来源：复旦新闻文化网

[讲座]【人文基金学术讲座】What does it  mean to say 'God exists'? A Philosopher of Language       looks at Religion.

起始时间	2013/09/10 09:00
结束时间	2013/09/10 11:30
活动地点	光华楼西主楼2509

What does it mean to say ‘God exists’? A Philosopher of Language looks at Religion.

 

Abstract: In the Christian context, many philosophical discussions about the value of Religion start with the question whether God exists. To the participants of such discussions it seems that this is the question that has to be answered first, and only when it is answered positively can any follow-up questions be meaningfully treated. In the negative case, no further inquiries are necessary; the whole topic appears to be illusory. (Cf. the popular book ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins)

The lecture will explore what happens when this procedure is reversed: The problem of God’s existence is placed at the end rather than at the beginning of a clarification process, that (following William James) starts with certain (possibly universal) human experiences. According to such a view, the linguistic articulation of such experiences is the second step, and only in the context of such articulations (in a third step) in some religions the talk about the ‘existence of God’ gets a clear meaning.