(Originally written November 16, 2016 in Book 26)
Introducing Plato
D. Robinson
Particulars are contingent
Universals are the properties that particulars share with one another.
Plato was the first philosopher to see that universals were problematic.
Plato tried to explain it with a two-world system. A perfect world of universals and an imperfect world of copies (particulars).
The world of forms/ideas is never quite explained perfectly.
Forms exist in their own world and can only be "recollected only in the minds of a few talented and well-trained individuals" (Robinson, 65).
Plato's epistemology is difficult because it is mystical and therefore, not directly communicable.
Plato needed the forms to deal with the problem of Heraclitus' flux.
"Forms are more 'real' than particulars, because, unlike particulars, they are eternal and unchanging. Authentic philosophical knowledge can only ever be of these 'forms'" (Robinson, 74).
Everyone is born with the knowledge of the forms because everyone encounters them in earlier lives.
Some of the reason why Plato thought this way about particulars and universals was an account of the Greek language. It was a sort of linguistic determinism. It equates "meeting" and "knowing".
Heidegger was similar in his thinking as German is similar to Greek in how it deals with nouns. It precedes nouns with either masculine, feminine and neuter articles, allowing Heidegger to think about "the nothingness" rather than nothingness.
The forms suffer from an infinite regress, or third man argument.
Plato was also unsure if all man-made objects had forms or not.
The forms have weird ontological problems as well. How can the forms have more reality than particulars? Can reality have degrees?
Plato, because of the notion that meeting and knowing are the same thing, "Maintaining that real knowledge has to be a kind of personal and mystical encounter" (Robinson, 84).
What about universals?
Aristotle - universals are real, but don't exist separately
British Empiricists - universals are a mental image arrived at by abstraction.
"Wittgenstein suggested that our craving for definitive generalities can never be ultimately satisfied, and it is rather unhealthy" (Robinson, 87).
Plato introduced a problem that has not been satisfactorily solved.
Political Philosophy
Plato's view of society is communitarian, emphasizing the social nature of individuals. "Individuals can therefore be judged primarily in terms of their contribution to the State" (Robinson, 88).
The formation of the State came from humans developing a taste for luxury. Divisions of labor is then necessary to provide the luxuries.
Plato would turn the education over to the State (away from the hands of the dangerous Sophists). His educational system is roughly based on the Spartan system which produced a strong army and a stable society.
Plato wanted his society to have experts in every profession. The experts in ruling would get the guardian status and guardian education.
Plato would teach the myth that each man was born of a certain type of metal, thus predetermining every man's status in life.
The myth of the Cave allegory illustrates the ability and the duty of the guardian class.
Those who exit the cave know true knowledge comes from thinking, not seeing.
Plato's ideal republic is hierarchical but because of the myth of the four metals it will function well because everyone will know and accept their place in society (like a beehive).
"By the second generation, everyone will believe this myth of hierarchical castes to be natural and inevitable. Plato is quite content to admit that his hierarchical society must be based on a lie" (Robinson, 101).
Marx inverted the term "ideology" to explain how Plato's big lie works in reality.
The Guardian life is extremely rigorously controlled:
- lived coed in the barracks
- own no property
- breed only with one another by lot
- children are not left with their parents
"Plato's guardians are allowed no individuality or personal freedom" (Robinson, 103).
The social system Plato advocates is severe but it is meritocratic and is not sexist.
"Socrates maintained that morality is a special kind of knowledge which, once known, would always be chosen. Plato seems to have agreed, but argued that this knowledge must be restricted to Guardian experts who will always know the 'correct' answers to all moral problems" (Robinson, 106).
Plato had no time for art in the ideal republic. Only art as propaganda would be admitted. (This art foreshadowed the propagandist art of the Nazis and Soviets).
Plato's moral geometry is often rejected for being inflexible and for reason linking morality and knowledge.
Plato was anti-democratic because democrats have to resort to populism to stay in power. Populist policies are thus favored over wise ones.
"Democratic politicians are merely the slaves of those they pretend to rule, and ordinary people are volatile, violent and bestial" (Robinson, 114).
Popper argued against Plato for his utopianism.
Utopianists often advocate for wiping the slate clean which entails the destruction of society to build a new one.
"The Laws makes a disappointing ending to a philosophical body of work that began with a total commitment to Socrates' own freedom of speech and thought" (Robinson, 131).
"Because Plato cannot have perfect people, he insists on perfect laws which must be obeyed because they are perfect" (Robinson, 131).
The Symposium
Plato seems convinced that homosexual love could be transformed into something spiritually transcendental.
What is love?
Phaedrus: a good thing that instills honor and self-sacrifice
Pausanias: love is sensual gratification but is somehow purer when directed at young men rather than young women
Eryximachus: "love is the cosmic force that constitutes the universe itself" (Robinson, 134).
Aristophanes: Everyone was originally male, female and hermaphrodite. Love is the quest to find the lost part of one's soul. (Zeus punished humanity by splitting everyone into single genders).
Agathon - love is a yearning towards some object of beauty which is not yet possessed.
Diotima - love is the link between sensible and spiritual worlds. "If love is that which moves towards what is beautiful, and wisdom is beautiful, then love is the manifestation of the human soul seeking out the true wisdom of the forms" (Robinson, 136).
The Timaeus
Presents a cosmological account of creation.
"Time is simply a series of numbers that measure how the sub-standard cosmos is always changing" (Robinson, 142).
Plato follows Empedocles' view that all matter is various combinations of the four elements.
Humans are different because of their soul. The soul will return to its star after death if the owner of the soul lived a deserving life.
Plato also advocated metempsychosis (reincarnation) for those souls who aren't worthy of returning to its home star.
Plato's cosmology is similar to M-theory and other string theories that rely on mathematics.
Plato vacillates in the Thaetetus on his theories of perception. Sometimes he is a phenomenalist (we perceive mental images of the world, not the world itself). Sometimes he is a naive realist.
Despite his waffling on the notion of perception he remains staunchly a rationalist - all permanent knowledge comes through thought.
Being a rationalist, Plato had to come up with reasons for error. He claimed that errors arose from memory misapplication.
Knowledge - that which we believe, that which is true and that which we can clearly identify.
The Phaedrus condemns writing because writing is complete. Philosophy is always a process and therefore never complete. As such, dialoge is the best tool for philosophical discovery.
Plato had a long and varied influence:
- Origen developed a neo-platonic theology
- Galileo embraced Plato in his anti-Aristotelian view
- Hegel's dialectical philosophy
Showing posts with label Wittgenstein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wittgenstein. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Aesthetics - What is Beauty? What is Art?
(Originally Written on December 25, 2007 in the Journal)
Aesthetics - What is Beauty? What is Art?
Part I: What is Beauty?
Questions for consideration:
1) Is beauty subjective, objective, or a combination thereof?
2) What is taste?
Part II: Explore different mediums, define art (as a language?)
Research Topics
Immanuel Kant
David Hume
Ludwig Wittgenstein
John Dewey
Leo Tolstoy
Plato
Nelson Goodman
Arthur C. Danto
Martin Heidegger
Jerrold Levinson
Terry Eagleton
Michel Foucault
Friedrich Nietzsche
Aristotle
Edmund Burke
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: mediums, perception of art, why create?
"Of the Standard of Taste"
By: David Hume
It is useful for us to seek a "standard of taste".
A standard of taste is "a rule by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled".
Aesthetics - What is Beauty? What is Art?
Part I: What is Beauty?
Questions for consideration:
1) Is beauty subjective, objective, or a combination thereof?
2) What is taste?
Part II: Explore different mediums, define art (as a language?)
Research Topics
Immanuel Kant
David Hume
Ludwig Wittgenstein
John Dewey
Leo Tolstoy
Plato
Nelson Goodman
Arthur C. Danto
Martin Heidegger
Jerrold Levinson
Terry Eagleton
Michel Foucault
Friedrich Nietzsche
Aristotle
Edmund Burke
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Topics: mediums, perception of art, why create?
"Of the Standard of Taste"
By: David Hume
It is useful for us to seek a "standard of taste".
A standard of taste is "a rule by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled".
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Philosophy of Religion - Hick: Ch. 6 (C)
(Originally written April 19, 2007 in Book 7)
Philosophy of Religion
John Hick
Ch. 6 Problems of Religious Language (Continued)
Religious language as non-cognitive
Cognitive language is either true or false.
Is religious language cognitive or non-cognitive?
1) Are religious utterances intended to be construed cognitively?
2) Are they logically true or false (regardless of user intention)?
J.H. Randall Jr. (The Role of Knowledge in Western Religion) conceives or religion, science and art as separate institutions that each make a positive contribution to human society.
The symbolism and myths of religion according to Randall are similar to social and artistic symbols in that they are non-representative and non-cognitive.
Religious symbols have a fourfold function:
1) Arouse emotions and stir people to act
2) Bind communities together by response to the symbols
3) Communicate qualities of experience not expressible with literal language
4) Clarify the human experience of an aspect of the world known as 'the order of the splendor' or the Divine
Randall holds God to be man's ideals, values and ultimate concern. God does not necessarily exist outside the construct of the human mind.
The Divine is merely a temporary mental construct "of a recently emerged animal inhabiting one of the satellites of a minor star" (Hick, 85).
Randall's theory is an explicit theory of what many implicitly believe today. "God" as a term has been placed under the subcategory of religion in today's society.
Bertrand Russell: "I can respect the men who argue that religion is true and therefore ought to be believed, but I can feel only profound reprobation for those who say that religion ought to be believed because it is useful, and that to ask whether it is true is a waste of time" (Hick, 86).
This culture has made a startling departure from the origin of philosophy of religion by focusing on the utility of religion rather than the truth-hood of it.
Braithwaite's non-cognitive theory
R. B. Braithwaite suggests that religious assertions serve a primarily ethical function.
Religion as expressions are recommendations to behave in a certain way. Thus, "God is love (agape)" is a recommendation to "follow the agapeisitic way of life".
Braithwaite sees the wide divergences of religious rituals as unimportant and trivial because their ethical exhortations are the same.
The connection between religious stories and the religious way of life is a psychological and a causal one. Stories help psychologically to enforce the otherwise unnatural ethical exhortations.
Braithwaite's theory is a drastic change in understanding religious language.
Braithwaite's theory is flawed because he holds that ethical (religious) expressions are intentions to act in a certain fashion. Thus, 'Lying is wrong' is, 'I intend never to lie'. This theory denies that people can willingly act wrongly or against one's moral path.
The Language-Game theory
This theory is derived from Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy. D.Z. Phillips (with others) has developed this theory.
This theory holds that languages of specific constructs (i.e. religion, science, etc.) constitute different "language-games".
Christianity has its own distinct language game and non-Christians cannot participate in this language game.
Religious assertions are immune to scientific criticisms and vice versa.
The notion that religion tells us anything about the actual structure of reality in this theory is a mistake.
Immortality in a Christian sense has been understood as a belief about the soul's destiny after death. It is a thing that is true or false based on future human experience. D.Z. Phillips denies it has this implication. Phillips claims that the soul is merely a moral personality.
The basic criticism of Neo-Wittgensteinian theories like Phillip's is that they are not accounts of ordinary religious language (as they claim to be) but, radical reinterpretations of religious utterances.
Under these theories religious expressions are deprived of their cosmic implications. God is no longer thought of as existing independently of the human mind.
D.Z. Phillips claims that "to know how to use this language is to know God". To have the idea of God is to know God" (Hick, 93).
People can have the idea of God, participate in the language of God, Know God and yeah there be no God.
Philosophy of Religion
John Hick
Ch. 6 Problems of Religious Language (Continued)
Religious language as non-cognitive
Cognitive language is either true or false.
Is religious language cognitive or non-cognitive?
1) Are religious utterances intended to be construed cognitively?
2) Are they logically true or false (regardless of user intention)?
J.H. Randall Jr. (The Role of Knowledge in Western Religion) conceives or religion, science and art as separate institutions that each make a positive contribution to human society.
The symbolism and myths of religion according to Randall are similar to social and artistic symbols in that they are non-representative and non-cognitive.
Religious symbols have a fourfold function:
1) Arouse emotions and stir people to act
2) Bind communities together by response to the symbols
3) Communicate qualities of experience not expressible with literal language
4) Clarify the human experience of an aspect of the world known as 'the order of the splendor' or the Divine
Randall holds God to be man's ideals, values and ultimate concern. God does not necessarily exist outside the construct of the human mind.
The Divine is merely a temporary mental construct "of a recently emerged animal inhabiting one of the satellites of a minor star" (Hick, 85).
Randall's theory is an explicit theory of what many implicitly believe today. "God" as a term has been placed under the subcategory of religion in today's society.
Bertrand Russell: "I can respect the men who argue that religion is true and therefore ought to be believed, but I can feel only profound reprobation for those who say that religion ought to be believed because it is useful, and that to ask whether it is true is a waste of time" (Hick, 86).
This culture has made a startling departure from the origin of philosophy of religion by focusing on the utility of religion rather than the truth-hood of it.
Braithwaite's non-cognitive theory
R. B. Braithwaite suggests that religious assertions serve a primarily ethical function.
Religion as expressions are recommendations to behave in a certain way. Thus, "God is love (agape)" is a recommendation to "follow the agapeisitic way of life".
Braithwaite sees the wide divergences of religious rituals as unimportant and trivial because their ethical exhortations are the same.
The connection between religious stories and the religious way of life is a psychological and a causal one. Stories help psychologically to enforce the otherwise unnatural ethical exhortations.
Braithwaite's theory is a drastic change in understanding religious language.
Braithwaite's theory is flawed because he holds that ethical (religious) expressions are intentions to act in a certain fashion. Thus, 'Lying is wrong' is, 'I intend never to lie'. This theory denies that people can willingly act wrongly or against one's moral path.
The Language-Game theory
This theory is derived from Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy. D.Z. Phillips (with others) has developed this theory.
This theory holds that languages of specific constructs (i.e. religion, science, etc.) constitute different "language-games".
Christianity has its own distinct language game and non-Christians cannot participate in this language game.
Religious assertions are immune to scientific criticisms and vice versa.
The notion that religion tells us anything about the actual structure of reality in this theory is a mistake.
Immortality in a Christian sense has been understood as a belief about the soul's destiny after death. It is a thing that is true or false based on future human experience. D.Z. Phillips denies it has this implication. Phillips claims that the soul is merely a moral personality.
