Religious Language -> Falsification

Question 1

Falsification

Answer 1

Poppers theory that a proposition is scientific if one could state what evidence would prove it false. This is a principle of demarcation between science and non-science, not between the meaningful and the meaningless.

Question 2

Karl Popper

Answer 2

• Real science is highly falsifiable, for if it were not, then it would not be informative.
• Some statements can be conclusively falsified when they cannot be conclusively verified (Giraffe example)
• There was no suggestion that religious sentences are meaningless, just unscientific

Question 3

Antony Flew

Answer 3

• Flew refers to Wisdoms parable of the gardener
• Flew applies this to theological assertions, which he states that for an assertion to be genuine, it must be falsifiable
• ‘If there is nothing which a putative assertion denies then there is nothing that it asserts’

Question 4

Blik

Answer 4

R.M Hares term for a belief which is life changing, but cannot be verified or falsified

Question 5

R.M Hare

Answer 5

• Hare states that religious statements have different logical status, what he refers to as ‘bliks’ (Insane student example)
• It is not merely a sort of explanation of the world, but completely life-changing, even though unfalsifiable.

Question 6

Criticisms of Hare

Answer 6

• Flew argued that bliks do not account for the way in which religious believers think of themselves
• Hick argues that the notion of bliks obtain a fundamental inconsistency
• Hicks point is that Hare has called the man a lunatic, due to having an insane blik, yet it is difficult to justify categorising a blik as insane

Question 7

Basil Mitchell

Answer 7

• Mitchell wanted to maintain that religious statements are generally factual though not straightforwardly falsifiable (Partisan parable)
• Mitchell’s argument is that the partisan does not deny that there is strong evidence against his belief
• Mitchell accepts that faith can be mistaken and agrees with Flew that theological assertions must be understood as statements.

Question 8

John Hick

Answer 8

• Christianity has certain specific afterlife beliefs which mean it is possible to meet the conditions of weak verification, as Christian’s who believe in an afterlife can state some experiences which would render their beliefs probable.
• There is a difference between the claims of eschatological verification & Hicks comments on Mitchells parable. We cannot say that eschatological verification meets the same conditions as Mitchells parable of the partisan.