religious language-verification and falsification

Question 1

what is cognitive language?

Answer 1

language that conveys information

Question 2

what is non-cognitive language?

Answer 2

conveys emotion, gives an order, expresses hopes but depends on external facts that can be checked

Question 3

what is Humes fork?

Answer 3

knowledge is either analytic, explains ideas (formal abstract knowledge) or synthetic statements, matters of fact (derived from senses based on empirical evidence)

Question 4

what is an analytic statement?

Answer 4

explains the meaning of its terms (doesn’t depend of evidence) e.g red is a colour is true in all cases

Question 5

what is a synthetic statement?

Answer 5

can only be shown to be true or false with reference to evidence. e.g there is ice on the path outside, you would go outside and check to confirm

Question 6

what is logical positivism?

Answer 6

associated with the Vienna circle, aim was to reduce knowledge to basic scientific and logical formulations, that can be verified empirically

Question 7

what is verification?

Answer 7

to show something to be true by form of evidence

Question 8

what does the verification principle state?

Answer 8

that statements are either synthetic or analytic which makes them meaningful, a statement that is neither is meaningless

Question 9

why is the verification principle meaningless?

Answer 9

it is neither synthetic or analytic

Question 10

how did A.J Ayer explain verification?

Answer 10

believed you had to use empirical methods to verify statements.
makes distinction between verification in practise and in principle

Question 11

what did Ayer mean when he said verification has limitations?

Answer 11

it didn’t take in to account statements that are meaningful but not verifiable in practise such as historical events. e.g ‘lord nelson won the battle of Trafalgar’ there is no observation to prove this

Question 12

Did Ayers criteria allow for religious statements?

Answer 12

NO, it did not allow for religious statements, metaphysical statements are meaningless, as we have no way of verifying these statements

Question 13

what is falsification?

Answer 13

meaning to prove something false and if it cannot be proved it is meaningless

Question 14

what did Karl popper say on falsification?

Answer 14

if there is one piece of evidence against a statement then it can be falsified
falsification makes language meaningful. if a statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable

Question 15

what did Anthony flew say on falsification?

Answer 15

applied falsification to religious language and concluded religious statements are meaningless. they cannot be proved or falsified and therefore meaningless

Question 16

what is the parable of the gardener?

Answer 16

two people return to a neglected garden and see evidence that it had been treated. One man suggests someone had been and tended to the garden and the other argues there is no gardener. they test this by waiting and asking people, but there is no evidence of a gardener. One man argues there could still be a gardener that is invisible or intangible, flew asks what is the difference between that and no gardener at all

Question 17

what quote does Flew use to describe religious statements?

Answer 17

religious statements are meaningless and suffer “a death by a thousand qualifications”
in response to this delivers modify their argument to justify what they are saying, they change so much that statements no longer original claim of god