Falsification Principle Flashcards
What is the falsification principle
A modification of the verification principle, once it had been accepted that the VP was unsound
What did Flew suggest in a debate with the LP’s
that a statement should be falsifiable
For Flew if a statement is to have any meaning what does it have to do?
Assert something, and at the same time deny the opposite of that assertion
An assertion has to rule of what?
Some state of affairs
The FP is concerned with not what makes something true but what makes something…
False
What did Flew claim about religious statements and why?
They’re meaningless
- because there is nothing that can count against them
What did Flew argue about religious believers
Argued that they’re so convinced of the truth of their religious statements tat they often refuse to consider evidence suggesting that God does not exist
Quote Flew said about religious language
it ‘dies a death of a thousand qualifications’
Flew claimed religious believers say God is all-loving and all-powerful and continue to believe this despite what
the evidence of great suffering in the world which, he suggested, they choose to ignore
Flew said that for religious believers to claim that ‘god exists’ it means they must be open to what?
Evidence that he may not exist