The basic criticism of Neo-Wittgensteinian theories like Phillip's is that they are not accounts of ordinary religious language (as they claim to be) but, radical reinterpretations of religious utterances.
Under these theories religious expressions are deprived of their cosmic implications. God is no longer thought of as existing independently of the human mind.
D.Z. Phillips claims that "to know how to use this language is to know God". To have the idea of God is to know God" (Hick, 93).
People can have the idea of God, participate in the language of God, Know God and yeah there be no God.
Philosophy of Religion - Hick: Ch. 8 (A)
(Originally written April 19, 2007 in Book 7)
Philosophy of Religion
John H. Hick
Chapter 8 - The Conflicting Truth Claims of Different Religions
Many Faiths, All claiming to be true
Nearly every religion claims to be true, exclusively.
There cannot be multiple exclusively true religions.
These exclusivity claims of religious has led to widespread skepticism about all religions.
W.A. Christian's Analysis
W.A. Christian differentiates between a proposal for belief and a factual assertion.
Major Belief Proposals:
Jesus is Messiah
Atman is Brahman
Allah is merciful
All the Buddhas are one.
Do these belief proposals really contradict one another?
Christianity claims that Jesus is the Messiah and that the Jews hold that the Messiah is still expected. This appears to be two contrary statements.
But the conception of Messiah is different is Christianity and Judaism. Thus, the Jewish denial that Jesus is the Messiah does not contradict with the Christian assertion that He is the Messiah.
Wittgenstein claimed that each religion was its own unique and distinct language-game. Thus, nothing in Christianity can agree with or disagree with anything in Buddhism, etc.
Critique of the Concept of a "religion"
Wilfred Cantrell Smith challenges the traditional concept of religion. He claims that religion (an empirical entity) can be traced historically and mapped geographically. He holds that religion is a human phenomenon. Cantrell Smith claims that naming religions occurred in the Enlightenment of Europe (except for Islam).
He holds it is inappropriate to speak of religions as true or false. They are merely expressions of the diversity of human types and temperaments and thought forms.
He maintains that the complex religions developed differently because it was impossible to overcome cultural-historical boundaries because of poor communications.
Now that these boundaries are overcome-able, a new form of religious thinking can arise.
Toward a possible solution:
The human being is a naturally religious animal.
The world religions developed gradually as man's religious life evolved.
The multiplicity of religion in ancient times was inevitable because people were locked into geographic regions.
All the world's religions may be rooted in contact with the same ultimate reality, but that the different ways of relating to said reality developed because of geographic-historic-sociocultural circumstances.
The future developments of the World's religions (because of the One Worldedness of today's society) may be headed towards a unification.
There are three main points concerning varying truth claims of religions:
1) Differing modes of experiencing the ultimate reality
2) Differing philosophical and theological theory concerning the ultimate reality and the implications of religious experience
3) differing revelatory experiences that unify religious experience and thought
The most important difference is the experience of a personal deity and an impersonal one.
These personal and impersonal deities are anon-contradictory, but complementary. All religions hold the ultimate reality to be outside the scope of finite human categories.
Theology and philosophy are ever evolving. There is no one reason to deny that in a One World culture that the theological and philosophical differences may dissolve during subsequent development.
The differing revelatory experiences of the World religions is the most difficult difference to dissolve.
Christianity faces a difficulty in asserting the infinite love of God and that only those who have faith in Christ will have everlasting life. These seem incompatible.
"It seems that if the tension at the heart of the traditional Christian attitude to non-Christian faiths is to be resolved, Christian thinkers must give even more radical though to the problem than they have yet done" (Hick, 118).
This is the epitome of arrogant intellectualism. John H. Hick is demanding that a rigorously developed theological philosophical detail be dropped after 2,000 plus years of development!
Philosophy of Religion
John H. Hick
Chapter 8 - The Conflicting Truth Claims of Different Religions
Many Faiths, All claiming to be true
Nearly every religion claims to be true, exclusively.
There cannot be multiple exclusively true religions.
These exclusivity claims of religious has led to widespread skepticism about all religions.
W.A. Christian's Analysis
W.A. Christian differentiates between a proposal for belief and a factual assertion.
Major Belief Proposals:
Jesus is Messiah
Atman is Brahman
Allah is merciful
All the Buddhas are one.
Do these belief proposals really contradict one another?
Christianity claims that Jesus is the Messiah and that the Jews hold that the Messiah is still expected. This appears to be two contrary statements.
But the conception of Messiah is different is Christianity and Judaism. Thus, the Jewish denial that Jesus is the Messiah does not contradict with the Christian assertion that He is the Messiah.
Wittgenstein claimed that each religion was its own unique and distinct language-game. Thus, nothing in Christianity can agree with or disagree with anything in Buddhism, etc.
Critique of the Concept of a "religion"
Wilfred Cantrell Smith challenges the traditional concept of religion. He claims that religion (an empirical entity) can be traced historically and mapped geographically. He holds that religion is a human phenomenon. Cantrell Smith claims that naming religions occurred in the Enlightenment of Europe (except for Islam).
He holds it is inappropriate to speak of religions as true or false. They are merely expressions of the diversity of human types and temperaments and thought forms.
He maintains that the complex religions developed differently because it was impossible to overcome cultural-historical boundaries because of poor communications.
Now that these boundaries are overcome-able, a new form of religious thinking can arise.
Toward a possible solution:
The human being is a naturally religious animal.
The world religions developed gradually as man's religious life evolved.
The multiplicity of religion in ancient times was inevitable because people were locked into geographic regions.
All the world's religions may be rooted in contact with the same ultimate reality, but that the different ways of relating to said reality developed because of geographic-historic-sociocultural circumstances.
The future developments of the World's religions (because of the One Worldedness of today's society) may be headed towards a unification.
There are three main points concerning varying truth claims of religions:
1) Differing modes of experiencing the ultimate reality
2) Differing philosophical and theological theory concerning the ultimate reality and the implications of religious experience
3) differing revelatory experiences that unify religious experience and thought
The most important difference is the experience of a personal deity and an impersonal one.
These personal and impersonal deities are anon-contradictory, but complementary. All religions hold the ultimate reality to be outside the scope of finite human categories.
Theology and philosophy are ever evolving. There is no one reason to deny that in a One World culture that the theological and philosophical differences may dissolve during subsequent development.
The differing revelatory experiences of the World religions is the most difficult difference to dissolve.
Christianity faces a difficulty in asserting the infinite love of God and that only those who have faith in Christ will have everlasting life. These seem incompatible.
"It seems that if the tension at the heart of the traditional Christian attitude to non-Christian faiths is to be resolved, Christian thinkers must give even more radical though to the problem than they have yet done" (Hick, 118).
This is the epitome of arrogant intellectualism. John H. Hick is demanding that a rigorously developed theological philosophical detail be dropped after 2,000 plus years of development!
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Aesthetic notes for test 2
(Originally written March 29, 2007 in Book 16)
"Phonography"
Lee B. Brown
Different technologies produce different sounds.
The phonophile will idealize canned music. He will prefer the recordings to live music.
The viaphile or phonophobe will idealize the live music experience.
Sonic Manipulation of Art
Can some manipulation be art? That is, can the art be the recording rather than the music itself.
Improvisational music is not reidentifiable.
Without recording improv music can be repeated only by imitation.
Test 2: Study Guide
Sibley
- Aesthetic features do not logically depend upon on-aesthetic features
- the impossibility of universal rules
- rule applying is non-aesthetic
- aesthetic terms: unified, balance, vivid, moving and tragic
- non-aesthetic terms
Walton
- historical considerations are crucial for categorizing and evaluation, artwork
- variable properties - non essential features to the piece's genre
- standard properties - essential failures of the piece's genre
- contra-standard properties - features that almost eliminate the piece from genre
- non-aesthetic considerations:
--number of standard features
--maximum aesthetic appeal
--artist intention
--well-established category
Collingwood
-Art is fundamentally an expression of one's emotion
-Art is spontaneous, it is the imagination coming to life
Bell
-Significant form: the lines and colors that which form the emotions in the viewer
Hagberg:
- 'Paradoxical Expression' - art is public. Emotion is private. Art is expression of emotion.
- Hagberg solves the paradox by denying that emotions are private via Wittgensteinian philosophical behaviorism. Emotions are disposition to "X".
Weitz
- Art is undefinable
- Art as a category bears the Wittgensteinian family resemblance model
- Defining criteria are necessary and sufficient conditions. Recognizing criteria are the "boundary conditions" for what is being recognized
Dickie
- Art as a social institution
- Art world - these who view and create art, publishers, artistic, critics, etc.
- Circularity problem: Art is that which deemed by the art world. To create art one must make an artifact and present it to the art world
- Solitary art problem: no first piece of art
Dante
- Art world is logically dependent on theory
- Art "is" vs. identity and prediction
Goodman
-Autographic - works that cannot be reproduced without it being forgery
-Allographic - repeated or copied work, the one as authentic as the original
Dutton
- Forgery is misrepresenting achievement
Two kinds of "philistinism"
1) All that matters is consideration of origin
2) All that matters is form
Eaton
-Aestheticism - art is immune to ethical judgments
-Moralism - art is good or bad based on the effect it has upon the viewer's/hearer's moral nature
-Ethicism - uses morality as a value criteria, but not as the sole criteria
Eagleton
Literature:
1) Is essentially imaginative
problem - some literature is historical. Some imaginative stuff is not literature.
2) Russian Formalism - literature is that which transforms and intensifies language
problem - presupposes knowledge of literary and ordinary language
3) non-useful writing
4) valued writings
1) Authorial intention - meaning is in the author's mind
problem - Author died, unknown
2) Structuralism - meaning in the text
problem: author intent is meaningless
3) Post-Structuralism - meaning in reader's understanding
problem: authorial intention and structuralism is meaningless, relative
Foucault
Author - concept of author emerged as way of wielding power
Author function - guides an institution of discourse determines the status of particular discourse within a society
Shusterman
Hermeneutic universalism - all experience is interpreted
Foundationalism - indubitable axioms deduction from aims we know we know when we know.
"Phonography"
Lee B. Brown
Different technologies produce different sounds.
The phonophile will idealize canned music. He will prefer the recordings to live music.
The viaphile or phonophobe will idealize the live music experience.
Sonic Manipulation of Art
Can some manipulation be art? That is, can the art be the recording rather than the music itself.
Improvisational music is not reidentifiable.
Without recording improv music can be repeated only by imitation.
Test 2: Study Guide
Sibley
- Aesthetic features do not logically depend upon on-aesthetic features
- the impossibility of universal rules
- rule applying is non-aesthetic
- aesthetic terms: unified, balance, vivid, moving and tragic
- non-aesthetic terms
Walton
- historical considerations are crucial for categorizing and evaluation, artwork
- variable properties - non essential features to the piece's genre
- standard properties - essential failures of the piece's genre
- contra-standard properties - features that almost eliminate the piece from genre
- non-aesthetic considerations:
--number of standard features
--maximum aesthetic appeal
--artist intention
--well-established category
Collingwood
-Art is fundamentally an expression of one's emotion
-Art is spontaneous, it is the imagination coming to life
Bell
-Significant form: the lines and colors that which form the emotions in the viewer
Hagberg:
- 'Paradoxical Expression' - art is public. Emotion is private. Art is expression of emotion.
- Hagberg solves the paradox by denying that emotions are private via Wittgensteinian philosophical behaviorism. Emotions are disposition to "X".
Weitz
- Art is undefinable
- Art as a category bears the Wittgensteinian family resemblance model
- Defining criteria are necessary and sufficient conditions. Recognizing criteria are the "boundary conditions" for what is being recognized
Dickie
- Art as a social institution
- Art world - these who view and create art, publishers, artistic, critics, etc.
- Circularity problem: Art is that which deemed by the art world. To create art one must make an artifact and present it to the art world
- Solitary art problem: no first piece of art
Dante
- Art world is logically dependent on theory
- Art "is" vs. identity and prediction
Goodman
-Autographic - works that cannot be reproduced without it being forgery
-Allographic - repeated or copied work, the one as authentic as the original
Dutton
- Forgery is misrepresenting achievement
Two kinds of "philistinism"
1) All that matters is consideration of origin
2) All that matters is form
Eaton
-Aestheticism - art is immune to ethical judgments
-Moralism - art is good or bad based on the effect it has upon the viewer's/hearer's moral nature
-Ethicism - uses morality as a value criteria, but not as the sole criteria
Eagleton
Literature:
1) Is essentially imaginative
problem - some literature is historical. Some imaginative stuff is not literature.
2) Russian Formalism - literature is that which transforms and intensifies language
problem - presupposes knowledge of literary and ordinary language
3) non-useful writing
4) valued writings
1) Authorial intention - meaning is in the author's mind
problem - Author died, unknown
2) Structuralism - meaning in the text
problem: author intent is meaningless
3) Post-Structuralism - meaning in reader's understanding
problem: authorial intention and structuralism is meaningless, relative
Foucault
Author - concept of author emerged as way of wielding power
Author function - guides an institution of discourse determines the status of particular discourse within a society
Shusterman
Hermeneutic universalism - all experience is interpreted
Foundationalism - indubitable axioms deduction from aims we know we know when we know.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Combining Aquinas & Wittgenstien
(Originally written March 22, 2007 in Book 25)
Burrell: Combining Aquinas & Wittgenstien
1) Univocal language may be understood as ordinary language usage in a Wittgenstienian setting. Family resemblance is strongly similar to analogy.
2) Transcendental terms are trans-categorical. These terms derive their meaning from their particular language games and as they re trans-categorical they are analogical.
3) Appraisal terms (i.e. "good") function similar to transcendental terms.
4) Transcendental and appraisal terms are crucial for language about God ontologically and semantically.
a) Ontologically, God is the cause of the world and thus there is an analogy between talk of God and talk of the world.
b) Semantically, the transcendental and appraisal terms are applied to God without their usual predication
5) Analogical language lies in a decision. It originates out of the community of the speaker/listener.
Burrell gives analogy the deserved ontological setting while engaging Wittgenstein's concepts.
But, Burrell has dropped univocal concepts and is not entirely immune to equivocation charges.
There must be a univocal concept underneath all analogy to avoid equivocation.
Burrell: Combining Aquinas & Wittgenstien
1) Univocal language may be understood as ordinary language usage in a Wittgenstienian setting. Family resemblance is strongly similar to analogy.
2) Transcendental terms are trans-categorical. These terms derive their meaning from their particular language games and as they re trans-categorical they are analogical.
