Religious Language: The verification and falsification principle

Question 1

What is religious language/what does it refer to?

Answer 1

Religious Language refers to the words which we use in order to communicate ideas about God, our faiths or our beliefs

Question 2

What is an example of religious language?

Answer 2

“God loves me” “God loves us”

Question 3

What are the different forms of language/religious language?

Answer 3

cognitive
non-cognitive
analytic statements
synthetic statements

Question 4

What is cognitive (realist) language?

Answer 4

factual and MORAL statements that can be proven true or false via empirical evidence (they are subject of being either true or false, and nothing else)

Question 5

What are non-cognitive statements

Answer 5

These are context dependent and cannot be verified nor can they be falsified

Question 6

What are analytic statements?

Answer 6

These are true by definition (tautology) and cannot be false
These are a priori

Question 7

What are synthetic statements?

Answer 7

These are A POSTERIORI statements which can be verifiable or falsified through empirical evidence
These are considered to be meaningful as they can (in theory) hold verifiable or falsifiable truths

Question 8

Who were the group of men that argued that there are only TWO types of statements that are meaningful?

Answer 8

The Logical Positivists

Question 9

What did the logical positivists argue?

Answer 9

There are only two types of statements which are meaningful: tautologies, and statements that can be verified by some kind of a test

Question 10

What is the verification principle?

Answer 10

-statements can only be meaningful if they can be demonstrated
“a statement which cannot be conclusively verified…is simply devoid of meaning”

Question 11

what are the two types of statements which A.J Ayer and his verification principle

Answer 11

analytic propositions (true by definition)
synthetic propositions (true by the confirmation of the senses)

Question 12

what are the various different types of verifibility in principle

Answer 12

practical verification
strong verification
weak verification
directly verifiable
indirectly verifiable

Question 13

what does it mean by practical verifibility (in principle)

Answer 13

these are statements that can be tested in reality. Even though they are meaningful and verifiable in principle, in practice we may lack the technical ability to test these particular statements out

Question 14

what is strong verification

Answer 14

strong verification applies to anything that can be verified conclusively using empirical evidence

Question 15

what is weak verification

Answer 15

weak verification refers to statements that can be shown to by probable by observation and experience

Question 16

what are the new criteria that Ayer suggested

Answer 16

directly verifiable: these are observation statements
indirectly verifiable: states which are not completely meaningful/verifiable by themselves but can be made meaningful/can be supported by other directly verifiable statements

Question 17

what are the criticisms of the verification principle

Question 18

why was the falsification principle created?

Answer 18

The verification was not able to be adjusted even though its criticisms have become evident throughout its existence, therefore encouraging Anthony Flew to create the falsification principle.

Question 19

Who did the falsification principle originate from?

Answer 19

Although the falsification principle originated from Karl Popper, Anthony Flew was the one who finalised the falsification principle.

Question 20

What does the falsification principle claim?

Answer 20

Statements are only meaningful if they have the ability to be ‘falsified’: proving a theory or statement to be false through evidence or testing.

Question 21

What is the name of the parable that Flew made to allow us to see the falsification principle in practice?

Answer 21

‘The Parable of the Gardener’
Two explorers come across a carefully tended jungle clearing. One explorer (The BELIEVER) continues to insist that there must be a gardener at work in the face of multiple failed attempts by the second explorer (The SCEPTIC) to catch the gardener at work.
-The believer will allow nothing to count against his belief in the gardener, so Flew/the second gardener insists that his belief is meaningless.

Question 22

Why is the Parable of the Gardener important when we talk about Religious Language/Statements?

Answer 22

When many believers talk about religious statements, assertions or beliefs, when somebody questions them on it or attempts to falsify their statement, they immediately disagree and allow nothing to counter against their belief.
-This is the reason why Flew says that religious statements die a “death of a thousand qualifications”.

Question 23

What other scholar supports the falsification principle and what parable to they use to present their view?

Answer 23

-John Hick
-Hick’s invisible, intangible, inaudible, weightless and odourless rabbit
-As this rabbit’s existence cannot be falsified, Hick and Flew would argue that it does not exist.