Logical Positivism - But is it really?

The introduction of the book Language, Truth and Logic by one of the Vienna Circle's leading thinkers (A J Ayer) set out the main principles of what is known as logical positivism. The Logical Positivists used the verification principle as a means to judge whether a statement has any real meaning to it. They argued that statements such as 'God exists' and 'God is love' are neither true nor false but rather that they are meaningless. With this attitude, they took the view that there is not even any point in raising questions that are to do with such things because as they see it, there is nothing to talk about. This reminded me of the similar view that Bertrand Russell took against the cosmological argument. For, he thought that the concept of a necessary being in fact has no meaning and therefore means there was no point in looking into the subject of the cosmological argument. Due to this, as he saw it, the only things that are necessary are parts of logic, such as B following A in the alphabet or two and two adding up to four. 

However, moving back to the verification principle, when conducting philosophical discussion there seems to be two different ways in which a word or phrase can have meaning. The first being denotation, which is when the words stands for something, such as the word window meaning the part of a wall which has glass in it. And the second is connotation, which is when words carry further meaning in them. Such as the word window, which possibly can mean a gap for opportunity. So, to alter this traditional view of meaning, the Logical Positivists claimed that evidence is only useful if it is available to be tested by the senses that humans posses. And because of this, Ayer thought that the concept of God is meaningless in the first instance, for as he says "The notion of a being whose essential attributes are non empirical is not an intelligible notion at all."

The main line of argument that the Logical Positivists took was that meaning must be verifiable in some way. In fact, going back to the famous table that we learnt at the beginning of year 12, they analyse statements by using analytic and synthetic methods. When looking at analytic statements, we do not have to check whether they are true or false through our past experience, or through our senses, as they just give us information about certain words, much like dictionaries. And the way in which these particular statements turn out to be true or false depends on what is actually being suggested by that statement. For example, something like '50p is a measurement of money' is a true analytic statement, whereas something like 'pigs are flying insects', is not. In addition to this tautologies are counted as these kinds of statements, as they are by definition true within themselves, like the statement 'ice is icy'.

When coming to the synthetic statements, they seem to be a little more complex. They give us information about reality, such as saying 'that bed is comfortable'. Logical Positivists decided that for a synthetic statement to be meaningful, they have to be verifiable from using empirical evidence. So, in order for the statement about the bed to be true, they must be able to test it by lying in the bed, and deciding through the sense of touch, whether it really is comfy or not. This also applies to all other statements, as they must be able to be tested through all the other senses. And once they have deduced whether the statement is in fact verifiable, it then either gives the statement meaning or does not. The verification principle therefore suggests that we will know the meaning of a statement if we know the conditions behind the statement. And if we don't know them then it would seem that the statement is meaningless. Which is why Ayer comes to the conclusion that talking about God is meaningless, because we cannot prove that statements about God are either true or false. 

What is Religious Language? And how can we truly understand it?

When starting this topic we looked at code breaking... and I can safely say I think it was the most fun I've ever had in a lesson for quite some time! And when getting onto more topic specific things such as scholars, I found Ferdinand de Saussure's idea of semiotics very interesting as well. The three main things to grasp in semiotics are the Sign, the Signifier and the Signified. The first, is a label that we give something which enables us to communicate about it. The second is the form that the Sign takes. So by using an apple as an example, 'apple' would be the sign, and depending on the kind of apple of course, one might say that as well as the attributes the object has, such as green/red skin, stalk and general roundish shape, the Signifier of it is the way in which we pronounce that particular thing, e.g. A-P-P-L-E. And finally the concept that one is left with, which is the Signified, is the final result of both Sign and Signifier that come together in a coherent idea that allows people to talk about and understand what the apple is.

However, as Kant pointed out, some things in this world that can be talked about such as time, and cause and effect don't need Semiotics to explain them. He called these things Conceptual Schemes. For, within these things, the innate ideas of them are compatible with everyone's understanding, despite the fact that time is something we've implemented to help us understand the world. When really time is subjective to different people, and doesn't necessarily work in the way we've made it. So, concept schemes are produced by the imagination in relation to time, as humans tend to have a need to produce an anthropocentric view of the world.

