Religions > Atheism > Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist")
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"MG" |
| Date: |
14 Jan 2005 06:35:17 AM |
| Object: |
Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
Is it possible to be an atheist and claim that the word "god" is
meaningless to them? Yes.
Is it possible for someone to believe that they are an atheist and
consistently claim that the word "god" is meaningless to them? No.
Lots of atheists here make the mistake of saying "god" is a meaningless
term to them, whilst at the same time saying that they lack a belief in
the existence of gods. The truth of the second claim manifestly
contradicts the first, and it is relatively easy to prove.
Def 1: "atheist" =df someone who lacks a belief in the existence
of a god or gods.
Def 2: Let R believe the proposition "R is an atheist"
P1: (principle of composition): For any proposition P, the meaning of P
depends on the meaning of P's constitutive terms.
P2: For any S, and for any proposition P, if S believes P then S
understands the meaning of P.
C1: (from P1 and P2): For any S, and for any proposition P, if S
believes P, then S understands the meanings of P's constitutive terms.
C2: (def 1: "atheist"): "god or gods" is a constitutive element of the
meaning of "atheist".
C3: (C2, C1, def 2): R understands the meaning of "god or gods".
Comment: The above is a relatively formal proof, but the intuitive point
is fairly clear:
1) you can't believe that you are an atheist unless you understand what
"atheist" means.
2) In order to understand what "atheist" means you must understand what
what class of beliefs it is that atheists lack.
3) That class - call it the class of G-beliefs - is defined by reference
to the existence of "a god or gods".
4) So an atheist has to understand what "god or gods" means in order to
understand what it is to be an atheist, in order to believe that they
are an atheist.
If an atheist did not understand the term "god or gods" then they could
not understand what belief it was that they lack, that makes them an
atheist. So they could not believe that they were an atheist.
Now... there are a lot of little tricks that some atheists try to get
out of this. None of them work.
The most popular is to argue like this:
A: "Someone tells me that 'pog is red' - but I can believe them without
understanding what 'pog' means. So understanding a constitutive term is
not required for a belief involving that term."
Nope - what you believe is that "the entity named 'pog' is red" - and
that is a different belief from believing "pog is red". The difference
occurs because of what philosphers sometimes call "referential opacity"
in "intentional contexts". Belief is what is sometimes called an
intentional context (so is desire, hope, etc.). This means that you
cannot substitute co-referential terms and guarantee preserving truth
value. A good example, is that Oedipus believed "Jocasta will be my
wife", but he did not believe "my mother will be my wife", even though
Jocasta was both his mother (he had no idea of that) and his wife to be.
He desired to sleep with his wife, but did not desire to sleep with his
mother, even though his wife was his mother.
Another try is this:
B: "Someone tells me that 'pog exists' - but I can lack a belief that
pog exists without understanding what 'pog' means. So understanding a
constitutive term is not required for a lack of belief in the existence
of whatever it might be they think they refer to."
Correct - but that is not the issue! Yes, you can lack a belief without
understanding the meaning of a constitutive term of that belief. BUT you
cannot *believe* that you lack that belief without understanding which
belief it is that you lack, and for that you need to understand it's
constitutive terms.
Another one:
C: "The word 'god' is used in so many different way by different
religions, most of them completely contradictory, that the term is
completely meaningless to me. But I lack a belief in any of them (or at
least all the ones I've come across) so I believe I am an atheist but
the term 'god' remains meaningless to me".
This is an interesting attempt but only because it raises several
interesting issues concerning langauge and meaning.
Firstly, it confuses a multiplicity of contradictory meanings with
meaninglessness by assuming that we have one word when we have, in
effect, either 1) many senses of the same word or 2) different words
(the choice between these two descriptions is ultimately arbitrary).
For example, the word "wicked" means (roughly) "something bad". It also
means (roughly) "something good". Both uses are current in English and
they clearly contradict each other. Have we, therefore, a meaningless
word "wicked"? No. Have we two words with different meanings, or one
word with radically different senses? Yes - you decide which description
you prefer. But you can't claim that it is meaningless just because it
gets used by different people in different contexts in many different
(often contradictory) ways.
Secondly, (if we assume each usage is internally consistent) the only
way one can judge two different words as contradicting each other would
be if one understood both meanings. Hence each would be meaningful.
Thirdly, the usage of the term "god" does allow us to form a *clear
enough* "god" concept to to form a judgement about when we lack a belief
in the existence of such things. Any atheist who says that they have no
idea what "god" means is either being disengenuous or is confused about
what it is for a term ot have meaning - generally, its the latter.
Another attempt....
D: "Every definition of 'god' that I've come across is self
contradictory in some way. I lack a belief in the existence of
self-contradictory entities, so 'god' is meaningless and I believe I am
an atheist."
More interesting issues...
Fourthly, (and this is very contentious) a self-contradictory deginition
is not meaningless. A sentence or concept is not meaningless if it is
*understood* and in order to determine that a sentence or concept is
self-contradictory it must be understood what is being said.
If I define "pog" = "a triangle with four sides" some people will say
"that is meaningless" - when what they actually mean is "that is
impossible - there can be no such entity - when I try to think of such
an entity I cannot". None of these is the same as the sentence or
concept being meaningless. The very fact that someone can make such
judgements about "pog" demonstrates that they understand what "pog" means.
I say this is contentious because many poeple think that all meaningfull
concepts must be possibly instantiatable. I'm not convinced, especially
because mathematicians frequently prove that certain entirely meaningful
and clearly defined concepts are not instantiated.
Fifthly, it is a mistake to think that to understand a concept term it
must be stated in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
Relatively few entirely meaningful concepts in ordinary languages are
amenable to strict definition. Try defining "game" and you'll see what I
mean. Try defiining "love", etc. Meaningful terms do not require
definition. If they did langauge learning could not even get started,
for to learn the first word we would need to already know words in which
the meaning of the first word would be defined.
I expect I'll get the same responses I have in the past when I've
mentioned all this.
And just to make it clear - I lack a belief in the existence of gods.
Goober.
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| User: "Christopher A. Lee" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
14 Jan 2005 08:58:01 AM |
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On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:35:17 -0800, MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Is it possible to be an atheist and claim that the word "god" is
meaningless to them? Yes.
Is it possible for someone to believe that they are an atheist and
consistently claim that the word "god" is meaningless to them? No.
Lots of atheists here make the mistake of saying "god" is a meaningless
term to them, whilst at the same time saying that they lack a belief in
the existence of gods. The truth of the second claim manifestly
contradicts the first, and it is relatively easy to prove.
No, moron. It's something theists believe, as part of their religion.
It's an attribute we don't have.
Because it doesn't even apply outside the theist's religion.
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| User: "MG" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
15 Jan 2005 01:27:13 AM |
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Christopher A. Lee wrote:
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:35:17 -0800, MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Is it possible to be an atheist and claim that the word "god" is
meaningless to them? Yes.
Is it possible for someone to believe that they are an atheist and
consistently claim that the word "god" is meaningless to them? No.
Lots of atheists here make the mistake of saying "god" is a meaningless
term to them, whilst at the same time saying that they lack a belief in
the existence of gods. The truth of the second claim manifestly
contradicts the first, and it is relatively easy to prove.
No, moron. It's something theists believe, as part of their religion.
It's an attribute we don't have.
Because it doesn't even apply outside the theist's religion.
Instead of dishing out insults, how about addressing the argument?
If you are having trouble with the more formal proof I can provide you
with a dumbed down version for you:
1) If you believe you are an atheist, then you must know what "atheist"
means.
2) If you know what "atheist" means then you know that it means someone
who lacks a belief in the existence of a god or gods.
3) If you know what it means for someone to lack a belief in a god or
gods, then you know what "god" means.
Ergo
4) If you believe you are an atheist you know what "god" means.
Let me know which of the above claims or inferences you think is
mistaken, and why.
Goober.
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| User: "Long" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
20 Jan 2005 12:38:39 PM |
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MG wrote:
4) If you believe you are an atheist you know what "god" means.
