Kızılkaya / Fıkıh Usulünde Sahabe Fetvasının Kaynaklık Değeri Cilt / Volume: • Sayı /Issue: • 2012

198
İnsan ve Toplum
be realist at all and argues that there is a space for real philosophical debate, as long 
as we take a Wittgensteinian defence of philosophical theory, where it is the activities 
associated with a use of language, rather than ontological claims, that are regarded 
as most important. Blackburn, finally, goes on to identify religious language as some-
thing that is symbolic or expressive, which serves to orientate us towards each other, 
ourselves, and or our place in this world. But he is quick to point out that such a theory 
of religious language, lacking ontological claims, is unlikely to be accepted by religious 
believers because ontology is crucial to providing the grounds for explanation, justi-
fication, and also power to religious language that would not be possible without the 
ontological backing that religious believers subscribe.
In the fifth chapter, Alexander Bird presents a comparative study of realism in science 
and theology with the aim of illuminating the debate. This essay may be divided into 
two main parts: an examination of realist and antirealist positions in science, and then 
the same again for theology. Thus, Bird begins by outlining the various aspects of 
metaphysical realism in science, arguing for the applicability of truth values to theo-
retical assertions. In the next section, he examines epistemological scientific realism, 
analyzing the intimate relationship between metaphysical antirealism and scepticism, 
before finally considering by comparison the scientific realist position. The fourth part 
of the essay briefly presents the conflict between realist and anti-realist claims about 
the aims of science. In the fifth section, Bird begins his examination of realism in rela-
tion to theology, identifying parallels that are to be found first in metaphysical realism 
and then in epistemology before finally considering the aims of theology in section 
seven.  Bird concludes his essay by remarking upon the many obstacles metaphysical 
and epistemological antirealism faces both in science and theology while at the same 
time drawing a clear distinction between the two. It seems Bird finds that the safest 
position for the theologian is antirealism, since as a metaphysical realist one is threat-
ened by epistemological antirealism; yet as an epistemological antirealist one does 
not face the strong objections their counterparts do in science.
In his contribution, Jon Hare offers a discussion of ‘prescriptive realism’ and how it 
may be related to theism. Prescriptive realism is a position Hare develops in a previous 
work by combining the merits of several major theories in the debate between realism 
and expressivism that have arisen over the last century. This paper is divided into two 
parts. The first gives an account of prescriptive realism, where Hare explains in what 
sense the theory is expressivist (discussing especially the notions of ‘expression’ and 
‘acceptance’) and in what sense it is realist (discussing especially the notion of ‘objec-
tive truth’ and the thought experiment of moral twin-earth). The second part of the 
paper provides an account of a theist version of prescriptive realism, which clarifies 
how this position can explain the different relations to God of the two main families 
of value terms, that is, the one that includes ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and the other ‘right’ and 
‘wrong’. Each of the two parts of the paper are intended to be more or less indepen-
dent from each other, so that it is possible (for a non-theist, for example) to accept 

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199
Değerlendirme / Review
the first and reject the second. However, the second is intended to present a coherent 
model for how a particular normative theory might be endorsed.
In the seventh chapter, Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis discuss what they identify 
as ‘the Wittgensteinian school of philosophy of religion’. They begin by introducing 
criticisms levelled at the school and those such as Crispin Wright, whose theoretical 
stance is understood to be very close to the school itself. This examination is con-
ducted in light of Paul Grice’s idea of ‘conversational maxims’ that are held to be 
essential to the ‘conversational competence’ of a speaker and the idea of ‘knowing’, as 
opposed to mere believing. Thus, Grice’s theory is presented as an alternative means 
to describe, explain, and understand religious language. The next section focuses on 
the work of an eminent member of the Wittgensteinian school, D. Z. Phillips. Here 
the authors examine two important and related aspects of Philips’ perspective on 
religious language. First, they begin by discussing Phillips’s critique of the traditional 
philosophical understanding of God as a ‘metaphysically real’ or ‘independently exist-
ing’ being. Then they continue by considering his reasons for rejecting the view that 
religious language is in some important respects ‘fact-stating’. In the final section of 
their paper, Oppy and Trakakis consider Philips’ emphasis on the distinctiveness of 
religious language, contrasting his thought to that of thinkers such Richard Swinburne 
and Michael Martin. Here, they assert that Phillips’s position is unable to provide a sat-
isfactory account of religious language, providing a list of four ‘disanalogies’ between 
his view and the views of religious believers. Their main conclusion is that the Gricean 
theory of conversation offers several advantages to Philips’ approach.
Merold Westphal’s paper attempts to set forth a form of Kantian anti-realism that he 
claims provides sensible grounds for theistic belief. He begins by comparing Kant’s 
antirealism to realist views in an attempt to avoid confusion between the two and 
defend the former. In this analysis Westphal identifies the combined existence of two 
theses, namely metaphysical realism and epistemic anti-realism, as essential to the 
Kantian anti-realism he attempts to lay forth. Before going on to defend this position 
in response to concerns raised by Alvin Plantinga, Westphal first deems it appropriate 
to distinguish his theory from three other anti-realist views, namely, ‘theistic anti-
realism’, ‘creative anti-realism’, and finally, ‘Rortian anti-realism’. In the next section, 
he turns to the question Plantinga asks about Kantian anti-realists: ‘What leads its 
protagonists to adopt it?’ Here Westphal offers three types of reasons under separate 
headings for being a Kantian theological anti-realist. The first is titled ‘The Metaphysics 
of Finitude’ where Westphal explains that ‘the human mind is finite and suited to 
grasp finite realities. But God is infinite and will always exceed our grasp’. In the sec-
ond of section of this survey, Westphal identifies a ‘Hermeneutics of Finitude’ in Kant’s 
distinction between divine and human knowing, where there is a significant contrast 
between time and eternity. Finally, a ‘Hermeneutics of Suspicion’ is used to claim that 
our thinking and talking about God do not correspond to God’s reality because they 
are distorted by the noetic effects of sin upon the human mind. These three points 
form the basis for adopting what Westphal views as a plausible theistic theory.

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