philosophy

The Cave

• three prisoners tied to rocks + can only look at a wall opposite, since birth not seen outside

• Behind them is a fire, between them a raised walkway, people outside walk + carry objects

• they can only see the shadows

• One prisoner escapes and is blinded by the sun (form of the good). realises his former view was wrong, his old life was useless

• informs the other prisoners, they think he is insane and kill him.

• allegory for realm of forms vs appearances

Plato’s forms

•  - we cannot gain true unchanging knowledge from our everchanging world - we are not experiencing the world correctly, we are trapped in ignorance, experience imperfect things but true reality is unchanging, perfect

• everything has a form - idea/eternal version of itself in the Realm of the Forms - a spiritual world- cause of all knowledge of objects, + of existence of all objects.

• form of good provides order/intelligibility to know objects, structure - course of existence

• souls belong there but we exist in physical forms in Realm of Appearances

• souls forgot the Realm of the Forms but recognise glimpses of it in the world around us. 

• We don't learn/invent anything but recall our imperfect memory of the relevant form

• we can only know something insofar as it has some order or form, the forms are the source of the intelligibility of all material objects.

• understanding form of good makes it impossible for you to do wrong, a philosopher with that understanding should rules as a ‘philosopher king’

Aristotle’s rejection of the Forms

• many different uses of ‘good’; there is no one Form of Good

• Goodness is subjective

• Ultimate Good cannot be achieved by man - cannot be even used as a guiding point

• lacks empirical evidence, no explanatory power regarding our experience, unnecessary hypothosis - unchanging forms do not ecplain the change we experience, occams razor - unnecessarily complicated

• → plato - this cannot be trusted, imperfect in this world, only a priori reason, counter - knowledge can be derived from experience

• If forms were essential to true understanding why does no one study them

• No practical value, theoretical knowledge does not necessarily lead to being able to do something

• Plato believed for something to be pure it needs to be eternal however something can be the perfect form of its quality without being eternal - whiteness

• Other objections

• Empiricists would object that we can know anything a priori other than sense experience

• No empirical evidence for the forms

• Various philosopher drew attention to plato's assumption that because we have a name such as good there must be something corresponding to hta term in reality, certain non genuine names onomatoids don't correspond to objects

• No empirical evidence for the forms, unnecessary hypothesis, no explanatory power regarding our experience - forms are uchanging but cant explain the change in our world - ockams razoor, we shouldnt believe unecessarily complicated

hume on perfect forms

we can create the idea of perfection in our minds wihtout experiencing it as we take our concept of imperfect and conceive of its negation

criticism of form of the good, aristotle

disagrees with platos idea that the cause of immorality is ignorance of the good, cultivating virtue is a requirement, merely knowing what is good is not enough

Nietzsche form of the good

‘dangerous error’ and said that philosophers often invent ideas that suit their emotional prejudices, such as desire for power. They then pretend to have figured out their views through logic and reason.

The Demiurge

• A powerful but not omnipotent being who created the physical world out of pre-existing material,using perfect Forms as his guide

• The Demiurge wants what is best for humanity but cannot create a perfect world for us as he is limited by the imperfections of physical matter. He is described as good; he can be measured against the form of Goodness and is not the source of Goodness.

AJ Ayer (on good)

we can have no shared understanding of good.

Aristotle: The First Empiricist

• Aristotle wanted to find understanding through exploring the world

• He believed we were taught some knowledge and we learnt skills through practice

• Our knowledge isn’t innate

• Aristotle pointed out that child prodigies could only be found in certain disciplines (maths, music…) but not in others (history, politics…)  as they require a different type of experience.

Aristotle’s two states of being

• Potentiality-the state of doing something or becoming something

• Actuality-when the potential is achieved

• interested in why things were the way they were(the move from potentiality to actuality)

• four causes of existence for everything that has been actualised.

Four causes

• Material cause-the things that it is made out of (wood)

• Formal cause-the shape that it takes (desk-flat top)

• Efficient cause-the person and actions that bring it about (craftsman)

• Final cause(telos, purpose)-the purpose it is made for (due to need to work on something solid/flat)

• all change can be explained by this - a postieriori to make sense

Aristotle and purpose

• purpose evident in everything; this includes human beings, the final cause is one explanation of why each thing moves from potentiality to actuality

francis bacon, purpose

purpose has no place in empirical science, metaphysical issue, purpose is a divine matter. you can investigate how it results from air and water not its snow is white - forms exist but science cant study it

modern science, purpose

telos of object can be reduced to non teleological concepts regarding material structure

dawkins, purpose

questions of purpose suggest that human life has purpose above scientific explanation but there’s no evidence for that (while this is harsh, aristotle seems to use telos in order to justify his prexisting beliefs in human purpose without evidence)

sartre, telos

• people cling to fabricated notions of purpose like religion/telos, afraid of not having a purpose.

• psychological, no metaphysical grounds, the way someone comes up with a theory is irrelevant just because people have a psycholgical need to believe in telos doesnt mean it doesnt exist.

• misunderstanding of his argument - nothing in our experience of our mind suggests we have a telos, we experience radical freedom - every choice is up to us - no telos to guide us

Aristotle’s Prime Mover

• agreed with Plato and Socratesthat the universe was in a state of flux

• Everything is contingent; but didn’t believe, as Plato did, that matter/universe was infinite

• Aristotle doesn’t agree with infinite regress, ‘prime mover’ started everything in the universe, always been there, ultimate answer to the reason for everything.

• final cause of the universe, final goal towards which everything is aimed

• not the efficient cause; doesn’t start movement by giving the universe a shove; an efficient cause would be altered by the act of shoving - it causes things to move by attraction but isn't changed in the process - not material but spiritual and intellectual

• necessary being -can't depend on anything else for its existence

• eternal - no potential for change, being eternal, it must be perfect

• no defect in something that exists necessarily, badness is connected with an absence of the ‘actuality’ God has

• can only think about itself, othing else is a fit subject to be considered, doesn’t think about us or interact with us, or know about the physical world.

• - deist concept

objections to prime mover

• ‘Efficient cause’ does not tell us what has happened, only that something has happened, covers so many changes cant’t give us any significant information.

• Purpose usually refers to a mental intention, inanimate objects can’t have this, function is not purpose

• hard to argue that all parts of the universe have a purpose, let alone the entire universe. Scientists talk about ‘blind’ evolution; Bertrand Russell: “I should say that the universe is just there and that’s all.”.

• concept of the Prime Mover assumes we only need one reason for motion/ change.

• The Big Bang: the universe began violently and is constantly expanding-> could also replace any notion of a creator/deity being involved.

• not the God of any religion, doesn't care about the world, no point praying to it.

• fallacy of composition - something true of one part of an objective isnt necessarily true of the whole, every part of the body has a purpose not necessarily the whole person

augustine, omnipotence

• ‘(God) is called omnipotent because He does what He wills’ God cannot do some things only because he does not want to do them

• therefore God must limit his own power.

Descartes, omnipotence

nothing is logically impossible to God because the phrase doesn’t apply to hin, nothing can limit his power

• God’s omnipotence meant that he could do literally anything

Peter Vardy omnipotence

The universe is created for free, rational human being

• ‘He can do anything that is absolutely possible. Everything that does not imply a contradiction is among those possibilities.’  God cannot do anything which is inconsistent with his character because that would imply contradiction, God is perfectly good so cannot do evil.

aquinas, omnipotence

Swinburne omnipotence

God can do anything but self contradictory things are not real things so they’re not included. 

• ‘And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light’ Gen 1:3

• ‘And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light’ Gen 1:3

• The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works’ Psalm 145:17

• he Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works’ Psalm 145:17

• ‘Forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet his does not leave the guilty punished; he punishes the children and their children’ Exodus 34:6-7

• ‘Forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet his does not leave the guilty punished; he punishes the children and their children’ Exodus 34:6-7

• Judgement:

• can God be perfectly benevolent and perfectly just? Can you love someone and send them to hell? If God doesn't punish a sinner, does that mean he doesnt love the victim?

• Swinburne ‘God is so constituted that He always does the morally best action… and no morally bad action’

• ‘God is so constituted that He always does the morally best action… and no morally bad action’

• Aquinas: commutative justice- Distributive justice

• directs exchange and business.- a ruler or steward gives to each person what his rank deserves’. We cannot compare human justice and divine justice

• “The idea seems to be that God is good because He manages, in spite of alternatives open to him, to be well behaved.”

• Davies

Omniscience, questions

• If God knows everything does God know what it’s like not to know something?

• Does God know how to physically do things himself?

• Does God knowing everything infringe on our free will?

