G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy: The Maniac

After much time, I have finally started reading Chesterton’s work Orthodoxy. I kept hearing amazing things about this book from many Christians and boy were they right. This post is the first in a series of posts that will focus on summarizing Chesterton’s thoughts in his book.

The Maniac is the second chapter after the Introduction of Orthodoxy. This chapter delves into the modern rationalism that was popular back in Chesterton’s day and is still popular today. This rationalism has made men insane.

This madness of human thought begins with the denial of sin. Some theologians and modern thinkers deny original sin even though Chesterton says that it’s the only part of Christianity that can be empirically proved. Evil can be seen in the street; it’s impossible to deny this fact. He then begins to state his main thesis of this chapter: Mystery is essential for normality and sanity.

“The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of today discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world” (p.g. 30)

Chesterton says the modern mind wants to negate imagination and poetry. It wants to overcome the dichotomy of faith and reason by just getting rid of faith altogether. But Chesterton demonstrates this way of thinking to be wrong by showing that it is the poet who is sane, and the pure rationalist who is insane.

“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and make it finite” (p.g. 31)

He beautifully shows that the worship of human reason and intellect will ultimately cause utter chaos in all parts of the modern mind. Consider this next quote:

“The poet only asks to get his head in the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits” (p.g. 31-32)

The modern mind wants to reduce all these spiritual thoughts into something that can be comprehended easily and rationally, yet it is impossible to do such. Chesterton gives a brilliant real life example. R.B. Suthers, a determinist, believes that free-will is impossible because it involves causeless actions. Suthers denies this because free-will cannot exist with the materialist worldview. Chesterton shows that actions of the human will can be causeless and that the lunatic needs freedom in order to state his determinist view. Chesterton says that the determinist sees too much cause in everything. The madman is purely reasonable but that’s all the madman has. The madman is wrong about everything else.

He also shows the flaws in materialism. Materialism as a theory is too simple and too limiting when compared to any form of spiritualism. The Christian can accept science and methodological naturalism. He can accept things that are not forbidden in the Bible (for example, certain mathematical theorems). The materialist on the other hand can have nothing mystical or spiritual in his theory. He cannot even think about immortality whereas the Christian is free to think about it or not. This supports the point he just made regarding Suther’s argument.

G.K. shows the ethical folly of determinism:

“Determinism is quite as likely to lead to cruelty as it is certain to lead to cowardice. Determinism is not inconsistent with the cruel treatment of criminals. What it is (perhaps) inconsistent with is the generous treatment of criminals; with any appeal to their better feelings or encouragement in their moral struggle. The determinist does not believe in appealing the will, but he does believe in changing the environment. He must not say to the sinner, “Go and sin no more,” because the sinner cannot help it. But he can put him in boiling oil; for the boiling oil is an environment” (p.g. 43)

This critique ties in nicely with Kant’s principle of humanity. It is impossible to have moral responsibility if the criminal has no will. The determinist has to change the environment to change the person for it is the environment that determines how a person will act. Chesterton continues then to show the problems of solipsism and any type of empirical skepticism.

This brings us to the last part of the chapter where G.K. gives us a look at what the rest of the book will be based upon. So far in summary he has shown that insanity “is reason without root, reason in the void” (p.g 46). What keeps men sane? Chesterton proposes it is mysticism that keeps men sane. Since the quote is too large to put here, I’ll give an excerpt of what he means.

“The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid” (p.g. 47)

The Christian accepts God as his first axiom. While God has been revealed to us, He is spirit and is in some sense mysterious yet at the same time knowable. Once a person believes in God and heaven and hell, then everything else makes sense to him. The world is opened up. The person who just believes that reality is only natural (or made of matter) has to explain away everything seemingly spiritual or metaphysical and ironically he then makes everything mysterious and not natural at all.

A Very Brief Look at Psychological Egoism

Psychological egoism does not prescribe how we ought to behave but rather describes how reality really is. It says that humans can only act out of self-interest and that altruism is not possible. This would seem to greatly go against the common sense view of ethics. Any action that looks like charity has to be re-interpreted as a self-interested action. There has to be an underlying motive for a person to give to charity and that motive has to be driven by self-interest.