1. Atheism isn't a belief, moron, "Atheism is characterized by an
absence of belief in the existence of gods." --
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html
2. Atheists are not required to agree with theists' "understanding" of
what the term, 'god' means; it means something entirely different to
theists and atheists, as Chris Lee points out.
3. For atheists 'god' means meaningless metaphysical speculation with no
basis in fact.
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| User: "Virgil" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
20 Jan 2005 01:29:11 PM |
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In article <HPydnaIyuv8tZ3LcRVn-iQ@comcast.com>, Long <long@nospam.net>
wrote:
MG wrote:
4) If you believe you are an atheist you know what "god" means.
1. Atheism isn't a belief, moron, "Atheism is characterized by an
absence of belief in the existence of gods." --
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html
Does Septic XL Troll, the Craven Capon, say that one cannot believe
oneself to be an atheist?
2. Atheists are not required to agree with theists' "understanding" of
what the term, 'god' means; it means something entirely different to
theists and atheists, as Chris Lee points out.
It doesn't have to, but very well might mean different things to
different people. It certainly seem to mean something to Septic XL
Troll, the Craven Capon, which it does not mean to agnostic atheists.
3. For atheists 'god' means meaningless metaphysical speculation with no
basis in fact.
Not necessarily. Some atheists have a much clearer understanding of what
'god' means than many theists. And not all atheists are as certain as
Septic XL Troll, the Craven Capon, claims to be that 'gods' can have no
basis in fact.
'Atheism' as Septic XL Troll, the Craven Capon, describes it is actually
better termed anti-agnostic anti-theism.
But Septic XL Troll, the Craven Capon, will cavil at being correctly
labeled.
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| User: "Long" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
20 Jan 2005 03:27:15 PM |
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Virgil wrote:
... claims ... that 'gods' can have no
basis in fact.
Straw man. It is your side making the claim, that there might be a magic
invisible space pixie. Please show your basis in fact for that, or sit
down and shut up.
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| User: "Virgil" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
20 Jan 2005 04:54:48 PM |
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In article <k9ednfNaYoiuv23cRVn-iw@comcast.com>, Long <long@nospam.net>
wrote:
Virgil wrote:
... claims ... that 'gods' can have no
basis in fact.
Straw man. It is your side making the claim, that there might be a magic
invisible space pixie. Please show your basis in fact for that, or sit
down and shut up.
The straw men and red herrings are all of Septic XL Troll, the Craven
Capon's creation. "Magic invisible space pixies" are pure red herring,
trying to distract attention from Septic XL Troll, the Craven Capon, own
claim to know things for which he has no evidence, such as his often
repeated claim about gods, "False, there are no such things".
When Septic XL Troll, the Craven Capon, shows his basis in fact for his
false claim that anybody besides Septic XL Troll, the Craven Capon, has
ever claimed that there might be a magic invisible space pixie, then and
only then does he have any right to ask for evidence.
But since no such claim has ever been made, Septic XL Troll, the Craven
Capon, is asking for evidence of a claim that he knows does not exist.
That fits nicely the "straw man" image, where a loser creates a false
target to shoot at when there are no real targets that he can hit. And
Septic XL Troll, the Craven Capon, is the creator of that straw man and
that red herring.
So Septic XL. Troll, the Craven Capon, is WRONG! AGAIN!
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| User: "Goober" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
21 Jan 2005 02:47:27 AM |
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Long wrote:
MG wrote:
4) If you believe you are an atheist you know what "god" means.
1. Atheism isn't a belief, moron, "Atheism is characterized by an
absence of belief in the existence of gods." --
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html
1. I never said it was a belief. Try reading what I write carefully
before you make a fool of yourself again.
2. Atheists are not required to agree with theists' "understanding" of
what the term, 'god' means;
2. As for that, I never said otherwise. Same advise applies as above.
it means something entirely different to
theists and atheists, as Chris Lee points out.
2b. As for that, that depends very much on which atheist you talk to,
and (to a much lesser extent) which theist.
3. For atheists 'god' means meaningless metaphysical speculation with no
basis in fact.
3. Speak for yourself. You do not speak for me or all atheists. There
are many atheists for whom "god" is entirely meaningful.
Goober.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
20 Jan 2005 01:34:10 PM |
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Long wrote:
MG wrote:
4) If you believe you are an atheist you know what "god" means.
1. Atheism isn't a belief,
Red Herring Fallacy from Septic.
2. Atheists are not required to agree with theists' "understanding"
of
what the term, 'god' means; it means something entirely different to
theists and atheists, as Chris Lee points out.
Lee has been demonstrated to be incoherent.
3. For atheists 'god' means meaningless
Oxymoron from Septic.
Jeff
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
17 Jan 2005 08:30:47 PM |
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On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:35:17 -0800, MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Is it possible to be an atheist and claim that the word "god" is
meaningless to them? Yes.
Is it possible for someone to believe that they are an atheist and
consistently claim that the word "god" is meaningless to them? No.
Oh, ***** you drooling idiot! Do your masturbating somewhere else.
[]
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
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| User: "Goober" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
17 Jan 2005 10:03:12 PM |
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stoney wrote:
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:35:17 -0800, MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Is it possible to be an atheist and claim that the word "god" is
meaningless to them? Yes.
Is it possible for someone to believe that they are an atheist and
consistently claim that the word "god" is meaningless to them? No.
Oh, ***** you drooling idiot! Do your masturbating somewhere else.
Straight to the point as ever. If you don't want to play, no-one's
forcing you. There's plenty of room in cyberspace. Chill. :)
Goober
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
18 Jan 2005 08:02:09 PM |
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On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 20:03:12 -0800, Goober <go.away@nowhere.com>
wrote:
stoney wrote:
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:35:17 -0800, MG <philosophicus@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Is it possible to be an atheist and claim that the word "god" is
meaningless to them? Yes.
Is it possible for someone to believe that they are an atheist and
consistently claim that the word "god" is meaningless to them? No.
Oh, ***** you drooling idiot! Do your masturbating somewhere else.
Straight to the point as ever.
Heheheh. Thank you. /tips hat.
If you don't want to play, no-one's
forcing you. There's plenty of room in cyberspace. Chill. :)
Ah. Play. That's different.
/grumbling
Wasted a good reply when it turns out wasn't needed.
harrumph...grouse..grumble....
/grumbling
;)
Goober
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
14 Jan 2005 06:40:07 PM |
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Using such logic, we can readily prove that anyone who claims to be a
noncognitivist is not so.
Def 1: "noncognitivist" = someone who lacks a belief that the word
"god" carries any coherent meaning
Def 2: Let R believe the proposition "R is an noncognitivist"
P1: (principle of composition): For any proposition P, the meaning of P
depends on the meaning of P's constitutive terms.
P2: For any S, and for any proposition P, if S believes P then S
understands the meaning of P.
C1: (from P1 and P2): For any S, and for any proposition P, if S
believes P, then S understands the meanings of P's constitutive terms.
C2: (def 1: "noncognitivist"): "god" is a constitutive element of the
meaning of "noncognitivist".
C3: (C2, C1, def 2): R understands the meaning of "god"
What a bizarre conclusion, but the logic is inassailable, right? :p
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| User: "MG" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
15 Jan 2005 06:47:04 AM |
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wrote:
Using such logic, we can readily prove that anyone who claims to be a
noncognitivist is not so.
Def 1: "noncognitivist" = someone who lacks a belief that the word
"god" carries any coherent meaning
Def 2: Let R believe the proposition "R is an noncognitivist"
P1: (principle of composition): For any proposition P, the meaning of P
depends on the meaning of P's constitutive terms.
P2: For any S, and for any proposition P, if S believes P then S
understands the meaning of P.
C1: (from P1 and P2): For any S, and for any proposition P, if S
believes P, then S understands the meanings of P's constitutive terms.
C2: (def 1: "noncognitivist"): "god" is a constitutive element of the
meaning of "noncognitivist".
C3: (C2, C1, def 2): R understands the meaning of "god"
What a bizarre conclusion, but the logic is inassailable, right? :p
That's really a quite delightful attempt. I really appreciate the above
because it helps me make my thinking more precise.
