"Philosophical Proofs are Word Games" - What does that mean? And are they, really?

[Pieman333272]

Every so often, when I put forward a philosophical proof or argument for God to an atheist, they call it a “Word Game” and write it off. First of all, what on earth does this even mean? Do they mean it’s nothing but a collection of words, or a small, optional problem in the worksheet of proving their worldview and ergo, pointless? Second, are they, really? Can you really dismiss philosophical arguments that easily?

Thanks.

 

[Luke_K]

They mean that philosophical arguments are often true just by the definitions of the words, but don’t necessarily correspond to what the material world is actually like. You won’t prove the existence of God to someone just by stringing together words like contingency, cause and effect, infinity, necessary existence, etc. You have to relate your arguments to things we actually observe and experience about the world, rather than arbitrary definitions.

 

[Pieman333272]

They mean that philosophical arguments are often true just by the definitions of the words, but don’t necessarily correspond to what the material world is actually like. You won’t prove the existence of God to someone just by stringing together words like contingency, cause and effect, infinity, necessary existence, etc. You have to relate your arguments to things we actually observe and experience about the world, rather than arbitrary definitions.

Just so you, or any others, know, I try to minimally use philosophical arguments, I am merely asking what the objection means and why it works (if it does).

Thanks for your post, anyway.

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

Every so often, when I put forward a philosophical proof or argument for God to an atheist, they call it a “Word Game” and write it off. First of all, what on earth does this even mean? Do they mean it’s nothing but a collection of words, or a small, optional problem in the worksheet of proving their worldview and ergo, pointless? Second, are they, really? Can you really dismiss philosophical arguments that easily?

Thanks.

I think they are referencing Wittgenstein (however indeirectly) and his Theory Of Language.

Read up on Him. Maybe it will give you an idea as to the reason folks are bringing this up.

Just a thought.

 

[danserr]

Every so often, when I put forward a philosophical proof or argument for God to an atheist, they call it a “Word Game” and write it off. First of all, what on earth does this even mean? Do they mean it’s nothing but a collection of words, or a small, optional problem in the worksheet of proving their worldview and ergo, pointless? Second, are they, really? Can you really dismiss philosophical arguments that easily?

Thanks.

I think it just means they can’t refute the argument, but don’t want to admit it and don’t want to give up their athiesm. It can be frustrating to argue with such people because what can you say next? It might be interesting to ask them, if they say this, what it would take to convince them that God exists. I’d be curious as to what they might say to this.

 

[Apollos]

The best response to that objection is to say, “Philosophical objections are word games”, and then blatantly ignore them from that point on. For if they are smart enough to come up with that objection, they should be smart enough to realize you are automatically refuting yourself in the act of saying it.

 

[Wowbagger]

I suspect they are accusing you of essentially saying, in very complicated philosophical terms, “God exists because God exists.” They think you’re using a complicated set of analytical (aka definitional) statements to hide your circular argument so you can draw the conclusion “God exists” essentially out of thin air.

It’s sometimes an applicable criticism. Aquinas himself accused Anselm of playing exactly these kinds of word games, and, in the end, I think Aquinas is right about that. I have heard some flawed versions of the Five Ways which have proved essentially circular in the end, too. (The Five Ways, properly argued, are possibly the most correct philosophical arguments in history, even though they do not prove the Judeo-Christian good omnipotent creator God in one blow as many people think.)

Other times, it’s just an excuse for an atheist to wriggle out of a conversation, or an indication of the fact that the atheist in question honestly misunderstands the argument you’re making.

 

[tonyrey]

You could say all reasoning consists of word games because we use words to express our thoughts and ideas. Whether they are really games depends on whether the rules are arbitrary. The laws of logic are certainly not comparable to the laws of chess because it is impossible to reason without them.

It is abstractions like “truth” and “freedom” that usually provoke the charge of word games because most people are not used to exploring intangible reality. Yet if we say “We can’t be free to choose what to do if we don’t know what we can do” there is no question of jiggery-pokery! So we are justified in stating that “The truth gives you freedom”. Of course both terms need to be defined but so do terms which refer to material objects.

It is far easier to become confused in the realm of abstractions but their difficulty does not mean they are meaningless. If they are,** the sentence **“Philosophical Proofs are Word Games” is also a word game! How can you possibly make that point without manipulating the symbols we call “words”???

 

[Windfish]

This is bull. If the conclusion follows from the premises, you have proved the conclusion. The thing is, by saying “philosophical proofs are word games,” what they really mean is that they cannot object to your premises but still want to disagree with the conclusion. It’s cowardice.

 

[AntiTheist]

If the conclusion follows from the premises, you have proved the conclusion.

Sure, but if the premises aren’t true – or cannot be demonstrated to be true – then you haven’t proven that the conclusion is true, only that it follows from the premises.

If you accept my premise that a square is a shape with three sides, then I can draw a triangle and correctly conclude that it’s a square. The conclusion follows perfectly from the premises, but it’s not true. The reason that it’s not true is that the initial premise isn’t true.

