Religious language: Verification and falsification debates Flashcards
What has been at the centre of large amounts of debate within discussions of philosophy of religion?
The provable truth of the existence of God, and resulting religious views
Which two major themes have defined the discipline of philosophy of religion?
The seeking of verification of beliefs and the attempt to disprove the reliability of religious statements. It debates whether or not some form of truth or knowledge could be argued to exist, and whether or not it can be achieved
When did logical positivism become hugely popular?
In the early 20th century among Western European scholars, and was supported by the Vienna Circle from 1924-36
What was the Vienna Circle?
A collection of scholars of varying disciplines from the natural and social sciences to maths. They gathered throughout this time period to discuss and debate a variety of subjects ranging from social and natural sciences to methods of knowledge. They published a variety of documents including their monographs on the scientific world. The group was called this due to their meeting in the University of Vienna
What is crucial about the time which the Vienna Circle existed?
It placed them within the various sociopolitical changes going on near Austria at this time, with the rise of German Nazism leading to WWII
Why did the group disband?
Following the murder of their chair, Moritz Schlick, by one of his students, following the gradual disintegration of membership
What did the Vienna Circle subscribe to?
The principles of logical positivism
What is logical positivism?
A method of philosophy ascertaining what knowledge can be said to be objectively true based on whether or not is empirical. It is a method of thought that posits that you can only verify the truth of a statement if it can be empirically known, if it is tangible and can be verified through sensory knowledge
Is logical positivism a priori or a posteriori?
A posteriori
What is the verification principle?
That in order to be cognitively meaningful, a statement must be proved by some form of procedure or test
What did the Vienna Circle say the role of the philosopher was?
To analyse statements to say whether or not they can be said to be true, and what can be said to be meaningful or meaningless
How did the logical positivists determine what counts as meaningful language?
They thought it depended on whether a statement was cognitively meaningful
What does it mean for a statement to be cognitively meaningful?
When it can be evaluated as either true or false
What are the two ways a statement can be proven as true?
The the proposition being analytic and therefore a priori and tautologous - or by being synthetic and verifiable by experience
Are people more interested in synthetic or analytic statements for the purposes of generating new knowledge?
Synthetic statements
Which English philosopher and writer was hugely influenced by the Vienna Circle?
AJ Ayer
What did AJ Ayer publish in 1936
The influential ‘Language, Truth and Logic’
What did AJ Ayer say about various disciplines within philosophy?
That they are meaningless because they are not verifiable
Which branches of philosophy did AJ Ayer say were meaningless because they are not verifiable?
Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and philosophy of religion
What did AJ Ayer do to communicate his idea?
Posited different terms referring to different kinds of statements
What three different categories did Ayer split statements up into?
Analytic, synthetic and contingent
What are analytic statements?
Statements which contain meaning and evidence within themselves
What are synthetic statements?
Statements which do not contain meaning and evidence within themselves but are related
What are contingent statements?
Statements that could either be true or false depending on the context