IB Philosophy 5.2.3 Attempted Solutions to the Problem of Religious Language Notes

The Verificationist Challenge and the Need for Solutions

1. Topic 5.2.2 examined the problem of religious language: the challenge posed by Ayer's verification principle and Flew's falsification principle, which together suggest that religious statements are neither verifiable nor falsifiable and therefore meaningless. This topic examines the philosophical responses that attempt to rescue religious language from this critique.
2. The IB syllabus asks: "How have philosophers attempted to rescue religious language from the verificationist critique?"
   1. Two specific responses are required: John Hick's eschatological verification and Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of religion as a language game.
   2. Each offers a fundamentally different strategy for defending the meaningfulness of religious discourse.
3. Before examining these solutions, it is worth noting that the verification principle itself has been widely criticised and largely abandoned by professional philosophers. As discussed in 5.2.2, Alston argued that the verification principle fails its own test (it is neither analytically true nor empirically verifiable).
4. Nevertheless, the verificationist challenge remains philosophically important because it forces defenders of religious language to articulate clearly what kind of meaning religious statements possess.
5. The solutions examined in this topic take two broad approaches.
   1. Hick's eschatological verification accepts the verificationist framework but argues that religious statements can be verified, just not in this life.
   2. Wittgenstein's language games approach rejects the verificationist framework entirely, arguing that it misunderstands how language works by imposing a single standard of meaning on all forms of discourse.
6. These two approaches map onto a key divide introduced in 4.2.3.
   1. Cognitivism (the view that religious statements make real factual claims that are either true or false) versus non-cognitivism (the view that religious statements do something else entirely: expressing attitudes, setting out a way of life, or operating within their own set of rules).
7. Hick is a cognitivist: he believes religious statements make genuine truth claims that are either true or false.
8. The Wittgensteinian approach is closer to non-cognitivism (though more nuanced): religious language functions within its own form of life and should not be evaluated by the standards of scientific or empirical discourse.

Non-Cognitivist Responses: Braithwaite, Hare, and Mitchell

1. R.B. Braithwaite argued in his 1955 lecture that religious statements are not factual claims at all.
   1. To say 'God is love' is not to describe a property of a supernatural being.
   2. It is a declaration of your intention to follow a way of life built on love (what he called an agapistic, or love-centred, way of living).
2. Religious stories, the parables of Jesus or the life of the Buddha, function not as evidence for theological claims but as psychological supports that help sustain this moral commitment.
3. On Braithwaite's view, religious language is meaningful, but its meaning is about expressing intentions and making commitments, not about describing facts.
4. Critics object that this drains religion of its distinctive content: if 'God is love' means only 'I intend to act lovingly,' then Christianity reduces to a moral programme indistinguishable from secular humanism.
5. R.M. Hare's concept of a 'blik' (examined in 5.2.2) suggests religious belief is a framework of interpretation rather than a falsifiable hypothesis, raising the question of whether this rescues religious language or merely concedes its non-cognitive status.
6. Basil Mitchell's parable of the Stranger (examined in 5.2.2) offers a more moderate response, arguing that faith can be tested cumulatively without being destroyed by any single counter-instance.
7. The diversity of these responses demonstrates that the problem of religious language does not have a single, agreed-upon solution.
8. Each response involves trade-offs: accepting the meaningfulness of religious language while redefining what "meaning" involves. IB students should be prepared to evaluate which solutions are most philosophically persuasive and which sacrifice too much of what religious believers intend when they make religious claims.