This 2 page document provides a summary of Wittgenstein's view of religious language, with criticisms along the way.
What's inside:
- Wittgenstein's picture theory
- logical positivism with strengths and weaknesses
- The vagueness of words
- Wittgenstein's criticism of logical positivism ...
Wittgenstein’s religious language
One of Wittgenstein’s earlier views was the ‘picture theory’ of meaning –
“language is a way of representing facts”
Picture theory – cohered with the verificationism (Ayer) of logical positivists
(We only put forward what can be verified) – so Ayer is basically the same as
Wittgenstein.
Picture theory of language (his earlier theory – HE CHANGES HIS VIEW)
Meaningful language is restricted to factual and scientific sentences which
picture physical objects within the sensory world we live in.
This means that metaphysical language is ruled out – as it tried to picture
that which cannot be pictured – we cannot picture the non-physical. (e.g., a
happy car)
This includes thoughts, ideas, morals, emotions and spirits – However,
this is quite reductionist as it suggests that human values are limited to science
and facts, and this may not be the case as just focusing on science makes us
boring.
Therefore, most of religious language is meaningless, because we cannot
picture them – e.g., Jesus’ walking on water and it does not represent facts.
Logical positivism (strengths/weaknesses) (basically the verification principle)–
does seem logical as the physical human mind realistically would not experience
meta-physical concepts such as REX’s however, it does undermine certain
experiences such as REX – what are they if they are not facts?
Logical positivism is also accessible to everyone, as everyone is able to observe
sensory world. However, people do talk about things such as beauty, love, religion
and art and they seem to understand each other, yet logical positivists would say they
are incorrect and these things do not exist – but there does seem to be things beyond
the sensory world (such as love) that are accessible to everyone, but cannot be
verified.
The vagueness of words
W changes his view and recognizes the vagueness of words
“Words are defined by their use in language” (radical change from his
previous quote) – some words have a variety of different meanings e.g., down
(to go down, down syndrome, down a drink etc)
Words can be used in many ways – depends on the user, context and
audience of the words.
Picture theory works if you want to talk about science (in some contexts),
however it does not apply to aesthetic language or religious language – cannot
apply cognitive language to religious language.
Wittgenstein was not now completely disregarding the picture theory
- He recognizes picture theory has its limits
- He was aware that not all meaningful language acted merely as a factual
picture of something that could be observed or experienced within the world.
Wittgenstein’s criticism of logical postivism
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