Psychological egoism seems to be patently false. It seems, at the very least, possible for selfless actions to take place. One can think of hypothetical situations and circumstances in which altruism is possible. One example is the possibility of someone giving a large sum of money anonymously. It would seem like this person is not giving to charity to promote himself but rather out of his own heart. This one example shows that altruism is possible and thus psychological egoism is undermined.

God as an Objective Source of Goodness

For many centuries and even today philosophers have been debating the question over the nature of the good life. Many people believe that ethics is subjective and solely dependent on one’s mental states and beliefs. Others believe that it is objective and that ethics are independent of what one believes or desires. This paper will examine these two views and argue against the hedonist view and in favor of an objective theistic view of ethics which is grounded in God.

One classic subjective view of ethics is hedonism. Hedonism is defined as the view which states that happiness or pleasure is the only intrinsic good. Something that is intrinsically good means that it is good within itself. This view was originally created by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (Shafer-Landau 21). At face value, this view seems correct. We, for the most part, generally want to be happy in life and we consider a life filled with happiness a good life. But the hedonist says that happiness is the only intrinsic good nothing else is intrinsically good. This view is wholly subjective because happiness depends on personal mental states. Also, happiness could be loosely defined thus allowing for multiple contradicting views. One criticism against this view is based off of a life’s trajectory. Let’s say we have two hypothetical lives both with the same amount of happiness. In the first life, seventy-five percent of the total happiness is gained within the first twenty-five percent of the person’s life. In the second life seventy-five percent of the happiness is acquired within the last twenty-five percent of the person‘s life (Shafer-Landau 34-35). It seems that when compared these lives are not of equal worth. The life that gains happiness later on is better because it has an upward trajectory. There must be something more than just happiness if this is true — the trajectory of one’s life. This argument counts against hedonism and shows its falsehood. The second criticism of hedonism comes from Aldous Huxley’s work A Brave New World. The setting of the novel takes place in a utopian society that is controlled by the elite governing forces. These governing forces prevent the society from having any type of unhappy experience and thus, they limit the decisions of humans. These people are medicated and are prevented from any new ways of thought that might cause types of harm. One character named Savage fights for the freedom and liberty to have the ability to do things that might not cause happiness. He believes freedom of choice is better than a society solely determined towards happiness (Huxley 25-30). Freedom and autonomy must also be important in having a good life. Is one happy if they are forced to be happy? If this criticism is sound then hedonism is false. A subjective view of the good life cannot be true and thus we must examine a proposal of an objective theistic view.

An objective view of the ethical life is one that is not dependent on the human mind. For something to be objective means that it must be mind-independent. An objective set of ethics are not created by society nor are they based on any type of human thought for if they were, they would be subjective. This leads us to the view that ethical moral commands and standards come from God. Since the foundation of ethics must exist outside of us, they must come from God. The common title of this view is known as the divine command theory. This theory states that “an act is morally required just because it is commanded by God, and immoral because God forbids it” (Shafer-Landau 61). This whole theory hinges on whether or not God exists, but let’s assume He does. If the divine command theory is true, then actions are good or bad depending on God’s commands. Plato created an argument against this view in his work Euthyphro. Plato asks two questions: Are ethics based on God’s commands? Or are God’s commands based on an objective ethic (Shafer-Landau 63)? If ethics are based on God’s commands that would make all ethical law wholly arbitrary for God could command anything He desired. But if the ethical standard is outside of Him God is no longer the creator of morality or ethics and thus the theist is left with a problem. Plato seems to show that the divine command theory is false. But there is another way out of this dilemma that Plato has created. If God Himself is the source or foundation of ethics it would seem to spilt the horns of this argument. In the western world, God is typically thought of as being all-good and morally perfect such that His essence is good. God’s very being or ontology is good. Thus, if His actual character is good then His commands will follow through in accordance with His character. This rids the idea of God’s commands being arbitrary while grounding the ethical standard in God Himself. God never created ethics because His being is the standard of ethics. If God’s commands are good and if they are morally binding like the divine command theory states, then in order to live a good life one must obey and follow these commands. If God, the Creator of the universe, is good Himself and commands things which are objectively good and forbids things which are morally deficient, we then must follow these commands in order to live in accordance with this standard. Again, all of this presupposes God exists and if He exists which god is He? But that question is for a different time in another paper. It seems plausible that if God exists then we would need to follow His commands in order to have a good life. Obeying His standard leads to a good life.