It all stems from a slightly infelicitous phrase on my part. This leads
to confusing the word "god" with the concept <god> named by the word
"god". This confusion was inadvertantly encouraged by me using quotes in
C2 around that word ("god") which made it look as though I was saying
that the *word* was part of the meaning of atheism. Words aren't parts
of meanings - words represent meanings.
Another way to see this is that the *word* "god" (in my original
argument) is *not* a constituent element of the *proposition* that R
believes. The word "god" is a constituent of the *sentence* that we, as
English speakers, use when expressing that proposition, but it is not
part of the propositional content that sentence expresses.
So, firstly, you've identified something I think I should change to make
my meaning clearer. (see below) Thank you.
Secondly, with this distinction in place, we ought to be able to see
that, appropriately interpreted, C3 is not at all as bizarre as it first
seems, because "understanding the meaning of 'god'" for the
non-cognitivist means understanding the concept of a three character
string with the letters "g", "o", "d" - in that order. It is not
understanding the *meaning* of the word "god", in the same sense as in
my original proof. It is understanding the meaning of "the word 'god'".
It's very difficult ot express myself clearly here, but hopefully you
can see the difference. One is about the meaning that a word "god"
*represents* or *expresses*, the other is about the meaning of *a word*
"god".
The source of this difference lies in the fact that in my original proof
the definition of atheism did not contain any disquoted elements. In
other words, the definition of atheism in not in terms of *words*, but
in terms of the proposition that those words express. I just have to use
words to express that proposition, but the definition is to be
understood purely in terms of the concepts those words represent in
English, not in terms of words. This can be seen from the fact that an
atheist is not defined *as* a certain string of words, but only *by* a
certain string of words. I could define atheism in precisely the same
way in French - I would just use different words. But in in your
definition of a non-cognitivist, a particular word (the character string
"god") is one of the conceptual elements. There's the impoprtant difference.
My adjusted proof would go like this:
Def 1: "atheist" =df someone who lacks a belief in the existence
of a god or gods.
Def 2: Let R believe the proposition expressed by the sentence "R is an
atheist"
P1: (principle of composition): For any proposition P, the meaning of P
depends on the meaning of P's constitutive elements.
P2: For any S, and for any proposition P, if S believes P then S
understands the meaning of P.
C1: (from P1 and P2): For any S, and for any proposition P, if S
believes P, then S understands the meanings of P's constitutive elements.
C2: (def 1: "atheist"): the meaning of "god or gods" is a constitutive
element of the meaning of "atheist".
C3: (C2, C1, def 2): R understands the meaning of "god or gods".
Notice that with this clarification, C2 would come out as false (and the
inference invalid) - it would not now follow if you tried your proof
again because the *meaning* of "god" is *not* part of the meaning of
"non-cognitivist" - only the *word* "god" is part of the meaning.
Goober.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
18 Jan 2005 11:32:03 AM |
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Notice that with this clarification, C2 would come out as false (and
the
inference invalid) - it would not now follow if you tried your proof
again because the *meaning* of "god" is *not* part of the meaning of
"non-cognitivist" - only the *word* "god" is part of the meaning.
I think this brings us to the crux of the problem, that is, that you
have defined "atheist" so as to implicitly affirm that the term "god"
carries meaning and thus *subtly* begged a few questions against the
noncognitivist, to whom the term is either meaningless or (more likely)
internally incoherent, like the proverbial 4-sided triangle. If I were
a noncognitivist (as I often am on Mondays, and oftentimes on Tuesdays
following a 3-day weekend) I would heartily object to this approach.
Instead, I would narrow our scope of consideration to native speakers
of English (in order to avoid certain problems of sentential meaning)
and propose the following dichotomy:
"theist" = one who affirms that the sentence "god exists" expresses a
true proposition
"atheist" = everyone else
With such definitions in place, noncogs may consistently call
themselves atheists and attend atheist meetups, rallies, and such.
This is good for them, since there are not nearly enough
self-identified noncogs to have decent parties. >;)
*ponders* *sips coffee* *ponders*
On Wednesday-Sunday (and the better part of most Tuesdays) I would
prefer a more precise and thoroughgoing approach, based on an analysis
of the meaningfulness and truth of the proposition (P) expressed by the
sentence (S) = "god exists"
"noncognitivist" = one who does not affirm that S expresses a coherent
proposition
"cognitivist" = one who does affirm that S expresses a coherent
proposition
There are, in turn, two kinds of cognitivists:
"agnostic" = one who does not affirm that P is true or false
"gnostic" = one who does affirm that P is true or false
There are, in turn, two kinds of gnostics:
"theist" = one who affirms that P is true
"atheist" = one who affirms that P is false
Under such an approach, self-identified noncognitivists may not
consider themselves to be atheists, and self-identified atheists may
not declare that "god" is meaningless, or even merely incoherent.
Moreover, it is fairly clear why this is the case, because there is not
subtle importation of god talk into the definition of atheist.
-
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| User: "Goober" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
20 Jan 2005 03:41:30 AM |
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wrote:
Notice that with this clarification, C2 would come out as false (and
the
inference invalid) - it would not now follow if you tried your proof
again because the *meaning* of "god" is *not* part of the meaning of
"non-cognitivist" - only the *word* "god" is part of the meaning.
I think this brings us to the crux of the problem, that is, that you
have defined "atheist" so as to implicitly affirm that the term "god"
carries meaning and thus *subtly* begged a few questions against the
noncognitivist, to whom the term is either meaningless or (more likely)
internally incoherent, like the proverbial 4-sided triangle. If I were
a noncognitivist (as I often am on Mondays, and oftentimes on Tuesdays
following a 3-day weekend) I would heartily object to this approach.
Instead, I would narrow our scope of consideration to native speakers
of English (in order to avoid certain problems of sentential meaning)
and propose the following dichotomy:
"theist" = one who affirms that the sentence "god exists" expresses a
true proposition
"atheist" = everyone else
I agree that it brings us to a crux. And it is a crux concerning whether
we believe or affirm sentences or propositions. It is an intereting
suggestion, but I don't think it will stand as a definition of a theist,
and for very general semantic grounds. I say this because (it seems to
me) that theists don't affirm the truth of *sentences* - they affirm the
truth of *propositions* that they *express* (to themselves and others)
in sentences. That's why there can be French monoglot theists who do not
affirm the truth of the sentence "God exists" (because they don't
understand it). But French monoglot theists are "atheists" by your above
definition! You could get around this, if you wanted, but only by having
a different definition of a theist for each langauge.
Yes, I appreciate that you want to avoid problems of sentential meaning
by sticking to English speakers, but I hardly think that you *can* avoid
the problem since you define the assertion of the theist as being
constituted by an *English* sentence. The point of the definition of
"theist" is (even though we are defining an English word) that we are
defining a category of entities on the basis of a *property* - a
property that can apply no matter what language they speak (or even,
perhaps, if they speak no language at all). So we can't adequately
define theist in terms of assertion of a sentence in a particular
langauge, such as English.
Does it beg the question? Well, you're wrong if you think that I
implicitly attribute to the atheist an understanding of the word "god" -
I don't. Someone can be an atheist and have no understanding of the word
"god". My conclusion is that someone cannot *believe* that they are an
atheist without undertanding a god concept - at least well enough to
make a judgement concerning them not having a belief in such things.
Since is a very different conclusion, it doesn't beg questions in any
direct way. Of course, you are not suggesting that I am. You are
suggesting that I may be begging some questions in a *subtle* way - if I
am it lies in my implciit, but I think wholly justifiable contention -
see below - that we believe propositions, not sentences.
I adopt here the definition of "atheist" that I see more often used in
this newsgroup and a version of which, I believe, appears in the
alt.atheism FAQ. It strikes me as generally adequate to the task. This
is not to say that atheists might not be better advised to try something
else to define their position - something that does not make subtle (or
unsubtle) reference to a god concept. Your suggestion does indeed avoid
reference to a god concept and with that definition my argument would
collapse. But it seems to me to completely fail to pick out the class of
atheists.
