Summary of Ayer’s
contentions in his article: God talk is evidently nonsense.
Main assertion:
There can be
no knowledge of a transcendent being and no claims about that being that are
worthy of consideration since neither are empirically verifiable.
He supports this claim with these
arguments:
‘God’ is a metaphysical term and
assumes that a being to which the noun refers exists.
Arguments
from regularity in nature
merely conclude that there is regularity in nature.
Ayer doesn't
just dismiss theists claim that a ‘god’ exists but also the atheists’ claim that ‘god
does not exist’ and even the agnostics
claim that though they do not believe in the existence of such a ‘god’ they do
not deny that it is possible that one exists. None of these assertions, Ayer says,
has any merit due to being unverifiable therefore of ‘no literal significance.’
According to
the Verification Principle
only assertions which can be verified by the five senses have any meaning or
according to the Falsification
Principle only claims where we can know what it would take to falsify
them have any meaning.
Ayer
distinguishes between primitive
religions and sophisticated religions. He accords some merit to the
primitive religions since they made empirically verifiable claims such as I
know my god is angry because it is thundering. Ayer would say that the
assertion that the thunder was due to ‘god’ was incorrect at least the claim is
verifiable; just a primitive belief about the cause of thunder. However
sophisticated religions tend to make claims about a ‘transcendent’ being which has super-empirical attributes.
These attributes such as omniscience cannot be verified and so make the claim
meaningless.
He also
dismisses the argument from religious
experience on the basis that such an experience does not provide any
real knowledge [the only real knowledge, or truth, as far as he is concerned comes from
science,]since it is really about ‘mystical intuition’ another sense that Ayer
sneers at! But he couples this with a real pop at those who claim to have had
these experiences by suggesting they tell us more about the state or condition
of their minds with the heavy implication that these people might well be mad!
Finally he
explains that in his view we do not have to believe everything people tell us
and that he sees no difficulty with believing something sensible someone claims
to have seen and disbelieving something more outlandish the same person has
seen, again because even if he has seen a pink flying elephant, this claim
could be verified [ie found to be true or not] whereas if he claims to have
seen God this cannot be either verified or falsified and so is a meaningless
claim. [This is an allusion to Swinburne’s Principles of Credulity and Testimony.]
Ayer Revision 2013
1. What is the thrust of Ayer’s article?
2. With which main concepts does he
illustrate it?
3. And what do you know / what would you
say about them?
4. What main assertions does he make?
·
Animistic vs non-animistic religions [or sophisticated
vs (presumably) primitive...]
·
Arguments
for the existence of God specifically the teleological argument [regularity in nature.]
·
Empirical and verifiable vs transcendent,
metaphysical and presumably
unverifiable objects’ existence...
·
What
counts as a genuine question or assertions / propositions of literal
significance.
·
Atheism, agnosticism and theism
·
Religious feeling, religious
knowledge and truth
·
Intuition and knowledge vs cognitive
faculties and facts
·
Sense-content
·
Religious experiences and their psychological interest
No comments:
Post a Comment