Ayer on Logical Positivism: Section 4

Many thanks for the upload.....this and all the others Flame0430.

Ayer is magnificent and Magee does an excellent job.

barmp!

What exactly do you mean by Christianity?

Wrong once again, sadly. Christianity and philosophy are highly compatible, and for you to say otherwise is simply a philosophical statement, void in the empiricist worldview, for Hume said to throw away any proposition not supported by science or math. Apply the claim to itself and the problem is with logic for you.

I agree that Christianity and philosophy are compatible, but considering the advance that has been made in professional philosophy, only a layman would consider modern philosophy and Christianity to be compatible.

In fact, the proposition "christianity and philosophy are compatible" IS verifiable by logic. You describe what you mean by christianity and philosophy, and then you check whether the sentence is self-contradictory or a tautology.

To show this point: when you say 'apples and oranges are the same', you could translate that into "something that looks like an apple and something that doesn't look like an apple are the same", which is clearly self-contradictory. So it is a matter of "math" or logic

Wrong again. Existentialists were not the firsts to ask the question of "BEing". Christianity had done that thousands of years before- Jesus said after accepting his offer of salvation, you become a "new creation", He said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life..." This is the most starking of all his claims. Existentialism is a secular answer to the question of ontology, Being. Christianity says man's essence is his spiritual condition, Existentialism says man's essence is his existence.

Dear Savedbygrace,
Philosophy and religion are different, even if they often draw the same conclusions. Every religion accepts a body and soul dichotomy, yet no religion has ever attempted to answer the how or the why. Science can answer the how (or and philosophy can answer the why, so unless you are interested in asking the reasons, we have no base to debate on.

Didn't the pre-Christian philosophers ask the question of being? Existentialism isn't exclusively secular, because it's also compatible with theism. Kierkegaard, a foreshadower of existentialism, was himself a Christian.

You have confused existence with context. The simple fact that I exist does not necessarily make me contextual. Existentialists do not believe "meaning" comes from the surrounding. In fact, "authenticity", which is a big part of existentialism, means an integrity to oneself, or self-making. The world may be indifferent, but you, as a being, is not, and therefore the meaning is in you. BUT it does not entail "individual creation of meaning" of the world. The meaning is in you, not out of you.