With such definitions in place, noncogs may consistently call
themselves atheists and attend atheist meetups, rallies, and such.
This is good for them, since there are not nearly enough
self-identified noncogs to have decent parties. >;)
lol. I am the same about many issues in philosophy of langauge.
*ponders* *sips coffee* *ponders*
On Wednesday-Sunday (and the better part of most Tuesdays) I would
prefer a more precise and thoroughgoing approach, based on an analysis
of the meaningfulness and truth of the proposition (P) expressed by the
sentence (S) = "god exists"
"noncognitivist" = one who does not affirm that S expresses a coherent
proposition
"cognitivist" = one who does affirm that S expresses a coherent
proposition
There are, in turn, two kinds of cognitivists:
"agnostic" = one who does not affirm that P is true or false
"gnostic" = one who does affirm that P is true or false
There are, in turn, two kinds of gnostics:
"theist" = one who affirms that P is true
"atheist" = one who affirms that P is false
Okay. But this is hardly an improvement on you views on Monday or on
Tuesdays after 3-day weekends. Your definition would render the Catholic
Archbishop of Paris (were he French monoglot) a noncognitivist, hence
not a theist, because he fails to affirm that "God exists" is a coherent
sentence. This all goes back to whether we are best advised to define
our terms, at base, in terms of sentences or propositions.
My argument starts from the view that beliefs are attitudes towards
propositions, not sentences. I hold this view because without it, we
would be forced to say that monoglots of different languages would not
have any beliefs in common (because they would not have any sentences in
common). That, I take it, is absurd, and a reductio of the suggestion
that we believe sentences.
Of course, you have been careful to not talk about *beliefs* - but
instead you talk about *affirmations*. The trouble with focussing on
affirmations is that they have a convenient ambiguity between sentence
and proposition. In one sense, what I affirm is a sentence, in another,
it is what the sentence expresses. I think that that ambiguity only
confuses the issues. What my argument is fundamentally addresed to is
belief, which I take to be a relation to propositions.
Under such an approach, self-identified noncognitivists may not
consider themselves to be atheists, and self-identified atheists may
not declare that "god" is meaningless, or even merely incoherent.
Moreover, it is fairly clear why this is the case, because there is not
subtle importation of god talk into the definition of atheist.
-
Agreed (modulo everything else I say above).
Goober.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
20 Jan 2005 02:06:30 PM |
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Thanks for the reply, Goober. It boosted the signal-to-noise ratio in
this thread considerably. Perhaps I'll have to disregard posters who
toss off personal attacks in favor of concentrating on those willing to
pursue an enlightened conversation. ;)
[For English speakers]
"theist" =3D affirms that "god exists" expresses a true proposition
"atheist" =3D everyone else
I agree that it brings us to a crux. And it is a crux concerning
whether we believe or affirm sentences or propositions.
AFAIK, we cannot tell whether someone (other than ourselves) affirms a
proposition beyond judging whether they act as to affirm the sentence
which expresses that proposition, regardless of the language in which
it is expressed. IOW, this problem is not for the noncogs alone.
...theists don't affirm the truth of *sentences* - they affirm the
truth of *propositions* that they *express* ... in sentences.
I disagree. They *believe* propositions but they can only outwardly
*affirm* sentences, since they do not have any access to the
propositional meaning subjectively held in the mind of another beyond
the construal of the sentence which bears the meaning. It is the
sentence that they outwardly act to affirm, and they may only hope that
it conveys the same meaning to others as it holds for them.
That's why there can be French monoglot theists who do not
affirm the truth of the sentence "God exists" (because they
don't understand it). But French monoglot theists are "atheists"
by your above definition! You could get around this, if you
wanted, but only by having a different definition of a theist
for each language.
It was my intended approach only to deal within the realm of English
speaking persons. As it happens "theist" is an English term, so this
ought not be a huge problem.
we are defining a category of entities on the basis of a
property that can apply no matter what language they speak
Maybe *we* could do that (what with it being Thursday and all) but a
noncognitivist clearly cannot. If one takes the proposition expressed
by "god exists" to be incoherent and/or meaningless, there is no basis
to distinguish theists from atheists on account of their (dis)belief,
as there is no meaningful proposition which may be (dis)believed.
Instead, one must distinguish solely based on people's actions
affirming or disaffirming sentences which seem to convey such a
proposition. In practice, we have access only to people's
affirmations of sentences and not their actual attitudes towards
propositions, so this ought not create new and interesting epistemic
problem.
My conclusion is that someone cannot *believe* that they are an
atheist without understanding a god concept - at least well enough to
make a judgement concerning them not having a belief in such things.
To the inclusivist noncognitivist who longs to attend all the hip
atheist parties, all that matters is that noncogs do not make
affirmations of theism, however incoherent, self-contradictory, or
meaningless the propositions carried by those affirmations might be.
Your suggestion does indeed avoid reference to a god concept and
with that definition my argument would collapse. But it seems to
me to completely fail to pick out the class of atheists.
Regardless of whether the sentence "god exists" expresses a meaningful
proposition, an (English speaking) "atheist" may be readily defined as
"one who does not affirm 'a god exists'" or something like that. Terms
like "athe=E9" must be defined separately, but this is not a big deal.
If you want to talk philosophy with the French, you may as well learn a
smattering of the language.
If I failed to address any of your other points, please let me know.
While I might personally prefer to speak in terms of propositions, it
seems necessary for the noncognitivist to have some sensible way of
distinguishing theist from atheist, and I hope that this might help the
noncog lurkers out there in cyberspace feel a bit more comfortable
posting in alt.atheism.* fora.
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| User: "Goober" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
21 Jan 2005 09:19:43 PM |
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wrote:
Thanks for the reply, Goober. It boosted the signal-to-noise ratio in
this thread considerably. Perhaps I'll have to disregard posters who
toss off personal attacks in favor of concentrating on those willing to
pursue an enlightened conversation. ;)
[For English speakers]
"theist" = affirms that "god exists" expresses a true proposition
"atheist" = everyone else
I agree that it brings us to a crux. And it is a crux concerning
whether we believe or affirm sentences or propositions.
AFAIK, we cannot tell whether someone (other than ourselves) affirms a
proposition beyond judging whether they act as to affirm the sentence
which expresses that proposition, regardless of the language in which
it is expressed. IOW, this problem is not for the noncogs alone.
I agree that it's not for the noncogs alone. However, I think you
perpetaute an unhelpful ambiguity by focussing on "affirming", rather
than belief. At least, I was talking specifically about *belief*. And we
can determine that it is propositions that people believe, not
sentences. The proof comes straight out of our folk-psychological
explanatory practices. "Belief" (putting aside the Churchlands and the
other eliminativists, of course) is an explanatory construct deriving
from an inference to the best explanation for people's intentional
behaviour.
Given that Pierre and John both desire to stay dry, the best explanation
for their type-identical umbrella-carrying behaviour is that they both
believe they will get wet without one.
Now, if we interpret the object of the belief *sententially*, that
formerly perfectly good explanation loses all cogency, because Pierre,
the monoglot Frenchman, would ex hypothesi not have available such a
sentence to believe.
Perhaps you might suggest that inference to the best explanation (IBE)
is dodgey for some reason, and I suppose that there are arguments that
might be made there, but I find IBE to be perfectly fine.
...theists don't affirm the truth of *sentences* - they affirm the
truth of *propositions* that they *express* ... in sentences.
I disagree. They *believe* propositions but they can only outwardly
*affirm* sentences, since they do not have any access to the
propositional meaning subjectively held in the mind of another beyond
the construal of the sentence which bears the meaning. It is the
sentence that they outwardly act to affirm, and they may only hope that
it conveys the same meaning to others as it holds for them.
But what is it to "affirm"? Maybe we are using the term in different
ways. If it is simply to utter some such sentence as "I believe that P"
then of course what is affirmed can only be sentential. But that isn't
all there is to affirmation, as I would interpret it, because one cannot
affirm a sentence that one does not understand. One could only utter it.
