Falsification Priniciple

Question 1

Strengths:
Attempts to show what is and what isn’t meaningful use of language
If offers and alternative to the failed principle of verification
Separates meaning of scientific and non scientific uses of language instead of the boundaries of language.
Awareness of responding to criticism might qualify our beliefs so much that they change entirely.

Answer 1

Weaknesses
Undermines beliefs that we trust and shape our lives with.

Itself might not be open to falsification.

Fails to see that meaningful language cannot be determined by empirical evidence alone but can be used within Bliks

Question 2

Hare
Only applies to religious language if it is 100% empirical. The meaning rests in the impact it has on a persons life.

A blik is a belief that shapes someone’s life and cannot be falsified but is still meaningful.

• does not defend cognitive truth of religious language. Bliks are not true outside of the persons mind but God is supposedly.
• Hick, there is no distinction between a true or false blik

Answer 2

Mitchell
Falsification does not deny people commitment to religious beliefs.
Some things in the world appear to falsify God this makes Faith Faith rather than certainty.

Despite the test in faith nothing counts against religion and it is not that the believer doesn’t accept falsification but it is meaningful because to them it is a matter of fact.

-An all login God would act on the side of good and not remain ambiguous like God. Despite this evil people still believe that God is on their side.

Question 3

Antony Flew
For any theory to have meaning it must be able to show how it could be falsified. This means that religious language fails.
A proposition that does not rule anything out has no meaning. We have to say what would go against the proposition or it cannot be meaningful.

If the moon were to fall to earth then the propositions of gravity would have been falsified.

Religious statements could never be falsified because believers would never allow them to be done so and this means they cannot have any meaning. God becomes compatible with every state of affairs.

Answer 3

Garden in the jungle

1 says there is no gardener the other says there is.

Whatever experiment is done to try and prove there is no gardener the believer will create new ways to qualify their belief. ‘He is invisible’

There is no difference between a gardener or no gardener. The idea has suffered the death of a 1000 qualifications. A believer would never say ‘if X was this I wouldn’t believe in God’