20th century Religious Language Flashcards
verification?
aj ayer
vienna circle
vienna circle’s strong verification?
For the logical positivists there are two types of significant, meaningful propositions:
- Tautologies – a priori true by definition, “a triangle has three sides”, mathematics is a set of tautologies
- Empirically verifiable propositions – a sentence whose truth can be determined by observation. Sentences can sound meaningful, but if they cannot be tested and proved then they lack meaning.
how does popper criticise verification?
- Rules out historical statements (cannot be there to verify them), and discussion of scientific laws (cannot check every object dropped falls to the floor) and claims about art/ beauty/ ethics
- Karl Popper – we cannot scientifically verify everything – illogical test of meaning!
how does aj ayer’s weak verification respond to karl popper’s criticism?
• A J Ayer weak verification – verified in principle, stating what evidence would make the sentence probable – both atheists and theists speak nonsense what speaking of God, as they do not even know what God is
criticism of weak verification
• Art and poetry reveal valuable things about human nature but are neither cognitive nor scientifically verifiable sentences… Logical positivism, by reducing all significant language to two categories, seems to leave no place for valuable and significant contributions to human knowledge
phelim defence of weak verification
• Although it does not necessarily dismiss the meaningfulness of religion to individuals, religious claims are not claims about the way the world is; The greatest blow to Hegelian optimism was WW1 – people no longer believed in this optimism; logical postivists offered a response by claiming that it was no business of philosophy to say anything about the, world and certainly not to engage in Hegelian speculations. Phelan, “to eliminate metaphysics from philosophy” will achieve meaningful language.
brummer criticism of verification
• Brummer: To suggest things are only significant if open to scientific investigation seems to be based on its own kind of metaphysical viewpoint that the reality of the world is merely based on science.
swinburne’s argument for god talk meaningfulness?
Cannot render God talk, or any talk meaningless, as scientific meaning is different from religious meaning. Swinburne. States existential statements cannot be falsified but the statements still meaningful- Toys in Cupboard Analogy
dawkins criticism of verification and falsification
• Neither verification nor falsification claims religious statements are meaningless, in the same way that the sentence “I have a pet unicorn” has meaning. Instead it argues God talk is not worthy of serious philosophical/ scientific discussion. Dawkins – failed scientific hypothesis.
criticism of both verification and falsification blik?
Nonetheless, RM Hare rightly asserts, in response to Flew’s attack on God talk, that he is wrong to apply scientific criteria to theological language. God talk does not claim to be scientific in the first place; Flew’s investigation is failed from the offset.
• His parable of the lunatic, who is convinced that all the dons at the university want to kill him despite there being evidence against this, allows Hare to develop his notion of “bliks” in order to defend God talk. Hare argues we have basic worldviews or beliefs called “bliks”, much like that of the lunatic.
• Bilks are “modes of cognition” which have significant importance to the way one orders their life; religious beliefs therefore, are a set of values and not a set of facts, demonstrating that falsification fails as a critique of God talk as religious bliks are not falsifiable in the way science is.
popper and flew falsification?
Instead of criticising religious claims on the basis of their lack of empirical evidence (a rather paradoxical notion), falsification arguably presents a stronger challenge on the basis that it highlights how “God talk dies a death of a thousand qualifications”
• The falsification theory was devised by Karl Popper as a demarcation between what is science and what is merely pseudo science. Popper’s point is that if it cannot be subject to tests that would show how it could be false; then this is not a real scientific theory.
Flew applied Popper’s falsification theory (perhaps wrongly) to religious language; claiming believers will allow nothing to falsify their claims thus religious statements are not genuine assertions and lack scientific meaning - he illustrates his point with a story of an “invisible gardener
what does gould say ?
non-overlapping magisteria
difference between popper and flew
- popper said demarcation between statements of science and other things
- flew said because god talk in unfalsifiable it is meaningless
what does alston say ?
epistemic imperialism - the rejection of all other methods of reading the truth and going on a ‘crusade’ to endorse it
criticism of hare bliks?
religious people do not see their beliefs as a blik but as an assertion.