3) Appraisal terms (i.e. "good") function similar to transcendental terms.
4) Transcendental and appraisal terms are crucial for language about God ontologically and semantically.
a) Ontologically, God is the cause of the world and thus there is an analogy between talk of God and talk of the world.
b) Semantically, the transcendental and appraisal terms are applied to God without their usual predication
5) Analogical language lies in a decision. It originates out of the community of the speaker/listener.
Burrell gives analogy the deserved ontological setting while engaging Wittgenstein's concepts.
But, Burrell has dropped univocal concepts and is not entirely immune to equivocation charges.
There must be a univocal concept underneath all analogy to avoid equivocation.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Allegorical & Contemporary Language Problems
(Originally written March 19, 2007 in Book 13)
Analogical Predication: The Only Alternative
If terms cannot be applied to God in a univocal or an equivocal sense, they must be applied analogically.
The analogical way of speaking about God helps to solve Parmenides' paradox because being is not taken as univocal. Being is analogical and thus things essentially differ in being.
Being cannot be univocal because it would mean that everything that hath being would be one. Being cannot be equivocal because whatever hath being hath being and what else cannot hath being or they are one. Therefore, Being must analogical.
God does not have properties at all. "God is the perfections that his creatures only have by causal participation" (263).
Univocal Concepts but Analogical Predication
Scotus was correct that any concept applied to men and God must be univocally understood. Aquinas was correct in stating that concepts must be analogically affirmed of God.
The attribute of man and God are same but the application of that attribute differs in God and man.
Whatever concept is understood of God must be understood univocally, but must be predicated (attributed to) of God must be predicated analogically.
Finite Concepts and Finite Predications
Aquinas held God is one in reality, but many things logically.
We cannot know the substance of God, but we can predicate many things about God substantively.
While there is an infinite difference in perfection between Creator and creatures, there is not a total dissimilarity. Thus, concepts are univocally understood.
A creature must bear some similarity to its creator.
The Causal Basis for Analogy Between God and Creatures
Analogy is based on intrinsic causality.
Analogy is based on efficient causality.
Analogy is based on essential causality. God is the cause of the very being of the world, not only its beginning.
Analogy is not based on material causality. God is the cause of the existence of matter, but he is not material. God is the cause of all perfections in the world, but not the imperfection resulting from the limiting conditions of a material world.
Analogy is based on principal, not instrumental causality.
God is the principal, intrinsic, essential and efficient cause of the being and perfection of the world.
Objections and Responses
1) Why select some, but not all qualities drawn from the world and apply them to God?
- Only some things flow from God's efficient, principal, essential and intrinsic causality.
2) Words are divorced from their finite mode or conditions are devoid of meaning.
- The univocal concept of the words remains the same while the way in which they are predicated charges.
-Terms applied to God are not made meaningless only extended without limitations
3) Analogy rests on the assumption that causality provides without limitations.
-If something is caused it must be caused by something. God cannot give what he does not have. Thus if God does not have existence He cannot give existence.
4) Any analogous predication of God as a "First cause" involves an infinite regress of meaning to identify the univocal element.
-The only way to predicate something of a finite being and an infinite being must be analogous because if it is univocal it predicates it equivocally. An infinite being cannot have the same mode as a finite being. It must be predicated analogously.
5) Even assuming the metaphysical assumption that there is a similarity among beings, that ontology is not univocally expressible.
-This is not a mere theistic. It is the only alternative to monism.
6) Since Wittgenstein the distinction between equivocal and univocal is obsolete, and thus, the notion of analogy is obsolete.
7) A general theory of analogy does not work.
This is not an analogical theory, but rather a metaphysical scheme in which language fits. This metaphysical scheme is rooted in reality and thus, the language is so rooted.
13. Model Religious Language
The Background of the Contemporary Language Problem
Hume is the source of the contemporary problems of religious language.
Hume: Two kinds of propositions
There are only two kinds of meaningful statements:
1. Statements expressing elation of ideas
- true by definition
- not informative about the real world
2. Statements about matters of fact
Kant called he former analytic and the latter synthetic.
Wittgenstein: Linguistic Silence
Wittgenstein held that what was mystical (religious experience) cannot be expressed in words.
He held that we are to eliminate religious language, not religious experience.
Ayer: Religious Language and Verification
In Language, Truth and Logic A. J. Ayer attempted to eliminate all metaphysics and theology.
He held that no statement can be meaningful unless it is tautological or empirically verifiable.
But Ayer's principle of verifiability is neither tautological nor verifiable and thus, meaningless on his grounds.
Ayer was neither atheistic nor agnostic. He was non-cognitivistic. He held that no cognitively meaningful statement can be made about a transcendent reality.
2/15/07 - 3/19/07
Analogical Predication: The Only Alternative
If terms cannot be applied to God in a univocal or an equivocal sense, they must be applied analogically.
The analogical way of speaking about God helps to solve Parmenides' paradox because being is not taken as univocal. Being is analogical and thus things essentially differ in being.
Being cannot be univocal because it would mean that everything that hath being would be one. Being cannot be equivocal because whatever hath being hath being and what else cannot hath being or they are one. Therefore, Being must analogical.
God does not have properties at all. "God is the perfections that his creatures only have by causal participation" (263).
Univocal Concepts but Analogical Predication
Scotus was correct that any concept applied to men and God must be univocally understood. Aquinas was correct in stating that concepts must be analogically affirmed of God.
The attribute of man and God are same but the application of that attribute differs in God and man.
Whatever concept is understood of God must be understood univocally, but must be predicated (attributed to) of God must be predicated analogically.
Finite Concepts and Finite Predications
Aquinas held God is one in reality, but many things logically.
We cannot know the substance of God, but we can predicate many things about God substantively.
While there is an infinite difference in perfection between Creator and creatures, there is not a total dissimilarity. Thus, concepts are univocally understood.
A creature must bear some similarity to its creator.
The Causal Basis for Analogy Between God and Creatures
Analogy is based on intrinsic causality.
Analogy is based on efficient causality.
Analogy is based on essential causality. God is the cause of the very being of the world, not only its beginning.
Analogy is not based on material causality. God is the cause of the existence of matter, but he is not material. God is the cause of all perfections in the world, but not the imperfection resulting from the limiting conditions of a material world.
Analogy is based on principal, not instrumental causality.
God is the principal, intrinsic, essential and efficient cause of the being and perfection of the world.
Objections and Responses
1) Why select some, but not all qualities drawn from the world and apply them to God?
- Only some things flow from God's efficient, principal, essential and intrinsic causality.
2) Words are divorced from their finite mode or conditions are devoid of meaning.
- The univocal concept of the words remains the same while the way in which they are predicated charges.
-Terms applied to God are not made meaningless only extended without limitations
3) Analogy rests on the assumption that causality provides without limitations.
-If something is caused it must be caused by something. God cannot give what he does not have. Thus if God does not have existence He cannot give existence.
4) Any analogous predication of God as a "First cause" involves an infinite regress of meaning to identify the univocal element.
-The only way to predicate something of a finite being and an infinite being must be analogous because if it is univocal it predicates it equivocally. An infinite being cannot have the same mode as a finite being. It must be predicated analogously.
5) Even assuming the metaphysical assumption that there is a similarity among beings, that ontology is not univocally expressible.
-This is not a mere theistic. It is the only alternative to monism.
6) Since Wittgenstein the distinction between equivocal and univocal is obsolete, and thus, the notion of analogy is obsolete.
7) A general theory of analogy does not work.
This is not an analogical theory, but rather a metaphysical scheme in which language fits. This metaphysical scheme is rooted in reality and thus, the language is so rooted.
13. Model Religious Language
The Background of the Contemporary Language Problem
Hume is the source of the contemporary problems of religious language.
Hume: Two kinds of propositions
There are only two kinds of meaningful statements:
1. Statements expressing elation of ideas
- true by definition
- not informative about the real world
2. Statements about matters of fact
Kant called he former analytic and the latter synthetic.
Wittgenstein: Linguistic Silence
Wittgenstein held that what was mystical (religious experience) cannot be expressed in words.
He held that we are to eliminate religious language, not religious experience.
Ayer: Religious Language and Verification
In Language, Truth and Logic A. J. Ayer attempted to eliminate all metaphysics and theology.
He held that no statement can be meaningful unless it is tautological or empirically verifiable.
But Ayer's principle of verifiability is neither tautological nor verifiable and thus, meaningless on his grounds.
Ayer was neither atheistic nor agnostic. He was non-cognitivistic. He held that no cognitively meaningful statement can be made about a transcendent reality.
2/15/07 - 3/19/07
Teleological, Analogical and Models in Religious Language
(Originally written March 19, 2007 in Book 25)
Class notes
The Teleological Argument
Transcendental Logic
Given a phenomena 'X'
What are the conditions that make X possible?
Unless there is Y, there cannot be X
Given the fact that all things act for an end
What are the conditions that make it possible for all things to act for an end?
Unless there were an intelligent being that directs all things to their end, ti would not be possible.
Aristotle's Four Questions and their answers
1) What is its purpose? Final Cause (Telos)
2) What is it made of? Material Cause
3) What is its shape (form)? Formal Cause
4) Who or what made it? Efficient Cause
Substance - the total thing with all of its attributes (Aristotelian, not Cartesian)
Paley's Argument from analogy
The watch did not grow there.
It did not just happen.
Because of its complexity and purposiveness we know that it was made by a human being.
The very properties that lead us to infer that the watch was made by a watchmaker lead us to infer the universe was made by a universe-maker.
Inductive Analogy
Set A consists of member {a, b, c, d, e...}
All these members share property X
"F" is also a member of set A
Therefore, F probably has property X
In the General sample you want a "high negative analogy"
But when the General sample is extended to one particular thing you want a "high positive analogy".
The teleological argument of Paley depends on the universe being as much like a clock as possible.
Criticism of Paley's Argument
Hume:
-Even if the analogy holds, it doesn't prove the existence of God
- Even if there is a strong analogy between the watch and the universe we have not ruled out the possibility that it could have come about by chance
Post-Humean Versions
- tend to become disjunctions rather than analogy
- which is the better explanation: the universe came by chance or by purpose?
Stuart Hackett
Teleological argument from the "Macroscopic point of view"
From a conspicuous adaptation to an intelligent creator
examples:
1) The fitness of the inorganic material world to be an environment for both the production and maintenance of organic life. Chance is not a sufficient explanation because chance is tied to the consistent make-up of the inorganic material.
2) The internal adaptedness of organic beings, both in their structure of specialized functions and in their general orientation for self-maintenance or subservience to some other form of organic life. Chance is ruled out as a proximate cause. Chance would postal minute, non-advantageous changes.
3) The intelligibility of the world and its instrumentality in the realization of humanly provisioned ends. Chance ruled out because minds are not the logical outcome of our evolutionary process. Minds are so transcendent that they cannot have arisen from matter.
4) The temporal progressiveness of the cosmic progress through levels of matter, life and mind, in an order of increasing valuation significance.
Anthropic Principle
What we can expect to observe must be restricted by the condition necessary for our presence as observers. (Weak Version)
The universe would have had to passed some very tiny probabilities of window in order to be observed. (Strong version)
Generation of Carbon Post- Big Bang
- Needs to combine three helium nuclei
- May not exceed three helium nuclei
- If it becomes four it becomes oxygen and then "boom", nothing is left
The universe seems to have moved in a deliberate direction. Therefore, it seems more plausible that the universe arose from a creator and not from chance.
Ramsey: Qualified Disclosure Models
Ramsey built his religious language out of an empirical setting and tests it by its empirical adequacy.
Disclosure-Commitment Situations
There are two aspects to the kind of experiences that are religious in nature:
1) An empirical situation that evokes discernment
2) A total commitment to what is discerned
The empirical situations that evoke discernment are the experiential grounding for the meaning of religious language.
Discernment situations:
Ramsey holds that metaphors and odd words have the disclosure poor to make the "ice break" or the "light down".
The literary and logical oddity of "I-Religion" or tautologies like "I am I", "Duty for duty's sake" or "love for love's sake" do not render them meaningless.
To Ramsey there is more in empirical language and situations than meets the eye.
Commitment Situations:
Not every disclosure situation provides religious disclosure.
Religious disclosure evokes a total commitment.
Total commitment is a total commitment to the whole universe, not a total commitment to a part of the universe or a partial commitment to the whole universe.
Ramsey holds religious experience to be one in which one responds to a discernment situation with a total commitment.
Religious Language: Qualified Models
Since religious experience in and of itself is odd, religious language will in turn be odd.
The Meaning and Use of Models
A disclosure model does not seek to describe anything. It enables us to articulate what we once could not express.
Language about God is not declarative; it is evocative.
The Qualification of Models
Ramsey calls qualifiers "words which multiply models without end and with subtle changes" (279).
Models and qualifiers create what Wittgenstien calls family resemblances.
Ramsey develops three groups of qualified models:
1) The negative attributes of God - i.e. God is immutable
2) One word positive attributes of God - i.e. perfection
3) Two-word positive attributes of God - i.e. first cause or infinitely good
Ramsey holds the term "God" to be an integrative term, bringing together the separate discernment-commitment disclosures into a unified whole.
The term "God" functions like the term "I" in everyday language.
The Adequacy of Models: Empirical Fit
Models help to articulate theology in a reliable way when:
1) They arise in a moment of insight or disclosure
2) It empirically fits, it is able to incorporate diverse phenomena consistently
Evaluation of Ramsey's View
Ramsey's master model of God, a combination of many individual models, answers the problem of empirically grounded God-talk.
Without an analogy built on the ontological similarity of Creator and creature, God-talk is purely equivocal.
Only metaphysical analogy can save qualified models from equivocation.
Ferré Metaphysical Models
Ferré builds a metaphysical synthesis based on the religious model, which is subject to truth tests.
The Nature and Function of Models
To Ferré, a model y is that "which provides epistemological vividness or immediacy to a theory by offering as an interpretation of the abstract or unfamiliar theory-structure that both fits the logical form of the theory and is well-known" (283).
Models are similar to metaphors in two ways:
1) Their language is literally false
2) They have a point nonetheless
Ferré divides models threefold:
1) Type - the degree of concreteness the model has
2) Scope - degree of inclusiveness the model has
3) Status - how important the model is
Ferré holds there are three functions for models:
1) Suggest point-by-point resemblance
2) Serve heuristic value
3) Fulfill the holistic desire of man to have an explanatory model of his experience
Models in Religions Language
A scientific mode can separate reality and the observer, whereas a theological model cannot
Scientific models are judged on how helpful they are
Theological models must be judged on truth and falsity
Theological models draw upon a different set of facts than scientific models.
