Criticisms of Falsification Flashcards
What view does Richard Hare take?
An existential view - the belief that everyone is a unique, free willed individual
What does Hare believe the concept of meaningfulness comes from?
The impact that a belief had on the individual - not from the empirically falsifiable.
What does Hare believe everyone views the evidence before them from?
A different ‘blik’.
What is a ‘blik’?
A belief that underpins a world view. Everyone views the world through these different tinted glasses.
The paranoid student example
- paranoid student convinced that all his teachers want to kill him.
- his friends introduce him to the most pleasant teacher
- “surely you believe they don’t want to kill you now.”
- the paranoid student just thinks the teachers are pretending to be nice
What does Richard Swinburne believe about the toys in the cupboard?
- a particular person may believe they come alive at night
- even though it cannot be falsified, the idea is still meaningful because someone might even hide under their covers.
What other example does Swinburne use for language that is meaningful despite not being able to be falsified?
If a partner tells us they love us. Accepted as meaningful to the extent that they get married.
What is Mitchell’s main criticism of Flew?
That he doesn’t understand the religious person’s perspective. He over simplifies their belief.
How are the challenges to faith viewed by Mitchell?
It is a matter of faith as to how the individual deals with the challenges.
The parable of the partisan and the stranger
- in wartime, a partisan meets a stranger who claims to command the resistance movement and asks the stranger to trust him.
- the partisan sees the stranger helping both sides
- the partisan agrees this is damning evidence but continues to trust him based upon their initial conversation.
