20th Century Philosophers (Religious Language)

Weaknesses of Language Games

Appear to be helpful to religious belief, but removes the link between claims made with language and empirical evidence. Many believers would claim that some statements they make are true propositions that refer to how things are empirically or metaphysically. • HOWEVER, it could equally be argued that religious belief is an activity. It involves sharing a way of life and a language and a manner of speaking about the world and our place in it. In this sense it can be argued that Wittgenstein does capture the essence of what it is to be religious. Geach = theory of language games is circular as the meaning of the game is dependent on the meaning of the words and vice versa. Patrick Sherry = it is legitimate to ask 'why science?' or 'why religion?', we do not have to merely accept that unless we are part of the game we will never understand the meaning behind the language used in that game. Those who are not believers do understand religious statements, they just don't accept them as true. Vienna Circle/Logical Positivists = religious language is meaningless as it does not tell us anything about the world as religious statements are neither analytically or synthetically verifiable. Language games have the potential to lead to fideism where any statement can have meaning so long as it is understood/accepted by some people. Can be seen as anti-realist. A meaningful statement within a religious language game no longer has to be connected to the world and no longer has to be true or false. If there was a group of religious language users who can talk meaningfully about the existence of goblins or elves so long as they have a consistent set of rules governing their concepts. The fact that there aren't as such creatures is irrelevant to the meaningfulness of the language game. There is inevitably some common agreement that language does have intrinsic meaning and can have significance outside a specific context.

Ayer's 2nd edition

Ayer responded to many of the criticisms of his verification principle in the 2nd edition of his book. • Rejected the use of 'putative statements' • He changed his definition of the verification principle to "A statement is held to be literally meaningful if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable." → Changed the definition because he concluded that his distinction between strong and weak verification was not a real distinction, as the strong form of Verification could not apply to any statement, and Ayer had come to the conclusion that some statements can be conclusively verified. • Rejected his earlier definition of weak verification as it was "far too liberal, since it allows meaning to any statement whatsoever." To solve strong and weak Verification problems, he suggested 2 new criteria: Directly and indirectly verifiable: 1. Something is "directly verifiable if it is either itself an observation statement, or is such that in conjunction with one or more observation statements it entails at least one observation." → 'observation statement' = 'statement which records an actual or possible observation.' Direct Verification = statement that is verifiable by an observation. If you ask the Q "Are post boxes red?" you can verify the answer by observing post boxes. 2. 'indirectly verifiable' = a statement that is not directly verifiable or analytic. One way to understand this is that a statement could be verified if other directly verifiable evidence could support it. → E.g. scientists predicted and demonstrated the existence of black holes in space. However, black holes in space cannot be directly observed; Instead, scientists demonstrate their existence by looking at other evidence which suggests the existence of the thing that we call a black hole.

Problem - vreificationism is unverifiable

Claiming 'statements are meaningful if Verified by sense observation' is itself unverifiable as one cannot demonstrate this principle by sense-observation and is therefore itself meaningless. Popper = we cannot scientifically verify everything, as it impossible to find supporting evidence that is unconditional. Swinburne developed this point further by providing an example. He used the statement 'all ravens are (at all times) black.' He points out that, from experience, this statement would generally be accepted - however there is no way to conclusively confirm this statement as there is always the possibility of there being a raven that is not black, perhaps in the future. Vardy = Verificationism "dissolves in its own acid."

Problem - Not practical as renders history meaningless

Criticised for excluding many areas of knowledge. • E.g. ≠ possible to talk meaningfully of history using the strong verification principle as no sense-observation can confirm this. • E.g. If I say that the Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066, there is no way in which to verify this fact by observation. Therefore, it is factually meaningless according to Verificationism, to which we know this is not the case.