Ferré holds the religious imagery of the Scriptures, the creeds, and traditions of the believing community to be a "metaphysical model"
God-Language is not literal, it is anthropomorphic
The theistic model incorporates data from other areas of knowledge, but religious imagery is always the core.
Testing Religious Models
Ferré denies that religious language is purely non cognitive while admitting it serves many non-cognitive functions.
No metaphysical model (world view) should be adopted arbitrarily
There are three strata in one's total account of things:
1) Preverbal metaphysical model of symbol (taken from the imagery of Scripture)
2) Set of propositions that attempt to express this metaphysical model in a cognitive way
3) A range of functions (cognitive and non-cognitive, verbal and nonverbal) that constitute the religious language game.
Only the second strata is applicable to the truth tests
Ferry offers five truth tests for the truth of total synthesis built on religious models:
1) Consistency - it must be non-contradictory
2) Coherence - consistency must be external as well as internal
3) Applicability - masut be relatable to individual experience
4) Adequacy - must be applicable to all domains of feeling and perception
5) Effectiveness - the synthesis must be a useable instrument for coping with the total environment of human experiences
A metaphysical synthesis is adequate (according to Ferré) only if it is capable of putting all experience into a whole, pervasive and adequate pattern.
Ferré notes that nay falsification of a metaphysical position is like an erosion, not an explosion.
Ferré states that:
1) Christianity has been effective in the past, but there is doubt about its effectiveness in the present and future.
2) Few would dispute the applicability of love and reverence. But this is only a minimal test.
3) Adequacy is a complex test involving many levels that Christianity appears to meet fairly well.
4) No clear contradictions have been demonstrated in Christianity but the proposed solutions have not gained universal acceptance.
5) Christianity has a "striking internal coherence" but the external coherence is not as obvious. There are almost certainly some empirical statements in Scripture that are false (i.e. the sun standing still for Joshua)
Evaluation of Ferré's Metaphysical Model
Ferré is not in the univocal camp. No literal descriptions of God, anthropomorphic Bible, etc.
Ferré denied the analogical intrinsic causal connection of the Thomists but his concentration on truth statements suggests he does not mean to make religious language equivocal.
Ferré would need to rethink his stance on analogy to save his theory from equivocation.
Recent Trends Retreating from models
Much of contemporary religious language has been shaped by Hume, the logical positivists and young Wittgenstein
Gill: Mediation and Metaphor
Jerry H. Gill attempts to build a holistic comprehension of humanity and human knowledge, instead of a purely cognitive or empirical basis.
He held that:
1) Religious language is linguistically constituted, we cannot know religious reality apart from it being covered to us in words and concepts
2) Religious language is social activity. Many uses are more important than descriptive.
3) Religious language is meaningful with significant, not absolute precision
4) Religious language is primarily metaphorical
Gill's Proposal Evaluated
Analogy must be grounded in metaphysical reality, but Gill denies this ontological link.
Gill has made a strong analysis of the function of religious language but has forfeited any guard against it being equivocal.
Class notes
The Teleological Argument
Transcendental Logic
Given a phenomena 'X'
What are the conditions that make X possible?
Unless there is Y, there cannot be X
Given the fact that all things act for an end
What are the conditions that make it possible for all things to act for an end?
Unless there were an intelligent being that directs all things to their end, ti would not be possible.
Aristotle's Four Questions and their answers
1) What is its purpose? Final Cause (Telos)
2) What is it made of? Material Cause
3) What is its shape (form)? Formal Cause
4) Who or what made it? Efficient Cause
Substance - the total thing with all of its attributes (Aristotelian, not Cartesian)
Paley's Argument from analogy
The watch did not grow there.
It did not just happen.
Because of its complexity and purposiveness we know that it was made by a human being.
The very properties that lead us to infer that the watch was made by a watchmaker lead us to infer the universe was made by a universe-maker.
Inductive Analogy
Set A consists of member {a, b, c, d, e...}
All these members share property X
"F" is also a member of set A
Therefore, F probably has property X
In the General sample you want a "high negative analogy"
But when the General sample is extended to one particular thing you want a "high positive analogy".
The teleological argument of Paley depends on the universe being as much like a clock as possible.
Criticism of Paley's Argument
Hume:
-Even if the analogy holds, it doesn't prove the existence of God
- Even if there is a strong analogy between the watch and the universe we have not ruled out the possibility that it could have come about by chance
Post-Humean Versions
- tend to become disjunctions rather than analogy
- which is the better explanation: the universe came by chance or by purpose?
Stuart Hackett
Teleological argument from the "Macroscopic point of view"
From a conspicuous adaptation to an intelligent creator
examples:
1) The fitness of the inorganic material world to be an environment for both the production and maintenance of organic life. Chance is not a sufficient explanation because chance is tied to the consistent make-up of the inorganic material.
2) The internal adaptedness of organic beings, both in their structure of specialized functions and in their general orientation for self-maintenance or subservience to some other form of organic life. Chance is ruled out as a proximate cause. Chance would postal minute, non-advantageous changes.
3) The intelligibility of the world and its instrumentality in the realization of humanly provisioned ends. Chance ruled out because minds are not the logical outcome of our evolutionary process. Minds are so transcendent that they cannot have arisen from matter.
4) The temporal progressiveness of the cosmic progress through levels of matter, life and mind, in an order of increasing valuation significance.
Anthropic Principle
What we can expect to observe must be restricted by the condition necessary for our presence as observers. (Weak Version)
The universe would have had to passed some very tiny probabilities of window in order to be observed. (Strong version)
Generation of Carbon Post- Big Bang
- Needs to combine three helium nuclei
- May not exceed three helium nuclei
- If it becomes four it becomes oxygen and then "boom", nothing is left
The universe seems to have moved in a deliberate direction. Therefore, it seems more plausible that the universe arose from a creator and not from chance.
Ramsey: Qualified Disclosure Models
Ramsey built his religious language out of an empirical setting and tests it by its empirical adequacy.
Disclosure-Commitment Situations
There are two aspects to the kind of experiences that are religious in nature:
1) An empirical situation that evokes discernment
2) A total commitment to what is discerned
The empirical situations that evoke discernment are the experiential grounding for the meaning of religious language.
Discernment situations:
Ramsey holds that metaphors and odd words have the disclosure poor to make the "ice break" or the "light down".
The literary and logical oddity of "I-Religion" or tautologies like "I am I", "Duty for duty's sake" or "love for love's sake" do not render them meaningless.
To Ramsey there is more in empirical language and situations than meets the eye.
Commitment Situations:
Not every disclosure situation provides religious disclosure.
Religious disclosure evokes a total commitment.
Total commitment is a total commitment to the whole universe, not a total commitment to a part of the universe or a partial commitment to the whole universe.
Ramsey holds religious experience to be one in which one responds to a discernment situation with a total commitment.
Religious Language: Qualified Models
Since religious experience in and of itself is odd, religious language will in turn be odd.
The Meaning and Use of Models
A disclosure model does not seek to describe anything. It enables us to articulate what we once could not express.
Language about God is not declarative; it is evocative.
The Qualification of Models
Ramsey calls qualifiers "words which multiply models without end and with subtle changes" (279).
Models and qualifiers create what Wittgenstien calls family resemblances.
Ramsey develops three groups of qualified models:
1) The negative attributes of God - i.e. God is immutable
2) One word positive attributes of God - i.e. perfection
3) Two-word positive attributes of God - i.e. first cause or infinitely good
Ramsey holds the term "God" to be an integrative term, bringing together the separate discernment-commitment disclosures into a unified whole.
The term "God" functions like the term "I" in everyday language.
The Adequacy of Models: Empirical Fit
Models help to articulate theology in a reliable way when:
1) They arise in a moment of insight or disclosure
2) It empirically fits, it is able to incorporate diverse phenomena consistently
Evaluation of Ramsey's View
Ramsey's master model of God, a combination of many individual models, answers the problem of empirically grounded God-talk.
Without an analogy built on the ontological similarity of Creator and creature, God-talk is purely equivocal.
Only metaphysical analogy can save qualified models from equivocation.
Ferré Metaphysical Models
Ferré builds a metaphysical synthesis based on the religious model, which is subject to truth tests.
The Nature and Function of Models
To Ferré, a model y is that "which provides epistemological vividness or immediacy to a theory by offering as an interpretation of the abstract or unfamiliar theory-structure that both fits the logical form of the theory and is well-known" (283).
Models are similar to metaphors in two ways:
1) Their language is literally false
2) They have a point nonetheless
Ferré divides models threefold:
1) Type - the degree of concreteness the model has
2) Scope - degree of inclusiveness the model has
3) Status - how important the model is
Ferré holds there are three functions for models:
1) Suggest point-by-point resemblance
2) Serve heuristic value
3) Fulfill the holistic desire of man to have an explanatory model of his experience
Models in Religions Language
A scientific mode can separate reality and the observer, whereas a theological model cannot
Scientific models are judged on how helpful they are
Theological models must be judged on truth and falsity
Theological models draw upon a different set of facts than scientific models.
Ferré holds the religious imagery of the Scriptures, the creeds, and traditions of the believing community to be a "metaphysical model"
God-Language is not literal, it is anthropomorphic
The theistic model incorporates data from other areas of knowledge, but religious imagery is always the core.
Testing Religious Models
Ferré denies that religious language is purely non cognitive while admitting it serves many non-cognitive functions.
No metaphysical model (world view) should be adopted arbitrarily
There are three strata in one's total account of things:
1) Preverbal metaphysical model of symbol (taken from the imagery of Scripture)
2) Set of propositions that attempt to express this metaphysical model in a cognitive way
3) A range of functions (cognitive and non-cognitive, verbal and nonverbal) that constitute the religious language game.
Only the second strata is applicable to the truth tests
Ferry offers five truth tests for the truth of total synthesis built on religious models:
1) Consistency - it must be non-contradictory
2) Coherence - consistency must be external as well as internal
3) Applicability - masut be relatable to individual experience
4) Adequacy - must be applicable to all domains of feeling and perception
5) Effectiveness - the synthesis must be a useable instrument for coping with the total environment of human experiences
A metaphysical synthesis is adequate (according to Ferré) only if it is capable of putting all experience into a whole, pervasive and adequate pattern.
Ferré notes that nay falsification of a metaphysical position is like an erosion, not an explosion.
Ferré states that:
1) Christianity has been effective in the past, but there is doubt about its effectiveness in the present and future.
2) Few would dispute the applicability of love and reverence. But this is only a minimal test.
3) Adequacy is a complex test involving many levels that Christianity appears to meet fairly well.
4) No clear contradictions have been demonstrated in Christianity but the proposed solutions have not gained universal acceptance.
5) Christianity has a "striking internal coherence" but the external coherence is not as obvious. There are almost certainly some empirical statements in Scripture that are false (i.e. the sun standing still for Joshua)
Evaluation of Ferré's Metaphysical Model
Ferré is not in the univocal camp. No literal descriptions of God, anthropomorphic Bible, etc.
Ferré denied the analogical intrinsic causal connection of the Thomists but his concentration on truth statements suggests he does not mean to make religious language equivocal.
Ferré would need to rethink his stance on analogy to save his theory from equivocation.
Recent Trends Retreating from models
Much of contemporary religious language has been shaped by Hume, the logical positivists and young Wittgenstein
Gill: Mediation and Metaphor
Jerry H. Gill attempts to build a holistic comprehension of humanity and human knowledge, instead of a purely cognitive or empirical basis.
He held that:
1) Religious language is linguistically constituted, we cannot know religious reality apart from it being covered to us in words and concepts
2) Religious language is social activity. Many uses are more important than descriptive.
3) Religious language is meaningful with significant, not absolute precision
4) Religious language is primarily metaphorical
Gill's Proposal Evaluated
Analogy must be grounded in metaphysical reality, but Gill denies this ontological link.
Gill has made a strong analysis of the function of religious language but has forfeited any guard against it being equivocal.
Friday, March 16, 2007
More Notes on God-Language
(Originally written March 16, 2007 in Book 13)
Some Attempts at Building an Adequate Religious Language
Negative Language of God
The classic example of Negative theology in the West is Plotinus.
Plotinus felt that the One was so far beyond sensibility and intellectual awareness that it could never be spoken of or written about.
Negative religious assertions avoid verbal idolatry.
Finite concepts cannot be applied to an infinite Being.
But, the problem with Negative language is that it presupposes some positive understanding.
Univocal Language of God
John Duns Scotus believed that language used to describe finite creatures are wholly different then that describing the infinite.
He maintained that unless there is univocity in concepts of God there can be no certain knowledge of God.
Analogous Language about God
Thomas Aquinas pointed out the problem with univocal language. He showed that a created concept cannot be expressed univocally about an uncreated Being.
Aquinas advocated analogous language about God to avoid total skepticism and complete dogmatics.
If language is univocal, having a totally different meaning then we have no true knowledge of God.
He held that finite concepts are adequate in describing God if their finitude can be removed, that is to say if we can remove the limitations of concepts (like goodness, justice, etc.). Then we can apply them to God.
Model Language about God
Analogy of intrinsic attribution has not been widely accepted outside of Thomistic circles.
Frederick Ferré offered six objections to analogous language
1. A wholly extrinsic analogy says nothing about the intrinsic properties of God
2. If there is an extrinsic causal relation between God and the world, why are not all qualities drawn from the world applicable to God?
3. When words are disengaged from their finite mode of signification and applied to God they become meaningless.
4. Analogy is based on the challengeable assumption that the causal relation assumption that the causal relation between God and the world provides a basis for their similarity.
5. Even if analogy could be based on some Platonic ontological similarity between cause and effect, properties dawn from finite creatures could not be attributed to an infinite creature in a univocal sense and if they were attributed in a non-univocal sense then it is an equivocation of the word "cause".
6. If the ontology of similarity is not univocally expressed, it is an infinite regress of equivocations. If it is univocal then there is no need of analogy.
Ian T. Ramsey claims God is revealed via disclosure models.
"Disclosure models are the means by which the inverse reveals itself to men" (227).
Disclosure models point to mystery and allow one to speak about God, even if one cannot describe him.
While disclosure models are not ontologically they help to build 'family resemblances'.
