[Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein on Religious Belief
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:28:27 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Sean Wilson <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> (Stuart)
>
> The piece is atrocious. It doesn't understand Wittgenstein or his views.
>
> Imagine someone saying.. "do you believe in your wife?" The proper way to say
> this is do you TRUST her?
Intriguingly, the Hebrew word for "believe" (as in "believe in") is "ma'amin"
which also means trust!
>That is the true grammar. And for one to engage in the behavior of trust, one
>has to have formed a particular kind of love (an affection). And if one WERE
>to obtain (and undertake in) such an activity, it would be an affectuous state
>of affairs, not a set of propositions. It would be a condition, not a proof.
>
I don't understand this comment with regard to his critique of the implied
Wittgensteinian position, from the extant notes we have, re: religion.
> One would no more say whether they believed in God than to say whether they
> were affected by a mechanism of trust.
Yes, there is that element but to trust something or trust in it is to also
believe it is there to place one's trust in, no?
> Importantly, the behavior of trusting and of proving is not the same. All
> that one who disproves attempts to say is "I do not trust." There's nothing
> to disagree about.
>
But there are issues of truth or falsity in the world and holding certain kinds
of religious views seems to be quite empty unless one is also prepared to
assert, with sincerity, one's belief in the truth of certain associated claims.
I think that's where Wittgenstein's notion of religious belief goes awry. (For
the record, this is a subject on which Duncan Richter and I had much
disagreement.)
> Imagine an MRI of a brain in love. You can see certain reactions of
> brain-chemicals. Now, this happens in response to a stimuli in the real world
> (seeing your loved one). But imagine also that one day science (journalism)
> finds that particularly-heartfelt connections with spirituality have a
> similar kind of brain chemistry. A kind of neurological effect. The
> conclusion here would not be that spirituality was chemically-induced. It
> would be that the same sort of behaviors that one has when trusting certain
> others is of the same kind of activity one has when trusting other sorts of
> "things."
>
Yes, but insofar as our behaviors are or can be driven by the choices we make,
some choices would manifestly seem to be dependent on beliefs we hold about
things that can be true or false.
> And that telling someone they shouldn't trust is only a matter for the
> subject of advice, not for science. You say, "you should leave him; he's a
> terrible husband." Even if you have factual reasons, these things are only in
> service of something else. Indeed, telling the person this is a kind of
> counselling.
>
Yes, but it is based on the counselor's beliefs, i.e., that the husband is, in
fact, terrible, or terrible for that wife. If the counselor is wrong or cannot
marshal facts sufficient to sway the wife then the counsel will fall on deaf
ears as it should, at least in principle under those circumstances.
> Science is not in the business for marriage counselling. Neither is logic or
> mathematics. They are in the business of something else. Were one to base
> belief in religion upon science, one would be engaging in a behavior similar
> to induction or speculation (or what is behind curtain number 3?). This is
> not the proper brain activity. It's not what the thing is for.
>
The point of the writer's comments was to note that some of the things
religionists believe or say they believe require some attention to the question
of factual truth and that, in cases where that isn't the case, the implications
can be extended to render any kind of distinctions between believers of
different types pointless. At that stage there is no reason to say anything at
all, to express any belief because no belief really is that anymore. It is just
emotion qua a feeling of affiliation, commitment, etc. Now some religionists do
want to say that is all religion is about but then the discourse seems wrong.
It looks like they've pulled up the wrong paradigm.
> Imagine science one day finding God. Let's say they find him with the Hubble
> telescope. What in God's name would you do?
How would we know God had been found? Some superduper alien says "here I am"?
What would it mean to encounter God in such a form?
> Begin "trusting?" It would be pointless. All you would be doing was
> subjugating or politicking.
Yes, and if that's all religion is it is a confusion.
> Or perhaps you would be going through education. But you would not be being
>"religious," because the grammar of this involves something completely
>different. The behavior is different.
>
> Regards.
>
> SW
>
Yes, but what then is the grammar of it and why would a religionist asserting,
say, that "I believe in the Resurrection" be saying anything like what he or
she appears to be saying at all? Isn't it at least possible that religionists
are prone to the same linguistic muddles as philosophers and that dissolving
the problems of philosophy might also serve to dissolve the concerns of faith?
SWM
=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
Other related posts:
