Category: Anthology – Implications

Clarification summary part (a)

In this passage Ayer, having dismissed the idea of animistic gods, goes on to claim that philosophers now ‘generally admit’ that no God’s existence is ‘even probable’ because, as an hypothesis, the assertion ‘God exists’ is unverifiable because it is a ‘metaphysical’ claim referring to a ‘transcendent being’ about which nothing can be known and therefore the whole exercise is pointless or as he puts it of no ‘significance.’

In this paragraph he has also dismissed the traditional teleological argument on the basis that all this argument does is claim that there is ‘regularity in nature’ and since this is not what theists are really claiming about God but about his ‘transcendent’ nature which cannot be limited by being defined in ’empirical’ terms, this cannot be empirically verified, cannot be true or false and thus is again as he says in the title of his article ‘evidently nonsense.’

 

So what are the concepts which need clarifying if we are to understand Ayer’s position?

1. not even probable

 

One of the things which Ayer does is to equate ‘metaphysical’ with im-‘probable’ rejecting the possibility that there is anything other than the concrete realm. Another wild claim of Ayer’s is that ‘philosophers’ admit! Which ones? Not all that’s for sure! And what about ‘not even probable’? Dawkins admits that though not probable even he cannot be 100% certain that God doesn’t exist and as a result counts himself ‘in category 6 leaning towards category 7’ in his 7 degrees of belief. ‘Atheists do not have belief and reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist.’ But in opposition to Ayer’s intransigence even Dawkins says ‘I believe the existence of God as a scientific hypothesis is at least in principle, investigable.’

 

1. cannot be demonstratively proved
2. transcendent being
3. metaphysical terms
4. the dismissal of the teleological argument
5. empirical hypothesis
6. cannot be true, cannot be false and therefore of no ‘literal significance’
7. religious language including the verification and falsification principles.
8. ’empirical manifestations’ gives you the opportunity to talk about religious experience

 

(b) Do you agree? What are the implications …

It is in this section in which you get to grips with what you think life / society / groups of people / art/ literature / music / history / geography / politics … whatever… would be if e.g. the existence of God is not even probable or if all non-empirical claims were dismissed as of no literal significance?

 

Do remember to use examples and quotations too.

He begins this paragraph with the assertion that he has ‘disposed of the argument from religious experience’ on the basis that any assertions arising out of said experience would be unintelligible because they would derive from ‘intuition.’ Since he does not regard intuition as a ‘genuine cognitive state’ and it reveals no ‘facts‘ then all we can actually learn from the experient’s experience is about ‘the condition of his own mind‘ and no ‘intelligible propositions at all.’

    He makes the distinction between those ‘philosophers’ who don’t see a problem with believing equally the claims of the man who sees a yellow patch and yet who also claims to have seen God. He himself doesn’t think it is irrational at all to believe the former and doubt the latter. They are not the same kind of claims.

He goes on the kind of assertions made about a transcendent being have no ‘literal significance’‘ unlike any that may be made about ordinary objects, a pink bus, a purple elephant etc all are ‘empirically verifiable.’

It is the fact that the person who is making the claim is not just saying that they have had this unusual experience but above all are claiming that it is of a ‘transcendent being’ and that therefore this being exists. If they could just make the first claim all might be well but to make the second is not a ‘genuine synthetic proposition’, cannot be verified and is above and beyond the range of the actual experience.

 

An equivalent might be those strange Americans who believe they have been abducted by aliens. They seem pretty convinced but…

 

Clarifying of concepts:

• Has religious experience as an argument been disposed of?
• Believing people’s claims
• Differences in the nature of the claim
• ‘no literal significance’?
• Religious language –verification principle – take issue with what kind of assertions Ayer considers ‘verifiable’ and mention those that Ayer wouldn’t consider but which we would definitely think significant.

 

Swinburne’s principles of Credulity and Testimony

Is cognitive the only ‘meaningful’ aspect of life?

Ayer as dogmatic as those he criticises

Doesn’t he contradict his own claim in paragraph 1?

 

 

Remember what is Ayer actually trying to say? Or claim? Isn’t his own claim that ‘these statements are of no literal significance’ just as meaningless?

And remember Bertrand Russell (LP) who refused to even sit down at the chessboard? (An analogy – to the debate being pointless)

And what have other people said that may have a bearing or comment on his views?