So what should be concluded with regards to the hedonist view and the objective theistic view of the good life? The hedonist view seems utterly false with the two criticisms brought against it. Not only just the hedonist view but it seems that all subjective views seem to lead to absurdities or some type of contradiction. Ethics must be objective and mind-independent. It seems that they must also be grounded within God Himself. One must live with God’s commands in mind in order to have a good life with human flourishing.

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.

Shafer-Landau, Russ. The Fundamentals of Ethics. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.

The Argument from Contingency

For many centuries theistic philosophers have been formulating deductive arguments to prove God’s existence. One type of argument is called a cosmological argument. The cosmological argument “looks at chains of causes” and “asks how the existence of [the universe] could be explained” (Stairs 57). It is different from other arguments for God’s existence such as the teleological argument or the moral argument. The specific version of the cosmological argument that will be examined and discussed in this paper is the argument from contingency which deals with explanations rather than specific causes. The argument is heavily influenced by the principle of sufficient reason which the rationalist philosophers all held to. This essay will examine the principle of sufficient reason, the argument from contingency, criticisms, and counter arguments and will ultimately argue for God being sole explanation of the universe.

The principle of sufficient reason plays a tremendous role in explaining the argument from contingency. Rationalist philosopher, Gottfried Leibniz defined the principle of sufficient reason. In his writing Monadology, he says that “no fact can be real or existing and no proposition can be true unless there is a sufficient reason” (Kolak 170). This is to say that everything needs some sort of sufficient reason of its existence. This principle applies to the question, “why is there something rather than nothing?” And from this, the argument itself hinges off this principle of extrinsic or intrinsic explanation.

The argument from contingency is a formal argument and it is worded like this:

1. Everything existing has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe is an existing thing.
4. Therefore the explanation of the existence of the universe is God. (Moreland 466).

This argument is different from the other cosmological arguments particularly because it does not need to appeal to a temporal universe. It can fit perfectly with an eternal universe.

The first premise appeals to the principle of sufficient reason. It seems perfectly reasonable to think that everything that exists needs some sort of sufficient reason of its existence. For something to be necessary that would mean that it could not not-exist. It must exist in every single possible world. Something that is necessary has an explanation within the necessity of its own nature – as premise one shows. If some existing thing were to have a cause outside of itself as an explanation of its existence, that thing would be a contingent thing. Something that is contingent means that it is neither necessarily true nor necessarily false. This means that its existence is solely dependent on something else. It seems reasonable to accept premise one on these grounds.

Premise two takes the first premise and says that if the universe has an explanation then it would have to be God. The universe does not seem to be necessary but rather contingent. We can imagine a world in which the universe does not exist. It also seems to be comprised of contingent things. The expansion of the universe seems to be wholly contingent based on the initial big bang. It seems that if the universe is contingent then it would need an external cause because of premise one. The explanation of its existence cannot be found in the necessity of its nature because the universe is contingent and therefore dependent on another explanation. This premise really gets to the question that was mentioned earlier: why is there something rather than just nothing? Some necessary being must exist that is the explanation of contingent things. If there is no necessary explanation, then contingency goes onto an infinite regress. This necessary being does not need an external cause because it has an internal explanation of its existence.

Premise three seems to be blatantly obvious. There is no good reason for denying the external world outside of ourselves. Solipsism seems quite absurd. The conclusion of the argument follows from the premises that followed it.

There have been some criticisms of this argument. Philosopher Bertrand Russell has responded to this argument by saying that the universe does not need an explanation. The universe is just static, eternal, and has no explanation according to Russell. He also says that because things are contingent within the universe does not mean that the whole universe itself is contingent. He believes the theist commits a fallacy of composition (Cosmological). The fallacy of composition says that because individual things have certain characteristics that does not entail that the whole group of those things have all those same characteristics. This criticism still avoids the question “why is their something rather than nothing?” and instead tries to show that the theist is merely applying his intuition to the universe based on individual contingent parts of the universe. Russell does not want to face the fact of why the universe exists at all so he does away with its need for an explanation.

