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Religious Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Jerome I. Gellman
Jerome I. Gellman
Affiliation:
Ben Gurion State University of the Negev
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Extract

When are sentences A and B the same belief? Following Quine, observation sentences A and B are the same belief when they share the same stimulus–meaning, similar patterns of assent and dissent by subjects when the sentences are queried in the presence of the same non–linguistic stimuli. As for non–observation sentences we note a suggestion of Karl Schick: apply linguistic stimuli in the form of utterances of the language, and map the connections between sentences in the language in terms of linguistic conditioned–responses to utterances. The mapping will yield a network of relations between non–observation sentences themselves, and between the latter and observation sentences at the ‘periphery’. Thus, each sentence receives its place in the overall criss–crossing of relations in the network of the language. Out of a commitment to the ‘autonomy of meaning’, we can say that when A and B are non–observational, they are the same belief when they occupy similar places in the network of sentences in a given language, or corresponding places in corresponding networks of two languages. (Since we can identify the place of sentences in the language network, and since the present suggestion identifies the sameness of belief with location identity, it turns out that there needn't be indeterminacy of translocation.)

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Type
Articles
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Religious Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 159 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

page 159 note 1 See Schick, Karl, ‘Indeterminacy of translation’, Journal of Philosophy LXIX (1972).Google Scholar

page 159 note 2 Quine himself has come over to this position in his recent writings. See Quine, , ‘On empirically equivalent systems of the world’, Erkenntnis (1975), 313–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 160 note 1 For a particularly acute treatment of the theme of social classifications and their bearing on religious belief and practice, see Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge, 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 160 note 2 Berkeley, , Principles of Human Knowledge (New York: Bobbs–Merrill, 1957), p. 47.Google Scholar

page 162 note 1 Compare Quine on the learning of theoretical concepts, Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. 1960), section 4.

page 164 note 1 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), p. 28e.Google Scholar

page 164 note 2 De Haven, Steven and King–Farlow, John, ‘Metaphilosophy and religious disagreements’, Noûs (1979), 511–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 164 note 3 De Haven, and King–Farlow, , p. 514.Google Scholar

page 167 note 1 For a more detailed presentation of the distinction between internal and external problems see Gellman, J., ‘The meta–philosophy of religious language’, Noûs (1977), 151–6,.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 167 note 2 See Gellman, op. cit.

page 168 note 1 I am indebted to J.J. Ross of Tel–Aviv University for helpful comments.