Magic,
signs, and making sense
This
lengthy essay has originated as a by-product of a musical composition,
a series of spells and incantations in mostly ancient languages. These
texts were chosen because of their peculiar poetic qualities; qualities
which are not lyrical-reflective or expressive, but derive from the
'performative' character of these texts (to use J.L. Austin’s term):
they
are meant to achieve something. In this, they are a manifestation
of that strange but universal
belief in the ‘magical’ power of spoken, sung or written words. |
Lodewijk Muns
God and the calculus of beliefArguments in contemporary ‘natural theology’, operating with a ‘God-hypothesis’ of an inductive or probabilistic kind, are mistaken for two reasons. (1) Since the ontological status of the God-concept in theological tradition excludes it from probabilistic reasoning, the purported inductive arguments are in fact disguised a priori arguments. (2) These arguments conflate probability, plausibility, imaginability and desirability.Attempts to refute such a ‘God-Hypothesis’ with arguments within the framework of science are therefore pointless. Instead, the debate should lay bare the basic intuitions which motivate the will to believe. If we want to explain the fact that theistic belief is upheld in spite of illogicality and implausibility, we should look into the structure of language and language use. text (pdf) |