SOME IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS IN C.S. LEWIS’S ESSAY “RELIGION WITHOUT DOGMA?”

Truth and Falsehood. C. S. Lewis points out that the relation of truth (or falsehood) that we take to hold between beliefs and the world is “wholly immaterial” (p. 146). This might be understood as an observation to the effect that truth is not a “natural” or a physical relation (like causation).  Like ethical notions it does not fit well into naturalism’s conceptual scheme.

Meaning.  Lewis observes that “meaning is a relation of a wholly new kind, as remote, as mysterious, as opaque to empirical study, as the soul itself.” (p. 146).  The point is that meaning is not a “natural” relation and so does not fit well into the naturalist ideology.

Naturalist Reply:  Some naturalistic philosophers believe that truth and meaning can be “defined away” or somehow explained in naturalistic terms.

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