4B RL as Cognitive, but Meaningless

Question 1

What is logical positivism?

Answer 1

• The philosophically-driven, systematic reduction of all knowledge to basic scientific and logical formulations

Question 2

How did the Vienna Circle define logical positivism?

Answer 2

• “It is the method of logical analysis that essentially distinguishes recent empiricism and positivism from the earlier version that more biolgical-psychological in its orientation.”

Question 3

Who was the leader of the Vienna Circle?

Answer 3

• Moritz Schlick

Question 4

Who was a notable member of the Vienna Circle?

Answer 4

• Ludwig Wittgenstein

Question 5

What are the only two forms of knowledge considered to be valid?

Answer 5

• Logical reasoning

* Empirical evidence

Question 6

What are the four forms of statements that are meaningful according to their relationship with logical reasoning and empirical evidence?

Answer 6

• Tautological
• Mathematical
• Synthetic
• Analytic

Question 7

Who first distinguished between analytic and synthetic language?

Answer 7

• Kant

Question 8

What is an analytic statement?

Answer 8

• One that is true by definition.
• If the negation of a statement results in a contradiction or inconsistency, then the original statement must be an analytic truth.
• Examples: bachelors are unmarried; daisies are flowers

Question 9

What is a synthetic statement?

Answer 9

• One whose truth value can only be determined by relying on observation and experience.
• Its truth value cannot be determined by relying solely upon logic or examining the meaning of the words involved.
• Examples: all men are arrogant; the president is dishonest.

Question 10

What is the principle of verification?

Answer 10

• The doctrine that a proposition is only cognitively meaningful if it can be definitively and conclusively determined to be either true or false
• Developed by Ayer

Question 11

Give an introduction to A. J. Ayer’s work related to logical positivism.

Answer 11

• He developed the work of the Vienna Circle’s logical positivists, but retained the clear link to their agenda of knowledge being confined to logical reasoning and empirical evidence
• Described metaphysicians as “devoted to the production of nonsense” (although, ironically, we now consider Emotivism to be a meta-ethical approach)

Question 12

What was the clear limitation to the Verification Principle that Ayer recognised?

Answer 12

• The initial criteria for the VP did not take into account historical or universal scientific statements
• “there remain a number of significant propositions […] which we could not verify even if we chose; simply because we lack the practical means of placing ourselves in the situation where the relevant observations could be made”
• “until he makes us understand how the proposition that he wishes to express would be verified, he fails to communicate anything to us.”
∴ Drew “a distinction between the ‘strong’ and the ‘weak’ sense of the term ‘verifiable’”

Question 13

Explain Ayer’s ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ verifiability.

Answer 13

• Strong (practical) = “if its truth could be conclusively established in experience”
• Weak (principal) = “if it is possible for experience to render it possible”

Question 14

Elaborate on ‘weak’ verifiability.

Answer 14

• Statement = “There are no mountains on the farther side of the moon!”
• “No rocket has yet been invented which would enable me to go and look at the farther side of the moon.”
• I am “unable to decide […] by actual observation”
• “But I do know what observations would decide it for me” ∴ “verifiable in principle”

Question 15

Who championed the falsification principle?

Answer 15

• Karl Popper

Question 16

What is the falsification principle?

Answer 16

• For something to be meaningful, there has to be evidence which could empirically refute it
• If a principle was robustly scientific, it should be inherently disprovable
• Sci. theories can be tested to see if there us any evi. against it, e.g if gravity was false, an object would float away from the earth

Question 17

Explain why the following statement, according to Popper, is not falsifiable: ‘God exists’.

Answer 17

• There is no way that any evidence could be found to disprove it.
• How do you know what you are trying to disprove?
• Proof of G’s existence must be based on what the believer in a position to know and not just believe.

Question 18

What are two differences between the verification and falsification principles?

Answer 18

1) VP depends on verifying criteria; FP = falsifying

2) FP ≠ based on lang. used but on the basic insight than to assert one thing is to deny something else

Question 19

Give the quote that Flew used from Wisdom’s Parable of the Gardener.