Falsification symposium - Responses to Mitchell

Flew agreed with Mitchell's comments about the way theologians address issues such as the problem of evil. HOWEVER, he ultimately argued that if you keep questioning a theologian, explanations have to be qualified,. Hick = we will be able to reveal his true allegiance after the war and explain his mysterious behaviour, in the same way that religious believers will be revealed at the end of time - eschatology.

Strengths of Language Games

Gives believers a way to express the meaningfulness of RL at the same time as explaining why talk of God's love or God's existence does not have the same significance for an atheist. D.Z Phillips applied Wittgenstein's theory to religious belief. Religious language is a way of defining the rules of religion for those who use it "religious doctrines[...]would not have the importance they do were they not connected with the practices[..] which are specifically religious" The reality of God/religion lies in the words/practices of religion itself. Therefore, religion cannot be grounded or criticised in reason - it is a system of its own. With religion we have to take part to find out what it is about. Peter Donovan emphasises the usefulness of language games to highlight how religious language has special meaning: "misunderstandings and confusion are likely to result if statements are taken away from their contexts."

Vienna Circle and Logical Positivists

Group of philosophers (Moritz Schlick, Hans Hahn and Otto Neurath) decided to determine a criterion of meaning in order to evaluate religious language. Proposed 'logical positivism', a philosophical approach = the task of the philosopher was the logical analysis of sentences in order to determine whether they are meaningful or not. For logical positivists, therefore, a proposition is only meaningful if it is a tautology (a sentence in which the definition of the subject necessarily contains the meaning of the predicate) or if it is verifiable by sense-observation. Waismann described logical positivism = "a statement which cannot be conclusively verified cannot be verified at all. It is simply devoid of any meaning," = if a statement is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable, it says nothing about reality and is therefore meaningless. Believed language that talks about God is meaningless as there is no way to demonstrate the truth or falsity of God talk by observations and experiments.

Falsification symposium - RM Hare

Hare and Mitchell both disagreed with Flew's analysis- argue statements about God can be made. Hare = e.g. of a lunatic who believes that his teachers (dons) at the university were trying to kill him: • This is the way in which the lunatic saw the world and nothing could change his view. Hare coined the term 'blik' to describe the way in which people see and interpret the world. The importance of the blik is that it is not falsifiable. This is because it does not make factual claims about the world and cannot be be tested, however it is clear that it has an impact on the person who believes it and therefore has to have some meaning. There is an important difference between an insane blik such as the lunatic student had and a sane blik. Although bliks are unfalsifiable, he argues that holding the right blik matters, which leads him to comment on Flew's jungle analogy: "It is because I mind very much about what goes on in the garden in which I find myself that I am unable to share the explorer's detachment."

Falsification symposium - responses to Hare's parable

His analogy of the blik cannot help traditional religious belief claims as it suggests that religious beliefs are an interpretation of the world which can be deemed insane. Religious belief = more than just an approach to life. It is a belief in reality as it truly is. Belief statements are not ways of seeing the world, they are factual claims about how the world is and God's relationship to the world. Hick = religious beliefs are based on reason, a sacred text or religious experience. Flew accepted Hare's idea of bliks but he added that Christianity does not appear to be a blik, as it makes claims about the universe which seems to be what Flew called 'assertions.' 'Assertions' are claims such as 'God created human beings distinct from other species.' Christians say they are not just claiming that this a blik. They are saying that God really did this and by implication this claim is testable or falsifiable.

Falsification symposium - Responses to Flew

John Hick replied to Flew saying that religious claims would be verified eschatologically - after death the religious believer's claims would be shown to be true. Religious believers do not continually qualify their beliefs. Instead religious believers clarify and state their beliefs more clearly. • E.g. the free will defense is an explanation of belief in God and free will - it can't be dismissed as a qualification. Peter Donovan = "The sense of knowing is never on its own a sufficient sign of knowledge." "Nothing that has been said here leads to that conclusion. There is no justification for taking such an all or nothing view of religious experience." Interpreting RE Flew's e.g. of the explorer in the garden was inspired by a similar story by John Wisdom. But Wisdom uses his story to make a different point: His story suggests that religious language makes statements that are reasonable - the two people observing the garden are both making reasonable statements. HOWEVER, just as they cannot verify whether a gardener has been at work, the existence or nature of God might be beyond our normal methods of verification: the question is irresolvable. If this is so, then the story may suggest that the existence or nature of God is a matter that is outside the scope of traditional methods of scientific enquiry.

