As a mountaineer knows, the problem with working in a rarified atmosphere is that you tend to end up being laid low with oxygen starvation.
Here’s Jonathan Derbyshire on the limits of necessary disrespect…
Dawkins’ attempt to explain away centuries of religious belief by comparing it with childish credulity, for instance, is deeply unsatisfactory. And if this kind of genetic explanation is laughably weak, Dawkins’ grasp of the phenomenology of religious belief is non-existent. Here Wood turns to Wittgenstein, who insisted that there are “grammatical differences between the use of religious language and ordinary language” (this is Wood’s gloss on some of the things Wittgenstein says in the notes collected as Culture and Value). Wittgenstein’s claim (anticipated by Kierkegaard and, interestingly enough, Nietzsche in The Anti-Christ) is that religious language is not referential (it’s not about some substantive reality) but modal – in other words, that it gives expression to a “form of life” or way of being in the world.
And his conclusion:
But despite the fact that some of Wittgenstein’s acolytes have wrongly supposed that the master’s doctrines relieved them of the need to justify belief in God, Wood is right to suggest that the “jauntily unphilosophical way in which most popular atheistic writing simply ignores the Wittgensteinian dilemmas is disappointing, and explains why its explanations of the sources of religious belief are so jejune.”
This is George… say hi!
Now, George is a born-again Christian of the variety that tends to consider The Bible to express the literal truth and despite doing fairly well for himself, he’s also not really renowned for being, shall we say, the sharpest tool in the box.
So, despite being fairly atypical in many ways, in some respects he is very typical of your average to below-average follower of an exoteric religion.
Richard Dawkins is a man who provoke a modicum of controversy with his views and the manner in which he expresses them. To some, he is not to their personal taste. Some find him a little too agressively polemical in his approach and some think him rather boorish.
One of Dawkins’ day jobs is that of holding the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University - note the operative words in that statement, ‘public understanding‘. His job is to talk to the public. That’s his primary audience.
So let’s imagine, for the moment, that you were having a conversation with George, a man whose understanding is very public, and you said to, quite casually:
“What relevance do you think Wittgenstein has to the public discourse on atheism and religion?’
Do you think George will reply?
A) Well, I think the jauntily unphilosophical way in which most popular atheistic writing simply ignores the Wittgensteinian dilemmas is disappointing, or
B) Wittgenstein? Mmm. Is that anywhere near Berlin? I think I went to a Bierkeller there once, while visiting that nice Mrs Merkel?
Dawkins’ arguments in the ‘God Delusion’ may well be philosophically unsatisfying, but then he is writing for an audience, some of whom may well own precisely two books - The Bible and (if they have children) The Children’s Illustrated Bible.
Either way, they’re unlikely give a toss about whether Dawkin’s ignores “the Wittgensteinian dilemmas” in his book, largely because many of them have never even heard of Wittgenstein, save for a few fans of Monty Python who may know that he played in midfield for the German Philosopher’s XI behind a front two of Heidegger and Nietzche.
I think the discontinuity here is, therefore, just that bit obvious.
UPDATE: Vistors arriving here by way of Tom Hamilton’s ‘defence’ of Joanthan Derbyshire’s comments, to which this post relates, might like to read this, which rather put matters in their proper context.
If Dawkins has written the ‘God Delusion’ for an audience who currently only have on their bookshelf “The Bible and (if they have children) The Children’s Illustrated Bible” I think he faces the prospect of very poor sales. There is a mountain to climb before the Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University will even get the smallest look in…
Many years ago I found myself in a diner in a remote part of the Great State of Texas, and got talking to an old guy also eating there. Somehow the subject of the Buble came up. Now he reckoned that the King James Version was just fine and could not see why anyone thought they could imporve on it, “After all,” he said, “That’s the version Jesus himself used.”
There is no answer to that.
The subjects of Wittgenstein… or Dawkins…. did not arise.