In the disclosure model approach, God-language is the result of family resemblances built out of disclosure models integrated into the term, "God".
Autonomous Language about God
This movement denies that religious language needs to be judged by scientific or any other type of language.
In using Wittgenstein concepts they hold that one who is not religious cannot pass judgment on the meaningfulness of the religious language game.
D.Z. Phillips argued that the believer is under no obligation to the unbeliever to account for his beliefs, but the believer cannot impeach the non-believer's non belief on rational grounds.
Under Phillips' context religious language is justified internally, not externally.
Many believers and nonbelievers are unsatisfied with using Wittgenstein's concepts because it makes religious language completely isolated and some argue completely non-cognitive.
The basic problem of religious language is how one can speak meaningfully about God (infinite) by using finite concepts.
Mystics use the "via negative" - no positive affirmations about God are possible.
Scouts and others argue that if there are no positive assertions about God we are left with utter skepticism.
Thomas's argue that finite concepts have only an analogous meaning to the infinite.
11: Negative Religious Language
Negation has been used in philosophical though since Plato
Plato: Determination and Non-Being
The Parmenidean Problem
Parmenides was the first monist.
He held that there can be only One Being in the Universe because if there is more than One being they must differ by something (being) or nothing (non-being). They cannot differ by non-being because they wouldn't differ. They cannot differ by being because that is the only respect that they are similar. Thus, there is only one Being.
Plato's answer to the Parmenidean Problem
Plato held that things differ from each other by negation. A horse is not a chair.
There are two problems with Plato's negation:
1. One must have a positive understanding of what a chair is if a horse is not a chair.
2. All possibilities of a things characteristics must be negated before that this is truly known.
But, Plato, by placing all differences through negation only left differences in being as not happening. Thus everything that has being is identical and Monism necessarily follows.
Plotinus - Negation by Intuition of the Beyond-Being
Plotinus held that being had degrees and kinds, unlike Parmenides' assumption that being was pure and simple.
A brief sketch of the Plotinus' Solution
"The way things differ is by the degree of unity they have. The more unity something has, the higher degree of being it possess".
All Being begins with absolute unity, which is God.
Some Attempts at Building an Adequate Religious Language
Negative Language of God
The classic example of Negative theology in the West is Plotinus.
Plotinus felt that the One was so far beyond sensibility and intellectual awareness that it could never be spoken of or written about.
Negative religious assertions avoid verbal idolatry.
Finite concepts cannot be applied to an infinite Being.
But, the problem with Negative language is that it presupposes some positive understanding.
Univocal Language of God
John Duns Scotus believed that language used to describe finite creatures are wholly different then that describing the infinite.
He maintained that unless there is univocity in concepts of God there can be no certain knowledge of God.
Analogous Language about God
Thomas Aquinas pointed out the problem with univocal language. He showed that a created concept cannot be expressed univocally about an uncreated Being.
Aquinas advocated analogous language about God to avoid total skepticism and complete dogmatics.
If language is univocal, having a totally different meaning then we have no true knowledge of God.
He held that finite concepts are adequate in describing God if their finitude can be removed, that is to say if we can remove the limitations of concepts (like goodness, justice, etc.). Then we can apply them to God.
Model Language about God
Analogy of intrinsic attribution has not been widely accepted outside of Thomistic circles.
Frederick Ferré offered six objections to analogous language
1. A wholly extrinsic analogy says nothing about the intrinsic properties of God
2. If there is an extrinsic causal relation between God and the world, why are not all qualities drawn from the world applicable to God?
3. When words are disengaged from their finite mode of signification and applied to God they become meaningless.
4. Analogy is based on the challengeable assumption that the causal relation assumption that the causal relation between God and the world provides a basis for their similarity.
5. Even if analogy could be based on some Platonic ontological similarity between cause and effect, properties dawn from finite creatures could not be attributed to an infinite creature in a univocal sense and if they were attributed in a non-univocal sense then it is an equivocation of the word "cause".
6. If the ontology of similarity is not univocally expressed, it is an infinite regress of equivocations. If it is univocal then there is no need of analogy.
Ian T. Ramsey claims God is revealed via disclosure models.
"Disclosure models are the means by which the inverse reveals itself to men" (227).
Disclosure models point to mystery and allow one to speak about God, even if one cannot describe him.
While disclosure models are not ontologically they help to build 'family resemblances'.
In the disclosure model approach, God-language is the result of family resemblances built out of disclosure models integrated into the term, "God".
Autonomous Language about God
This movement denies that religious language needs to be judged by scientific or any other type of language.
In using Wittgenstein concepts they hold that one who is not religious cannot pass judgment on the meaningfulness of the religious language game.
D.Z. Phillips argued that the believer is under no obligation to the unbeliever to account for his beliefs, but the believer cannot impeach the non-believer's non belief on rational grounds.
Under Phillips' context religious language is justified internally, not externally.
Many believers and nonbelievers are unsatisfied with using Wittgenstein's concepts because it makes religious language completely isolated and some argue completely non-cognitive.
The basic problem of religious language is how one can speak meaningfully about God (infinite) by using finite concepts.
Mystics use the "via negative" - no positive affirmations about God are possible.
Scouts and others argue that if there are no positive assertions about God we are left with utter skepticism.
Thomas's argue that finite concepts have only an analogous meaning to the infinite.
11: Negative Religious Language
Negation has been used in philosophical though since Plato
Plato: Determination and Non-Being
The Parmenidean Problem
Parmenides was the first monist.
He held that there can be only One Being in the Universe because if there is more than One being they must differ by something (being) or nothing (non-being). They cannot differ by non-being because they wouldn't differ. They cannot differ by being because that is the only respect that they are similar. Thus, there is only one Being.
Plato's answer to the Parmenidean Problem
Plato held that things differ from each other by negation. A horse is not a chair.
There are two problems with Plato's negation:
1. One must have a positive understanding of what a chair is if a horse is not a chair.
2. All possibilities of a things characteristics must be negated before that this is truly known.
But, Plato, by placing all differences through negation only left differences in being as not happening. Thus everything that has being is identical and Monism necessarily follows.
Plotinus - Negation by Intuition of the Beyond-Being
Plotinus held that being had degrees and kinds, unlike Parmenides' assumption that being was pure and simple.
A brief sketch of the Plotinus' Solution
"The way things differ is by the degree of unity they have. The more unity something has, the higher degree of being it possess".
All Being begins with absolute unity, which is God.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Neo-Wittgenstein Art Theories
(Originally written March 13, 2007 in Book 16)
Class Notes
Morris Weitz
Art is undefinable. That is, no necessary and sufficient conditions can be given.
Aesthetic theory is wrong in principle.
Aesthetic theories are not falsifiable or verifiable and hence, worthless.
Art as a category learns the Wittgensteinian concept of family resemblance to each other.
The Institutional theory of Art
Dickie & Danto
Danto
To see art one needs theories of art. The art world is logically dependent on theory.
Dickie
Art as a social institution.
Works of art are artifacts defined by previous similar objects.
Dickie uses Wittgenstein's family resemblance.
Admits that his theory has a problem in that it cannot produce a first piece of art.
Art World
To create a piece of art one must make:
1) An artifact
2) Present it as art to the art world
Class Notes
Morris Weitz
Art is undefinable. That is, no necessary and sufficient conditions can be given.
Aesthetic theory is wrong in principle.
Aesthetic theories are not falsifiable or verifiable and hence, worthless.
Art as a category learns the Wittgensteinian concept of family resemblance to each other.
The Institutional theory of Art
Dickie & Danto
Danto
To see art one needs theories of art. The art world is logically dependent on theory.
Dickie
Art as a social institution.
Works of art are artifacts defined by previous similar objects.
Dickie uses Wittgenstein's family resemblance.
Admits that his theory has a problem in that it cannot produce a first piece of art.
Art World
To create a piece of art one must make:
1) An artifact
2) Present it as art to the art world
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Emotion in Art
(Originally written on March 8, 2007 in Book 16)
Emotion in Art
Clive Bell
- A distinctive aesthetic emotion
- Aesthetic emotion is caused by significant form
- Significant forms are the lines and colors to which form the emotions
Criticism
1) Not applicable to all art forms (Literary arts, novels)
2) Circularity of argument (aesthetic emotion is caused by significant forms. Significant form are that which produces aesthetic emotion)
Collingwood
Art is fundamentally the expression of one's emotions.
Distinguishes between art & craft.
In craft there is a distinction between planning and execution.
Art always has some spontaneous element.
The artist explores emotions.
An artist is not distinctly different from normal people.
Helberg: "The Paradox of Expression"
Art works are public. Emotions are inherently private. Yet, art works are expressions of emotions. How can the invisible become visible?
Wittgenstein (philosophical behaviorism) - mental states are dispositions to behave in some way (analogous to "X" being flammable)
Hagberg "solves" the paradox by using Wittgenstein's theory of emotions by denying that emotions are inherently private.
Emotion in Art
Clive Bell
- A distinctive aesthetic emotion
- Aesthetic emotion is caused by significant form
- Significant forms are the lines and colors to which form the emotions
Criticism
1) Not applicable to all art forms (Literary arts, novels)
2) Circularity of argument (aesthetic emotion is caused by significant forms. Significant form are that which produces aesthetic emotion)
Collingwood
Art is fundamentally the expression of one's emotions.
Distinguishes between art & craft.
In craft there is a distinction between planning and execution.
Art always has some spontaneous element.
The artist explores emotions.
An artist is not distinctly different from normal people.
Helberg: "The Paradox of Expression"
Art works are public. Emotions are inherently private. Yet, art works are expressions of emotions. How can the invisible become visible?
Wittgenstein (philosophical behaviorism) - mental states are dispositions to behave in some way (analogous to "X" being flammable)
Hagberg "solves" the paradox by using Wittgenstein's theory of emotions by denying that emotions are inherently private.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Ontological Arguments and Objections
(Originally written March 7, 2007 in Book 13)
Anselm's Debate with Gaunilo
Gaunilo objected to Anselm's argument on a few grounds:
1. It is built on the false premise that whatever exists in the mind must exist outside the mind.
2. If God's non-existence were really inconceivable then no one could doubt his existence.
3. We cannot even form the concept of the most perfect being possible.
4. The existence of God cannot be inferred from the idea of a perfect Being anymore than the existence of a perfect island can be inferred from the idea of a perfect island.
5. God's nonexistence is no more inconceivable than my own nonexistence. I can conceive of my own nonexistence so I can conceive of God's nonexistence too.
6. God's existence must be proved before we can discuss his essence. Otherwise there is no basis for saying he is the most perfect Being possible.
Anselm's replies:
1. The argument only applies to an absolute perfect Being.
2. God's nonexistence is affirmable, but not conceivable.
3. We do understand the word because of 6 facts:
- It is a common word
- It is a familiar word
- Our faith and conscience provide content for it
- Conceptions do not have to be in terms of sensible images
- God can be understood indirectly
- Those who deny that they can have a conception of God must have a conception of what they cannot conceive
4. The idea of an absolutely perfect Being cannot lack anything, especially being; whereas, the idea of anything else can lack being.
5. If it is possible for a necessary being a necessary being must exist. It's nonexistence is inconceivable.
6. We can compare ideal characteristics prior to ascertaining their reality.
Anselm charged Gaunilo with misunderstanding the argument as:
1. God is the greatest of all Beings
2. It is greater to exist in reality then merely in the understanding.
3. Therefore, God must exist in reality.
Anselm states this argument confuses the greatest actual Being with the greatest possible being.
Aquinas' objection to the ontological argument
Aquinas understood Anselm to mean:
1. God is by definition that then which nothing greater can be conceived
2. What exists actually and mentally is greater than that with exists only mentally.
3. Therefore, God must exist actually.
Aquinas had 3 objections to the argument:
1. Not everyone understands the term "God" to mean that then which nothing greater can be conceived.
2. Even if everyone did understand that the term God meant this, it does not follow that God exists actually.
3. The proposition "God exists" is self-evident, but not self-evident to us.
Descartes' formulation of the Ontological Argument
Descartes' argument (2nd form)
1. It is logically necessary to affirm of a concept whatever is essential to the nature of that concept.
2. Existence is a logically necessary part of the concept of a necessary Existent.
3. Therefore, it is logically necessary to affirm that a necessary Existent does exist.
"If God by definition cannot exist, then he must exist" (128).
Descartes' argument (1st form)
1. Whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive of something is true.
2. We clearly and distinctly perceive that the conception of an absolutely perfect Being necessitates the existence of that Being.
3. Therefore, it is true that an absolutely perfect Being cannot lack existence.
Descartes qualified his argument in three ways:
1. This argument applies only to an absolutely perfect or necessary being.
2. It is not necessary for anyone to think of God, but if and when he does he must conceive of God as necessarily existing.
3. To conceive of God as a necessary Being is not imaginary, but necessary. The concept of a necessary being must be what it is and cannot be any other way. Thus, the concept of a necessary Being cannot be the product of one's imagination.
The debate between Caters and Descartes
Caters the priest agreed with Thomas Aquinas in that he felt the Ontological Argument proved only a conceptual and not a real existence of God.
Caters contended that the words "existent lion" is conceptually necessary, but it does not prove that a lion exists.
Descartes stated that Aquinas refuted an argument that stated existence is concluded from the meaning of God, not his own argument.
Other reactions to Descartes' proofs
Other 17th century philosophers reacted negatively to Descartes' arguments. They restated his argument this way.
1. If it is not contradictory that God exists, then it is certain that He exists.
2. It is not contradictory that God exists.
3. Therefore, it is certain that God exists.
They objected to Descartes' argument in two ways:
1. The minor premise can be doubted or denied.
2. Descartes admitted that his idea of God was inadequate and thus unclear. By Descartes definition of truth as "clear and distinct" then it is untrue.
Descartes' replies:
1. God's nonexistence is noncontradictory in either of two senses of the word:
- Whatever does not disagree with human thought (God is noncontradictory)
- What cannot be known by the human mind (no one could know anything, thus God's existence is noncontradictory)
2. Even if our concept of God is inadequate it does not follow that it is contradictory. God's necessary existence is a clear concept, thus the argument is unaffected by lack of clarity in other aspects of God's nature.
The debate between Gassendi and Descartes.