 

[The_Exodus]

Sure, but if the premises aren’t true – or cannot be demonstrated to be true – then you haven’t proven that the conclusion is true, only that it follows from the premises.

If you accept my premise that a square is a shape with three sides, then I can draw a triangle and correctly conclude that it’s a square. The conclusion follows perfectly from the premises, but it’s not true. The reason that it’s not true is that the initial premise isn’t true.

• The beings which we sense are caused to be by other, prior beings.
• These prior beings are either temporally or logically prior (my parents were temporally prior to my existence, and this chair is logically prior to my being seated).
• The totality of existence cannot consist in an infinite number of these same beings, else no being would ever receive being from another.
• This is because, if we appeal to infinity, we are left with an infinitely insufficient causal chain, which is itself contingent on some prior being.
• Reductio ad absurdum is a permissible form of argumentation and can lead us to logical truth.
• Therefore, since we cannot procede to infinity, a Prime Mover must exist.

How are these premises Anti? I would be interested to hear your objections to them. I offer them in no way threateningly.

 

[Windfish]

Sure, but if the premises aren’t true – or cannot be demonstrated to be true – then you haven’t proven that the conclusion is true, only that it follows from the premises.

If you accept my premise that a square is a shape with three sides, then I can draw a triangle and correctly conclude that it’s a square. The conclusion follows perfectly from the premises, but it’s not true. The reason that it’s not true is that the initial premise isn’t true.

Mmhmm.

 

[Luke_K]

• The beings which we sense are caused to be by other, prior beings.
• These prior beings are either temporally or logically prior (my parents were temporally prior to my existence, and this chair is logically prior to my being seated).
• The totality of existence cannot consist in an infinite number of these same beings, else no being would ever receive being from another.
• This is because, if we appeal to infinity, we are left with an infinitely insufficient causal chain, which is itself contingent on some prior being.
• Reductio ad absurdum is a permissible form of argumentation and can lead us to logical truth.
• Therefore, since we cannot procede to infinity, a Prime Mover must exist.

How are these premises Anti? I would be interested to hear your objections to them. I offer them in no way threateningly.

Premise one needs clarification. Nothing that we have observed has been caused “to be” as in being moved from non-existence to existence. Everything we’ve observed has been caused “to be the way that it is” by something else. Therefore, the argument shows that the “Prime Mover” is not a creator but a sculptor.

I agree with the overall argument. After all, our universe would not be the way that it is today if it wasn’t a certain way a moment ago, and so on and so forth. There must be something unlike anything we’ve observed that started it all.

But on the other hand, what’s to say that the Prime Mover wasn’t later affected by the stuff he/it moved? Think of a circle of people, where the first of them pushes the next one down until it comes back to the initiator and knocks him down. The Prime Mover would then be indistinguishable from the stuff that was moved.

 

[The_Exodus]

Premise one needs clarification. Nothing that we have observed has been caused “to be” as in being moved from non-existence to existence. Everything we’ve observed has been caused “to be the way that it is” by something else. Therefore, the argument shows that the “Prime Mover” is not a creator but a sculptor.

Thanks for your reply.

I find “to be the way that it is” indistinguishable from “to be,” so I don’t think this follows. Moving from non-being to being is something we see verified by the senses. This happens in general movement, where a being is moved from potency to act. If this were not so, movement would not occur, for movement seems simply to be the reduction of potency to act.

luke:

But on the other hand, what’s to say that the Prime Mover wasn’t later affected by the stuff he/it moved? Think of a circle of people, where the first of them pushes the next one down until it comes back to the initiator and knocks him down. The Prime Mover would then be indistinguishable from the stuff that was moved.

The Prime Mover could not be affected, unless he willed himself to be affected, yet nothing could come before his willing in this regard, else we would have to posit some being which moved the Prime Mover from potency in one respect, to act.

 

[Luke_K]

Thanks for your reply.

I find “to be the way that it is” indistinguishable from “to be,” so I don’t think this follows. Moving from non-being to being is something we see verified by the senses. This happens in general movement, where a being is moved from potency to act. If this were not so, movement would not occur, for movement seems simply to be the reduction of potency to act.

My point is that we’ve never observed matter and energy being created. Everything that you’re made of, for example, came from the food that your mom ate when she was pregnant and you eat today. Nothing new was created- the already-existing “stuff” was just rearranged.

 

[The_Exodus]

My point is that we’ve never observed matter and energy being created. Everything that you’re made of, for example, came from the food that your mom ate when she was pregnant and you eat today. Nothing new was created- the already-existing “stuff” was just rearranged.

Thanks again.

On the contrary, we see things being created all the time. We have never witnessed creation ex nihilo, but we certainly witness new being brought about from already existing being. Moving from present to future is one example.

The proofs don’t rely on a creation ex nihilo example of becoming. Rather, an observation of potency reduced to act suffices, and this can occur in already existing being. (I think it impossible to prove creation ex nihilo by the way, and think it must be held as a matter of faith.)