• Boethius, eternity and free will

• Eternity is the complete possession all at once of illimitable life

• God is not temporal, he exists outside time as we experience it. He is not affected by it and will not change like temporal beings do

• “God’s foreknowledge does not impose necessity on things.”

• simple/unconditioned necessity: something that has to be that way

• Conditioned necessity: when a necessity follows form choice (you cannot be walking and not walking at the same time)

gods relationship with time, classic theology

• timeless, eternal or atemporal

• everlasting, he moves along our timeline but never begins or ends

augustine, god as timeless

• Creation gave us days etc, god created linear time

• If god was within time, he could not have made time

aquinas, god as timeless

• When we talk about god we use analogies - human language is incapable of describing god

• God is capable of divine love, different from human love which has constraints

• God doesn't change but creation changes, people act different which allows for a dynamic meaningful relationship between god and creation

richard creel, loving immutable god

• God can know what his own will is in any situation,doesn't need to wait for people to act

• People have genuine free will, but God knows all the possible actions and their outcomes, including his own response, and so a meaningful relationship is possible.

calvin, god as timeless

• ‘All things always were, and always continue to be, under his eye’

• ‘By predestination, we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he decided with himself whatever he wished to happen for every man’

Schleiermacher, attributes of god

• analogy of the knowledge that close friends may have of each other’s future behaviour.

  • ‘In the same way, we estimate the intimacy between two persons by the foreknowledge one has of the actions of the other, without supposing that in either case, the one of the other’s freedom is thereby endangered’

Sedgwick, free will

• in the case of actions in which I have a distinct consciousness of choosing between alternatives of conduct, one of which I conceive as right or reasonable, I find it impossible not to think that I can now choose to do what I so conceive

St Anselm, attributes of god

• connects free will to rectitude (doing the right thing).

• without actively choosing to do the right thing it’s meaningless.

• God cannot choose bad over good.

• God must have free will to maintain his sovereignty.

• Free will is the ability to choose good because you want to

• The eternal present, ‘Eternity’ is not a temporal concept

• we don’t have the correct language to talk about gods eternity

• ‘You surely cannot deny that the uncorrupted is better than something corrupt, the eternal than the temporal…’

st anselm

• “…. Although that which he foreknows in his eternity is immutable, in time it is mutable before it happens.”

st anselm

Richard Swinburne, attributes of god

• ‘The Hebrew Bible shows no knowledge of the doctrine of divine timelessness’

• ‘He also exists at any other nameable time… he is forwardly eternal

• A totally immutable God is a lifeless God, not a God with whom one can have a personal relationship

• The concept of a timeless god is logically incoherent, a god within time makes prayer and worship more meaningful

Oscar Cullman, attributes of god

• argues that the Bible sees God as having an endless duration. a timeless god makes human relationships with god impossible, which goes against everything Christianity teaches about God. He criticised the notion that God is immutable, love requires change.

Alvin Plantinga, attributes of god

• no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will/won’t perform the action

• We are free only when we can perform a morally significant action, only moral when it is freely done →god created a world where people can make bad decisions,necessary consequence of God giving us the best possible world.

• God can only do what is logically possible

• Cognitive and non cognitive language

• can test it, can be true or false, cannot test it, or metaphorical language

• Univocal and equivocal language

• unambiguous, ambiguous

Richard dawkins, religious language

religious language as false cognitive language

this is the ultimate in human knowledge of god: to know that we do not know Him

Aquinas

if you comprehend, it is not god. If you are able to comprehend, it is because you mistook something else for god’

Augustine

• Pseudo-dionysius/dennis

• : (God) goes beyond our ability and our use of discursive or intuitive reason. Therefore, we must not dare to speak, or to form any concept of the hidden… Godhead, beyond those things revealed to us by Holy Scripture.”

Three states of knowledge we can know and say about god, pseudo dionysius

• Via negativa

• State of affirmation- god can only be referred to in non personal terms, is beyond human understanding, the bible reveals god character but this knowledge is within limits of human understanding and the language is symbolic

• Adding beyond as a qualifier- god is beyond goodness

• god is beyond all meaning and intelligence, and he alone possesses immortality.

