Criticism of cognitivism about religious language: Ayer and Flew

Question 1

what does ayers believe in

Answer 1

logical positivism

Question 2

what is logical positivism

Answer 2

• logical positivists focused on scientific methodology and the important role that science could play in reshaping society.
• Logical positivists wanted to understand philosophy in such a way that it could be part of the scientific enterprise.

Question 3

what did ayers create

Answer 3

the verification principle

Question 4

what is the verification principle

Answer 4

• a sentence is meaningful if and only if (IFF):
  a. either it is tautological/analytic (i.e. true or false by definition)
  b. it is verifiable using experience

Question 5

what does ‘verifiable by experience’ mean

Answer 5

• ir is verifiable at least in principle i.e. we know how we would verify its truth or falsity, even if we do not/ cannot verify this in practice
• it is at least weakly verifiable i.e. its truth/falisity could be made probable by experiences we could have

Question 6

how does the verification principle relate to religious claims

Answer 6

• religious claims are not true or false by definition; ‘god exists’ or ‘god loves me’ are synthetic claims, true in virtue of how reality is, and so cannot be true or false by definition
• they are not in principle weakly verifiable as the speaker has no empiracal test that could in principle be undertaken to verify the probable truth or falsity of statements like ‘god exists’ or ‘god loves me’
• therefore they are not meaningful for ayer

Question 7

what does flew believe in

Answer 7

the falsification principle

Question 8

what is the falsification principle

Answer 8

• if there is no conceivable evidence that would show your claim to be false (falsify it), your claims are meaningless- it is not really asserting anything, its not saying anything true or false

Question 9

how is flews falsification principle applied to religious language

Answer 9

• This is how Flew thinks religious believers relate to statements like ‘God exists’ or ‘God loves me’.
• There is no conceivable evidence that would show these claims to be false (‘falsify them’) so they are meaningless - they are not really asserting anything, not saying anything true or false

Question 10

what is the analogy flew used for the falsification principle

Answer 10

gardener parable

Question 11

what is the Gardner parable

Answer 11

1. there is no possible evidence that the believer will allow to count against their claim that there is a gardener
2. the believer keeps modifying their statements to avoid any evidence falsifying it (i.e. the gardener is invisible, without a smell)
3. this means that the statement is ‘watered down’ so much that its not really saying anything about the world anymore. the statement undergoes ‘death by a thousand qualifications)
4. this shows the statement is unfalsifiable for the believer
5. this represents what flew thinks religious believers with statements about god.