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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Hinton's defence of Gareth's philosophy is welcome - but I don't think it works. This is because he does not show how, on Gareth's theory, ‘God’ can be referential, and, if it is not referential, then ‘belief in God’ cannot be taken in any literal sense. Sadly, I stand by my original claim that the radical, Phillipsian Wittgensteinianism that Gareth adopts is a form of informal positivism that only allows an expressivist sense to religious, and, indeed, all metaphysical language.
1 Flew, Antony, Hare, R. M. & Mitchell, Basil, “Theology and falsification: the University discussion” in New Essays in Philosophical Theology. New York, Macmillan (1964)Google Scholar John Wisdom, “Gods”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1944–5, reprinted as Chap. X of Antony Flew, ed., Essays in Logic and Language, First Series (Blackwell, 1951), and in Wisdom's own Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (Blackwell, 1953).
2 Russell, Bertrand, “Logical Atomism”, 1924, in Essays on Language Mind and Matter 1919-1926, Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell 9, Slater, John G., ed. (London: Unwin Hyman) 1988, 160-179.Google Scholar This ref., 162.
3 Analysis, Jun., 1949, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 83-97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This ref., 94.
4 It also seems to me that there is an arrogance in this claim. It is plain that 99% of humanity think they can make sense of this idea, and Phillips claims that ‘we’ – the enlightened – realize it is, not merely wrong, but nonsense. Gareth shows that he does not have such conceit by the way that he disagrees with Phillips on whether the proponents of traditional theology are talking about religion at all. Phillips thinks they are not, Gareth, that they are, but are getting it wrong. Gareth also agrees that this is minor disagreement! This discussion comes up in Phillips’ article in the memorial volume of New Blackfriars.