Philosopher Immanuel Kant objected to the argument because he thinks it will lead to the ontological argument ultimately and since according to him the ontological argument does not work, therefore the cosmological argument does not work either (Cosmological). This seems to be a red herring – an irrelevant criticism of the current argument. The ontological argument has no bearing on this cosmological argument whatsoever. The ontological argument is a different proof meant to prove God’s existence by the definition of God Himself. Kant is trying to show that the ontological argument explains the definition of a necessary being because the ontological argument argues for a being who’s fundamental nature is existence. This does not seem to be the exact type of meaning of the word necessary that is shown in this argument from contingency. This criticism from Kant seems to fall flat on its face.

Some people have objected to the argument based on the validity of the principle of sufficient reason. If the principle is false then that might possibly undermine the argument itself. If the explanation for the universe is contingent then another explanation is needed, but if the explanation is necessary, then the universe is also necessary (Moreland 467). Christian theism says that God’s actualizing of the universe was a completely free act. That act was contingent on God’s will. God could have existed by Himself in some possible world. But if that act is contingent that would make the explanation of the universe contingent and thus in need of another explanation. William Lane Craig says that “one must ultimately come to some explanatory stopping point that is simply a brute fact, a being whose existence is unexplained” (Moreland 467). It seems that even if one were to deny the principle of sufficient reason as Leibniz formed it, one would still need to get to some sort of transcendent explanation of the universe. It also seems that these critics seem to be defining the word sufficient as something stronger than Leibniz wanted it. Leibniz might have meant sufficient in the sense of “adequate” or something weaker than what these critics think the word sufficient means.

So what is one to think of this argument? This argument seems be a tried and true argument and is ultimately convincing that God exists and that He is the necessary explanation of the universe. The principle of sufficient reason seems at the very least highly likely rather than necessarily false. And even in the general use of the word reason, the universe still needs some sort of necessary explanation. The criticisms of the argument do not work to explain the argument’s premises as being false or the conclusion itself being false. As Kant and Russell have shown, it is very easy to deny or just swerve around a certain premise of this argument.

Works Cited

“Cosmological Argument (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 11 Sept. 2008. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/&gt;.

“Fallacy: Composition.” The Nizkor Project. 2009. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html&gt;.

Kolak, Daniel, and Garrett Thomson. The Longman Standard History of Modern Philosophy. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2006. Print.

Moreland, James Porter, and William Lane. Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003. Print.

Stairs, Allen, and Christopher Bernard. A Thinker’s Guide to the Philosophy of Religion. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. Print.

The Moral Argument

The Moral Argument

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

When I speak of something being objective, I mean, something which is independent of our minds.

It seems that premise (1) is agreed upon. Atheist existentialists have for the most part denied objective moral values in the world. They are at best things which we create.

Nietzsche, for example, thought that the death of God would destroy all values and meaning in life. He says “there are no moral facts, only interpretations.” We must be our own god and create value for ourself.

Australian philosopher and atheist, J.L. Mackie has been quoted saying, “If . . . there are . . . objective values, they make the existence of a God more probable than it would have been without them. Thus, we have a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a God.”
According to Mackie, ethics and morals must be invented. They are not mind-independent.

What do the logical positivists of the early 20th Century have to say about ethical statements? The positivists believed that there are really only two types of meaningful statements – tautologies and empirical truths. These statements must be verified in order to be meaningful. Ethics is not *in* the world, though and Ludwig Wittgenstein has said that “Ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental” (Lawhead 513).

A.J. Ayer also said, ““The statement ‘It is your moral duty to tell the truth” means nothing more than ‘I recommend you to tell the truth’”(Lawhead 509).

Richard Dawkins would agree with all these radical claims of ethics. He says, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”

So it seems, that at least some atheists agree on premise (1).

What then, is the case for premise (2)? Do objective moral values actually exist in the world?

It would seem like they do at first glance. No one can hold to a subjective view of ethics, for if one did then they could not deem or judge anything as being good nor evil. Ethics itself would completely vanish. There is moral rightness and wrongness. No person would dare think that the Holocaust is just subjectively bad. The Holocaust would be wrong even if all the Nazis brainwashed everyone into believing that it was right.