December 15th, 2006 at 2:37 pmI’m about half way through the God Delusion, I think it’s well written and is pitched about right.
I’d say it’s pitched at anyone who can understand the concept that religion not only doesn’t have some of the answers, but that it has none of the answers.
December 15th, 2006 at 3:30 pmIm also half way through the god delusion, and to be honest, whilst its well written, the logic is somewhat awkward. Its written in the style of a sub standard scientist who had decided is looking for evidence to prove his theory rather than looking for a theory to fit the evidence.
As an atheist I find his arguments weak, which is a bit weird, but then maybe Im not in the right audience…
December 15th, 2006 at 11:15 pmUnity, wasn’t Ellee Seymour one of those on her witchhunting high horse last week. If your Cameron image was offensive, just what exactly is this…
http://elleeseymour.com/2006/12/15/
December 16th, 2006 at 10:32 amnancys-profile-of-the-suffolk-serial-killer/
George confessed to a liberal reporter that he had read Camus Outsider. Someone must have told him it was about killing Arabs….
December 16th, 2006 at 4:49 pm[…] Pseuds Corner […]
December 21st, 2006 at 2:03 pmWell, Dawkins is a biologist (more exactly, zoologist) by training and I am rather doubtful he has a very good grasp either of philosophy that reaches beyond the undergraduate level or of the more mathematically inclined sciences. I noticed some time ago, as an undergrad, that some of the more positivistic atheists I knew were in the lesser sciences, as we jokingly referred to them then; to speak more specifically: botany, biology, geology, and (I remember one particularly vitriolic atheist in this department) geography. Most of our resident physics and chemistry PhDs were much more open to notions of the divine, especially a certain now retired organic chemist and a Univ of Chicago educated physicist (and cosmologist). It always seemed it should be the opposite to me, though, anecdotally, the trend holds generally true.
December 27th, 2006 at 2:56 amBut I stray.
Though I did not purchase the book, I happened to have picked up a pre-publication copy from a friend of mine who reviews books from time to time. Though I have nothing against Dawkins, or his education, personally, he does seem swing between the vapid and the simply angry or annoyed. I sincerely doubt the man is not intelligent, but it does require a certain–how shall I say–talent to write well outside one’s discipline. More to the point of the “post” or “blog,” even if the book is intended for an audience that owns only a bible and an illustrated children’s bible, none-the-less, a serious scientist is obligated to write like he is indeed a serious scientist. Wittgenstein is not especially obtuse, nor is Nietzsche, nor is Kierkegaard. When there are valid (and Wittgenstein is certainly legitimate)philosophical arguments that contradict the conclusions of a book or arguments therein do you really think it is appropriate to ignore them so the audience can understand his argument. That is laughable logic. Many, many positions could be easily argued if every writer were to discard “complicated” contrary positions that arise from other writers and thinkers such as Wittgenstein. I know of no reputable intellectual, even public intellectual, who advocates writing for the lowest common denominator. The book would, frankly, have made a better magazine special in something like Reason or SA or Daedalus. There at least the good Professor’s embarrassing lack of background and ill-defined arguments could have been blamed on lack of space.
Occasional Round-up #1…
Unity at Ministry of Truth has been good value lately. The latest A point well missed, and then some… covers an argument over Dawkins’ God Delusion with such choice tidbits as these:
This is why much of theologically-driven assault on The God …
December 27th, 2006 at 11:32 pmJEM - the old boy in Texas might be a little confused (or perhaps he was simply being Borgesian-you know how those old Texas boys like to extract literary tricks from Borges and apply them to everyday situations in a down home fashion, pulling legs right and left), but he has good taste. If Jesus was alive today, he’d surely prefer the beautiful King James version to the affectless modern translations, which are as soulless as the hotel rooms they are distributed to. Jessie the C. was a poet! Before he went mad and decided he was god.
December 30th, 2006 at 1:18 am