Answer 19

• “Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?”

Question 20

Explain Flew’s main challenge to religion.

Answer 20

• Why do religious believers not allow the evidence of evil/suffering to count against their beliefs? G = supposedly all-loving and all-powerful.
• Their beliefs ∴ are not falsifiable ∴ not meaningful
• R. believers cause G to “die the death of a thousand qualifications”, as their answers are always justified with an “Oh yes, but…” response

Question 21

How does Flew explain God as a parent?

Answer 21

• We are told that G loves his children ∴ reassured
• But, if a child were dying of inoperable throat cancer, the earthly father would be driven frantic in efforts to help, while the Heavenly Father reveals no obvious signs of concern.
• What would have to happen to entitle us to say “God does not love us” or “God does not exist”?

Question 22

What “simple central questions” did Flew put forward “to the succeeding symposiasts”?

Answer 22

• “What would have to occur…to constitute for you a disproof of the love…or of the existence of God?”

Question 23

What did R. M. Hare, who was in a symposium with Flew and Mitchell, say?

Answer 23

• “On the ground marked out by Flew, he seems to me to be completely victorious”

Question 24

What was John Hick’s Celestial City parable challenge to verification?

Answer 24

• Two men travelling
• First man:
- Believes they are travelling to a Celestial City
- The “pleasant parts” are “encouragements”
- The “obstacles” are “trials of his purpose” designed to make him a worthy citizen when he arrives
• Second man
- “Believes none of this”
• “Their opposed interpretations can be guaranteed retrospectively by a future crux.”
• Eschatological verification = poss. that G’s existence can be verified in the future through J’s second coming

Question 25

What is R. M. Hare’s criticism of falsification?

Answer 25

• The concept of meaningfulness comes from the impact that a belief has on an individual, not from the empirically verifiable nor falsifiable nature of the belief
• Proposed the idea of bliks - an unfalsifiable conviction that formed an unfalsifiable, yet still meaningful, worldview which cannot be unseated by empirical evidence.
• Bliks have the power to radically affect our behaviour

Question 26

Explain R. M. Hare’s Parable of the Paranoid Student.

Answer 26

• “A certain lunatic is convinced that all dons want to murder him”
• Despite his friends showing him friendly dons, “there is no behaviour of dons that can be enacted which he will accept as counting against his theory”
• “He has an insane blik…we have a sane one…not no blik at all”
• “it is very important to have the right blik”
• Bliks are based on what the person views as ‘facts’

Question 27

What is Basil Mitchell’s criticism of falsification?

Answer 27

• R. believers = frequently faced with challenges to their belief and evi. that seems contrary; it is a matter of faith as to how they deal with it
• Believers “would not deny the fact of pain counts against the assertion that God loves men”, and they “recognise the fact of pain as counting against Christian doctrine”, but they are committed by faith to trust G
• To believe in d.b.a.th.qu = to misunderstand purpose + challenge of holding a r. faith

Question 28

Explain Mitchell’s Parable of the Partisan and the Stranger.

Answer 28

• The Partisan “does not allow anything to count decisively against the proposition ‘the Stranger is on our side’, but recognises that the Stranger’s ambiguous behaviour does count against what he believes about him”
• “constitutes the trial of his faith”
• The evi. against his beliefs is not discounted

Question 29

What is Richard Swinburne’s criticism of falsification?

Answer 29

• There are plenty of instances where human language was used in ways that were accepted as meaningful without emp. evi. to support it.
• The idea should not automatically be discounted as meaningless ∵ it cannot be falsified
• Just ∵ we cannot disprove something does not mean it did not happen
• There may be a belief that such things do happen, despite lack of evi.

Question 30

Explain Swinburne’s ‘toys in the cupboard’ analogy.

Answer 30

• They come to life when nobody is watching
• No evi. to support/deny
∴ meaningful to those who hear it, and understand what he is referring to