(a) Distinguish between cognitivist and non-cognitivist account of religious language. Does the cognitivist account lead to any contradiction? Answer with reference to the philosophical views of R. B. Braithwaite. (10+10=20 marks)
(b) "In order to be

Question

(a) Distinguish between cognitivist and non-cognitivist account of religious language. Does the cognitivist account lead to any contradiction? Answer with reference to the philosophical views of R. B. Braithwaite. (10+10=20 marks)
(b) "In order to be conceived as the ultimate cause of the world, God must necessarily have some form of physical manifestation." Do you agree with this view? Give reasons and justifications for your answer. (15 marks)
(c) Discuss the main features of religious experience according to Advaita Vedanta. (15 marks)

UPSC Answer Check · Accepted Answer

Religious language 
The debate over religious language turns on truth-aptness. Cognitivism treats statements such as “God exists” as propositions with truth conditions: they can be true or false and represent facts. Non-cognitivism denies this property; it treats them as expressive, practical or functional, committing speakers to a way of life rather than asserting facts.

R. B. Braithwaite, an empiricist influenced by Wittgenstein rather than a logical positivist, develops a non-cognitivist account. For him, religious language is not metaphysical assertion but “stories” expressing commitment to an agapeistic life. It shapes moral and spiritual practice rather than describing entities. His critique presses a verificationist point: if religious claims are factual, they must be empirically testable; unverifiable metaphysical claims cannot masquerade as factual without becoming meaningless or reduced to empirical claims, losing distinctive content. This is a self-undermining contradiction: cognitivism wants religious language to be meaningful as factual, but the empiricist standard it must meet empties it. Yet his reductionism may understate religious commitment, since believers often make truth-claims about God, even if they resist ordinary verification.

Physical manifestation 
I do not agree that an ultimate cause must have physical manifestation. The thesis confuses the mode of causation with the nature of the cause. In creation theologies, God causes the world without being a physical agent. In Aristotle, hylomorphism explains physical change through matter and form, but the Prime Mover is pure form, immaterial and unmoved; ultimate causation does not require embodiment. Incarnation theologies in Christianity and Vaishnavism give God physical or quasi-physical manifestation to mediate grace, revelation or devotion, not because causation demands matter. Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita affirms divine attributes and avatars, yet treats Brahman as inner controller and cause, not merely a physical body.

The stronger case is that ultimate causation may be pure spirit or non-dual reality. Plotinus’s One is beyond being and form; Shankara’s nirguna Brahman is attributeless, beyond space, time and physicality. Shankara distinguishes saguna Brahman, the personal God with attributes, from nirguna Brahman, the absolute ground. Saguna manifestation is useful for devotion and moral practice, but not metaphysically necessary for ultimate causation. To require physical manifestation would limit God to the created order and collapse cause and effect.

Advaita experience 
Advaita Vedanta understands religious experience as direct realization of Brahman as sole reality. The world is not ultimately real in the same sense; it is the effect of maya, the power of superimposition that makes the one appear as many. The goal is moksha, liberation through identity-realization: “Aham Brahmasmi,” the self is Brahman. It is cultivated through sravana, manana and nididhyasana—listening, reflection and meditation—culminating in samadhi. Savikalpa samadhi retains a subtle object or distinction, while nirvikalpa samadhi is wordless, non-dual absorption in which subject-object duality disappears.

Advaita also distinguishes jivanmukti, liberation while living, from post-mortem release. The jivanmukta remains in the world but sees action as Brahman’s play, free from egoic bondage. This differs from Dvaita, where the soul remains eternally distinct from God, and from Vishishtadvaita, where the soul is a real part of God’s body. Classical expositions by Shankara and Mandana Mishra, and modern interpretations by Radhakrishnan and Malkani, stress that Advaita experience is not merely emotional ecstasy but knowledge of non-duality. Ramana Maharshi and Vivekananda’s reinterpretation show how this insight can be lived ethically and socially.

In conclusion, the cognitivist/non-cognitivist divide is a limit of propositional language. Braithwaite’s non-cognitivism rescues religious practice from false factualism, but Advaita goes further: religious experience transcends the claim/non-claim distinction. Likewise, ultimate causation need not be physical; it can be understood as non-dual Brahman, whose saguna manifestations are pedagogical rather than necessary. Thus religion combines practical commitment, non-dual realization and causation that does not reduce the infinite to the physical.

(a) Distinguish between cognitivist and non-cognitivist account of religious language. Does the cognitivist account lead to any…

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