Pierre Gassendi, a skeptic, contended that Descartes confused existence with a property. He argued with 7 points:
1. The essence of a thing can be thought of apart from its existence.
2. Existence is not a property.
3. Essence and existence can be distinguished only in thought, not in reality.
4. We are just as free to think of God as not existing as we are to think of Pegasus as not existing.
5. We need demonstration that God exists, not merely the assumption that it does.
6. Descartes did not really prove that nonexistence is incompatible with God.
Descartes replied to Gassendi with four points:
1. Existence is a property in that it is attributable to something. Necessary existence is a necessary property of a necessary being.
2. We cannot compare the existence of that which is contingent to the existence of what is necessary.
3. It is not begging the question to include existence among the attributes of a necessary Existent.
4. God's existence and essence are inseparable.
Leibniz's Consideration of the Ontological Argument
Leibniz held that the ontological argument was valid but sensed that it was necessary to demonstrate the concept of God was not contradictory.
He stated
1. If it is possible for an absolutely perfect Being to exist, then it is necessary that it exists.
2. It is possible (noncontradictory) for an absolutely perfect being to exist.
3. Therefore, it is necessary that an absolutely perfect Being exist.
To support his minor premise Leibniz argued that:
1. A perfection is a simple and irreducible quality without any essential limitations.
2. Whatever is simple cannot conflict with other irresolvably simple qualities (they differ in kind).
3. Whatever differs in kind with another cannot conflict with it.
4. Therefore, it is possible for on Being (God) to possess all possible perfections.
Three objections to Leibniz's arg.
1. It assumes that some qualities are essentially positive and others negative, but this may not be the case.
2. Leibniz assumes that some qualities are intrinsically simple, but Wittgenstein showed that what is simple in one conceptual system may be complex in another.
3. It depends on the principle of the actual identity which is conceptually indiscernible.
Spinoza's Ontological Proof
Like Descartes, Spinoza held that God was mathematically demonstrable.
Spinoza's argument:
1. There must be a cause for everything, either for its existence or for its nonexistence.
2. A necessary Being (God) necessarily exists, unless there is an adequate cause to explain why he does not exist.
3. There is no adequate cause to explain why he does not exist.
4. Therefore, a necessary Being, necessarily exists.
One may object to Spinoza's insistence that there must be a cause for nothing because it appears contradictory.
Spinoza's second form:
1. Something necessarily exists.
2. This necessary existence is either finite or infinite.
3. It is possible for this necessary existence to be infinite.
4. There must be a cause as to why this is not an infinite existence.
5. No finite existence can hinder this being (an infinite existence).
6. Therefore, this must be an infinite existence
Spinoza's arguments borrow from the premise that something exists from the cosmological argument.
Spinoza's God is not the theistic God of Leibniz or Anselm, it is a pantheistic God.
The Objections of Hume and Kant
Hume's Objection:
1. Nothing is rationally demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradictory
2. Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction
3. Whatever we conceive to exist we can conceive as nonexistent
4. There is no being whose existence implies a contradiction
5. Therefore, there is no being whose existence is rationally demonstrable.
Hume argues that no argument for God is rationally inescapable because it always contains premises that are logically deniable.
Kant's critique of the Ontological proof
Kant objected to the fact that we have no positive concept of a necessary Being (that which cannot be).
He also contended that necessity applied only to propositions, not existence.
Also, what is logically possible is not always ontologically possible.
Existence (Kant held) is not a predicate of a thing. It is not a perfection.
Supposed Causes of the Ontological Mistake
Opponents of the Ontological argument have blamed many sources of the ontological 'mistake'
1) Platonic Philosophy - Platonic epistemology holds that one can directly and intuitively know essences.
2) Metaphysical thinking - some argue that "is" or "exists" is only logical, not ontological.
3) Confusion of cause and reason - Causes need something outside of itself where a reason can be itself (Schopenhauer)
4) Use of a proper name - the use of a proper name implies existence (Russell)
5) The use of the English conditional. Alvin Plantinga claimed that "If Jones is a bachelor, then he is necessarily not married" does not imply "Jones is a bachelor". There may be no Jones. Likewise, "If God exists, then he Necessarily exists" does not imply "God exists" There may be no God at all.
Linehan - Unfair analogy!
"IF Jones is a bachelor, then he is necessarily not married" may not imply "Jones is a bachelor". There may be no Jones. But there is a bachelor. Likewise, "If God exists, then he necessarily exists" may not imply "God exists" But, there is a necessary existence which must be filled by a necessary Existent, which is God.
Findlay's Ontological Disproof of God.
The ontological argument has been widely rejected in modern times.
J. N. Findlay used the ontological proof against itself:
1. God must be thought of as a necessary Being, for anything else short of this would be unworthy of worship.
2. But existential necessary propositions cannot be true for necessity is merely a logical characteristic of propositions, not of reality.
3. Therefore, God cannot exist.
A simpler, proper form of this argument:
1. The only way a necessary Being could exist is to exist necessarily.
2. The proposition "God exists necessarily" is an existentially necessary proposition.
3. No existentially necessary propositions can be true.
4. Therefore, the proposition "God exists necessarily" cannot be true.
A theist can object to this in 4 ways:
1. Change the proposition "God exists necessarily" to "God exists". Then holding the proposition "God exists" as a logically necessary proposition to hold.
2. Deny that necessity applied to existential propositions makes them untrue. (Existentially necessary propositions can be true). Examples of existentially necessary propositions: "I am I". "There is an infinite number of prime numbers". "Square circles do not exist".
3. "God necessarily exists" is a special case (Anselm and Descartes).
4. Findlay's statement "there are no existentially necessary propositions" is an existentially necessary proposition.
Hartshorne's Restatement of the Ontological Proof.
Charles Hartshorne is one of the most ardent defenders of the ontological argument and states it like this:
1. The existence of a necessary being is either:
a) Impossible, and there is no example of it
b) Possible, but there is no example of it
c) Possible, and there is an example of it
2. Possible, but there is no example of it is meaningless because a necessary Being cannot be a possible being.
3. Impossible, and there is no example of it is not eliminated by the ontological argument, but the meaningfulness of the term 'necessary Being' is a justifiable assumption that may be defeated on other grounds.
Hartshorne's Argument:
1. All thought must refer to something beyond itself which is at least possible
2. The necessary existence of a necessary Being is at least possible.
3. With a necessary Being an "at-least-possible" existence is indistinguishable from a "possible and actual" existence. A necessary Being cannot have a "merely possible" existence.
4. Therefore, a necessary Being necessarily has both a possible and an actual existence.
Hartshorne's view of God is neither theistic and pantheistic. It is panentheistic.
Hartshorne states, "Either God is a meaningless term or there exists a divine Being" (141).
All versions of the ontological argument contain the implicit premise that what is rationally inescapable is the real.
Malcolm's restatement of the ontological proof
Malcolm believes that Kant invalidated Anselm's first form, but the second form is immune to all criticism.
Malcolm's restatement of Anselm's 2nd form:
1. The existence of a necessary being must be either:
a) a necessary existence
b) an impossible existence
c) a possible existence
2. The existence of a necessary Being is not an impossible existence
a) No one has ever shown the concept of a necessary being to be contradictory
b) there is a basis in human experience for "a greater than which cannot be thought"
c) Leibniz's attempt to prove that there is no contradiction fails. We cannot show that there cannot be one.
3. The existence of a necessary Being cannot be a possible being because:
a) it is contradictory to the very nature of a necessary being
b) a possible being is dependent, a necessary Being is independent
4. Therefore, A necessary Being Necessarily exists
Plantinga's Critique of the Ontological Argument
Plantinga argues that God could exist without his existence being a necessary one. His existence could be logically contingent but not ontologically so.
Planting states that it is logically possible that God never existed at all. It is logically possible that nothing ever existent including God.
All that proponents of the ontological argument have to do invalidate Plantinga's objections too.
Planting offers an ontological argument that is very cosmological. It has left the a priori realm and moved into the a posteriori realm.
Planting uses modal logic in his argument:
1. The property "has maximal greatness" entails the property "has maximal excellence in every possible world"
2. Maximal excellence entails omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection.
3. Maximal greatness is possibly exemplified.
4. There is a world "W" and an essence "E" such that "E" is exemplified in "W" and "E" entails the property "has maximal greatness in W"
5. For any object X, if X, exemplifies E then X exemplifies the property "has maximal excellence in every possible world".
6. E entails the property "has maximal excellence in every possible world".
7. If W had been actual, it would be impossible that E fail to be exemplified.
8. What is impossible does not vary from world to world.
9. There exists a being that has maximal excellence in every world.
10 Therefore, the being that has maximal excellence exists in the actual world.
Plantinga's argument is tight and compelling. It avoids many of the traditional criticism of the ontological argument. However there are a few criticisms:
1. The use of modal logic assumes existence of an actual world. Thus, it is a posteriori, not a priori.
2. Defining a perfect being in theistic terms is gratuitous.
3. The essence E is supposed by Plantinga to havre a real existence.
The ontological argument to be valid must assume that something exists and thus it rests on a cosmological principle.
The ontological argument has not proven God exists by itself. It has in fact yielded four types of God and a possible atheistic conception:
1. Leibniz & Descartes - theistic God
2. Spinoza - pantheistic God
3. Hartshorne - panentheistic God
4. Henle - polytheistic gods
5. Atheism - the universe is necessary, but does not include God
Anselm's Debate with Gaunilo
Gaunilo objected to Anselm's argument on a few grounds:
1. It is built on the false premise that whatever exists in the mind must exist outside the mind.
2. If God's non-existence were really inconceivable then no one could doubt his existence.
3. We cannot even form the concept of the most perfect being possible.
4. The existence of God cannot be inferred from the idea of a perfect Being anymore than the existence of a perfect island can be inferred from the idea of a perfect island.
5. God's nonexistence is no more inconceivable than my own nonexistence. I can conceive of my own nonexistence so I can conceive of God's nonexistence too.
6. God's existence must be proved before we can discuss his essence. Otherwise there is no basis for saying he is the most perfect Being possible.
Anselm's replies:
1. The argument only applies to an absolute perfect Being.
2. God's nonexistence is affirmable, but not conceivable.
3. We do understand the word because of 6 facts:
- It is a common word
- It is a familiar word
- Our faith and conscience provide content for it
- Conceptions do not have to be in terms of sensible images
- God can be understood indirectly
- Those who deny that they can have a conception of God must have a conception of what they cannot conceive
4. The idea of an absolutely perfect Being cannot lack anything, especially being; whereas, the idea of anything else can lack being.
5. If it is possible for a necessary being a necessary being must exist. It's nonexistence is inconceivable.
6. We can compare ideal characteristics prior to ascertaining their reality.
Anselm charged Gaunilo with misunderstanding the argument as:
1. God is the greatest of all Beings
2. It is greater to exist in reality then merely in the understanding.
3. Therefore, God must exist in reality.
Anselm states this argument confuses the greatest actual Being with the greatest possible being.
Aquinas' objection to the ontological argument
Aquinas understood Anselm to mean:
1. God is by definition that then which nothing greater can be conceived
2. What exists actually and mentally is greater than that with exists only mentally.
3. Therefore, God must exist actually.
Aquinas had 3 objections to the argument:
1. Not everyone understands the term "God" to mean that then which nothing greater can be conceived.
2. Even if everyone did understand that the term God meant this, it does not follow that God exists actually.
3. The proposition "God exists" is self-evident, but not self-evident to us.
Descartes' formulation of the Ontological Argument
Descartes' argument (2nd form)
1. It is logically necessary to affirm of a concept whatever is essential to the nature of that concept.
2. Existence is a logically necessary part of the concept of a necessary Existent.
3. Therefore, it is logically necessary to affirm that a necessary Existent does exist.
"If God by definition cannot exist, then he must exist" (128).
Descartes' argument (1st form)
1. Whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive of something is true.
2. We clearly and distinctly perceive that the conception of an absolutely perfect Being necessitates the existence of that Being.
3. Therefore, it is true that an absolutely perfect Being cannot lack existence.
Descartes qualified his argument in three ways:
1. This argument applies only to an absolutely perfect or necessary being.
2. It is not necessary for anyone to think of God, but if and when he does he must conceive of God as necessarily existing.
3. To conceive of God as a necessary Being is not imaginary, but necessary. The concept of a necessary being must be what it is and cannot be any other way. Thus, the concept of a necessary Being cannot be the product of one's imagination.
The debate between Caters and Descartes
Caters the priest agreed with Thomas Aquinas in that he felt the Ontological Argument proved only a conceptual and not a real existence of God.
Caters contended that the words "existent lion" is conceptually necessary, but it does not prove that a lion exists.
Descartes stated that Aquinas refuted an argument that stated existence is concluded from the meaning of God, not his own argument.
Other reactions to Descartes' proofs
Other 17th century philosophers reacted negatively to Descartes' arguments. They restated his argument this way.
1. If it is not contradictory that God exists, then it is certain that He exists.
2. It is not contradictory that God exists.
3. Therefore, it is certain that God exists.
They objected to Descartes' argument in two ways:
1. The minor premise can be doubted or denied.
2. Descartes admitted that his idea of God was inadequate and thus unclear. By Descartes definition of truth as "clear and distinct" then it is untrue.
Descartes' replies:
1. God's nonexistence is noncontradictory in either of two senses of the word:
- Whatever does not disagree with human thought (God is noncontradictory)
- What cannot be known by the human mind (no one could know anything, thus God's existence is noncontradictory)
2. Even if our concept of God is inadequate it does not follow that it is contradictory. God's necessary existence is a clear concept, thus the argument is unaffected by lack of clarity in other aspects of God's nature.
The debate between Gassendi and Descartes.
Pierre Gassendi, a skeptic, contended that Descartes confused existence with a property. He argued with 7 points:
1. The essence of a thing can be thought of apart from its existence.
2. Existence is not a property.
3. Essence and existence can be distinguished only in thought, not in reality.
4. We are just as free to think of God as not existing as we are to think of Pegasus as not existing.
5. We need demonstration that God exists, not merely the assumption that it does.
6. Descartes did not really prove that nonexistence is incompatible with God.
Descartes replied to Gassendi with four points:
1. Existence is a property in that it is attributable to something. Necessary existence is a necessary property of a necessary being.
2. We cannot compare the existence of that which is contingent to the existence of what is necessary.
3. It is not begging the question to include existence among the attributes of a necessary Existent.
4. God's existence and essence are inseparable.
Leibniz's Consideration of the Ontological Argument
Leibniz held that the ontological argument was valid but sensed that it was necessary to demonstrate the concept of God was not contradictory.