So, firstly, affirming S is not the same as merely uttering S.
Given that, what is the difference between uttering and affirming? I
take it that affirming also involves believing, and as you concede,
theists believe *propositions*. This is why I find "affirmation"
unhelpful - it combines a sentential relation with a propositional
relation, with the result that the two can get confused. I may even have
had trouble keeping them apart in the bit you quote, leaning more of the
believing part of affirmation than on the utterance part. In the back of
my mind (and a number of very deep problems in the philosophy of
langauge are threatening to burst forth here) is the view that only
propositions are true or false in the first instance, and that sentences
are true or false *derivatively* of the truth or falsity of the
propositions that they express.
I don't accept - if this is what you are suggesting - that my only
epistemically justifiable access to the propositional contents of
someone elses beliefs is through their affirmations. That's one way - a
very common way - but it is not the only way.
That's why there can be French monoglot theists who do not
affirm the truth of the sentence "God exists" (because they
don't understand it). But French monoglot theists are "atheists"
by your above definition! You could get around this, if you
wanted, but only by having a different definition of a theist
for each language.
It was my intended approach only to deal within the realm of English
speaking persons. As it happens "theist" is an English term, so this
ought not be a huge problem.
we are defining a category of entities on the basis of a
property that can apply no matter what language they speak
Maybe *we* could do that (what with it being Thursday and all) but a
noncognitivist clearly cannot.
Naturally. So the noncognitivist has no idea what an atheist or a theist
is (so defined, anyway)?
One puzzle does occur to me - is it the absence of a concept <god> that
define the noncognitivist? Or is it the absence of a meaning for the
word "god"? If the latter then one would be a noncognitivist only with
respect to some langauge or another (English in this case). A monoglot
Frenchman could be an English noncognitivist even though they understood
"dieu" and beleived that such things exist, precisely because "god" has
no meaning for them. Would that be satisfactory to you? If not, this
might suggest that we ought to define noncognitivist in relation to lack
of possession of the *concept* <god>. Then two big issues crop up. (I
said these kind of issues were threatening to burst through.) One would
be whether one can have a concept <god> without some word whose meaning
is that concept. This is the whole issue of the relation of thought to
language. As a general rule, we can have concepts without words, but
<god> may be a special case. The other problem - a version of my
original argument - now threatens even the noncognitivist, so defined. A
noncognitivist could never know that they did not posses a concept <god>
unless they were able to determine that the <god> concept was not
amongst their array of concepts. And that seems to requires they they
have the concept of <god> to make such a judgement. Thoughts?
If one takes the proposition expressed
by "god exists" to be incoherent and/or meaningless, there is no basis
to distinguish theists from atheists on account of their (dis)belief,
as there is no meaningful proposition which may be (dis)believed.
Instead, one must distinguish solely based on people's actions
affirming or disaffirming sentences which seem to convey such a
proposition. In practice, we have access only to people's
affirmations of sentences and not their actual attitudes towards
propositions, so this ought not create new and interesting epistemic
problem.
I disagree. We have access to their behaviour quite generally, not just
their verbal behaviour. On newsgroups things are more restricted, of
course, but that is a special context. If I see someone carrying a an
umbrella I've got very good grounds to think that they believe that it
is raining. I don't have to have an affirmation to be fairly confident
about that. A lot of the time, of course, it goes the other way round.
If someone utters "It is going to rain" as they head for the door, I've
got some good grounds to think that they will take their umbrella.
My conclusion is that someone cannot *believe* that they are an
atheist without understanding a god concept - at least well enough to
make a judgement concerning them not having a belief in such things.
To the inclusivist noncognitivist who longs to attend all the hip
atheist parties, all that matters is that noncogs do not make
affirmations of theism, however incoherent, self-contradictory, or
meaningless the propositions carried by those affirmations might be.
Your suggestion does indeed avoid reference to a god concept and
with that definition my argument would collapse. But it seems to
me to completely fail to pick out the class of atheists.
Regardless of whether the sentence "god exists" expresses a meaningful
proposition, an (English speaking) "atheist" may be readily defined as
"one who does not affirm 'a god exists'" or something like that. Terms
like "athe้" must be defined separately, but this is not a big deal.
If you want to talk philosophy with the French, you may as well learn a
smattering of the language.
It is certainly *true* of (almost - see below) all such athesists, so it
may be *extensionally* very adequate. Perhaps I should have rephrased my
objection (which was couched extensionally in terms of picking out a
class).
In any case, it isn't not affirming a sentence of that kind (whether
relativsed to a langauge or not) that *makes* them an atheist. One
reason is that a theist may suddenly lose powers of speech by a knock on
the head and be unable to affirm any such sentence. But that wouldn't
make them an atheist. Ultimately, we have to return to beliefs (or lack
thereof) to define things correctly - this is simply because "theism" is
defined in terms of having a particular belief (not the making of
affirmations or any particular behaviour).
If I failed to address any of your other points, please let me know.
While I might personally prefer to speak in terms of propositions, it
seems necessary for the noncognitivist to have some sensible way of
distinguishing theist from atheist, and I hope that this might help the
noncog lurkers out there in cyberspace feel a bit more comfortable
posting in alt.atheism.* fora.
I think the lines of our disagreement are fairly clear, or at least
becomming clearer. Perhaps the most significant involves you preference
for talking of affirmations rather than beliefs. This seems to me to be
a very bad way to go about matters for the kinds of reasons I've
mentioned. I prefer to talk about beliefs rather than affirmations
because (so I contend):
1) beliefs (or lack thereof) is really what matters from the point of
view of definitions of "theist" or "atheist".
2) affirmation is a mixed property - a mix of a sentential utterance and
a propositional belief. Not all utterances are affirmations.
3) we don't need affirmations to figure out what people's beliefs are -
at least not generally. (Although I'm not entirely sure why this
epistemic issue is being raised.)
Goober.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
25 Jan 2005 03:51:34 PM |
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AFAIK, we cannot tell whether someone (other than ourselves) affirms
a
proposition beyond judging whether they act as to affirm the
sentence
which expresses that proposition, regardless of the language in
which
it is expressed. IOW, this problem is not for the noncogs alone.
I agree that it's not for the noncogs alone. However, I think you
perpetaute an unhelpful ambiguity by focussing on "affirming", rather
than belief. At least, I was talking specifically about *belief*. And
we
can determine that it is propositions that people believe...
I do believe that people believe propositions, but I do not believe
that we have any way of knowing what people believe except inasmuch as
they act as to affirm said belief, as Pierre and John do by exhibiting
umbrella-carrying behaviour or, say, by saying the rosary.
One problem, though, is that even seemingly nonsensical beliefs may
drive behavior. Perhaps John affirms the sentence "if I do not say the
rosary, my eternal soul will be tortured in fire by the sacred
three-sided line segment" when asked why he says the rosary. I might
claim that this sentence, taken as a whole, carries no coherent
meaning. Yet even a vague threat of torture (even by a conceptually
incoherent being under conceptually questionable circumstances) may
motivate human behavior. Does John really *believe* in a sacred line
segment? Well, he seems to believe in *something* seemingly ineffable.
even if we cannot eff it.
[Theists] *believe* propositions but they can only outwardly
*affirm* sentences, since they do not have any access to the
propositional meaning subjectively held in the mind of another
beyond
the construal of the sentence which bears the meaning. It is the
sentence that they outwardly act to affirm, and they may only hope
that
it conveys the same meaning to others as it holds for them.
But what is it to "affirm"? Maybe we are using the term in different
ways. If it is simply to utter some such sentence as "I believe that
P"
then of course what is affirmed can only be sentential. But that
isn't
all there is to affirmation, as I would interpret it, because one
cannot
affirm a sentence that one does not understand. One could only utter
it.
So, firstly, affirming S is not the same as merely uttering S.
I agree. One may utter that which one does not believe or even
understand. Affirmance is when one acts as to convey one's confidence
in the meaning *allegedly* or *supposedly* conveyed by a sentence,
either by word or by deliberate action.
