Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
16t he lunat ic replies, 'Y es, but t hat was only his diabolic al c unning; he's really plot t ing
against me the whole time, like the rest of them; I know it I t ell you.' However
many kindly dons are produc ed, t he reac t ion is st ill t he same.
Now we say that suc h a person is deluded. But what is he deluded about?
About the truth or falsity of an assertion? Let us apply Flew's test to him. There is
no behaviour of dons that c an be enac ted whic h he will ac c ept as c ounting against
his theory; and therefore his theory, on this test, asserts nothing. But it does not
follow that there is no differenc e between what he thinks about dons and what
most of us think about them – otherwise we should not c all him a lunatic and
ourselves sane, and dons would have no reason to feel uneasy about his presenc e
in Oxford.
Let us c all t hat in whic h we differ from t his lunat ic , our respec t ive bliks. He has an
insane blik about dons; we have a sane one. It is important to realize that we have
a sane one, not no blik at all; for there must be two sides to any argument – if he
has a wrong blik, then those who are right about dons must have a right one. Flew
has shown that a blik does not c onsist in an assertion or system of them; but
nevertheless it is very important to have the right blik.
Let us t ry t o imagine what it would be like t o have different bliks about ot her
things than dons. When I am driving my c ar, it sometimes oc c urs to me to wonder
whether my movements of the steering-wheel will always c ont inue t o be followed
by c orresponding alterations in the direc tion of the c ar. I have never had a steering
failure, though I have had skids, whic h must be similar. Moreover, I know enough
about how the steering of my c ar is made, to know the sort of thing that would
have to go wrong for the steering to fail – steel joints would have to part, or steel
rods break, or somet hing – but how do I know that this won't happen? The truth is,
I don't know; I just have a blik about steel and its properties, so that normally I
t rust t he st eering of my c ar; but I find it not at all diffic ult t o imagine what it would
be like t o lose t his blik and acquire the opposite one. People would say I was silly
about steel; but there would be no mistaking the reality of the difference between
our respective bliks – for example, I should never go in a motor-c ar. Yet I should
hesitate to say that the difference between us was the difference between
c ont radic t ory assertions. No amount of safe arrivals or bench tests will remove my
blik and rest ore t he normal one; for my blik is c ompat ible wit h any finit e number of
such tests.
It was Hume who taught us that our whole c ommerc e with the world depends
upon our blik ab out the world; and that differences between bliks about the world
c annot be settled by observation of what happens in the world. That was why,
having performed the interesting experiment of doubting the ordinary man's blik
about the world, and showing that no proof could be given to make us adopt one
blik rather than another, he turned to bac kgammon to take his mind off the
problem. It seems, indeed, to be impossible even to formulate as an assertion the
n o rma l blik about the world whic h makes me put my c onfidenc e in the future
reliabilit y of st eel joint s, in t he c ont inued abilit y of t he road t o support my c ar, and
not gape beneath it revealing nothing below; in the general non-homic idal
tendenc ies of dons; in my own c ontinued well-being (in some sense of that word
that I may not now fully understand) if I c ontinue to do what is right ac c ording to