Objective moral values do exist in the world. But where do we get ought-ness from is-ness? That’s where premise (3) comes in.

Moral values come in the form of commands. What we ought to do or ought not to do. It’s impossible to have abstract objects (numbers, logical truths etc) give us these values because, again, they do not stand in causal relations with us. God is the best explanation of objective moral values. Again, I’m purely talking about *where* these moral values come from.

J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982),pp. 115-16.

Lawhead, William F. The Contemporary Voyage: 1900 -. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002. Print.

Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995), quoted from Victor J Stenger, Has Science Found God? (2001)

Wittgenstein, the Tractatus, and the Investigations

Philosophy of language is easily one of the most relevant areas within analytic philosophical discourse in the current century. This philosophy was first advanced by philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the logical positivists such as A.J. Ayer. The most important figure during this movement is Ludwig Wittgenstein. Born in Vienna in 1889, Wittgenstein is known for originally creating a logical framework and outlook of language similar to the logical positivists (Lawhead 510). This is considered his early philosophy. Later on he denies his early work and formulates an almost entirely new philosophy of language. This paper will analyze his early philosophy, compare and contrast his early view to logical positivism, and take a look at his later philosophy.

Early Wittgenstein’s work entitled Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was very important to the philosophy of language. The Tractatus, while short, mainly consists of factual statements that Wittgenstein uses to build his argument for his philosophy. The most important part of the Tractatus is Wittgenstein’s picture theory of language. Propositions correspond to, or picture the world and reality. Suppose one were to say, “There is a black Honda Civic sedan outside” this statement would picture a black Honda Civic sedan which is outside at this present moment. The names within the sentence picture actual objects in the world and the whole statement pictures reality like it is. Like all statements, this statement would have a truth-value. “The world is all that is the case” (Grayling 40). Wittgenstein goes on by saying that facts make up the world, not things, and that facts are state of affairs — or a state of things (Grayling 40). He believes that the state of affairs determine the proposition and that the proposition is a picture of what reality really is. By analyzing the picture-proposition one can derive meaning from reality. Words in a sentence only make sense in relation to the whole sentence and the context itself. It must be noted here that words such as “not” and “or” are not part of the picture but rather they are a logical connectors that make sense of the sentence. For Wittgenstein all propositions are either true or false and he is trying to show what can be correctly stated as meaningful language (Grayling 41). He says that values, ethics, and religious claims are not in the world. “Ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental” (Lawhead 513). Wittgenstein also says that, “What we cannot not speak about we must pass over in silence” (Lawhead 514). At this point the logical positivists are agreeing very much with Wittgenstein’s views on language and the meaning it has. The positivists believed that there are basically two meaningful types of statements: tautologies and empirically verified propositions. Every other statement or proposition that did not fit in either of these two categories was, according to the positivists, meaningless. Statements such as “God exists” or “God does not exist” were rendered as being meaningless since they were not tautologies and they could not be proved nor disproved by empirical means. Also, ethical concerns were merely emotional suggestions about behavior and again were neither true nor false. Ayer once said, “The statement ‘It is your moral duty to tell the truth” means nothing more than ‘I recommend you to tell the truth’” (Lawhead 509). Ethical judgments were nothing more than recommendations of personal taste. Wittgenstein did not want to go down the route that the positivists were going down. He claimed that the things that we can not talk about — the meaningless ethical and religious statements and sentences — were actually more important than the things we can say. They are mystical for Wittgenstein. He once said, “My work consists of two parts; the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the more important one” (Lawhead 514). What Wittgenstein did not comment on in the Tractatus is more important according to him. This is precisely where he breaks from the logical positivists.

After working out his early philosophy of language, Wittgenstein thought he solved every single philosophical problem and thus stopped doing philosophy. He started working as an elementary school teacher for a number of years. He did some other work as a gardener and then later as an architect. It was during this time that he would rethink the whole Tractatus and his early thoughts and almost completely deny everything he once held to be true (Lawhead 514).

Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is not only entirely different from his early philosophy, but it is also more influential. The Philosophical Investigations is the most important work of his later philosophy though it was published after his death. The most striking difference between the early and later Wittgenstein is the way he sees language. In the Tractatus he saw language as picturing a state of affairs but in the Investigations he sees language as a tool, “a form of life,” that work within the context of a language-game (Grayling 79). Also, along with this primary distinction, later Wittgenstein really tried to simplify his thought and tried to not make it so theoretical and complicated like he did with the Tractatus.

Wittgenstein’s analogy of a language-game is one of the most important concepts in his later thought. He says that what we call games — board games, sport games, casual games et cetera — has no essence to them. The definition of games are culturally defined and have resemblances to one another but no person can really get a set definition of what they all have in common (Grayling 84). Language for Wittgenstein is just language-games. That is to say, the only way to understand language is to understand its language game. Wittgenstein is pretty much attacking the whole philosophical tradition up to this point. He is attacking what is called essentialism. Essentialism says that there are essences to things, in particular, language. So when one talks about circles or cars or phones or whatever it may be, there is some type of essence that they all are connected to. This view is most easily seen within Plato’s thought. Plato thought there were immaterial forms that were perfect representations of what was found in the real world. In the allegory of the cave, Plato says that these objects are the most real and are the things that man should seek because he must exit the cave — the material world — and see the platonic heaven (Baird 278-283).  But Wittgenstein denies this Platonic essentialism through his example of a game. With this newfound concept, Wittgenstein says that the meaning of language is defined on how it is used in any particular language-game. The meaning of the word is its use. For example, the word materialism has two drastically different meanings in different language-games. In metaphysics it means that the fundamental substance of reality is wholly material, but in political theory and economics, materialism is defined as the obsession with wealth and material things such as money and homes and cars. The understanding and meaning is different for each language-game because it is being used differently within each game.

Wittgenstein says that because language is defined through cultural and societal language-games, language is completely public and not private. Wittgenstein says the language is public because it is rule based. The rules are public and in order to understand a word, sentence, or proposition, one must understand the public rules which exist within any given language game. A person cannot make their own private language. All language is learned through society and is a form of life according to Wittgenstein (Grayling 97). Any type of language deemed to be a “private language” is really determined by the public rules and external reality. This is another attack on the philosophical tradition of Descartes who famously said, “I think, therefore I am.” His internal thoughts and “private language” proved that he exists. But Wittgenstein says that he must get that language from some type of society, from his parents who taught him how to process words. Thus, Descartes’ statement is not a private and internal statement but is rather ultimately public (Grayling 98). The external society is more important than the internal self according to Wittgenstein.

Later Wittgenstein seems to be absolutely correct in how language works and how we as humans get meaning from language. Everything seems to be public and learned through public means. His view of language-games seems to completely go against the logical positivist’s view of language. Ethical statements can now be analyzed with the ethic language-game. Religious talk can now be explained and talked about with relation to the religious language-game. He did not want this analysis to be over intellectualized but rather, he wanted it to be relatively ordinary (Lawhead 519). He preferred ordinary language over philosophical language because philosophical language in itself creates problems of definitions (Lawhead 518). If Wittgenstein is right about language being public and he’s right about language-games, then talking in ordinary speech is the best way to get at the truth of what we are saying “for philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday” (Lawhead 518). His attack on the Cartesian inner language is completely correct. He dismantles Descartes so-called private language by showing it to be public. Wittgenstein’s legacy will always remain highly influential. He once said, “Our language continually ties new knots in our thinking. And philosophy is never done with disentangling them” (Lawhead 519). This could be true, as philosophy can sometimes create more problems then solve them. This statement fully sums up Wittgenstein’s distaste for philosophy and shows that the real issue is language.

Works Cited

Baird, Forrest E. Ancient Philosophy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.

Grayling, A. C. Wittgenstein: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2007. Print.

Lawhead, William F. The Contemporary Voyage: 1900 -. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002. Print.