The problem, as mentioned above, is that human behavior may be
motivated by propositions which are obviously incoherent, so long as
coherent propositions are *perceived* to follow therefrom. For
example, one may affirm that "the three-sided line segment is holy" and
then act upon the coherent proposition "I will be punished if I do not
say the Rosary" and believe that somehow the latter follows from the
former.
I don't accept - if this is what you are suggesting - that my only
epistemically justifiable access to the propositional contents of
someone else's beliefs is through their affirmations. That's one
way - a
very common way - but it is not the only way.
I'll concede that one may infer belief from actions which are not
intended to convey beliefs, however, I do not think this is the case
for belief in incoherent propositions, since no factual contingencies
(e.g. rain makes you wet) may arise from such propositions.
A noncog may be able to infer all manner of beliefs related to some
particular theism which are not incoherent per se, most especially
beliefs about punishment and reward. However, if the <god> concept in
question is incoherently defined, any theological "beliefs" may only be
inferred from express affirmations thereof.
...the noncognitivist has no idea what an atheist or a theist is...
This is what puzzles me most - it seems to me that a noncog may quite
easily tell an atheist from a theist, at least in the functional senses
of those terms.
Suppose that everyone with which I spoke defined "god" in a manner
which I found to be quite obviously incoherent, e.g. "a three-sided
line segment" or some other such nonsense. Well, then, I would have to
become a hardcore noncognitivist, since "god" and "god exists" would
not carry any meaning to me.
Nevertheless, I could still tell (English-speaking) theists from the
atheists because the theists would affirm the (meaningless) sentence
"god is real" and the atheists would affirm the (equally meaningless)
sentence "god is unreal" and this distinction seems important enough,
although perhaps not so important as their respective ethical systems
when it comes down to brass tacks, but I digress.
One puzzle does occur to me - is it the absence of a concept <god>
that
define the noncognitivist? Or is it the absence of a meaning for the
word "god"? If the latter then one would be a noncognitivist only
with
respect to some langauge or another (English in this case). A
monoglot
Frenchman could be an English noncognitivist even though they
understood "dieu" and beleived that such things exist, precisely
because "god" has no meaning for them. Would that be satisfactory to
you?
Not exactly. I do not think either the English or the French term
generally carries a meaning which is well-specified enough for me to
assess whether it is coherent or not.
If not, this might suggest that we ought to define noncognitivist in
relation to lack of possession of the *concept* <god>.
I do not know if "lack of possession" is quite how I would term it.
Oftentimes, the self-identified noncog claims that he or she
understands what is generally meant by "god" (or "god exists") but does
not find that the definition (or proposition) is internally coherent.
The component bits are meaningful (e.g. "line segment" and "3-sided")
but the whole thing does not fit together into a thinkable concept.
This is very different from the case where the word carries no meaning
whatsoever, e.g. "progambaloster."
A noncognitivist could never know that they did not posses a concept
unless they were able to determine that the <god> concept was not
amongst their array of concepts. And that seems to requires they they
have the concept of <god> to make such a judgement. Thoughts?
I think this is a good reason why "progambaloster"-type noncogs are
rare if not downright extinct. Most noncogs understand *something* of
the definition of "god" (or the sentence "god exists") but they cannot
fashion together a coherent/thinkable meaning from all the linguistic
bits. They would not claim to be missing a concept, but rather to be
slogging about with a defective and irreparable one.
We have access to their behaviour quite generally, not just
their verbal behaviour.
Behavior generally cannot be motivated by unthinkable propositions, so
far as I can tell. If "god" is defined incoherently, then I would
assume that actions seemingly predicated upon god's existence are
actually upon other things, such as belief in forthcoming rewards or
punishments.
In any case, it isn't not affirming a sentence of that kind (whether
relativsed to a langauge or not) that *makes* them an atheist. One
reason is that a theist may suddenly lose powers of speech by a knock
on the head and be unable to affirm any such sentence.
If someone lost the power to communicate entirely (including actions
such as attending church or agnostic meetups) then we would no longer
have any insight into their beliefs. They might well be able to
consider themselves (a)theist but we would have no rational way to make
that determination. Just like the noncogs, we must judge from their
affirmations and actions, since we have no direct access to their
beliefs.
"theism" is defined in terms of having a particular belief
(not the making of affirmations or any particular behaviour).
I cannot help but agree with you on this point as a matter of common
usage, nevertheless, it seems to me that the noncog may (or rather,
*must*) stipulatively define (a)theism in terms of behaviour rather
than beliefs. This seems like a fairly reasonable approach to me,
since we cogs must ascertain beliefs from actions (including
affirmations) in any event. Moreover, I would guess that noncogs would
label "theists" and "atheists" more or less the same as we do in
practice, and moreover that they would lean heavily on self-id as we
do.
Moreover, I would add that at least one of the reportive dictionary
definitions comports with the noncog notion of "atheist," defining it
in terms of an overt denial of the existence of god rather than
exclusively in terms of disbelief.
1) beliefs (or lack thereof) is really what matters from the point of
view of definitions of "theist" or "atheist".
What really matters to the noncog (and to me) is how people *act*
rather than what they believe. Perhaps "god exists" is meaningless or
incoherent for some given sense of "god" but people may yet act upon
"god says kill witches" even if they admit that they cannot eff the
ineffable meaning of "god" itself.
This is why I find some flavours of theism far more disturbing than
others, since some advocate the worship and emulation of a vengeful
god, while others do not.
2) affirmation is a mixed property - a mix of a sentential utterance
and
a propositional belief. Not all utterances are affirmations.
I mean affirmation strictly in the sense of a sentential utterance or
other deliberate communicative action, such as a head nod. Such action
may be intended to convey a belief, but the belief is not a part of the
affirmation itself. Furthermore, people may act so as to affirm patent
nonsense.
3) we don't need affirmations to figure out what people's beliefs are
-
at least not generally.
Perhaps not generally, but given the incredibly wide range of behaviors
motivated by the various sorts of theisms, I cannot think of any way to
tell an atheist from a theist except by asking them whether they would
affirm or deny certain sentences.
.
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| User: "Goober" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
26 Jan 2005 06:55:44 PM |
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wrote:
AFAIK, we cannot tell whether someone (other than ourselves) affirms
a
proposition beyond judging whether they act as to affirm the
sentence
which expresses that proposition, regardless of the language in
which
it is expressed. IOW, this problem is not for the noncogs alone.
I agree that it's not for the noncogs alone. However, I think you
perpetaute an unhelpful ambiguity by focussing on "affirming", rather
than belief. At least, I was talking specifically about *belief*. And
we
can determine that it is propositions that people believe...
I do believe that people believe propositions,
So far as I could tell, that's all that I require. The issues that you
are raising seem to be epistemological in nature, and, interesting
though those issues may be, I can't see that my original argument is
affected by such epistemological issues as how we know what someone else
believes. I just want to get clear whether you think this apparent
difference in our opinions here affects my original argument. Id it oes,
I can't see it yet.
but I do not believe
that we have any way of knowing what people believe except inasmuch as
they act as to affirm said belief, as Pierre and John do by exhibiting
umbrella-carrying behaviour or, say, by saying the rosary.
Ahhh - so by "affirm" you do not mean something that necessarily
involves an utterance. My misunderstanding! This negates much of what I
said that was based on that misunderstanding. ... But now I wonder why
you think affirmation (such as carrying an umbrella) is *sentential*. I
can't see any grounds for saying that.
One problem, though, is that even seemingly nonsensical beliefs may
drive behavior. Perhaps John affirms the sentence "if I do not say the
rosary, my eternal soul will be tortured in fire by the sacred
three-sided line segment" when asked why he says the rosary. I might
claim that this sentence, taken as a whole, carries no coherent
meaning. Yet even a vague threat of torture (even by a conceptually
incoherent being under conceptually questionable circumstances) may
motivate human behavior. Does John really *believe* in a sacred line
segment? Well, he seems to believe in *something* seemingly ineffable.
even if we cannot eff it.
