Benjamin Murphy

Thought and Reality

[1] The Gifford Lectures were established in 1888 to promote Natural Theology ‘in the widest sense of the term.’ The distinguished list of those who have delivered the lectures includes Anthony Flew, Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins (the latter as part of a group of speakers in the centenary year of 1988), an indication of how just wide the widest sense of the term is. The 1996 lectures, delivered by Sir Michael Dummett and now published as Thought and Reality, are a contribution to natural theology in the narrowest sense, in that they conclude with a philosophical argument for the existence of God. [2] Dummett is best known as an expert on the writings of Gottlob Frege, and for his work on the issue of realism and anti-realism. For those who are already well acquainted with his work, it is no surprise that he offers an argument for the existence of God that is broadly similar to that offered by Bishop Berkeley, just as Dummett’s anti-realism concerning the physical world can be regarded as a successor to Berkeley’s idealism. He mentions the existence of an unpublished paper along these lines in the preface to Truth and Other Enigmas.1 With the publication of this book, Dummett’s argument for the existence of God is likely to attract the attention of anyone concerned with philosophy of religion, and this is the chief reason for including a review in Ars Disputandi. Still, one cannot understand his argument for the existence of God without understanding the broader context in which it is presented. [3] In the last decade, there has been a turn in analytical philosophy towards metaphysics and, for a new generation of philosophers, impatience with the central role that has been assigned to philosophy of language: why waste all of our time studying words, when we aspire to understand things? In the first two chapters, Dummett addresses this concern head-on. Metaphysics does indeed ask what reality is. However, by ‘reality’ we must mean that which we encounter: ‘Reality is constituted by what facts there are, and the notion of a fact is one we have framed.’ (23) Whereas intellectual endeavour in general replaces false thoughts about the world with true ones, increasing our knowledge of reality, metaphysics deepens our knowledge, by asking what reality is: ‘Other forms of intellectual enquiry seek to determine which propositions are true. Metaphysics seeks to determine what it is for them to be true. The only means by which it can

Faith and Philosophical Analysis: The Impact of Analytical Philosophy of Religion

[1] In this highly stimulating collection, a range of authors take the pulse of analytical philosophy of religion. The contributors were asked to reflect on the history and social context of analytical philosophy of religion and, as the editors acknowledge, there is a particular emphasis on the roots of the discipline in British universities, particularly Oxford. This is hardly a surprise given that of eleven contributors, all but two teach at British universities (or did so until retirement), and more than half are linked to Oxford, either as teachers or students. The editors point out, correctly, that the contributors acknowledge the importance of American influences in analytical philosophy of religion, and there are two contributors who teach in the USA (although one of these is studying for a Ph.D. at Cambridge, which brings the number who are members of British universities up to ten out of eleven). However, there is no acknowledgement of the thriving tradition of analytical philosophy of religion in Europe—not even a word of regret at the impossibility of including it. Still, the limited scope of the collectionprovides for a unity of focus, and the editors make no claim to present a comprehensive over-view of analytical philosophy: rather it constitutes a series of reflections on a very specific movement that originated in Oxford in the 1950’s. [2] In the first paper, Basil Mitchell, a former Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oxford, and one of the founding figures of the movement, describes its origin. At a time when a generation of philosophers was emerging who, under the influence of logical positivism, simply refused to take religious claims seriously, Mitchell joined forces with other philosophers and theologians to form a group known as ‘the Metaphysicals’. Of course, in order to make their defence of religion convincing, Mitchell and his allies had to adopt methods of argument that would win the respect of their opponents, that is the respect of analytical philosophers, and thus was (British) analytical philosophy of religion born. [3] Judging by the evidence of this book, the tables have turned since those days. All of the contributors take for granted that philosophers should address

Are God’s Hands Tied By Logic?

Abstract If logic binds all reality, it would appear that God must be bound by logic. Swinburne argues that logic binds only actual human sentences. His case rests on an argument against Platonism, and the assertion that contradictions are incoherent. I argue that logic binds any possible language and so places a significant limit on God’s actions, that one need not be a Platonist to hold this, and that contradictions are not incoherent. I conclude that if God is an agent, his hands must be tied, and explain why I find this conclusion unwelcome.