tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post2619352968350356081..comments2024-02-20T12:26:24.682-05:00Comments on language goes on holiday: God as the creator of the worldDuncan Richterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-41924484035248301902018-02-07T18:06:31.051-05:002018-02-07T18:06:31.051-05:00If the it is Wittgensteinian philosophy of religio...If the it is Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion then it should be descriptive, although presumably in a way that brings out non-obvious features of religion. Or obvious but often ignored features of it. <br /><br />What inspired this blog post, though, was a vague feeling that I might be on the trail of some new kind of proof of the existence of God. This would not be a very Wittgensteinian enterprise. Nor would it be purely descriptive--certainly not of what most believers think. <br /><br />The philosophical question, as I see it, is less whether there is a person named Jesus and more: what does "There is a person named Jesus" mean? This is both (potentially) fascinating and why people hate philosophy. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-30232885318044849332018-02-07T11:03:58.866-05:002018-02-07T11:03:58.866-05:00so it's prescriptive not descriptive (surely m...so it's prescriptive not descriptive (surely most believers think there is a God/person named Jesus/God for example)?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-18622071355737994592018-02-05T14:17:32.978-05:002018-02-05T14:17:32.978-05:00There is something sideways about it, I think, but...There is something sideways about it, I think, but I find this interesting (and promising) rather than sneaky. And done right it shouldn't imply anything about the vast majority of believers, since they don't get into philosophy of religion. Doing it right would involve, for instance, not denying that "God" is a name. But the fact that "God" is a name does not mean that religious believers think there is some x such that the word "God" stands to it in the same relation as the words "Chrysler building" stand to that building. That said, I'm not really sure what the 'it' I'm referring to here (as in "doing it properly") is, so I should probably stop.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-70860446665442392212018-02-05T10:56:13.031-05:002018-02-05T10:56:13.031-05:00sorry yes I meant this theological assertion (God/...sorry yes I meant this theological assertion (God/Creator), to say that the vast majority of believers are wrong to think of the use of "God" as an act of naming/identity seems to be a sort of sideways move to have a say about existence/kind or not, but I may well be missing the point.<br />http://www.academia.edu/35560914/Wittgensteins_Inspiring_View_of_Nature_On_Connecting_Philosophy_and_Science_ArightAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-80688559821192284432018-02-05T10:30:53.001-05:002018-02-05T10:30:53.001-05:00I'm not 100% sure what the 'this' that...I'm not 100% sure what the 'this' that you refer to is, but I think an assertion of what is necessarily the case is centrally involved. That is, given the meaning of 'God' there can be no question of evidence for or against his existence, or of there being an hypothesis about his existence. 'God' is not the name of an entity that might or might not happen to exist. (Or, so far is that <i>is</i> what 'God' is, no such thing exists.) Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-3558242939968618392018-02-03T16:48:15.174-05:002018-02-03T16:48:15.174-05:00is there more to this than how things might strike...is there more to this than how things might strike us (or not) for which we could (given proper data) offer a genealogy, is this (as I think was unfortunately the case with Mulhall in your recent post) more an assertion of this being the general/necessary case? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-72677035496462039262018-01-31T16:21:16.998-05:002018-01-31T16:21:16.998-05:00Glad to be of help.Glad to be of help.Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-44263252179340585932018-01-31T12:55:35.673-05:002018-01-31T12:55:35.673-05:00I don't know when, if ever, I'll be able t...I don't know when, if ever, I'll be able to reply properly to this, but thanks very much. This is very much at least the <i>kind</i> of thing I want to say, or get at. If I get much clearer on what I have in mind then it might turn out to differ on some details, but this is helpful.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-74537036129200004812018-01-31T01:57:08.342-05:002018-01-31T01:57:08.342-05:00It seems to me that theology is being avoided in t...It seems to me that theology is being avoided in this discussion; a Hindu and a Christian should not be expected to say the same things about the relation between God and the world, and it is in theology that they try to make their differences clear to each other. (Nor would a Muslim and a Christian say the same things about how God might show up in the world. This was something that irritated me when I tried reading Philips some years ago; he took it to be a "grammatical remark" that God could not eat an ice cream cone or ride a bicycle -- I wondered if it was also a "grammatical remark" that God could not eat bread or have a hole gouged in his side.)