Criticisms Of Ayer’s Verification Principle Flashcards
What is the verification principle?
An attempt to establish a criterion of meaning for how we use language.
What did Ayer think of metaphysicians?
He rendered all abstract thought, including religious ethical language, as meaningless, regarding metaphysicians as being “devoted to the production of nonsense” as there is no way of asserting their truth or falsehood.
Why is the verification principle considered unverifiable?
it isn’t a tautology (all bachelors are unmarried) nor can it be proved via experience.
What is the meaning of a statement according to Ayer?
“The meaning of a statement is its method of verification”, it is neither logically obvious nor supported by empirical evidence; thus, not verifiable. It is a self-defeating principle which is not an adequate base for establishing criterion for the meaningfulness of language.
What limitation did Ayer recognize in the verification principle?
Additionally, historical events cannot be verified: the principle does not take into account statements accepted as meaningful, even though they are not considered to be immediately verifiable in practice.
Can the battle of Hastings be verified according to verificationism?
For example, there is no way to verify the battle of Hastings, which occurred in 1066, by observation. Therefore, it is meaningless according to verificationism.
What is practical verifiability?
Ayer recognised this limitation and developed the concept of practical verifiability. He proposed that “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 they could be made.” For example, some religious statements might be verifiable in principle, such as Biblical events.
What are the strong and weak forms of the verification principle?
The verification principle also does not take scientific statements (e.g. all bodies expand when heated, the sun always rises in the east etc..) as meaningful. In response to this, Ayer developed ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ forms of the principle: the strong illustrated the original form (only accepting immediately verifiable statements) and the weak accepted those statements which were verifiable in principle (providing we know what experience could be used to establish the truth of the statement).
Why are universal scientific laws considered meaningless by Ayer?
Universal scientific laws also become meaningless as we cannot verify them. For example, I cannot verify gravity is constant as I do not possess omnipresence and cannot be in every place at once. It is not consistent with modern science as many scientific statements such as atoms or forces are not verifiable.
What example does Ayer use to illustrate the verification principle?
Ayer uses the example of the proposition that there are mountains on the farther side of the moon, yet rocket has been invented to enable us to observe this evidence. He thus concludes that “the proposition is verifiable in principle, if not in practise, and is accordingly significant.”
What does John Hick’s ‘Parable of the Celestial City’ suggest?
Further to this, John Hick’s ‘Parable of the Celestial City’ points to the possibility of eschatological verification, whereby in the next life our belief can be proved true/false or verified, thus going against the verification principle. The parable states “Two men are travelling together along a road. One of them believes that it leads to the Celestial City, the other that it leads nowhere […] Yet, when they turn the last corner, it will be apparent that one of them has been right all the time and the other wrong…”
What is the implication of Hick’s analogy for religious language?
Under Hick’s analogy, claims about the afterlife and existence of God are verifiable in principle because the truth becomes clear after death. To some extent it is therefore wrong to claim that religious language cannot be verified as with death comes truth.