He stated
1. If it is possible for an absolutely perfect Being to exist, then it is necessary that it exists.
2. It is possible (noncontradictory) for an absolutely perfect being to exist.
3. Therefore, it is necessary that an absolutely perfect Being exist.
To support his minor premise Leibniz argued that:
1. A perfection is a simple and irreducible quality without any essential limitations.
2. Whatever is simple cannot conflict with other irresolvably simple qualities (they differ in kind).
3. Whatever differs in kind with another cannot conflict with it.
4. Therefore, it is possible for on Being (God) to possess all possible perfections.
Three objections to Leibniz's arg.
1. It assumes that some qualities are essentially positive and others negative, but this may not be the case.
2. Leibniz assumes that some qualities are intrinsically simple, but Wittgenstein showed that what is simple in one conceptual system may be complex in another.
3. It depends on the principle of the actual identity which is conceptually indiscernible.
Spinoza's Ontological Proof
Like Descartes, Spinoza held that God was mathematically demonstrable.
Spinoza's argument:
1. There must be a cause for everything, either for its existence or for its nonexistence.
2. A necessary Being (God) necessarily exists, unless there is an adequate cause to explain why he does not exist.
3. There is no adequate cause to explain why he does not exist.
4. Therefore, a necessary Being, necessarily exists.
One may object to Spinoza's insistence that there must be a cause for nothing because it appears contradictory.
Spinoza's second form:
1. Something necessarily exists.
2. This necessary existence is either finite or infinite.
3. It is possible for this necessary existence to be infinite.
4. There must be a cause as to why this is not an infinite existence.
5. No finite existence can hinder this being (an infinite existence).
6. Therefore, this must be an infinite existence
Spinoza's arguments borrow from the premise that something exists from the cosmological argument.
Spinoza's God is not the theistic God of Leibniz or Anselm, it is a pantheistic God.
The Objections of Hume and Kant
Hume's Objection:
1. Nothing is rationally demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradictory
2. Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction
3. Whatever we conceive to exist we can conceive as nonexistent
4. There is no being whose existence implies a contradiction
5. Therefore, there is no being whose existence is rationally demonstrable.
Hume argues that no argument for God is rationally inescapable because it always contains premises that are logically deniable.
Kant's critique of the Ontological proof
Kant objected to the fact that we have no positive concept of a necessary Being (that which cannot be).
He also contended that necessity applied only to propositions, not existence.
Also, what is logically possible is not always ontologically possible.
Existence (Kant held) is not a predicate of a thing. It is not a perfection.
Supposed Causes of the Ontological Mistake
Opponents of the Ontological argument have blamed many sources of the ontological 'mistake'
1) Platonic Philosophy - Platonic epistemology holds that one can directly and intuitively know essences.
2) Metaphysical thinking - some argue that "is" or "exists" is only logical, not ontological.
3) Confusion of cause and reason - Causes need something outside of itself where a reason can be itself (Schopenhauer)
4) Use of a proper name - the use of a proper name implies existence (Russell)
5) The use of the English conditional. Alvin Plantinga claimed that "If Jones is a bachelor, then he is necessarily not married" does not imply "Jones is a bachelor". There may be no Jones. Likewise, "If God exists, then he Necessarily exists" does not imply "God exists" There may be no God at all.
Linehan - Unfair analogy!
"IF Jones is a bachelor, then he is necessarily not married" may not imply "Jones is a bachelor". There may be no Jones. But there is a bachelor. Likewise, "If God exists, then he necessarily exists" may not imply "God exists" But, there is a necessary existence which must be filled by a necessary Existent, which is God.
Findlay's Ontological Disproof of God.
The ontological argument has been widely rejected in modern times.
J. N. Findlay used the ontological proof against itself:
1. God must be thought of as a necessary Being, for anything else short of this would be unworthy of worship.
2. But existential necessary propositions cannot be true for necessity is merely a logical characteristic of propositions, not of reality.
3. Therefore, God cannot exist.
A simpler, proper form of this argument:
1. The only way a necessary Being could exist is to exist necessarily.
2. The proposition "God exists necessarily" is an existentially necessary proposition.
3. No existentially necessary propositions can be true.
4. Therefore, the proposition "God exists necessarily" cannot be true.
A theist can object to this in 4 ways:
1. Change the proposition "God exists necessarily" to "God exists". Then holding the proposition "God exists" as a logically necessary proposition to hold.
2. Deny that necessity applied to existential propositions makes them untrue. (Existentially necessary propositions can be true). Examples of existentially necessary propositions: "I am I". "There is an infinite number of prime numbers". "Square circles do not exist".
3. "God necessarily exists" is a special case (Anselm and Descartes).
4. Findlay's statement "there are no existentially necessary propositions" is an existentially necessary proposition.
Hartshorne's Restatement of the Ontological Proof.
Charles Hartshorne is one of the most ardent defenders of the ontological argument and states it like this:
1. The existence of a necessary being is either:
a) Impossible, and there is no example of it
b) Possible, but there is no example of it
c) Possible, and there is an example of it
2. Possible, but there is no example of it is meaningless because a necessary Being cannot be a possible being.
3. Impossible, and there is no example of it is not eliminated by the ontological argument, but the meaningfulness of the term 'necessary Being' is a justifiable assumption that may be defeated on other grounds.
Hartshorne's Argument:
1. All thought must refer to something beyond itself which is at least possible
2. The necessary existence of a necessary Being is at least possible.
3. With a necessary Being an "at-least-possible" existence is indistinguishable from a "possible and actual" existence. A necessary Being cannot have a "merely possible" existence.
4. Therefore, a necessary Being necessarily has both a possible and an actual existence.
Hartshorne's view of God is neither theistic and pantheistic. It is panentheistic.
Hartshorne states, "Either God is a meaningless term or there exists a divine Being" (141).
All versions of the ontological argument contain the implicit premise that what is rationally inescapable is the real.
Malcolm's restatement of the ontological proof
Malcolm believes that Kant invalidated Anselm's first form, but the second form is immune to all criticism.
Malcolm's restatement of Anselm's 2nd form:
1. The existence of a necessary being must be either:
a) a necessary existence
b) an impossible existence
c) a possible existence
2. The existence of a necessary Being is not an impossible existence
a) No one has ever shown the concept of a necessary being to be contradictory
b) there is a basis in human experience for "a greater than which cannot be thought"
c) Leibniz's attempt to prove that there is no contradiction fails. We cannot show that there cannot be one.
3. The existence of a necessary Being cannot be a possible being because:
a) it is contradictory to the very nature of a necessary being
b) a possible being is dependent, a necessary Being is independent
4. Therefore, A necessary Being Necessarily exists
Plantinga's Critique of the Ontological Argument
Plantinga argues that God could exist without his existence being a necessary one. His existence could be logically contingent but not ontologically so.
Planting states that it is logically possible that God never existed at all. It is logically possible that nothing ever existent including God.
All that proponents of the ontological argument have to do invalidate Plantinga's objections too.
Planting offers an ontological argument that is very cosmological. It has left the a priori realm and moved into the a posteriori realm.
Planting uses modal logic in his argument:
1. The property "has maximal greatness" entails the property "has maximal excellence in every possible world"
2. Maximal excellence entails omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection.
3. Maximal greatness is possibly exemplified.
4. There is a world "W" and an essence "E" such that "E" is exemplified in "W" and "E" entails the property "has maximal greatness in W"
5. For any object X, if X, exemplifies E then X exemplifies the property "has maximal excellence in every possible world".
6. E entails the property "has maximal excellence in every possible world".
7. If W had been actual, it would be impossible that E fail to be exemplified.
8. What is impossible does not vary from world to world.
9. There exists a being that has maximal excellence in every world.
10 Therefore, the being that has maximal excellence exists in the actual world.
Plantinga's argument is tight and compelling. It avoids many of the traditional criticism of the ontological argument. However there are a few criticisms:
1. The use of modal logic assumes existence of an actual world. Thus, it is a posteriori, not a priori.
2. Defining a perfect being in theistic terms is gratuitous.
3. The essence E is supposed by Plantinga to havre a real existence.
The ontological argument to be valid must assume that something exists and thus it rests on a cosmological principle.
The ontological argument has not proven God exists by itself. It has in fact yielded four types of God and a possible atheistic conception:
1. Leibniz & Descartes - theistic God
2. Spinoza - pantheistic God
3. Hartshorne - panentheistic God
4. Henle - polytheistic gods
5. Atheism - the universe is necessary, but does not include God
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
God and Experience
(Originally written February 27, 2007 in Book 13)
Philosophy of Religion 2nd Edition
Norman Geisler & Winfried Corduan
Wipf and Stock Publishers
Eugene, OR 2003
Part 1 - God and Experience
1. The Nature of Religious Experience
"Religion is an experiential issue, not a merely intellectual one" (Geisler, 13).
The Meaning of Experience
Experience is the awareness of a subject that individuals have.
Experience can be viewed two ways:
1) Generally
2) Specifically
General experience is the totality of consciousness.
Specific experience is the experience of a certain event in one's life.
Experience in general is the basis for particular experiences.
Primary awareness is the most basic level of experience. It's the basic unreflective consciousness of an individual.
Secondary awareness is the consciousness of being conscious. Remembering, reflecting, relating and reasoning occur in secondary awareness.
Secondary awareness presupposes primary and awareness.
The Meaning of Religion
Religion is difficult to define in a universally accepted way.
By using Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblance", philosophers of religion can state that no two religions have identical characteristics, but all religions exhibit typical characteristics to some degree.
Awareness of the Transcendent is usually included in most definitions of religion.
There are at least two senses in which religious experience involves transcendence:
1) Self-Transcendence: the process of overcoming the conditions of one's finitude
2) The Transcendent: the object of religious experience
The Christian God is one form of the Transcendent. The two terms are not equivalent.
Transcendent means two things:
1) Going beyond one's immediate consciousness while is somehow always known to be there.
2) Religious transcendent is the ultimate, that which is Beyond beyond where no more beyonds can be sought for.
Religious Experience Distinguished from other experiences
Religious experience is often closely associated with three other types of experience:
1) Moral
2) Aesthetic
3) Secular
Religious experience in contrast to moral experience
Some equate religious experience and moral experience. Kant defined religion as "the recognition of all duties as divine commands".
Soren Kierkegaard drew the sharpest distinction between a moral duty and a religious duty. Moral duties express one's universal duty, but that religious duties hold the individual as a particular as higher than the universal. Basically Kierkegaard claimed that a moral experience responds to a moral law, whereas a religious experience responds to the moral Law-giver.
Morality is a responsibility to the world; religion is a responsibility to beyond the world. "Morality tells a person what he ought to do; religion can help him do it" (20).
A religious experience has a broader scope of commitment, the commitment is different in kind, the object is higher, and its object has the power to overcome and unify.
"Morality is a matter of duty; religion is a matter also of desire" (21).
Moral mistakes can be overcome by religious experience.
Religious Experience in contrast to Aesthetic Experience
Schleiermacher states that science is speculative, art is practical and religion is intuitive.
Kierkegaard views the aesthetic, moral and religious as three dimensions of one's life:
Aesthetic - level of feeling
Ethical - level of deciding
Religious - level of existing
Aesthetic is simply knowing, religion is what one chooses to live.
"Aesthetics involves a sense of wonder and amazement; religion involves a sense of worship and adoration" (24).
The religious experience experiences what is ultimate; the aesthetic experience, regardless of how profound, is not ultimate.
Religious Experience in contrast to purely secular experience
There is a difference between humanistic and secular experience.
Humanistic experience can still be an experience of that which is transcendent.
"The fact that purely secular experiences are difficult to find is testimony to how incurably religious man is" (25).
That which is unable or unwilling to transcend in any direction is non-religious.
The transcendent is difficult to find, so some have given up the search. Others are completely unwilling to search for it.
Some refuse to commit to the Transcendent because they wish to honor themselves as the ultimate.
There are two ways in which a person can be irreligious or purely humanistic:
1) He is unable to see the Transcendent
2) He is unwilling to submit to it
The universality and reality of religious experience
Few, if any, have attained a state of complete secularism. "Most secular experience is quasi religious" (26)
Human kind as a whole has been religious. "To be human means to reach toward God" (27).
"The mere universality of religious experience is by no means a guarantee of its reality or a sure indication of its unreality" (27).
Philosophy of Religion 2nd Edition
Norman Geisler & Winfried Corduan
Wipf and Stock Publishers
Eugene, OR 2003
Part 1 - God and Experience
1. The Nature of Religious Experience
"Religion is an experiential issue, not a merely intellectual one" (Geisler, 13).
The Meaning of Experience
Experience is the awareness of a subject that individuals have.
Experience can be viewed two ways:
1) Generally
2) Specifically
General experience is the totality of consciousness.
Specific experience is the experience of a certain event in one's life.
Experience in general is the basis for particular experiences.
Primary awareness is the most basic level of experience. It's the basic unreflective consciousness of an individual.
Secondary awareness is the consciousness of being conscious. Remembering, reflecting, relating and reasoning occur in secondary awareness.
Secondary awareness presupposes primary and awareness.
The Meaning of Religion
Religion is difficult to define in a universally accepted way.
By using Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblance", philosophers of religion can state that no two religions have identical characteristics, but all religions exhibit typical characteristics to some degree.
Awareness of the Transcendent is usually included in most definitions of religion.
There are at least two senses in which religious experience involves transcendence:
1) Self-Transcendence: the process of overcoming the conditions of one's finitude
2) The Transcendent: the object of religious experience
The Christian God is one form of the Transcendent. The two terms are not equivalent.
Transcendent means two things:
1) Going beyond one's immediate consciousness while is somehow always known to be there.
2) Religious transcendent is the ultimate, that which is Beyond beyond where no more beyonds can be sought for.
Religious Experience Distinguished from other experiences
Religious experience is often closely associated with three other types of experience:
1) Moral
2) Aesthetic
3) Secular
Religious experience in contrast to moral experience
Some equate religious experience and moral experience. Kant defined religion as "the recognition of all duties as divine commands".
Soren Kierkegaard drew the sharpest distinction between a moral duty and a religious duty. Moral duties express one's universal duty, but that religious duties hold the individual as a particular as higher than the universal. Basically Kierkegaard claimed that a moral experience responds to a moral law, whereas a religious experience responds to the moral Law-giver.
Morality is a responsibility to the world; religion is a responsibility to beyond the world. "Morality tells a person what he ought to do; religion can help him do it" (20).
