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Religious Language 20th C (Types of religious language (Denotation - a…
Religious Language 20th C
Types of religious language
Denotation - a word stands for something simple
cognative - something that can be seen as true or false
Conotation- a word carries other assosiations
Non- cognative - cannot be determined as true or false ie 'Happy Birthday'
A denotive and cognative reading of God made the world - literal
A cognative and symbolic meanong is that God symbolises something outside the realm of human thought
connotative and non cognatie is a way religion is ued for expressing emotion
Logical positivism
Ayer was a logical positivist wrote Language Truth and Logic , attempted to set down rules by which language can be judged
Argued that you didnt have to go as far as testing a statment but you have to be able to name a way to test it
therefore religiopus staments are meaningless as there is no tests that can settle it
Wittgenstein belived there was limits to human knowledge , went to the university of Vienna and strongly influenced the Vienna circle
was not part of the circle
lead my Mortiz Schlik
Comte
peoples thinkings passed arious stages theological era ( God) metaphysical era ( philsophy and the positiist age ( sceince)
belived Empirical evidence was key to meaning
followed the hinkings of Compte that theolological interpretations were a thing of the past and science should be more prevailent
they often did not agree with his conclusions but his train of thought
Fall into 2 catagorys
Analytical statements ( true by definition ie she is a girl) , includes tautologys ie 2+2=4 and icy ice
Synthetic statements giving information beyond defining - Rebecca is allergic to nuts
Inorder fo synthetic statements to be meaningful they must be verifiable , or it says nothing about reality
Hume- if a statemnt does not contain any abstract reasoning ( maths) or experimental reasoning it says nothing at all
Wittgenstein
Background
father rich in the steel business
went to school with Hitler who disliked him for being rich and clever ( he was a jew)
could not stay in Vienna due to jewish decent after the war so went to cambridge
Philosophy
reality is not completely intelliagable and there are some aspcet we cannot experience
people shuld confine themselves to talking about hte parts of reality we can conceptualise otherwise it is meaningless
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus : what can and cannot be experienced through language , scope and limitations
this influenced the ienna circle
Later he revised it as too narrow
Language
Lebensform is a context in wich language can be used and uderstood
like a game when we know the rules we can play
All word have roles like chess peices
Although some of the ways we use words seem unreasonable to play the game you hae to accept the rules that are seen in the Lebensform
In Certainty; language makes statments that are groundless ie this is paper but its just how we conceptualise the world - religiius beliefs are similar in showing us how people conceptualise the world
Also used the analogy of a train driver, we can see all the levers but we can only understand them once we know how to drie the train , how they go together
D Z Phillips
argued that religioius language is a way to define the rules of religion and are only meaningful for those that genuinely use it and participate in the game, seeing the world through the lens of religion
Peter Donovan Religious Langage :
only when engaged in the religious language game can it be understood acts of worship and meaning is likely to be misunderstood taken out of context
More people particiapte in religious langauge the more they will understand it , very like a game ie goals and training
non- cognative approach as potentially you could break all the ru;les of the game but it renders the whole thing meaningless
If you are in a community of belivers you develop a deeper undersatnding
Anthony Flew and the Symposium
background
After WW2 found the debate between verifiability and theological belivers was at a stalemate
Introduces a symposium with his idea of falsefiability instead
Flew
Falsefiablility instead of verifiability
Parable of the 2 explorers from Wisdom's paper 'Gods'
The Sceptic and the beliver come across a clering nd the Beliver keeps making excuses for why they cannot trap the gardener 'what remains of your origional assertion'
Relisious beliers chnge their belief every time something happens that challenges it until there is nothing left of the origional statment that is conceptually understandable
God died a death by a thousand qualifications
Assertions have to rule out a state of affaris or are menaingless
C. S Evans
if an assertion is compatible with any state of afairs it does not appear to assert anything
under what circumstances could the assertion that God is love be proen false ?
