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+--- Thread: Article Ghosts among the philosophers + Religious language is not scientific language (/thread-17606.html)
Ghosts among the philosophers + Religious language is not scientific language - C C - Mar 17, 2025
Ghosts among the philosophers
https://aeon.co/essays/when-psychical-research-and-analytic-philosophy-shared-cambridge
EXCERPTS: Why did Turing feel the need to talk about telepathy? Why did he consider extrasensory perception a serious objection to his thought experiment? And what about his peculiar mention of ghosts? [...] Cambridge was one of the birthplaces of analytic philosophy, which prides itself on dispensing with speculative metaphysics, and putting a heavy emphasis on scientific precision and empiricism. But ‘spooky’ topics like telepathy, after-death survival and ghosts permeated the philosophical ecosystem in Cambridge and beyond long into the 1960s. It pushed many of the thinkers interested in it towards new and creative explorations of the nature of time, matter and language... (MORE - details)
Religious language is not scientific language
https://iai.tv/articles/wittgenstein-vs-dawkins-is-god-a-scientific-hypothesis-auid-3101?_auid=2020
INTRO: Critics of religion like Richard Dawkins often depict religion as a second-rate science. According to Dawkins, God is a “hypothesis” which is outcompeted by rival scientific explanations. But might this conception of religion be radically mistaken? In this article, philosopher John Cottingham draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language to argue that any understanding and evaluation of religious discourse must be sensitive to the form of life in which it is embedded. As such, religious claims are not defective scientific claims, but rather entirely distinct ways of seeing the world... (MORE - details)
RE: Ghosts among the philosophers + Religious language is not scientific language - Magical Realist - Mar 17, 2025
(Mar 17, 2025 04:44 PM)C C Wrote: Ghosts among the philosophers
https://aeon.co/essays/when-psychical-research-and-analytic-philosophy-shared-cambridge
EXCERPTS: Why did Turing feel the need to talk about telepathy? Why did he consider extrasensory perception a serious objection to his thought experiment? And what about his peculiar mention of ghosts? [...] Cambridge was one of the birthplaces of analytic philosophy, which prides itself on dispensing with speculative metaphysics, and putting a heavy emphasis on scientific precision and empiricism. But ‘spooky’ topics like telepathy, after-death survival and ghosts permeated the philosophical ecosystem in Cambridge and beyond long into the 1960s. It pushed many of the thinkers interested in it towards new and creative explorations of the nature of time, matter and language... (MORE - details)
That the typical mainstream scientist's and philosopher's response to the prospect of telepathy is automatically one of snickers and eye rolls reminds me of third graders in class giggling and looking around when the topic of sex comes up. Why would they react in such a nervous and defensive way to something they don't think exists? Unless of course they fear it just MIGHT exist and so destroy everything they thought they knew.