• John scotus eriugena:

Moses maimonides

• nothing both literal and positive that we can say about god by reasoning not prompted by scriptures

• Its impossible for truths by human intellect to contradict those revealed by god

• Only negative statements towards god can be correct, positive statements are disrespectful,

• language is so rooted in temporality that it cannot refer to god

• Anthropomorphisms in the bible shouldnt be taken literally - we should not have the idea that the Supreme Being is corporeal, having a material body

• Objection to via negativa, william ralph inge:

• denying our ability to define/describe god would lead to losing the connection between god and the world, if our words are not a valid way to express ideas about god, our thoughts are expressed in words, we may therefore be unable to think about god 

• Via negativa, strengths/weaknesses

• prevents anthropomorphism (giving a non human thing human characteristics). More respectful way of understanding god, spirituality and prayer are correct paths

• limited idea of god, the method doesn't work/is confusing, if we are saying something negative that implies a positive statement as well

• not a true reflection of how people talk about god,,

• john hick, pseudo dionysius

• guilty of a contradiction in asserting that god has revealed himself through the bible- if incarnation is literal truth then god is not ineffable

• The via positiva(cataphatic way)

• Anselm, aquinas and augustine - possible to say something positive about god

• eastern churches have a tradition of Reconciling negative and positiva, attempting to achieve theosis (likeliness and unity with god)→ initially, we can only speak of God in negative terms, but we can have positive truths about God revealed to us after extensive prayer/meditiation

• We dont encounter God primarily through language, it makes little difference to the experience whether such words are positive/negative

aquinas, analogy

• rejects univocal language because God is so differen that we cannot be meaning words in the same way when we apply them to him

• rejects equivocal language because it would mean there is no connection between God and man – religious language would therefore be meaningless.

• all religious language was analogical

• Aquinas’ Doctrine of Analogy is supposed to allow us to say something positive about God.

Analogy of attribution, aquinas

• Christian belief of God as the Creator, link between God and the world which we can use to draw comparisons.

• If we can find beauty or goodness in nature, for example, then we may have evidence to argue that God is also truly beautiful or good.

• example of bull’s urine- an expert can learn certain information about the health and status of the animal. the point of comparison can only be taken so far – healthy urine tells us that the bull is also healthy, not that the bull is entirely composed of Urine.

• all that the analogy of attribution says is that God somehow facilitates certain properties in humans

• “As creator and cause of everything, he [God] is the source of all the characteristics of his creatures. The analogy of attribution seems to leave us free to call God ‘warm’, ‘multi-coloured’ and ‘heavy’, because he is the source of all warm, multi-coloured and heavy objects!

• Vincent Brummer:

• uses the example of bread and baker: if we say that the bread is good and the baker is good, there is a connection between these two statements: the baker’s goodness is related to, but not identical with, the goodness of the bread

• Brian Davies. 

analogy of proportion, aquinas

• the type of properties that something has is dependent on the nature of the being that possesses them. God is pure, everything else is flawed - when we describe god as good it is not in the same way as humans

• Friedrich von Hugel

• The obscurity of my life to my dog must… be greatly exceeded by the obscurity of the life of God to me.

John hick, beyondness of god

• we know what we mean when we compare the faithfulness of a dog to the faithfulness of a man, but we don’t mean the word in exactly the same way.

Vincent Brummer, analogy of proportionality

• we are saying no more than that God is not wise in the same way as a human person is wise.

• But then we are still unable to say positively in what sense God is in fact wise…takes us no further than a negative theology.

John Macquarrie

• the way of analogy is the one that has the most positive content.

• It is not a literal or direct way of talking about God, and yet it is a way that seems to give us assurance that our talk is not just empty

• Unless we can say that it is meaningful, I think honest people would want to get rid of the whole business.

Frederick Ferre

• the value of analogy is in providing us with a rule we can use to discuss God.

• shouldn't use analogies to define transcendental ideas, we should use language carefully when speaking of God.

• The meaning of Religious Language is beyond human understanding, we can use terms in their proper context.

• Religious Language attempts to speak of God without pretending that we can grasp the full meaning behind such ideas.

• The rules licence the use of certain words properly at home elsewhere, in theological contexts.”

Hick, religious language

• using religious language as analogy allows us to make statements about God and still retain a sense of mystery about his nature.

• Christians can look to the incarnation of Jesus as a solution: in Jesus we can see the character and attributes of God, which enables us to make statements about God.

• Duns Scotus, religious language

analogy was too vague and leaves us unable to understand God and his actions.

religious language, strengths and weaknesses

• religious language is not absurd, can provide some understanding of God.

• avoids the pitfalls of anthropomorphism and agnosticism.

• assumes that there is a similarity between God and humanity; but if God is completely different, it is difficult to see how religious language can be anything other than equivocal.