Epistemological Theories of Truth: A Brief Overview

For centuries philosophers have been debating one another over metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and political theories. But the most important out of these is epistemology. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Epistemology may very well be the most important branch of philosophy because it is needed in order to justify the truth value of propositions or beliefs. It asks questions such as: how can we know reality? How can we justify our beliefs? What is truth? Does truth exist outside of the mind or only within it? There are three main theories of truth that philosophers have posited in order to answer these questions. There is the correspondence theory, the coherence theory, and the pragmatic theory. This will paper attempt to explain all three and will show the strengths and weaknesses for each theory along with arguing for the best of the three (or some type of synthesis between them).

The correspondence theory says that truth is a relation between a proposition and reality. That is to say that reality is what makes the proposition true, not the other way around. If a proposition makes a statement about a reality and the statement corresponds with the reality then that proposition is true. If one were to say, “Obama is presently the President of the United States” this proposition is true because Obama actually is the present President. The proposition corresponds with reality. Prima facie, this theory seems to be correct as to what truth is. There are some criticisms of the theory, though. The first and most basic criticism deals with the existence of an external reality. How can one even know that an external reality even exists? How can a proposition correspond if there is no reality to correspond to? This objection seems absurd to take into account at first but it has honestly been taken seriously in the past. Descartes had this doubt that he could be living in a dream world and that an evil genius was deceiving him. If an external reality does not exist, then every belief we hold about an external reality is completely false. It seems impossible to fully verify and prove the existence of an external reality but is it irrational to hold a belief in an external reality? Many philosophers would say no. This objection seems to be purely out of empty skeptical doubt. The second objection to the correspondence theory is based on verification principles. How can one verify every correspondence? Consider the statement “Christ died in 30 AD.” How can one verify this proposition with something that does not exist anymore because it is now in the past? One could show a correspondence by pointing to sources such as writings from historians at the time that show Christ died. Our propositions do not have to only be verified empirically. The verification of the correspondence could be verified through a priori reasoning, external evidence such as historical documents and so on and so forth. It seems that the correspondence theory is more likely than not to be true.

The second theory is the coherence theory. This theory states that a belief is true if it coheres with other beliefs a person may hold. Beliefs are seen as a web. There seem to be a few good things about this theory. Firstly it helps avoid verification like the correspondence theory depended on. Since true beliefs are based off of other true beliefs than there is no correspondence to determine what truth is. Secondly it overcomes problems dealing with propositions that are in the past such as Christ’s death. Because the beliefs are interconnected, then one can rationally hold to beliefs regarding history based on the belief that historians are not lying or making up things. But does this coherence make the belief true? A person can have a perfect set of cohering beliefs and yet still have a false view of reality. Consider scientific beliefs. A theory such as the theory of evolution can be believed and then from that other theories can be justified on its truth value. But if evolution is false then all the beliefs cohering to evolution seem to be possibly false as well. It seems like there has to be at least one first belief that is independent of the ones that follow. Not every belief can cohere to all the others. And if there is a first belief how does one determine that belief to be true? The correspondence theory might be able to work for this first belief.

The pragmatic theory of truth is the final theory out of the three. It says that the truth of a belief is defined by its practical consequences. The truth is the one that works the best. For people back in 1800s America, slavery was true for them because it worked for them (helped them create an economy, helped with hard labor etc) but now in the modern age, slavery is false because it does not work and stirs up racism. This pragmatic view seems to create relativism – the view that truth has no real objective basis in the world and thus whatever works is true at whatever time. This could be why pragmatist C.S. Peirce thought that science was the best way of finding the truth (Lawhead 464). The truth is a consensus among people and can be falsified. One moment we are believing in some scientifically proven truth the next moment it is disproved and we are believing something else because it works for our time. What would the pragmatists say to ethical propositions? Murder is wrong only because it being wrong works for the world. This theory seems to deny mind-independent truths and seems to make everything subjective.

The correspondence theory of truth seems to be the best out of all three. It shows that propositions correspond to the world and they do not have to always cohere to other true beliefs in order to be considered true. Also they do not have to be verified in order to be true as the propositions are true in themselves if they correspond to a reality. And even if they do have to be verified, empirical verification is not the sole source of verification. If empirical verification were the only method then the existence of an external reality for instance would be entirely impossible to prove or disprove.

Works Cited

Lawhead, William F. The Contemporary Voyage: 1900 -. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002. Print.