An interesting issue. I see it much along the following lines. Imagine
that John walks into a room, looks around, sighs, evinces
disappointemnt, and walks out. He returns to the room later and repeats
the type-identical behaviour. It strikes me that a cogent explanation of
this is *that he is looking for something in the room and can't find
it*. We, of course, have no idea what that something is. But so what -
our intentional explanation still has bite - it still explains his
behaviour. I would suggest that it still explains his behaviour even if
what he is looking for is an impossible object. It simply does not
*matter* what he is looking for so far as explaining his behaviour goes.
In intentional terms we impute something like the folloowing to John:
D) desire: to find some particular thing
B) belief: that particular thing is (or will be at some time soon) in
the room
Now the terms "particular thing" is just a place holder that his
behaviour does not entitle us to fill in. But that does not stop us
given the above as a perfectly reasonable explanation.
But now suppose that we ask John what he is looking for and he says to
us: "I'm looking for the sacred three-sided line segment"
If I understand your issue it is that *we* cannot impute a belief or
desire to him that appeals to a proposition that we judge (perhaps with
good reason) to be incoherent. Now we have an explanatory problem and a
choice must be made.
1) There is no propositional content in the supposed "desire" to find a
three-sided line segment (mutatis mutansdis for the supposed "belief"),
since there cannot be a three-sided line segment (sacred or otherwise).
So John does not *really* believe or desire anything of the kind. His
behaviour is inexplicable to us in interntional terms. We give up.
2) We don't give up yet. Instead we try to replace "three-sided line
segment" with an interpretation that renders the utterance and the rest
of his behaviour maximally coherent to us. In other words, we suppose
that he must mean something coherent other than what those words
normally mean.
2a) We may struggle with finding such an interpretation, and if we can't
then we are at a loss to explain his behaviour beyond appeal to (B) and
(D) above. I think they still explain - surely he is looking for
*something*, even if we can't figure out what.
2b) We hazard an interpretation that makes more sense. In this
situation, a better explanation than that he is looking for a
three-sided line segment is that he is looking for Lucy, his girlfriend.
This is probably not much better as an explanation than that he is
looking for Peter, his brother, etc. But it is better that (B) and (D)
because it is at least coherent to us.
2c) We conduct further investiagation involving further behaviour which
might suggest to us that best way to interpret "three-sided line
segment" is as meaning Lucy (but not his brother, Peter, or anyone
else). Perhaps he says "the sacred three sided line segment has blond
hair and lovely eyes and is also called 'Lucy'"
There is a third option that is difficult to explicate, and I don't feel
like I have the energy to do so now, which involves claiming that there
is semantic (notice I don't say propositional) content in "I'm looking
for the sacred three-sided line segment". It seems to me that we can
understand the sentence even though it tries to refer to an impossible
object. We must have *some* understanding of such sentences in order to
know that they are necessarily false. To flesh out that kind of claim
probably requires a theory of the proposition, and frankly, I'm not up
to that - I've tried before and it's just too damned difficult. Somedays
I'll be a Russellian, but I can't see how to account for my claim in
Russellian terms. Other days I've just no idea.
[Theists] *believe* propositions but they can only outwardly
*affirm* sentences, since they do not have any access to the
propositional meaning subjectively held in the mind of another
beyond
the construal of the sentence which bears the meaning. It is the
sentence that they outwardly act to affirm, and they may only hope
that
it conveys the same meaning to others as it holds for them.
But what is it to "affirm"? Maybe we are using the term in different
ways. If it is simply to utter some such sentence as "I believe that
P"
then of course what is affirmed can only be sentential. But that
isn't
all there is to affirmation, as I would interpret it, because one
cannot
affirm a sentence that one does not understand. One could only utter
it.
So, firstly, affirming S is not the same as merely uttering S.
I agree. One may utter that which one does not believe or even
understand. Affirmance is when one acts as to convey one's confidence
in the meaning *allegedly* or *supposedly* conveyed by a sentence,
either by word or by deliberate action.
But I don't think that will do. Pierre and John's umbrella carrying
behaviour is not them acting so as to *convey* a confidence in anything.
They are not trying to communicate anything at all. Sure, their
behaviour is *explained* by their confidence (belief) that it will rain
- but they aren't *acting so as to convey* anything. By your above
definition I do not see how umbrella carrying behaviour is an *affirmation*.
I think either you need remove reference to "conveying one's confidence
in the meaning..." or else not call umbrella-carrying behaviour an
affirmation. This goes back to my earlier concern - if umbrella-carrying
behaviour is an "affirmation", then affirmations are not all sentential.
Or... am I getting the wrong end of your stick? Perhaps you mean acting
in such a way that it "conveys *to us*..."?
If that's the case (or perhaps in any case) I have to revert to Grice
(1957) - "Meaning". I don't know whether you are familiar with Grice's
views but he makes a vital distinction that I think you *might* be
missing. There are two uses of "meaning".
A: Those clouds mean rain. Those spots mean Johnny has measles.
B: "It is going to rain" means it is going to rain. "Those spots mean
Johnny has measles" means those spots mean Johnny has measles.
ONLY the B group are sentential in character. But Pierre's
umbrella-carrying behaviour is clearly in group A.
The problem, as mentioned above, is that human behavior may be
motivated by propositions which are obviously incoherent, so long as
coherent propositions are *perceived* to follow therefrom. For
example, one may affirm that "the three-sided line segment is holy" and
then act upon the coherent proposition "I will be punished if I do not
say the Rosary" and believe that somehow the latter follows from the
former.
I don't accept - if this is what you are suggesting - that my only
epistemically justifiable access to the propositional contents of
someone else's beliefs is through their affirmations. That's one
way - a
very common way - but it is not the only way.
I'll concede that one may infer belief from actions which are not
intended to convey beliefs,
okay.
however, I do not think this is the case
for belief in incoherent propositions, since no factual contingencies
(e.g. rain makes you wet) may arise from such propositions.
I'm not sure that I agree. I'm not sure mainly because I'm not sure I
understand your meaning.
You say that no factual contingencies arise from an incoherent
proposition. That depends firstly on what you mean by "arise". You might
mean "causally" - in which case I'd disagree - a mental state whether
related to a coherent proposition or not could certainly have causal
affects in behaviour. Moreover, they can have very specific causal
effects (notwithstanding whether it may be difficult or impossible for
us to infer the belief from that behaviour). If you mean "logically"
then I'd agree (or rather I might prefer to say that any and all
behaviours "arise" from a belief in an incoherent proposition, what with
logical contradictions entailing the truth of any proposition, hence any
behaviour in accordiance with any proposition).
Let me present an example. If Pierre believes "it will rain and it will
not rain" then we cannot explain his umbrella carrying behaviour be
appeal to that belief. Agreed. But that's precisely why we are dorced to
find some other explanation that does not involve appeal to such
"beliefs". The best explanation for just his umbrella carrying behaviour
is that he believes that it will rain, but if he says "it will not rain"
then we have an explanatory problem.
Fortunately, we have a number of options.
a) Pierre is mistaken about what "it will not rain" means.
b) He is lying
c) Something else other than a belief that it will rain explains his
behaviour (perhaps he believes that the umbrella is a magic umbrella
that ensures that it will not rain so long as one takes it).
etc.
The general point is that it does you no explanatory good to infer to
others incoherent beliefs. Supposition of rationality is a precondition
of intentional explanation (as Dennett has urged).
A noncog may be able to infer all manner of beliefs related to some
particular theism which are not incoherent per se, most especially
beliefs about punishment and reward. However, if the <god> concept in
question is incoherently defined, any theological "beliefs" may only be
inferred from express affirmations thereof.
Aha. I think I get your point. My issue with it is where you start. You
seem to be starting with an incoherent <god> definition and then
pointing out (convincingly, imo) that no theological "beliefs" follow
from such a definition. Agreed. But we do not need to *start* with such
a definition and then make all further infrences from there. You have to
take *all* the behaviour into account and make your best explanation in
the light of it all. We might start with other behaviour (including
non-linguistic behaviour) and infer further beliefs on the basis of that
behaviour. For example, perhaps they might say "god is one" and "god is
three" - and then we have to do some hard work to make sense of it. This
is not impossible, *if* we make certain interpretations. It is always
possible to interpret any behaviour *if* we make radical enough
interpretations, as we may be forced to do in the case of the theist.