Wittgenstein - language games

One of the foremost critics of the simplistic view of meaning put forward by the logical positivists. Ayer's verification principle failed to capture the complexity of language. He proposed the 'Tool Analogy', = we use language in a manner that is closely akin to the way in which we use tools - we use the tools available to us for practical tasks, and in this way we use the language available to us to communicate. He developed another analogy, the concept of 'language games'. The idea of language games conveys the belief that the meaning of words is determined by the language game of which they are part of. Wittgenstein's famous example was of the game Chess: • Rules state how all the pieces can move. Hence, to talk about how the 'queen' or 'pawns' should move only makes sense in the context of the game of chess. Wittgenstein maintained that the rules of language games can be seen from two sides: those inside the game, who know the rules, and those outside of the game, who do not know the rules. He said "whereof we do not know, we do not speak", which shows that he believes that one cannot state that something is meaningless if they are not part of the game. By using the phrase language game, Wittgenstein did not mean that the world has rigid rules that have to be followed, but instead argued that language games were a way of expressing the idea that words can only make sense in the context of a background of other words that all belong to the same language game. LGs show that the language of religious belief, which includes terms such as God, omnipotence and perfection, is only understandable and meaningful to those who participate in the language game of religious belief - religious believers. E.g. 'God loves me' has a particularly deep and significant meaning that may have a distinct resonance for a religious believer while for an atheist 'God loves me' is a statement made by religious people, but the expression lacks the significance that it has for religious people. Powerfully shows the questionable nature of verification theory, as when the verification principle is applied to religious believers it applies a language game which is more appropriate for discussing the physical world than statements about God. E.g. word gay. Used to mean happy, then was used as a negative slur. Nowadays if someone says they are gay they mean homosexual. Depends how you use it and the context. Context is crucial.

Problem - meaningful but unverifiable

Possible for a statement to be meaningful without being Verifiable. Swinburne = example of toys in a cupboard: The toys only come out at night when no one observes them. The situation can never be proven as true or false (verified or falsified) but can be understood and therefore is meaningful.

Falsification symposium - Basil Mitchell

Religious believers do accept evidence that goes against their ideas. He proposed a different parable: • During the Second World War, a member of the resistance meets a stranger who deeply impresses him. The Stranger claims to be the head of the entire resistance and urges the partisan to have faith in him no matter what happens. Sometimes the Stranger is seen working with the enemy, but the partisan persists in his belief that the Stranger is who he claimed to be. • The partisan does not deny that there is strong evidence against his belief that the Stranger is who he claims to be and accepts the reality of the evidence against his belief. Religious believers do not have blind faith they, similarly to the partisan, have reasons for their faith. "It is here that my parable differs from Hare's. The partisan admits that many things may and do count against his belief: whereas Hare's lunatic who has a blik about dons doesn't admit that anything counts against his blik." Religious utterances can be genuinely factual while not necessarily being falsifiable.