<br /><br />It also seems to me to be unfair to the history of "the cosmological argument" to bracket it from religion in this way; certainly when Avicenna is inventing new philosophical ideas like "absolutely necessary existence" this is not being done for extra-religious reasons. It seems better to me to claim that what most philosophers want to do with the cosmological argument does not capture the cosmological argument: if it is to be the sort of argument it purports to be, then it must develop within its own comprehension an elevation of the thinker to God -- if it was an argument that there are infrared waves, then perhaps I could recognize it as sound without being affected by it, but this should not be true about an argument that there is God. There should not be a valid argument from anodyne premises and such an existentially significant conclusion.<br /><br />My way of trying to elaborate on this: It seems to me that the contrast between contingent and necessary existence that someone like Avicenna has in mind is not something antecedently understood and only accidentally deployed in laying out the cosmological argument, but is a distinction he wants to draw first by making clear what is at stake with it -- the employment of these notions in this argument is not accidental to them, but is essential to them, is their entire point. To grasp "contingent being" in the right way just is to have grasped the import of the argument, it seems to me; the actual chain of reasoning and conclusion about a necessary existence are then so much pleonasm. And this is something I think could be fairly well captured by the first sentence from LW you quote: "My (existential) attitude towards the world is as a series of contingent existences. I am not of the (independent) opinion that the being of the world is contingent." For opinions are things that I can hold or not depending on how things appear to me at a time; but viewing the world as created or not is not a matter of how things appear to me at a time, but of how I can appreciate appearances. It is not as if the world has appeared so far to me to be contingent existences, but might one day start presenting me with absolutely necessary ones instead. But to look at things of the world in this way is just to view them as contrasting with absolutely necessary existence, viz. God. To articulate a cosmological argument as a syllogism or to say that the (changeless, eternally revolving) heavens declare the glory of God then come to much the same thing: they are ways of expressing this contrast grasped between the contingencies of the world and the absolute necessity of an existence even more eternal than the revolutions of the heavens.Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-57379057131375461132018-01-30T16:20:46.063-05:002018-01-30T16:20:46.063-05:00Thanks. I think I agree, although perhaps you'...Thanks. I think I agree, although perhaps you'll correct me on that. That is, I wouldn't want to deny that believers might read "some majesty or the like in an aspect of nature as some evidence of a like quality in the Maker." I <i>think</i> the issue might be the idea of evidence. If I do a kind deed is this evidence that I am (probably) kind or more a manifestation, and therefore proof, of my kindness? And if God makes mountains is this evidence of some mountain-like (sublime, perhaps) feature of his nature or a demonstration of his sublimity? Using the word 'evidence' could make the whole thought sound too much like science or detective work. But I wouldn't want to go from this point (about which I think Phillips is correct) to saying that people are wrong to use the word 'evidence' in such contexts. We just need to be careful to understand what is and is not meant. <br /><br />Wondering at existence itself sounds odd to me too (as it does to Wittgenstein, although perhaps in a different way). It's not really an experience that I think I've ever had. He also says, though: <br /><br /><i>I could of course wonder at the world round me being as it is. If for instance I had this experience while looking into the blue sky, I could wonder at the sky being blue as opposed to the case when it's clouded. But that's not what I mean. I am wondering at the sky being whatever it is. </i> <br /><br />Does wondering at the sky mean wondering at there being a sky (of whatever color)? If so that seems a lot more specific than wondering at the existence of a world (of whatever kind). I find it easier to imagine this (sky) kind of wonder. But if he gives it as an example of the kind of thing he means by wonder at the existence of the world, then perhaps that isn't such a strange idea after all. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-52771887366753594372018-01-30T11:50:52.503-05:002018-01-30T11:50:52.503-05:00leaving aside authorial intentions (how would we k...leaving aside authorial intentions (how would we know?) I would think the meanings would be in the uses, for instance I've never met a believer who is actually in a state of wonder about existence itself but many who are reading some majesty or the like in an aspect of nature as some evidence of a like quality in the Maker, this often happens in moments in worship where people are asked to share their joys and concerns. In denying this sort of literalism Wittgensteinians often remind me of folks who start down the path of mythopoetic readings of sacred texts as ways of making them reason-able...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com