Now, the real reason that religious language is necessary is so we can participate in 'God-talk', which is the ability to be able to talk about God in a meaningful and coherent manner. The two sides that represent a kind of 'For' and 'Against' when trying to decide whether 'God-talk' is meaningful or not, are the Centuries old traditional religious believers who believe that you can speak and write about God, because God is a part of reality. And on the other hand, are the Logical Positivists and those that they influence who claim that statements about God have no meaning, because they don't relate to anything in reality. A possible explanation of this might be the epistemic distance that is sometimes described to exist between God and humans, because due to this we would potentially never be able to understand God as a part of our world and would therefore make it impossible to make any statements about God that have any real meaning. However, although the Logical Positivists are using empirical reasoning and Cognitive Language, which are factual statements that are proved either true or false, religious statements may still have value and meaning. This is because, although Non-Cognitive Language such as religious statements cannot be verified, they cannot be falsified either, which suggests to me that perhaps they should be treated as though they have meaning until proved incorrect. In addition to this, because Non-Cognitive Language includes things such as symbols, it can still be very meaningful to a religious believer. Furthermore, it is then free from scrutiny from people who criticise religious language, as it seems as though art and symbols can evoke a different kind of emotion and connection to God than what can be explained by just religious language alone.

Happy 169th Birthday Friedrich Nietzsche!

When first thinking about what to write in this post, I was wondering about what the most important thing is that Nietzsche has to offer to philosophy. And since pondering upon this thought I deduced, that, putting aside his key ideas such as; the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism, the Will to Power, the "death of God", the Übermensch and eternal recurrence, if there is anything that you should take away from this, at the very least it is that he had an epic moustache!

However, more importantly and more relevant to the synoptic unit I will be doing at the end of this year... I will be looking at his idea of the Übermensch and the death of God. Firstly though, something that I found quite interesting about Nietzsche, was what happened to him relatively early on in life. After resigning from being the Chair of Classical Philosophy at the University of Basel, his health problems rapidly escalated and he lost all mental faculties (which seemed to be due to a tertiary stage of syphilis), and due to this, his sister then cared for him. It then followed that because of this, for a long time, Nietzsche was seen to be very anti-Semitic, and even a kind of Nazi. All because of the fact that whilst under his sisters care, she reworked his unpublished writings to fit her husbands nationalist ideologies. Therefore this is why since then, many twentieth-century scholars have attempted to disprove these false allegations against Nietzsche. 


Now, moving onto the idea of the death of God. The term 'God is dead' has possibly become his most well known remark. The basis around this comment comes from an origin in Nihilism (which I guess is coming from the Latin word nihilo - nothing?) which basically argues that life is now existing without objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value. And especially in terms of Nietzsche, Nihilism always has negative meanings and connotations. In addition to this, as he was a moral Nihilist, he stated that morality does not inherently exist, and anyone claiming to have any established morals has abstractly invented them, in order to feel as though they have truly gained them. The reason that this links in with the death of God, is due to how Nietzsche possibly felt that the secularisation of modern society, had 'murdered' the Abrahamic God, and left people with the feeling that life has no inherent importance or purpose. In fact, Nietzsche had his own definition and version of this which he called passive Nihilism. To achieve this idea of passive Nihilism, he worked from the basis of Schopenhauer's doctrine, which he describes as a kind of Western Buddhism. This incorporates the ascetic attitude which is a 'will to nothingness', that religions such as Buddhism and Jainism use, which again work upon the idea that there is nothing of value to be found in the world, which is why they have an abstinence towards many worldly pleasures.


The other important concept to understand abouts Nietzsche's thoughts, is that of the Übermensch. The general translation of this, is that of a superman, or an overman. The Übermensch first appears in Nietzsche's book 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra', where the gift of the Übermensch is given to mankind as a way to solve the problem that faces it, even though they are not yet aware of the problem. In the book, it also presents the Übermensch as the creator of new values, and he appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and also to nihilism. The reason that the Übermensch is above everyone else and different is because he/she does not follow the common morality of ordinary people and rises above the 'herd mentality' in order to judge for him/herself what the notion of good and evil really is. However, in order for the Übermensch to fulfil their greatest potential he/she must have a spiritual evolution in self awareness which for example, then enables them to overcome the traditional superstitions of deep rooted beliefs such as Christianity and any others that they hold in life. And so finally, Nietzsche then thinks that once the Übermensch has achieved these feats they must then accept our worldly experience as the greatest one available and possible, and then they will truly have satisfaction in their lives, as well as objective meaning. So, overall it might possibly be saving them from the death of God.

Mr Alvin Plantinga - has he found the maximally great Ontological Argument?