Although he does not directly refer to the war it is implied that what does the assertion God is love achieve if it cannot garuntee against suffering
Hare
The lunatic and the dons
a lunatic that belies all dons are trying to kill him but are pretending to be nice - this is an unfalsifiable belief
He calls an unfalsefiable belifef a blik- something we all have, such as a fear of going in a car as the mechanics might not work , it is understandable and cannot be disproven
Similarly religious language is unfalsifiable
He also asserts there are wrong and right bliks b
D Z Phillips religious statments are not cognatie truth claims but are an expression of personal attitudes , theya re not testable assertions but a framework for seeing the world
Mitchell
Parable of the partisan
His claim is unfalsifiable until the war ends and then you can dsicover the truth
A partisan makes a good impreeion and tells you he is on the same side of the war as you. Although he ahs to pretend he is not and repeatedly does things that work against your aim he you trust him
Relgion
While we are in this world we can see Gods loe as incomplete but trust God due to our first impression ie religious experiences
Debates
sucess of the verification principle
it does not pass its own test as there is no wat to prove that statements that cannot be proven are not meaningful
The idea synthetic statments must be provable rule out alot of scientific hypothesis such as the existance of black holes also make historical facts difficult to verify
what makes empirical evidence fully reliable
There is more than just the senses for empirical eidence ie X rays
Makes ethical calimes difficult there is no way to proe correct morals
John Hick claimed religious truths are eschologically verifiable after death
will any afterlife senses count as empitrical ?
There is no way for it to be unverified
The falsification principle was created as the verification principle was unsound
Sucess of the symposium
Flew argued agains Hare that if he didnt belive religious claims were assertions then he was not a christian at all
if they are not meant as assertions it makes most religious assertions silly
Flew caliming non cognative assements of religious argument is not correct
Hare is supported by Tillich and his ideas of non cognative religious angue being symbolic as symbols cannot be verifiable or falsefiable
symbols are contextual, cultural and with varying meaning like a blik
Hare claims there are right and wrong bliks but no way of telling if they are right or not
Michelle is closer to the usual defensive position
gae commitment despite sufficient evidence , it is not possible to label faith as reasonable or unreasonable
The partisan has trust because of the face to face first impression similar to religious experienc e
Flew confidence in empirical evidence is itself unfalsefiable
Anselm belives in the necessary existence of God therefore to querstion it is meaningless
many argue you cannot argue existance through necessity
Swinburn
we do not hae to know what would count against an assertion for it to be meaningful ie we cannot counteract the theories about the beginning of the universe as we do not know enough about it , God is similar
Aquinas ans Wittgenstein
thye have very different contexts
aquinas assumed faith and wittgenstein did not
both had concerns about the limits of the human language
Aquinas , agnostic, God is unknowable due to the finite human mind
Wittgenstein God is beyonf human limitation
Aquinas aregued religious language should be analogical and cognatie
Aquinas' use of analogy has become tradition in catholic church
Cognative or non cognative
cognative is more popular , assertions made in the form of truth claims - but they have no evidence
wittgenstein argues there is nothing intrinsically meaningful or meaningless about religious language- meaning is given by context ie lebensform
non cognative cannot be seen as true or false but doesnt help with the big questions like if God exists
Influence of non cognative approaches
means interpretation of religious texts
alot of people belie that the Bible is cognative and you need faith to accept them
non cognative is offering a picture preference of the world , helps it adapt to modern scienece ie evolution
Bultmann claimed that the NT was just a recording of beliefs through myth ie that people had to reach a personal decision about their lies in terms of God
advocated the demythologising of the NT and OT so christianity can hold its vital place in the world
Robinson and Buren saw the Bible in terms of attitudes
Hick thought Jesus was a way of expressing meaning not a fact
Lost of people see non cognative approaches as unchristan and radical for denying the virgin birthand resurrection
other believe forcing oneself to belive mirical stories misses the point