B: RL as cognitive but meaningless

Question 1

Who were the logical positivists?

Answer 1

Group of philosophers in the 1920s and 1930s who had origins in the Vienna Circle.
Believed statements can only be meaningful if they are able to be verified by actual experience or are a tautology.
LP was only new in the sense of being applied to language- Hume had been asserting that truth could only be found through observation since early 18th century.

Question 2

Intention of Logical Positivists

Answer 2

• LP not saying that asserting God’s existence is meaningless because of a lack of experience, they are saying that even talking about it is nonsense.
  Criticisms don’t just apply to the believer.

Question 3

A.J Ayer

Answer 3

British philosopher- supported verificationism.
Believed if statement not verifiable= either meaningless or tautology.
(Meaningless used in the sense of not having factual significance, agreed people make non-verifiable statements important to them)

Question 4

Language, Truth, and Logic Quote

Answer 4

“The sentence expressing it may be emotionally significant to him; but it is not literally significant”

Question 5

Ayers Verification Principle

Answer 5

Example of mountains on the far side of the moon- could not be verified at time of writing.
This statement, whilst unverifiable, is still meaningful because we can explain how to verify the statement.

Question 6

Distinction between verifications

Answer 6

Ayer distinguished between “practical verifiability” and “verifiability in principle”- These statements like ‘there are life forms in other galaxies’ are verifiable in principle because we aren’t able to visit other galaxies, but it could be verified if we could.

Question 7

‘Weak’ and ‘strong’ verification

Answer 7

SV- (practical verifiability) applies to anything that can be directly experienced.
WV- (verifiability in principle) applies to things that can be shown to be probably true beyond reasonable doubt through observation and experience.
Ayer believed WV should be applied, as strong discounts too many things.

Question 8

Application of Ayer’s VP

Answer 8

Ayer believed this application to religious statements can clearly show that they are meaningless.
Eschatological verification is impossible, for example.
Talking about God as infinite or timeless- impossible for us to verify or even explain how to verify, and so have no meaning.

Question 9

Modified Verification Principle

Answer 9

Ayer faced criticism from other philosophers- so rejected own definition of WV, deemed ‘far too liberal, since it allows meaning to any statement whatsoever’.
To solve this, Ayer suggested two new criteria; directly and indirectly verifiable.
DV- something you are able to observe.
IV- Something that cannot be directly be verified, but can be verified by the things around it eg. demonstration of the existence of black holes.

Question 10

Problems with the Verification Principle

Answer 10

1) Verification Principle itself cannot be verified.

Neither logically obvious (like analytical statement) nor is it supported by empirical evidence (like synthetic statement). Presents potentially fatal flaw for VP, as itself is not verifiable, and fails its own test.

2) Historical events cannot be verified.

Beginnings of the theory discounted historical statements, so Ayer had to add WV. Undermines the VPs validity.

3) Post mortem verification / Eschatological.

Hick argued that Christian concept of God is verifiable in principle. Parable of journey to Celestial City- used to demonstrate that whilst knowledge of God’s existence may not be immediately verifiable, there is possibility of this post mortem- verification at the end of time.

Question 11

Evaluation of criticism

Answer 11

Historical events as unverifiable is most effective as it displays the fact that VP initially discredited and essentially falsified what had already been evidenced. Lack of permanency in theory reduces validity.

Question 12

Falsification Principle

Answer 12

Improvement of Ayer’s VP, as it removes historical critique.
States that a statement is factually meaningless if there are no possible falsification criteria.
Antony Flew developed wisdom’s parable of the gardener to explain falsification in “New Essays in Philosophical Theology”

Question 13

Flew’s perspective of the Christian God

Answer 13

Christian God does not live anywhere (bodiless, omnipresent spirit). Cannot be disproved which Flew did not perceive as a good thing.
By making their God unfalsifiable, Flew thinks Christians have made their religious language meaningless.

Invisible Gardener = God
Death of 1000 qualifications.

Question 14

Parable of the Gardener

Answer 14

Illustrates how FP applies to RL.
God of Christianity is unfalsifiable thus RL is meaningless.

Question 15

Antony Flew

Answer 15

• Influenced by Sir Karl Popper; who argued science was based on falsification.
• A scientist proposes a hypothesis , and if they knows what evidence they would need to count against it, then his statement is meaningful.
• Believed language was the same- in order for it to be meaningful, we need to know what could effectively disprove it.

Question 16

“God is love”

Answer 16

Flew believed nothing could falsify this, whenever evidence suggested this is false, the believer ‘qualifies’ the statement- not allow for any evidence to count against beliefs
DEATH OF A THOUDAND QUALIFICATIONS

Question 17

incorrect statements

Answer 17

“all pigs are blue” Incorrecy but is still meaningful as it informs us of the world around us. “God is love” is neither correct nor incorrect and is meaningless.

Question 18

Criticism of falsification principle

Answer 18

R.M HARE- existentialist, concept of meaningfulness comes from impact that a belief had on the unique individual- not from empirically falsifiable.

Question 19

‘Bliks’

Answer 19

Describes the way individuals look at their lives and experiences and argued this had the power to change behaviour and relationship with world.

Absolutely meaningful to individuals, even if it cannot be falsified.

Question 20

Parable of university dons and lunatic student

Answer 20

• Describes someone with unfalsifiable belief.
• Lunatics belief that the dons want to murder him.
• There is nothing you can do to show the student that he is wrong about this.
• Example of unfalsifiable belief- cannot be proven false to someone who is paranoid.
• It “asserts nothing” as far as Hare is concerned.

Question 21

Basil Mitchell’s analogy

Answer 21

Partisan and the Stranger- people accept statements as meaningful based on trust.
Evidence not sufficient to prove beliefs wrong- so believers continue to trust in God.
- A believer’s faith maintains trust even in the face of evidence.

Question 22

The Dons and ‘bliks’- conclusion

Answer 22

Religious statements are non cognitive.
RL influences the way that people look at the world (‘bliks’)- religious believers have different ones to atheists but all are meaningful as they influence a perception of the world.

Question 23

Richard Swinburne

Answer 23

• Argued for lots of cases where language is meaningful, even if unfalsifiable. eg. saying you love someone.
• ‘Toys in a cupboard’ example; particular person believes toys come alive at night. Even though there is evidence to falsify this, the idea remains meaningful to the person.