• Analogy can be very circular – if we think God is a good thing, then when we say “God is good,” we are simply saying that God is 100% what it is to be God – but we don’t know what it is to be God!

Paul Tillich, religious language

• Symbolic language - ultimate reality beyond limitations of finite language

• Four functions of symbols - motivational, communicative, social, express experience of divine

• Religious language - not literally true, cant be empirically tested, God is not part of the empirical world and thus cant be represented by literal language

• Symbols expresses the ultimate - transcends capacity of finite reality to express itself

• cant be explained in everyday language, participate in what they represent (eg cross rather than a sign which is arbitrarily chosen to point to something) (this is difficult to make clear)

• Interpretation of symbols can change over time, need for interpretation- personal, if interpretation is too personal, it can be hard to judge if symbol language about god is appropriate

• Religious language is symbolic, maybe can be cognitive(expresses truth or false)

• Symbols lose meaning over time - some bible passages

John Hick, tillich

• Tillich overemphasises artistic nature of religious language as symbol, too subjective and open to interpretation. failing to explain exactly what it means to say that religious language “participates in” the true nature of God; if we do not understand the nature of the participation, does it really add anything to our understanding?

JH Randall Jr, symbol

• Non cognitive understanding of religious language as symbols - symbols are non representative, dont stand for any reality beyond themselves

• Religious language like music - speaks to us in a way we cant translate, emotional response but not literal truths about the world

• Symbols provoke emotional responses, responses from communities, communicate experience which is difficult to express in words, disclose something about the world in which they function

• Religion - human enterprise serving cultural function - not something beyond our experience eg god

Vienna circle

• maintained that the only meaningful language was that which could be verified.

• The Logical Positivists-  philosophy should not infringe on the work of science; discussions of the creation of the universe were a scientific matter, for example.

• Verification principle- meaningful assertions are in three categories- mathematical, synthetic, analytic

• Religious language is rendered meaningless:

  • discussion of God cannot be based on empirical evidence; religious experiences are subjective, don’t form the basis for empirical propositions.

  • not univocal- the meaning of an assertion may be unclear.

  • equivocal - talking about infinite existence – the result is different interpretations,

AJ Ayer, religious language

• empirical methods had to be used to assess whether a proposition was verifiable and meaningful.

• metaphysics is meaningless: “The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability. ”

• all religious beliefs, language and experiences as meaningless

ayer, strong/weak verification

• differentiated between “strong verification” – the application of the principle by the likes of those in the Vienna Circle – and “weak verification”: “A proposition is... verifiable in the strong sense… if, its truth can be conclusively established... But it is verifiable in the weak sense if it is possible for experience to render it probable.”

• Dislike of strong verification- theory of mountains on the moon, 1934- no way to verify → meaningless.

• we don't have to conclusively prove something through observation, we only need to show it might be verified. Weak verification allows us to make meaningful statements about the past, emotions and scientific prediction but not religious and ethical statements

• John Hick, religious language is meaningful, verification

• subject to eschatological verification. If he dies, he can verify if god exists.

• Keith Ward

• weak vp excludes nothing because of the criterion of verifiable in principle. God exists is verifiable since if i were god i would be able to verify my own existence. 

• Ayer later conceded

• many of us intuitively assume that all thinking is aimed at extending our knowledge… that reality is merely the object of knowledge. The effect of this mindset for the way religious faith is understood has been disastrous

• Brummer

Emmet, logical positivists

• logical positivists have misunderstood nature of metaphysical thinking - cannot understand theology or metaphysical statements like scientific ones

• statements should be understood as analogies, not right to ask if an analogy is empirically verifiable, we should consider if the analogy allows people to express ideas or understand a new concept - meaningful

• a sound theology should… be analogical in character

• Swinburne objected to the idea that an unverifiable statement was meaningless.

• Used the idea of kids believing in the plot of toy story, we cant prove this but we understand it therefore its meaningful

Hume and John Locke

empiricists, argue that truth and knowledge should be known via senses. Goes back to aristotle, based beliefs on scientific evidence

Karl Popper

if meaning depended upon strong or weak verification, then the whole of science would be wiped out. verifiable. We can never accept any statement as verifiable, can only accept it up to the point where it is falsified - not successful.

• Flew’s falsification principle, criticism

• Flew’s confidence in empirical evidence as the final test of meaning is, in itself, unfalsifiable.