For example, we might interpret the above as "god is one thing at one
level of decription (like H2O), but three at another (like water, steam,
ice)".
...the noncognitivist has no idea what an atheist or a theist is...
This is what puzzles me most - it seems to me that a noncog may quite
easily tell an atheist from a theist, at least in the functional senses
of those terms.
Suppose that everyone with which I spoke defined "god" in a manner
which I found to be quite obviously incoherent, e.g. "a three-sided
line segment" or some other such nonsense. Well, then, I would have to
become a hardcore noncognitivist, since "god" and "god exists" would
not carry any meaning to me.
Nevertheless, I could still tell (English-speaking) theists from the
atheists because the theists would affirm the (meaningless) sentence
"god is real" and the atheists would affirm the (equally meaningless)
sentence "god is unreal" and this distinction seems important enough,
although perhaps not so important as their respective ethical systems
when it comes down to brass tacks, but I digress.
Suitably interpreted I think I agree. Although, you might want to object
to how I'd interet it. :) I have two objections.
Firstly, you effectively define "atheist" and "theist" functionally in
terms of certain avowed "sentences". But that misses *what it is* to be
a theist or an atheist. At best, it is merely co-extensive with being an
atheist or theist and (hence) a handy way to identify them.
Secondly, (imo) the noncog would effectively define it in terms of
*utterances* and we have already agreed that an utterance is not an
affirmation. I know you refer to it as affirming, but consider your
definition:
"Affirmance is when one acts as to convey one's confidence in the
meaning *allegedly* or *supposedly* conveyed by a sentence, either by
word or by deliberate action."
What is "the meaning *allegedly* or *supposedly* conveyed" by the
sentence "god exists"? For the noncog *it has none* - not even an
alleged or supposed meaning. For it to have an alleged meaning he must
understand the theist when he says "I allege that 'god exists' means ..."
By analogy, suppose that a Russian (I'll suppose you don't understand
Russian - I don't) says to you "there are yevtriskaya" and alleges that
"yevtriskaya" is a meaningful term to him or her. You might even believe
that it has meaning *to them*, and thus, to *to them* they are making an
affirmation. But that does not mean that you understand or have the
slightest clue what a yevtriskaya-believer is or even what it is to lack
a belief in yevtriskaya. You have a more or less useful way of
indentifying them, but that's all.
Hence "god exists" cannot count as an affirmation *to the noncog*, but
must stand only as an utterance that is asserted to be an affirmation by
the theist. Appealing to the fact that *the theist* alleges that it
conveys a meaning seems to me to make no odds so far as the noncog
understanding what a theist or atheist is. To the noncog it is simply a
meaningless utterance that is accompanied by other meaningful (but,
supposes the noncog, false) sentences to the effect that the utterance
carries meaning. To the noncog "god exists" has neither a *supposed* nor
an *alleged* meaning because it has no meaning - period. Remember that
my argument was talking about meaning *to the hearer*. We never were
talking about meaning to the speaker. So being an affirmation (alleged*
or otherwise) has to be in relation to the hearer.
I have to go now. I'll read the rest later and think more on this.
Goober.
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Meaningfullness of "God" (was "Conditions required to be an atheist") |
27 Jan 2005 09:19:54 AM |
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Greetings once again!
Pierre and John's umbrella carrying behaviour is not them
acting so as to *convey* a confidence in anything.
I was indeed mistaken in referring to such behavior as an affirmation,
and I must say in my defense that I was nearly well-caffeinated at the
time of my last reply. I have admitted earlier that affirmation is not
the only way for an outside observer to rationally infer belief,
however, it seems to me that it is the only way for such an outsider to
infer that someone else mistakenly believes that they believe something
which they cannot even understand much less believe. I might not be
making sense now, but I'll try to explain this further below.
The general point is that it does you no explanatory good to infer to
others incoherent beliefs. Supposition of rationality is a
precondition
of intentional explanation (as Dennett has urged).
Emphatic agreement on this end. If we suppose that the noncog is
rational, only then may we understand why they might consider
themselves an "atheist" in some sense of the term. You may skip to the
final paragraph now, if you like.
You seem to be starting with an incoherent <god> definition and then
pointing out (convincingly, imo) that no theological "beliefs" follow
from such a definition. Agreed. But we do not need to *start* with
such
a definition and then make all further inferences from there. You
have to
take *all* the behaviour into account and make your best explanation
in
the light of it all.
Right-o. I would point out, though, that the theist's conception of
<god> need not be coherent in order to drive behavior which we consider
typical to some variety of theist or another, since most (if not all)
of their behavioral impetus follows from coherent propositions quite
apart from the definition of the deity, such as the following...
1) A moral authority laid down rules which we must follow
2) The rules are found in such-and-such a book
3) They are interpreted by such-and-such a priesthood
4) Etc.
It matters not that they take the phrase "moral authority" to refer to
an actual instantiation of an incoherently defined being, so long as
they understand "moral authority" conveys in the ordinary sense, such
propositions are meaningful and useful for guiding behaviour.
This is what puzzles me most - it seems to me that a noncog may
quite easily tell an atheist from a theist, at least [functionally]
Firstly, you effectively define "atheist" and "theist" functionally
in
terms of certain avowed "sentences". But that misses *what it is* to
be
a theist or an atheist. At best, it is merely co-extensive with being
an
atheist or theist and (hence) a handy way to identify them.
*If* the noncog is correct and the god concept promulgated by (certain)
theists does not cohere, then (such) theists cannot really believe that
god exists since "god exists" does not convey a coherent and thinkable
proposition which may be believed.
In such a case, "theist" simply *cannot* be defined in terms of
god-belief and must instead be defined in terms of behaviour, namely,
affirmations of god-belief.
Secondly, (imo) the noncog would effectively define it in terms of
*utterances* and we have already agreed that an utterance is not an
affirmation.
I do not recall agreeing to that. I would affirm that utterances
spoken with solemn conviction are the most common form of affirmation
that I've come across in my personal experience. Of course, this is
not to say that *all* utterances are affirmations, merely those
intended to affirm.
What is "the meaning *allegedly* or *supposedly* conveyed" by the
sentence "god exists"? For the noncog *it has none* - not even an
alleged or supposed meaning.
The noncog may easily understand that the theist alleges or supposes
that "god" or "dieu" carries meaning. I had intended to make it clear
that the allegation or supposition is that of the affirming party.
Consider the following exchange:
NonCog - "Do you think the statement 'god exists' expresses a truth?"
Theist - <nods>
NonCog - "I do not think the statement carries propositional meaning."
Theist - <shrugs & gestures quizzically>
NonCog - "I like to know when I'm dealing with irrational people."
Theist - <flips the bird>
In this case, Mr. Theist has acted to affirm his belief that the
sentence "god exists" expresses a true proposition although the
utterance itself was made by a speaker who take the sentence to be
incoherent and/or meaningless. I would think it clear enough that Mr.
Theist is the one alleging or supposing that the sentence carries
meaning, rather than Mr. NonCog. Eh?
I do not have the "slightest clue what a yevtriskaya-believer is or
even what it is to lack a belief in yevtriskaya" but I would like to
"have a more or less useful way of identifying them" if an alleged
belief in yevtriskaya drives certain other beliefs, and more to the
point behaviors, such as bombing Iraqi abortion clinics. Noncogs may
be strongly motivated to understand why people act as they do, and the
variety of theisms out there provide some great explanatory power, once
you get past the meaningless starting point that of "god exists," the
affirmation of which is fundamental to theism.
Remember that my argument was talking about meaning *to the hearer*.
We never were talking about meaning to the speaker. So being an
affirmation has to be in relation to the hearer.
Your original argument se | | | | | | | | | |