A religious experience has a broader scope of commitment, the commitment is different in kind, the object is higher, and its object has the power to overcome and unify.
"Morality is a matter of duty; religion is a matter also of desire" (21).
Moral mistakes can be overcome by religious experience.
Religious Experience in contrast to Aesthetic Experience
Schleiermacher states that science is speculative, art is practical and religion is intuitive.
Kierkegaard views the aesthetic, moral and religious as three dimensions of one's life:
Aesthetic - level of feeling
Ethical - level of deciding
Religious - level of existing
Aesthetic is simply knowing, religion is what one chooses to live.
"Aesthetics involves a sense of wonder and amazement; religion involves a sense of worship and adoration" (24).
The religious experience experiences what is ultimate; the aesthetic experience, regardless of how profound, is not ultimate.
Religious Experience in contrast to purely secular experience
There is a difference between humanistic and secular experience.
Humanistic experience can still be an experience of that which is transcendent.
"The fact that purely secular experiences are difficult to find is testimony to how incurably religious man is" (25).
That which is unable or unwilling to transcend in any direction is non-religious.
The transcendent is difficult to find, so some have given up the search. Others are completely unwilling to search for it.
Some refuse to commit to the Transcendent because they wish to honor themselves as the ultimate.
There are two ways in which a person can be irreligious or purely humanistic:
1) He is unable to see the Transcendent
2) He is unwilling to submit to it
The universality and reality of religious experience
Few, if any, have attained a state of complete secularism. "Most secular experience is quasi religious" (26)
Human kind as a whole has been religious. "To be human means to reach toward God" (27).
"The mere universality of religious experience is by no means a guarantee of its reality or a sure indication of its unreality" (27).
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Can we demonstrate the existence of God?
(Originally written February 20, 2007 in Book 13)
Can we demonstrate the existence of God?
Objections
1) Can never demonstrate an infinite cause from a finite effect.
2) God's existence is known through faith. Reason cannot prove matters of faith.
3) Even a demonstration that's logically valid may not correspond to reality.
4) We are limited by being enclosed in a finite universe, which we cannot escape. God exists outside of the universe, thus we cannot demonstrate his existence or non-existence.
5) Every argument for the existence of God must first assume His existence, thus all arguments are circular.
6) No argument for the existence of God is ever going to convince who doesn't already believe.
7) God's essence is the middle term, but we cannot comprehend God's essence.
Explanation of 7)
All birds are egg layers (major premise)
All penguins are birds (minor premise)
Therefore, all penguins are egg layers (conclusion)
"Birds" - the middle term
"egglayers" - major term, always the predicate of the conclusion
penguins - minor term, always the subject of the conclusion
The essence of God must function as the middle term, but we do not have any comprehension of the essence of God, so it cannot function that way.
8) There is no such thing as metaphysical knowledge. All knowledge is limited to experience.
9) God cannot be proven by scientific experiments.
10) The term 'God' is meaningless.
Can we demonstrate the existence of God?
Based on Summa Theologic 1, q. 2a.2
Objections revisited
1. A priori objections
2. A posteriori objections
A priori objection #1
Religious language is meaningless
- Ayer, Wittgenstein, logical positivists
- In order to be a meaningful a statement must be, in principle, verifiable
A priori objection #2
- We cannot validate religious experience empirically
- Flew
A priori objection #3
- What is rational, needn't be true
- post modernism
All dragons have wings
All monsters are dragons
Therefore, all monsters have wings
A posteriori objection #1
-Knowledge of God can only be based on faith
- Kierkegaard
A posteriori objection #2
- We cannot apprehend God's essence
A posteriori objection #3
- The finite can never extend to the infinite
- Alfred North Whitehead
A posteriori objection #4
- Presuppositionalism: Since God is first in Being, we must begin with God
- Kierkegaard, Van Til
Transcendental argumentation
Ways to draw valid logical inferences
1) Deduction - formal inferences from premises
2) Induction - probable conclusions from observations
We know there is a world
- What are the conditions that are necessary for there to be a world?
- We cannot look outside o the world to find God
- If there is a God, there could be evidence for a God in the world.
Any attempt to simply close the option of there being theistic proofs are purely arbitrary.
Can the finite attain infinity?
Georg Cantor's set theory
{1, 2, 3, 4 ... infinity}
{1, 2, 3, 4
but the set of real numbers, which is infinite is longer than the set of integers, which is also infinite.
Metaphysical infinity is more than mathematical infinite.
Important considerations
- Distinction between that something exists and comprehending its essence.
Distinction between ontology and epistemology.
-Ontology (being)
-Epistemology (knowing)
Ontologically, God exists or he doesn't.
Theistic proofs deal with the epistemological question: "Can one know that God exists".
Ontology - God exists
Epistemology - Ascertaining the ontology
Arguing in a circle.
God exists
Therefore, he has shown his effects
Therefore, he has ...
Therefore, he has ...
Therefore, God exists.
Believing the ontological statement that "God exists" and then providing an epistemological proof is not circular, so long as one does not assume it in the actual argument.
Assignment: argue for the ontological argument.
Can we demonstrate the existence of God?
Objections
1) Can never demonstrate an infinite cause from a finite effect.
2) God's existence is known through faith. Reason cannot prove matters of faith.
3) Even a demonstration that's logically valid may not correspond to reality.
4) We are limited by being enclosed in a finite universe, which we cannot escape. God exists outside of the universe, thus we cannot demonstrate his existence or non-existence.
5) Every argument for the existence of God must first assume His existence, thus all arguments are circular.
6) No argument for the existence of God is ever going to convince who doesn't already believe.
7) God's essence is the middle term, but we cannot comprehend God's essence.
Explanation of 7)
All birds are egg layers (major premise)
All penguins are birds (minor premise)
Therefore, all penguins are egg layers (conclusion)
"Birds" - the middle term
"egglayers" - major term, always the predicate of the conclusion
penguins - minor term, always the subject of the conclusion
The essence of God must function as the middle term, but we do not have any comprehension of the essence of God, so it cannot function that way.
8) There is no such thing as metaphysical knowledge. All knowledge is limited to experience.
9) God cannot be proven by scientific experiments.
10) The term 'God' is meaningless.
Can we demonstrate the existence of God?
Based on Summa Theologic 1, q. 2a.2
Objections revisited
1. A priori objections
2. A posteriori objections
A priori objection #1
Religious language is meaningless
- Ayer, Wittgenstein, logical positivists
- In order to be a meaningful a statement must be, in principle, verifiable
A priori objection #2
- We cannot validate religious experience empirically
- Flew
A priori objection #3
- What is rational, needn't be true
- post modernism
All dragons have wings
All monsters are dragons
Therefore, all monsters have wings
A posteriori objection #1
-Knowledge of God can only be based on faith
- Kierkegaard
A posteriori objection #2
- We cannot apprehend God's essence
A posteriori objection #3
- The finite can never extend to the infinite
- Alfred North Whitehead
A posteriori objection #4
- Presuppositionalism: Since God is first in Being, we must begin with God
- Kierkegaard, Van Til
Transcendental argumentation
Ways to draw valid logical inferences
1) Deduction - formal inferences from premises
2) Induction - probable conclusions from observations
We know there is a world
- What are the conditions that are necessary for there to be a world?
- We cannot look outside o the world to find God
- If there is a God, there could be evidence for a God in the world.
Any attempt to simply close the option of there being theistic proofs are purely arbitrary.
Can the finite attain infinity?
Georg Cantor's set theory
{1, 2, 3, 4 ... infinity}
{1, 2, 3, 4
but the set of real numbers, which is infinite is longer than the set of integers, which is also infinite.
Metaphysical infinity is more than mathematical infinite.
Important considerations
- Distinction between that something exists and comprehending its essence.
Distinction between ontology and epistemology.
-Ontology (being)
-Epistemology (knowing)
Ontologically, God exists or he doesn't.
Theistic proofs deal with the epistemological question: "Can one know that God exists".
Ontology - God exists
Epistemology - Ascertaining the ontology
Arguing in a circle.
God exists
Therefore, he has shown his effects
Therefore, he has ...
Therefore, he has ...
Therefore, God exists.
Believing the ontological statement that "God exists" and then providing an epistemological proof is not circular, so long as one does not assume it in the actual argument.
Assignment: argue for the ontological argument.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Philosophy of Religion - Hick: Introduction
(Originally Written December 28, 2006 in Book 7)
Philosophy of Religion 3rd Edition
John H. Hick
Prentice-Hall Inc.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
1983
Introduction
What is philosophy of religion?
It used to be that philosophy of religion was a defense of religion. It was seen as a continuing work of natural theology and not revealed theology. But this classical definition of philosophy of religion is better called 'natural theology' or 'apologetics'.
Philosophy of religion is properly seen as "philosophical thinking about religion" (Hick, 1).
Philosophy of religion is not an organ of religious teaching. It is not a branch of theology.
Philosophy of religion studies the concepts and belief systems of religion. It studies the phenomena of religious experience and the activities of worship.
Philosophy of religion is a second order activity. It is not a part of the religious realm, but it is related to it.
Philosophy of religion analyzes concepts like God, dharma, Brahman, salvation, worship, creation, sacrifice, nirvana, eternal life, etc. It compares these concepts with everyday life concepts, moral concepts, scientific concepts and artistic concepts.
What is religion? There are many definitions:
-phenomenological definitions
-interpretive definitions
-psychological definitions
-sociological definitions
-naturalistic definitions
-religious definitions
Maybe the word 'religion' does not have a single correct meaning.
Definitions of religion
Phenomenological: Concise Oxford Dictionary - Human recognition of a superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship.
Psychological: William James - the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider divine.
Sociological: T. Parsons - a set of beliefs, practices and institutions which men have evolved in various societies.
Naturalistic: Salomon Reinach - a body of scruples which impede the free exercises of our faculties.
Naturalistic: Matthew Arnold - ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling
Religious: Herbert Spencer - humanity's response to the divine
The way that religion may not have a single definition is like the way Wittgenstein showed how the word 'game' has no single definition. The family resemblance model of Wittgenstein can be applied to the concept of religion.
The concept of salvation (liberation), while not a universal in religion, is a very common characteristic.
All the great, developed faiths have a soteriological structure. Their is a fallen man and a chance for salvation (Soteria in Greek). All these religions offer a way to the divine. They have a way of reaching the Ultimate.
Philosophy of Religion 3rd Edition
John H. Hick
Prentice-Hall Inc.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
1983
Introduction
What is philosophy of religion?
It used to be that philosophy of religion was a defense of religion. It was seen as a continuing work of natural theology and not revealed theology. But this classical definition of philosophy of religion is better called 'natural theology' or 'apologetics'.
Philosophy of religion is properly seen as "philosophical thinking about religion" (Hick, 1).
Philosophy of religion is not an organ of religious teaching. It is not a branch of theology.
Philosophy of religion studies the concepts and belief systems of religion. It studies the phenomena of religious experience and the activities of worship.
Philosophy of religion is a second order activity. It is not a part of the religious realm, but it is related to it.
Philosophy of religion analyzes concepts like God, dharma, Brahman, salvation, worship, creation, sacrifice, nirvana, eternal life, etc. It compares these concepts with everyday life concepts, moral concepts, scientific concepts and artistic concepts.
What is religion? There are many definitions:
-phenomenological definitions
-interpretive definitions
-psychological definitions
-sociological definitions
-naturalistic definitions
-religious definitions
Maybe the word 'religion' does not have a single correct meaning.
Definitions of religion
Phenomenological: Concise Oxford Dictionary - Human recognition of a superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship.
Psychological: William James - the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider divine.
Sociological: T. Parsons - a set of beliefs, practices and institutions which men have evolved in various societies.
Naturalistic: Salomon Reinach - a body of scruples which impede the free exercises of our faculties.
Naturalistic: Matthew Arnold - ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling
Religious: Herbert Spencer - humanity's response to the divine
The way that religion may not have a single definition is like the way Wittgenstein showed how the word 'game' has no single definition. The family resemblance model of Wittgenstein can be applied to the concept of religion.
The concept of salvation (liberation), while not a universal in religion, is a very common characteristic.
All the great, developed faiths have a soteriological structure. Their is a fallen man and a chance for salvation (Soteria in Greek). All these religions offer a way to the divine. They have a way of reaching the Ultimate.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Notes on Logical Positivism
(Originally written May 10, 2006 in 3 Subject Notebook)
Logical Positivism
Central Claims/aims
1. Verificationism
2. Reductionism/logical atomism
3. Unity of science (physicalism)
A.J. Ayer - Logic, Truth and Logic
For a proposition to be cognitively meaningful it must be either:
1) Analytic (true by definition)
2) Empirically meaningful
Meaningful statements:
-A triangle has three sides (analytic)
-Bachelors are unmarried (analytic)
-There is life in the Andromeda Galaxy (empirically meaningful)
Meaningless statements
-Phil has an immortal soul
-God exists
-Killing innocent people is wrong
-The Mona Lisa is beautiful
Problems with Logical Positivism
1) The definition of cognitively meaningful fails its own verification principle. Thus, the term cognitively meaningful is cognitively meaningless.
2) Not all truths can be grounded in experience.
Wittgenstein:
Philosophy of Language
-Rejected the picture theory of meaning
-Endorsed the concept of meaning by usage
-Language is socially relative
-Language is always a practical function
-Meaning is derived from usage
-Family resemblances (game)
-Language is blurry concepts
Logical Positivism
Central Claims/aims
1. Verificationism
2. Reductionism/logical atomism
3. Unity of science (physicalism)
A.J. Ayer - Logic, Truth and Logic
For a proposition to be cognitively meaningful it must be either:
1) Analytic (true by definition)
2) Empirically meaningful
Meaningful statements:
-A triangle has three sides (analytic)
-Bachelors are unmarried (analytic)
-There is life in the Andromeda Galaxy (empirically meaningful)
Meaningless statements
-Phil has an immortal soul
-God exists
-Killing innocent people is wrong
-The Mona Lisa is beautiful
Problems with Logical Positivism
1) The definition of cognitively meaningful fails its own verification principle. Thus, the term cognitively meaningful is cognitively meaningless.
2) Not all truths can be grounded in experience.
Wittgenstein:
Philosophy of Language
-Rejected the picture theory of meaning
-Endorsed the concept of meaning by usage
-Language is socially relative
-Language is always a practical function
-Meaning is derived from usage
-Family resemblances (game)
-Language is blurry concepts
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