Karl Popper and Falsification

Statements = meaningful if they can be potentially falsified or if they tell us something about the world. If we based scientific investigations around proving a hypothesis to be true we would make no progress at all, instead we should focus on what would falsify the claim. 'The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge' = "universal empirical statements are empirically falsifiable, they can be defeated by experience." "Any theory that is impossible to disprove is no valid theory at all" "The criterion of scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability." Falsification means the statement must be "capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable observations." Conjectures+ Refutations Falsification was a way to 'demarcate' (distinguish) scientific statements from other kinds of statements which are unscientific. Popper himself stated, "the criterion of falsifiability is a solution to this problem of demarcation" as it says that in order to be ranked scientifically, statements must be capable of being falsified. Scientific statements can be falsified and non-scientific are not falsifiable. If applied to religious statements, falsification can potentially undermine statements such as 'God loves us' as it is possible these claims if treated as scientific could conflict with sense observation. Raises the question of whether these statements are scientific or not, it is hard to falsify these statements. We need to use sensory experience to test whether we can falsify something: E.g. when we say 'tigers have stripes' we can easily deny the opposite that 'tigers are not not striped'. Flew believed that when you assert something, you are also asserting that there are facts that may count against your assertion. Therefore, there has to be some sensory experience that would count against your claim e.g. 'I own a tiger with no stripes.'

Falsification symposium - Anthony Flew

Statements re religious belief ≠ falsified, therefore meaningless. According to religious believers there is "no conceivable event or series of events" that would be "a sufficient reason for conceding there wasn't a God after all." Refers to John Wisdom's parable of the gardener: • Two explorers come upon a clearing in the jungle. Some parts of this clearing look well cared for, whereas others do not. One explorer claims that there is a gardener looking after the clearing whereas the other claims that no such gardener exists. The explorers set watch, but never detect a gardener. The first explorer concludes that there is an invisible, intangible, insensible gardener, but the other explorer questions this and asks "how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?" Flew = the religious believer acts in the same way as the first explorer, the believer refuses to accept that their beliefs are irrational and is thus forced to qualify them. The believer ends up altering their original belief so much that it is lost and dies "a death of a thousand qualifications." He uses this parable to demonstrate the meaninglessness of religious language as he believes that religious believers alter their definitions of God, among other religious topics, in order to suit their topic of debate. RL = incorrect and irrational interpretation of world.

How can you verify a proposition?

Suggested a procedure for deciding whether a statement is verifiable. Statement being tested = 'putative proposition.' Firstly, distinguished practical verifiability from verifiability in principle. • Practical Verifiability = statements which could be tested in reality. Barca football team wear red and blue shirts = verifiable in practice. • HOWEVER, statements such as "there is life on other planets in the Milky Way Galaxy" are meaningful and verifiable in principle, but in practice we cannot verify these statements as we lack the technology to visit every planet in the Milky Way Galaxy to look for life. Secondly, Ayer distinguished between strong and weak verification. Strong verification applied to anything can be verified conclusively by observation and experience. Weak verification refers to statements that can be shown to be probably true beyond any reasonable doubt by observation and experience. • Ayer argued that the sense in which Verificationism should be used is the 'weak' sense because the strong sense "had no possible application" and excluded many things. • His e.g. of general laws that cover an infinite number of cases such as all human beings being mortal. It is impossible to demonstrate that all human beings are mortal in a strong sense without killing every human being who lives or will live in the future. This is clearly impossible to do, but few people would doubt that all human beings are mortal, as all human observations to date suggest the truth of the statement. If Ayer is correct, religious statements are nonsense if they are referring to the God defined in the traditional sense as infinite, impersonal and transcendent because statements about God do not tell people anything about the world that is verifiable. Rejected any argument from religious experience. He accepted that people may claim to have experiences of God, but people who say that they have seen God, such as St Paul, are recounting a set of emotions that are religious.

