Non-Marxist Atheisms

20th Century History

Contents
Marxism
Non-Marxist Atheisms

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Psychoanalysis
Existentialism
Analytical Philosophy
Secular Humanism

Psychoanalysis

Freudian psychoanalysis was a far more influential form of atheism in the non-communist West. In The Future of an Illusion (1927), Freud (1856-1939) offered an explanation of religion as a means of sublimating socially repressed drives through the promise of reward and compensation in the afterlife.[1] Essentially following Feuerbach, Freud interprets religion as a projection of human concerns onto the (indifferent) universe. However, unlike Feuerbach, Freud generally seems to have supposed that religion was a negative thing, and diagnosed it as a neurosis of culture (see, for example, his works Civilisation and its Discontents (1930) and Moses and Monotheism (1939)).[2]

Psychoanalysis, like Marxist 'scientific atheism', is now a more marginal voice within mainstream debate due to the steady flow of criticism concerning the scientific status of Freud's theories. However, like its Marxist cousin, psychoanalytic atheism has exercised an immense influence on twentieth century atheism, and it remains a commonly seized upon reductive explanation of religion amongst the general public in popular conceptions of religious persons as merely 'sexually repressed'.

Existentialism

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), portrait from the notice board of his literature class at the Ecole Normale Superieure, 1924

(b/w photo) by French Photographer, (20th century) Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France/ Archives Charmet/ The Bridgeman Art Library.

Existentialism, particularly influential during the mid twentieth century, has as a discourse suffered a similar fate to Marxism and psychoanalysis, and in Britain and the USA (but also increasingly on the continent) has a diminished presence in mainstream philosophical debate. Existentialists such as Albert Camus (1913-1960), Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Maurice Merleau- Ponty (1908-1961) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) typically affirm that human beings find themselves in a meaningless ('absurd') world and need to shape their lives in absolute freedom. Indeed, Sartre (in contrast to atheistic determinists) regarded radical human freedom as so evident that he even based one of his chief arguments for atheism upon it: there cannot be a God because otherwise we would not be free. This entails a morally nihilistic rejection of all norms.

Analytical Philosophy

For much of the twentieth century Anglo-American philosophy advocated a rejection of metaphysics, and most prominent philosophers in this tradition tended to be atheist. One of the most important issues throughout this period in the Anglo-American attack on religious claims was the meaningfulness of religious language in general. As Charles Taliaferro notes, since it was assumed by many Anglo-American empiricist philosophers that 'for a propositional claim to be meaningful it must either be about the bare formal relations between ideas such as those enshrined in mathematics and analytic definitions ("A is A", "triangles are three-sided") or there must in principle be perceptual experience providing evidence of whether the claim is true or false', this excluded religious claims as meaningful. 'Ostensibly factual claims that have no implications for our empirical experience are empty of content'.[3] This led prominent twentieth century philosophers such as A.J.Ayer (1910-1989) to claim that religious beliefs were devoid of sense, so that they were strictly speaking not false but neither true nor false. As Taliaferro further notes, 'the field of philosophy of religion in the 1950s and 1960s was largely an intellectual battlefield where the debates centered on whether religious beliefs were meaningful or conceptually absurd'.[4]

A further important issue in Anglo-American philosophy concerning the validity of religious claims arose due to the influence of the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). Wittgenstein famously attacked what has often been called the 'picture theory of meaning', according to which claims may be judged true or false depending on whether the picture which the claim represents has a good fit with reality.[5] In Wittgenstein's opinion, this theory of meaning was mistaken, and in particular misunderstands religious beliefs: their meaning is rather to be found in their use within particular forms of life. However, as Taliaferro notes, although philosophers of religion have been able to see in this an apologetic strategy and have denied or talked down the importance of traditional metaphysical claims in religious forms of life, others were not slow to point out that 'lack of belief that God exists makes belief in God meaningless [it is] puzzling to suppose one can trust a Divine being, without believing or hoping there is some Divine reality there to rely upon'.[6]

Secular Humanism

Although finding its roots in the 19th century, with the first secular humanist society being formed by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866, humanism has flourished in the 20th century. Although there are religious humanists, most humanist societies are now part of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, formed in 1952. The organisations belonging to this society have over 4 million members in total. [7]This allows the bulk of humanist thought to be identified with the IHEU’s ‘minimum statement’, which all members must accept.

‘Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.’ [8]

Humanism traditionally has strong connections to supporting scientific thought, and the sections on science and atheism and the new atheists are also relevant to a consideration of humanism.

References

Minois, Georges. Histoire de L'atheisme. La Fleche: Fayard, 1998.
Taliaferro, Charles. "Philosophy of Religion." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed Edward N. Zalta. Place Published, 2007.

Bibliography

Footnotes

[1]↑ Georges Minois, Histoire de L'atheisme (La Fleche: Fayard, 1998), 513.
[2]↑ Ibid., 514.
[3]↑ Charles Taliaferro. "Philosophy of Religion." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed Edward N. Zalta. (Place Published, 2007), Online entry, section 2.
[4]↑ Ibid. (Place Published., section 3.
[5]↑ Ibid. (Place Published., section 3.
[6]↑ Ibid. (Place Published., section 3.
[7]↑ http://www.americanhumanist.org/publications/morain/chapter-8.html
[8]↑ http://www.iheu.org/minimumstatement

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