When first hearing about this argument, and the way in which Plantinga approaches it, I got rather nostalgic about last year and studying AS, as this possible worlds idea that he comes up with, made all of the quantum stuff come rushing back to me. Mainly due to the spacey kind of idea it put into my head, about alternate worlds or parallel universes. But, after reading through his argument for the first time, I decided that I'd rather deal with quantum any day of the week, as at first glance it seems to be quite a confusing argument... However, since reading it through several more times, I found that Plantinga's clever alternative version, and criticism of Norman Malcolm's argument, incorporates his mathematical background well to put across his own ontological argument.

The first thing that seems to be key to understanding his argument, is by firstly grasping his concept of what the possible worlds are. To Plantinga a possible world isn't just another world somewhere else in the universe, it is another parallel world in an entirely separate universe in which a completely different chain of events unfolds every second. A world that is different for all different possibilities that could happen. So for instance, in one of the possible worlds I may have not just happened to look out the window and instead, I would have continued to write on this blog, describing a completely different chain of events, that you would now be reading as something different to this. (Messes with your head doesn't it?!) And so due to this rule of the possible worlds theory, it pretty much indicates the existence of an infinite number of worlds, as there are so many alternate things that can happen in even a second.

He then starts by stating that the greatest possible being must have maximal excellence and greatness in every possible world. This ensures he corrects what he sees to be incorrect about Malcolm's argument, as to Plantinga, Malcolm doesn't overtly state that the God he is proving to exist, has the maximal greatness within our world.

So, on to the argument itself, he starts by saying that firstly there is the possibility of a being of maximal greatness, which is of course his definition of God. And that secondly such a being would exist necessarily, not contingently. This is because contingent beings depend upon other factors for their existence and so are not maximally great. Now, moving on to his third point which is a maximally great being's existence in a possible world is either necessary or impossible, and fourthly, in addition to this a maximally great being's existence is only impossible if it is self-contradictory. These last two points imply that if there is something about the concept of a maximally great being that makes it illogical and incoherent then it is impossible. For example if we took an example like that of Descartes', which is of a mountain without a valley, which is an example of a self contradictory statement. Then we can see how it applies to Plantinga's argument and to a maximally great being, as it would not be incoherent or contradictory to say that 'a maximally great being exists in a possible world'. He then goes on to his fifth point, which states that a maximally great being's existence is not impossible in an infinite number of possible worlds. And then finally his sixth, which concludes by saying therefore, it is necessary in all possible worlds, including ours. So overall, if something is not inherently contradictory (e.g. it is possibly true), then it is necessarily true in all worlds (including the actual world in which we live).

Norman Malcolm's Ontological Argument

This argument for me at first glance, was perhaps the most easy to read, and understand. Simply due to the fact that unlike Descartes and Anselm's arguments there is no confusing definition of God to wrap my head around. Furthermore, because he was using parts of Anselm's Proslogian to form his argument (chapters 2 + 3), it could be assumed that he also thought of God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived. However, because he, like Kant saw error within chapter 2 of Anselm's Proslogian, he sought to use chapter 3, which he established as a second ontological argument which was not susceptible to such criticism as a way to form his own argument.

So, on to his argument, which is as follows;

1) If God does not exist, his existence is impossible
2) If God does exist, then his existence is necessary
3) God's existence is either impossible or necessary
4) God's existence is not impossible
5) Therefore God's existence is necessary

Now, from this argument a few things can be identified, the first thing being that because of the implicitly assumed definition of God, Malcolm therefore states that God is immutable or unchanging. This means that God couldn't and wouldn't change from non-existence to existence, because as he says 'If God does not exist, his existence is impossible'. Another key point about this argument is how Malcolm gives an example of the only thing that is truly impossible, which is the statement "Nothing Exists" as this is an oxymoron, or a contradiction. And so secondly due to this, a further thing that this argument shows is that because of that oxymoron, this next statement "God Exists" can be possibly true and is therefore why he says that the existence of God is not impossible.
Thirdly and finally, another side that can be drawn from his argument, is that of the four possibilities concerning God, which are;

1) Necessarily false - God can't exist.  (any statement that were to fall under this are contradictory propositions, such as the statement 'this square is round)

2) Contingently false - Could but doesn't exist.
(the reasons that 2 and 3 cannot be applied to God are simply because God shouldn't be limited or dependant upon anything else)
3) Contingently true - Could and does exist.

4) Necessarily true - Has to exist. 

So overall, the reason why God is being proved to exist in Malcolm's argument is because God cannot be brought into existence, or be made to stop existing, therefore necessitating God's own existence. And in addition to this because the existence of God is not impossible, it means that there is a chance of this necessary God existing.

It seems English A level may prove to be pretty useful for this... Descartes' Ontological Argument.

Firstly, something that is worth noting about Descartes, is that as a sceptic, he approached his arguments from the point of view that he is proving that God cannot be doubted. This was because he always worked towards an end goal, by starting off by doubting everything at first. Which is where his famous quote "cogito ergo sum" or "I think therefore I am" came from, as in this case he used scepticism to make a point about whether he even existed himself.
  

So what did the dubbed 'father of modern philosophy' have to say about God? Well his argument is as follows...  Firstly alternatively to Anselm's description of God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived, he says God is the supremely perfect being. So by stating this at the beginning, it already shows God to be a being, and therefore negating the need to change him from a concept or an idea into a being at a later stage in the argument. His second point is that a supremely perfect being has all the perfections that there can be. Indeed by giving God attributes, it is therefore enforcing this idea of God as a being, rather than a whishy washy concept or idea. Thirdly, Descartes says that existence is a perfection, because similarly to Anselm's argument, being in existence is better than not, therefore making it a perfection. And lastly to end his argument he says therefore God exists necessarily. Now an alternative way that he could have ended his argument which would have saved it from contradicting itself, would have been to say therefore he possesses the quality of existence. This would have ensured that he did not confuse God to exist (verb), and God to have existence, (abstract noun), and therefore not have stated him to have two differing attributes. The problem within these arguments, is that when people such as Descartes use both the verb and the abstract noun to describe God, it is just completely incoherent. For, the definition a verb is a doing word, so it would not make sense to say that God has 'exist'. Which is what he starts the argument off by saying, but by replacing the word exist with existence. So again, if he had altered the last point of his argument it would be coherent, as it would just show God to possess existence.

Despite this, another part of his argument that is clear to us, is that he sees existence as something that God has, which makes existence a predicate to God. This means that it is a quality that God possesses and affirms it as an attribute of him. He gives the example of triangles, and mountains. In these examples he says that you can think of a triangle only as a shape that has 3 interior angles that add up to 180 degrees. And a mountain can only exist if there is a valley along side it as well. However, although it is true that you can imagine these two things not actually existing within reality, it is impossible to think of God as not existing, as he is entwined with existence like a triangle is with having three angles.

I thought I was on to a winner with this argument. Sadly not so! Mulla Sadra's Ontological Argument

Whilst researching Descartes' Ontological Argument, I stumbled across an Iranian Islamic philosopher who apparently led the Iranian cultural renaissance of the 17th century. And that's not all, he has also been described as arguably the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years. Impressive stuff! So after reading this and glancing over his argument, I thought that he may have dodged the grammar bullet that seems to be taking out a lot of these Ontological arguments. However, that is sadly not the case, and the words 'exist' and 'existence' still appeared within the same argument. Therefore still posing the same problem to the argument as that of Descartes'. 

On the contrary, something I found particularly interesting about Sadra is that unlike Descartes and many other philosophers, his argument comes from the stand point that he is not working a priori and in fact rejects these kinds of arguments on the basis that existence precedes essence. And also that the existence of human beings is more fundamental than their essence. So, to challenge these ideas Sadra put forward an argument called the Argument of the Righteous. The argument attempts to prove the existence of God through the reality of existence. In addition to this the argument proves that a thing is demonstrated through itself, which perhaps reinforces the idea of a necessary God. 

Now, to the argument itself... He starts off by stating that there is a being. Then follows on by saying that this being is a perfection beyond all perfection, and that God is perfect and perfection in existence. After this is actually what caught my eye in the first place with his argument as he goes on to say existence is a singular and simple reality. I found this to be a very unusual way of describing it, as I have not yet come across anyone else who describes it as such. In addition to this he continues to state that singular reality is graded in intensity in a scale of perfection. And finally, that scale must have a limit point, a point of greatest intensity and of greatest existence... And that is when I saw it. The issue with this argument, just like many others. Because unfortunately that was not the final point, and as you guessed, he finished by saying "Therefore God exists".

In doing this, he like many others, jumps from God having existence, to being a God that exists. So by having an unfortunate important incoherence it does open up this argument for criticism. But despite this I found his argument to be an interesting alternative to Descartes' as I like the idea of a scale of perfection, and the way in which everything is presented as singular and together in one reality. Furthermore it also reminded me of Irenaeus' point about our potential to reach perfection throughout our lives, and it gave me an idea that perhaps we slide along Sadra's scale until we reach our own intended desired perfection.