• Brummer

• like D.Z. Phillips before him believes that scholars such as Hume and Dawkins are wrong to assume that if something is not scientific or measurable then it is somehow not significant.

Falsification, karl popper

• Science works by providing theories about the world which are tested and possibly proved false- falsified, eventually these are superseded by better ones

• A theory that is impossible to disprove is not a theory at all

Flew’s explorers

• One explorer believes there is a gardener the other doesn’t. They wait for a gardener, there isn't one-> they say it is because its invisible. making excuses to validate the existence of the gardener

• Many religious utterances are often assertions or explanations for what we observe but undergo Death by a thousand qualifications- renders them meaningless, devoid of empirical or theological content

• you can’t falsify religious language therefore its meaningless

Hare’s lunatic and religious ‘bliks’

• A lunatic is convinced all oxford dons want to kill him, presented with evidence to the contrary but says that only points to their true deviousness

• he is deluded but not about a concept of an assertation, doesn't assert anything capable of falsification, he has the wrong bliks

• Blik- utterance or claim that is not capable of falsification/verification

• An utterance need not be falsifiable in order to be meaningful, some are bliks, and are a significant part of how we understand the world

• Religious utterances are more akin to bliks-> can be meaningful

Mitchell’s maquis and the importance of faith

• Member of french resistance during wwii, encounters an impressive stranger who says he is the head of the maquis and he must have faith in him- the member goes along. He never talks to him again but hears reports that he helps the resistance sometimes, sometimes he doesn't

• Arguments from friends that the stranger is a double agent but still has faith

• For an utterance to be an assertion it must rule out at least one possible state of affairs, otherwise its meaningless

• if you believe osmething, you are less likely to accept evidence contradictory to it and give it the benefit of doubt

• this is potentially rational if the commitment derives from a profound personal experience

• Religious utterances are assertions, people are usually deeply committed to these -> it is potentially rational to hold them despite contrary evidence

Hare, response to flew

• concept of a blik may play a role in philosophy but not religious philosophy 

• Religious claims about god and creation, and christian claims about historicity of jesus cannot be bliks, religious bliks must be distinct from standard aspects of doctrine

Basil Mitchell, response to flew

• flew ignored the role of faith

• reasonable for the member to have faith because excuses can be granted to a mortal, fallible human being but god is omnipotent etc, same excuses are not available to him

Horsburgh on bliks

• Pure bliks- absolutely unfalsifiable

• Impure bliks- artificially unfalsifiable, masquerading as an explanation- would undermine scientific explanation

• Religious utterances are impure bliks

• Historical religions are not bliks- if religious beliefs are mix of bliks and non bliks then historical claims can turn into impure bliks

Wittgenstein, language games

• the purpose of language is to enable us to interpret the world. 

• our concepts derive meaning because they correspond to a mental image of an external reality

• later in his life, he saw his early work as exemplifying the language and methods of science; rejected earlier views - language does not derive meaning from reference to external objects but its context. to understand meaning, you have to understand context

Felicity McCutcheon, language games

• parallels between language and games:

• no one object that can be said to be the meaning of the word “game”; there is no one meaning of any particular word.

• language involves learning what you can and cannot say. Games involve participation as does language.

• Games are not reality, meaningfulness is determined by the users of language, not by an external reality.

• Making a wrong move is the equivalent of not using words correctly.

Michael Morris, wittgenstein

It’s often not clear which of the things which are said represent Wittgenstein’s own view… (vs ideas he is just playing around with)

Fergus Kerr

it is impossible to apply the expression lebensform to any phenomenon on the scale of ‘religion’. Religion is too big, there would need to be more specific language games

Bertrand Russel

I have not found in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting … seems to have grown tired of serious thinking and to have invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary.

DZ Phillips, language games

- "religious language games"; those outside the game couldn't understand what was going on inside it.

What's reasonable depends on what's going on in the game, so atheists can't criticise religion .in order to understand it, what you have to do is look at the practices rather than the doctrine – that's what gives the religion life and meaning.

opposition to dz philips, language games

• resembles fideism –beliefs of religion do not have rational foundations and are therefore removed from scientific and rational criticism → special pleading?

• If different faith communities have different language-games, where does this leave ecumenism- unity between christian churches

• religious believers are involved in other language-games in their lives, must be some common ground with other language-games- non-believers should be able to understand religious language

• Non-believers have an objective view of the use of religious language: players versus referees