University:
Manchester University
Course:
INTD 343 | Philosophy of Mind
Academic year:

2020
Views:

52

Pages:

10
Author:

StellarStrategist

Realism and Nonrealism The Hiddeness of God Nonrealist Accounts Karl Marx 1818-1883 “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Nonrealist Accounts Karl Marx 1818-1883 “Religion is the of the oppressed Religion is asigh mechanism thatcreature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the helps stabilize the social order. spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Emile Durkheim 1858-1917 Nonrealist Accounts Karl Marx 1818-1883 “Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.” “Religion is the of the oppressed Religion is asigh mechanism thatcreature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the helps stabilize the social order. spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Sigmund Freud 1856-1939 Emile Durkheim 1858-1917 Taxonomy Religious Realism: religious claims are about an objective reality (beyond mere psychological or sociological phenomena), and so have a truth-value (i.e., are either true or false) determined by that supernatural reality. Religious Nonrealism: religious claims are about human inventions (social relations and institutions); reducible to psychological or sociological phenomena, these claims otherwise have no truthvalue. Methodological nonrealism: A religion is best understood by examining the function of its beliefs in the life of the individuals and society, setting aside questions of the belief’s content or truth. Ontological nonrealism: The meaning of religious beliefs is exhausted by their functional meaning; the belief’s content is rejected as empty. Definitions Reductionism: Defines one sphere of experience in terms of another that is thought to be “simpler” or “more basic” — e.g., describing biological phenomena in terms of chemical events, or psychological phenomena in terms of neurological events. Scientism: The claim that the only legitimate knowledge is that produced by the scientific method. Noncognitivism: (specific to some area of belief) Religious noncognitivism holds that religious beliefs lack truth-values. Truth-value: The property that (most) statements have of being true or being false. Causes to believe (rational and non-rational): justifications vs explanations. Wittgenstein Tractatus (1921) Philosophical Investigations (1953) How do words mean? • Representational: Picture Theory (the meaning of a word is its denotation; the meaning of a sentence is the fact that it pictures) • Behavioral/Pragmatic: Use Theory (the meaning of a linguistic expression is its use and the behavioral difference it makes for those who use it) Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) (Vienna, Cambridge) ‘God’ has no denotation (a grammatical claim, not a factual claim). Both realism and nonrealism are incoherent positions. Non-Denoting Terms (1) God (2) The highest number (3) Unicorns (4) Sherlock Holmes (5) The present king of France (6) The zebra in this room Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) (Vienna, Cambridge) Wittgenstein on Religion “I believe God exists” plays a different linguistic role than “I believe the moon will be full tonight”. Religious language indicates a certain way or form of life, a Lebensform. Its claims, ultimately, have no truth-value (= religious noncognitivism). They are Ludwig Wittgenstein instead meaningful reflections of various (1889-1951) practices and ways of orienting ourselves (Vienna, Cambridge) in the world. Denying a religious belief is not to contradict anything, since the essence of such beliefs has nothing to do with how the world is, but rather concerns the way we are to live our lives.

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