Falsification Principle Flashcards
What is the significance of falsification
- language can be meaningful if it can be falsified —> we need to know what evidence would falsify the statement in principle
- science tries to verify things by seeing it can be disproved - > avoid bias
- it proves things by falsifying them, not confirming them
- pseudo science: can be proved right by anything, illogical and not meaningful as it cannot be falsified
What is the falsification principle
Any statement that cannot be falsified would be empty in meaning - flew
Flew and religious language - falsification
- flew thought religious language was meaningless because there is nothing that can count against religious statements
- believers would refuse to accept any evidence that might falsify their beliefs
How is religious language re qualified and why does it lose meaning
- moral and natural evil: free will, Adam and Eve and punishment requalify this
- theodicies requalify Gods goodness
- these claims have becomes different from the original claim, so it loses meaning
what is flews parable of the garden
- 2 people see a garden with flowers and weeds
- one says that there must be a gardener and the other says there is no gardener
- they never see a gardener, but the believer says he is invisible
- the gardener is never detected, but the believer says he cannot be hurt and invincible to things that could detect him eg barbed wire
- the non believer asks the first what remains of his original assertion, as his requalified gardener is no longer the same as the gardener they began with
what does flews parable of the gardener mean
- flowers and weeds are good and bad in life –> flowers are beauty, complexity, order eg order qua regularity in the design argument of paley; weeds are disorder and suffering eg problem of evil
- the person who does not believe is the sceptic, who does not believe without evidence, like Hume
- the person who requalifies is the religious believer, who continues to requalify the characteristics of the gardener (god) to reaffirm his belief
- despite evidence to the contrary, it is ignored by requals –> this reduces the meanings of the religious statement (there is a god/gardener)
- flew: requalifications cause religious statements die a ‘death by a thousand requalifications’
- these meaningless truth claims are dangerous as they are often lived by as a doctrine ‘theological utterance’
requalifying the statement: there is no god
- no need to falsify in the same way as religious language
difference between science and religious language when falsifying (for and against)
- science can be falsified and we can make progress
- rel language makes no progress because of this
- RL is a different encounter with the world, not logically, cannot measure by the same standard
hare and bliks (hares response to flew)
PARABLE OF THE PARANOID STUDENT –> firm belief that all dons want to kill him, and will not be persuaded otherwise
- argues that everyone has their own personal spin on their worldview, which cannot be falsified and cannot be tested at all
- bilks do not make factual claims about the world that can be tested
- this blik has an impact on how I act, and no evidence can change this
- religious language, like ‘god loves me’ is a blik
- does not matter if this belief is true or false, but matters if it brings about a consequence: meaning is concerned with CONSEQUENCE
but
- does language convey perspective or truth
- saying all knowledge is equally valuable reduces an opportunity for knowledge to develop
mitchell and significant articles of faith (response to flew)
PARABLE OF THE PARTISAN –> he finds it difficult to change his view despite evidence that might weaken it as he has dedicated his life to this view
- beliefs you are committed to; things that make a big difference to how you live your life
- ideas you have invested alot in and dont let go of easily
- reasonable religious beliefs fall into this category
- thinks rel believers are in constant danger of letting their beliefs become vacuous formulae
what 2 approaches to understanding rel lang does mitchell disregard and why
- provisional hypothesis: scientific ideas, can be disregarded as soon as contradictory evidence is provided; irrational to hold onto an idea in the face of evidence against it –> Antony Flew
- vacuous formulae: beliefs that never change based on experience and make no difference to life (bliks), requalified statements with flew
flews response to mitchell
- agrees with the fact that rel believers do not always qualify their belief as soon as contradictory evidence turns up
- parable of the partisan does not contain a successful analogy for God as the partisan may have perfectly good reasons for the strangers actions, like siding with the police for his own safety
- God does not have these restrictions so the religious believer doesnt have the same excuses to trust in God
- believes that if ‘relentlessly pursued’ mitchell would have to admit god does not exist or requalify God
flews response to hare
- bliks are a ‘wholly unorthdox’ way for christians to view their language
- blik means that someone views the world AS IF god created it, but flew does not think this is what christians mean when they say God created the world
- bliks insinuate rel lang is PERSPECTIVE, but flew says it is viewed as TRUTH - deceitful to treat rel lang as a blik when religion tells people how to live their lives and why things are the way they are
- rel ideas may be ‘fraudulent’ if they sound like important reasons to etc not have an abortion, but were peoples bliks/perspectives all this time
- silly to base your life that is a matter of perspective, not something concrete and absolute eg there is a god and he loves me
- may allow wrong blik to become influential and people will base their life off of this false claim
- 1984: rel believers are party members in Orwells book who convince themselves that the party is always right, even when they know it is wrong (doublethink)
