a valid theory
     • 2. Improved by stating RL can’t ever be proven false using Wisdom’s parable of gardeners
     • 3. Nothing can count against their beliefs, shift goalposts so much claims so watered down barely statements. God dies a ‘death of a thousand qualifications’
     • 4. Differs from logical positivism as relied on falsification not ver + based on knowledge not believing
     • Evaluation
       • Do religious die ‘death thousands qualifications?’ difference between qualification & clarification
       • Some statements can’t be falsified but still have meaning (Swinburne toys + Schrödinger’s cat)
       • Is it right to compare RL w/ scientific statements? Maybe both verification & falsification wrong, religion is not to do w/ assertions but should be understood as symbolic etc.
     • R.M. Hare – Flew didn’t understand nature of belief. They’re one of many of our ‘bliks’, which are non-cognitive & therefore neither falsifiable nor verifiable + parable of lunatic yet still have meaning Evaluation  The idea of a ‘blik’ is unhelpful for religious believers. His analogy of lunatic reduces religion to interpretation of the world that could be sane or insane (Nietzsche). It’s truth & falsity that religious concerned about, not just interpretation of world  Believers see themselves making factual claims not just engaging in a way of seeing the world
     • Mitchell – believers are not blind to the problems of faith, just don’t let it count decisively against (same thing?) e.g. partisan + use qualifiers. His analogy suggests there could be empirical observations, which could count against particular blik: provisional hypotheses, vacuous formulae, sig articles of faith (Flew argues as they fall into 3rd category can’t be falsified). RL are assertions, not just blik as Hare says Evaluation  Flew’s parable could be used in response – if religion makes assertions then we come up against problem of qualification, when pushed very assertion has to be qualified  Via Negativia / Apophatic way the way of the negative + ‘apophasis’ = negation  Mystics e.g. St John on the cross accept statements about God not accurate due to being greater than comprehension & ineffable. Rather than having no knowledge of God, negative statements can be made  Language when applied to God is equivocal. By saying what God is not we can arrive in a limited way
   • Language Games