Ian Ramsey and Empirical Fit

This article analyzes and extends the criteria developed by Ian T. Ramsey for the justificaton of talk of God or the ultimate. Using published and unpublished sources, it shows that Ramsey had developed and used both formal and material criteria. The formal criterion, a metaphysical justificatory criterion, shows that the more consistent, simple, comprehensive and coherent an ultimate claim, family of religious discourse, or metaphysical system is, the more reliable it is. The material criterion, Ramsey's famous “empirical fit,” is analyzed into its components: the criteria for the initial evaluation of a claim are differentiated from the criteria for the evaluation of a claim's continued adequacy. Two aspects enter into each stage of evaluation: that of adequacy to the facts (initially presented and later discovered), and that of fidelity to the character of the speaker (initially formed and constantly developing). This analysis shows that Ramsey did offer a theory of the justification of religious language in terms of its cognitive content. The article goes on to elaborate a pragmatic criterion for evaluating ultimate claims. This criterion, implicit in Ramsey's work, supplements the previous two criteria. Simply put, it shows how the life of a person offers a guide to the aceptabihty of the fundamental claim that that life exhibits. This criterion is composed of two aspects: an authenticity aspect and a truth aspect. If a claim is authentically held as ultimate, it can then be tested for truth in the manner described in the paper, using Ramseyan criteria. In summary, this essay shows that the claim that Ramsey had no theory for the justification of religious language is wrong, and acknowledges that the truth of ultimate claims is not easy to find, not simple to utter, not comfortable to live; but that the theories used by and developed from Ian Ramsey's work outline a complete theory of the justification of talk of God or the ultimate as true.

Character (mathematics) · Empirical research · Epistemology · Fidelity · Metaphysics · Philosophy of language · Simple (philosophy) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Computer Science · Karl Barth and Christian Theology · Mathematics · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions