Be thankful for intellectual rivals, they can sharpen your mind

Who gets on your nerves? It might be a self-righteous newspaper columnist. It could be a politician, a political party or a campaigner of some sort. Picture them in your mind’s eye and grit your teeth for a moment.

Now I’m going to try to make you look upon this source of irritation more benevolently – by drawing on the example of two Irish philosophers who were intellectual rivals more than three centuries ago.

John Toland and George Berkeley were fundamentally at odds over Christian teaching. Berkeley was particularly wound up by Toland's "freethinking" ways and the Church of Ireland bishop was not averse to ill-tempered outbursts, ad hominem attacks and, in the words of Trinity College Dublin's Clare Moriarty, "rhetorical nastiness that would make a seasoned internet troll blush".

But, annoying as the Donegal man may have been, Toland made Berkeley a better thinker. Just as Cristiano Ronaldo needed Lionel Messi, Rafael Nadal needed Roger Federer or Katie Taylor needed Amanda Serrano to reach their full potential, Berkeley would not have broken new ground in the theory of language had it not been for Toland’s constant niggling about the church’s faulty reasoning. Having been “backed into a corner by Toland’s heretical ideas” about what he saw as Christianity’s nonsensical preaching, Berkeley made “significant philosophical moves” that pre-empted more contemporary discussions about the nature of language, explains philosopher Peter West.

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There is a lesson here for all of us: next time someone irks you with an argument don’t get angry, use the opportunity to sharpen your mind.

West, who completed his PhD at TCD and now teaches at Durham University in England, discusses this heavyweight philosophical bout further as today’s Unthinkable guest.

How did Toland argue that religious language was nonsense?

Peter West: “John Toland’s Christianity Not Mysterious, published in 1696, was an incendiary text, both literally and metaphorically. The book was deemed heretical by the Irish Parliament and was burnt in front of parliament buildings by the common hangman.

“At the heart of Toland’s argument is the idea that certain terms in Christian religious discourse – such as ‘grace’ and ‘the Holy Trinity’ – cannot pass a particular test for meaningfulness. Toland adopts this test from John Locke who, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (published in 1689), maintained that words are meaningful only if they “stand as marks for...Ideas”. The word “cat”, for instance, is meaningful because I can picture a cat in my mind. The word “blictri”, on the other hand, is not because it does not stand for anything.

“For Toland, a proposition can only be understood if the words and sentences it is constructed from pass this test. But, Toland argues, claims about, for instance, the Holy Trinity – the idea that one God is three divine persons – do not. Consequently, he argues, it is unreasonable for the church to ask Christians to accept them as ‘mysteries’.”

How did Berkeley respond?

“In a set of philosophical dialogues from 1732, Berkeley presents a debate between the titular figure of Alciphron (a thinly-veiled version of Toland) and Euphranor (standing in for Berkeley).

“Alciphron reiterates Toland’s claims about the meaninglessness of words like ‘grace’ or ‘the trinity’. As Alciphron puts it, such words are ‘empty names’ because they do not signify ideas in our minds. Berkeley (through Euphranor) offers a two-pronged attack on this view.

“First, he points out that the same is true of many scientific terms – for instance, terms like ‘force’ or ‘gravity’ which are crucial to physics. Second, in a manner similar to Wittgenstein, much later, by focusing on how real people use language, he points out that the same applies in many instances of everyday language use. When I promise you a ‘reward’ for doing something, just as St Peter does in the Bible, even if you don’t know what that reward is, it can motivate you to act. Similarly, when I describe an action as ‘good’ or ‘just’, I can do so meaningfully, even if it isn’t totally clear what ideas those words are meant to pick out.

“Berkeley’s basic point is that words can be meaningful – meaningful, that is, to us – even if they don’t pick out things we can picture in our minds.”

[ credits Messi ]

“To use your own analogy, the catalyst for a lot of Berkeley’s philosophy is not a single player but a whole team. Throughout Berkeley’s lifetime, he opposed a movement in philosophy known as ‘free-thinking’, which he associated with atheism and irreligion. Free-thinkers advocated using one’s own reason rather than appealing to religious authority or scripture.

“Toland is a key figure of this movement. Christianity Not Mysterious encourages us to use our reasoning capacities to determine what aspects of the Bible can and cannot be true. But other free-thinkers, like Anthony Collins or Bernard Mandeville, are also the focus of Berkeley’s philosophical ire.

“Free-thinking was a real bugbear of Berkeley’s. Rumour had it that, during his time in London, he would go under cover in coffee shops and eavesdrop on free-thinking conversations. In any case, it certainly seems reasonable to suggest that Berkeley’s philosophy of language – which pre-empts the ‘ordinary language philosophy’ of the mid-20th century – may not have been developed without Toland’s antagonism.”

Looking at Toland’s argument now, it doesn’t seem awfully strong. ‘blictri’ is a nonsense word whereas ‘trinity’ represents an idea, even if that idea is not fully intelligible

“Perhaps the account of Toland’s argument I’ve given above is a little too simplistic. Toland’s point is actually that reason is a God-given faculty, so it makes no sense to claim that God would want us to accept truths that are ‘above reason’ – like the claim that God is both one and three persons. Toland – following Locke – thinks we can only reason about things we have ideas of, so it is important for him to determine whether we can indeed have ideas of central Christian concepts.

“It should also be noted that Toland was not setting out to try and undermine religious discourse entirely – at least that’s what he tells us – but rather to identify which religious claims we should take seriously, and which purported ‘mysteries’ may simply be useful tools for the subjugation of the masses by crafty priests.

“Whether it’s Toland or Berkeley who comes out on top, what I think is interesting about this uniquely Irish debate is the fact that what can now seem like an antiquated, theological argument led Berkeley to develop an approach to the philosophy of language that would become absolutely central in philosophical discussions centuries later.”

Ask a sage

Why is mythology so enduring?

John Toland replies: “It seems evident from the remotest monuments of learning, that all superstition originally related to the worship of the dead, being principally derived from funeral rites, though the first occasion might be very innocent or laudable...”