Responses to Falsification

Swinburne = factual statements can be falsified. However, some existential statements cannot be falsified but this does not stop them being meaningful. His toy cupboard story illustrates this point. Hare = while the falsification principle could apply to factual statements, they do not apply to existential statements. A Christian's blik could include God as a creator and sustainer and the whole world is seen with this idea in mind. Because bliks are a set of values, they are not matters of fact that are falsifiable in the way science is. Braithwaite = religious language is prescriptive, not literal or cognitive and instead gives moral imperatives and guidance through symbols. E.g. the phrase 'God loves me' is still meaningful as it advises you to be loving towards others. Ayer = statements cannot be conclusively falsified any more than statements can be conclusively verified: "Nor can we accept...that a sentence should be allowed to be factually significant, if...it expresses something which is definitely confutable by experience." Language, Truth and Logic Suggests that evidence may strongly suggest that a statement is false, but does not make it logically impossible that a statement is true. • E.g. if I claim that unicorns visit my garden when nothing and no one is observing them, evidence strongly suggests, beyond all reasonable doubt, that my claim is false. • However, the logical possibility that unicorns visit my garden when unobserved remains. Ayer = weak verification is the appropriate method for assess which statements are meaningful. Wittgenstein = wrong to apply a scientific theory to religious language as they are different. Tillich = falsification misses the purpose of religious language: to be symbolic. Brathwaite and Randall = to falsify religious language misses the purpose of language. Non-cognitivists such as above argue for the function and use of the language e.g. to communicate qualities that cannot be done literally, evoke ideas, arouse emotions, communicate moral understandings Hick = eschatologically verifiable/falsifiable. Vardy = something is not meaningless just because we can't falsify/verify it. Emotions like love cannot be put under this criterion but love is still meaningful.

AJ Ayer and Verification Principle

VC ideas developed by A.J. Ayer, expressed it in his verification principle. 'Language, Truth and Logic', distinguished between strong verification and weak verification: • Strongly verifiable if "its truth could be conclusively established in experience," • Weakly verifiable "if it is possible for experience to render it probable." Ayer = strong verification is impossible = senses can be mistaken, can never conclusively make statements about the world. We should use 'weak' verification, shows statements to be probable by observation and experience. Arguments for the existence of God, e.g. cosmological and teleological, ≠ meaningful as they ≠ verified by observation or experience. His principle of verification therefore suggests that religious language is meaningless. "The criterion we use to treat the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability." Language, Truth and Logic By 'meaningless' Ayer meant that a statement was not 'factually significant'. "The sentence expressing it may be emotionally significant to him; but it is not literally significant." Religious claims = Non-Cognitive and impossible to verify, so they are meaningless: "No sentence which describes the nature of a transcendent God can possess any literal significance"

Problem - God talk is eschatologically verifiable

Vardy = something is not necessarily meaningless just because you cannot verify it at the given time. Keith Ward = just because we can't verify God, doesn't mean he isn't Verifiable as "If I were God I could verify my own existence." Hick = 'celestial city' (heaven) involves an eschatological verification whereby religious language claims may be verified in the after-life. If this is true, religious statements are in principle verifiable - statements can be true but we won't know until the end of the time, when we die.

Other problems

Vincent Brümmer = VP treats sentences of faith as if they were scientific sentences. To do this is an error of understanding. Agrees with D. Z. Phillips' idea that if we are to treat religious sentences in terms set by Enlightenment thinkers, such as Hume, we are making a mistake. Just as scientific analysis cannot be appropriately applied to poetry, it cannot be appropriately applied to the experience and utterances of faith. "The success of science has had the effect that for many of us today the search for knowledge has become the paradigmatic model for all our thinking." Brümmer rightly argues that we have, in modern times, tended to assume that if something is not scientific or measurable then it is somehow not very significant or meaningful. William Alston = epistemic imperialism. A.J Ayer's approach is classic epistemic imperialism. • Ayer argues that there are only two ways in which we can verify things (analytically and synthetically) • Alston argues that Ayer is imposing and applying these scientific verifications to non-scientific claims.

Problem - evidence problem

Weak Verificationism = what evidence would count in the Verification assessment. While Ayer rejected accounts of religious experience, other researchers have suggested that there is clear evidence that such experiences happen and that a God causing the experience cannot be ruled out. Swinburne = there are too many areas of debate where the problem would be getting people to agree what was admissible evidence to decide the matter.