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
What two different forms of verification did AJ Ayer posit?
Strong and weak
How does Ayer describe strong and weak verifications?
‘A proposition is said to be verifiable, in the strong sense of the term if, and only if, its truth could be conclusively established in experience. But it is verifiable in the weak sense, if it is possible for experience to render to possible
What is the issue with Ayer’s principle of strong verification?
It rests on experience as proof, but as Ayer illuminates in his book, the experience of human beings is flawed. Our senses are flawed - impaired vision, hearing, senses are all factors which could lead to our experiences being mistaken. For example, you could misread a sign or mishear a phrase. Experience cannot always be relied upon due to the flawed nature of human beings. Therefore empirical evidence cannot always be relied upon for conclusive proof
What issue with strong verification did weak verification solve?
The issue with strong verification is not so much that experience is unreliable, but that there are lots of meaningful statements that aren’t simply verified through experience. For example, historical statements like ‘the Battle of the Hastings took place in 1066’ or theories such as evolution are not verifiable through experience. As such the main issue with strong verification is that it exempts to many meaningful statements, whereas weak verification corrects this, as, in theory, one could experience historical statements or other theories as having meaning through observable evidence
Using gravity as an example, explain how strong verification is logically sound but doesn’t work in practise?
if we run the logic of strong verification, every statement we make is meaningless - even ideas like gravity, which we consider within our society to be accepted reality, would be challenged by this principle and effectively rendered meaningless. We cannot trust our senses to reliably tell us that we are staying grounded due to gravity; therefore, it cannot be proved, and so the statement that gravity exists is rendered meaningless by this statement. This causes a problem; strong verification works logically, but on a practical level it does not
How does Ayer acknowledge that the strong verification principle doesn’t work in practise in ‘Language, Truth and Logic’
He states that with the exception of tautologies, ‘it is impossible to make a statement of significant fact at all’
What is the critereon for weak verification?
It only relies on a statement being probable rather than provable
How does Ayer use the analogy of mountains on the other side of the moon to illustrate his theory of weak verification?
At the time of Ayer writing his work, we did not have the knowledge we now have about the moon. By the weak verification principle, it was reasonable to posit there were mountains on the side of the moon that we could not see; also by the weak verification principle this statement has meaning even if proven to be untrue. When Soviet Luna 3 produced pictures of the other side of the moon in 1959, it showed it to be meaningful and true as there are mountains on the other side of the moon
Give a statement to indicate Ayer’s damning position on religion and philosophy of religion?
‘The statement ‘there exists a transcendent God’ has no literal significance’
Define transcendent
Something which is beyond human experience
Why does Ayer think the statement ‘there exists a transcendent God’ has no literal significance?
Because it is meaningless by the standard of weak and strong verification
What should we stress about Ayer’s assertions regarding the meaningless nature of assertions about God’s existence?
That it doesn’t just apply to positive statements about God - it extends to atheism also. Stating that God does not exist is as meaningless to Ayer as saying God exist. Ayer views any discussion around philosophy of religion and the existence of God as being meaningless and therefore a waste of time
What are the big implications of Ayer’s claim that any discussions of philosophy of religion are meaningless?
It implies that all religious belief and language, whether for or against the existence of God, is meaningless. It would posit that discussion regarding these things - the ongoing discursive process of philosophy of religion - is inherently meaningless, with little to offer to the world. If we define statements in such a way and wish to speak only in meaningful ways, it is not just religious belief which must be abandoned, but religious disbelief also - and all forms of discussion regarding religious belief
List the criticisms of logical positivism
- The main issue with the verification principle is that it proves itself to be meaningless. By both standards of verification set forward by Ayer, the principles itself fails the text. It is not empirically able to be proved as we cannot sense the principle. It is not self-defining insofar as it does not prove itself; it is not a tautological fact. Therefore it is itself meaningless, and, by the standard of Ayer, not worth considering
- The issue is based with the foundationalism-based stance of logical positivism. This is the idea that some statements do not need to be proved because they are self-evidential. Those who stand for logical positivism argue that the premise is self-evidential; however, it is not necessarily. How can we conclusively say that there are two different types of statement
- The arguement rests on the strong association with science and facts. It completely ignores other sources for garnering truth, like literature, art or music. There can be deeper meaning and deeper truth found within these things as people have experienced. It is the reason these mediums are universal and found within every culture and have sustained. It is important to emphasise that this does not mean there is no place for art in society for logical positivists, as one might argue that things are meaningful beyond whether they are simply true or false
- If I were to instruct you too ‘open the window’, and as a response you got up and opened the window, then meaning has been communicated there. However, by the definition of logical positivism, nothing meaningful has been said. If I were to instruct you to ‘gjdkghh hdkoidk hbfruhn’ you would have no idea what I meant. These words make no sense to the listener and therefore there is not a response that it would be reasonable to give to these words. But according to logical positivism, both statements have the same perceived meaning - nothing. Communication and measured response seem to pose an issue with logical positivism
- Some propositions can only be verified by experience - for example, eschatological verification posits that an idea can be proved correct following death, such as the existence of God or the afterlife. Hick’s eschatological verification is specifically a response to the weak verification principle, as it is possible in theory to verify the existence of God in the afterlife. It would be allowed under the strong verification principle
- There is also an issue with sentences which are unintuitively not allowed by the verification principle - in particular, statements about things which are unobservable. For example, subatomic particles cannot be experienced; however, they explain much about our world. These issues were addressed by the logical positivists but did consistently prove difficult for them to navigate
Give an example of a self evidential statement
Descartes’ ‘cogito’
What did Descartes ‘cogito’ state
‘I think therefore I am’
What is Brummer’s problem with logical positivism?
He argues that it is erroneous to view religious sentences in the same camp as scientific ones. He argues that if one looks at the example of poetry - poetry produces a kind of truth that it is impossible to analyse scientifically; it would not make sense to scientifically analyse a sentence of poetry. However, that does not mean that just because it cannot be scientifically measured does not mean it does not exist, because we experience this to be true. In much the same way, it does not hold to view religious sentences in the same way as scientific sentences
What is Emmet’s problem with logical positivism?
She says that those who argue this way fail to understand the nature of metaphysical thinking. Natural theology, in her view, should be seen as analogous rather than scientific. Faith and religious sentences are more emphatically about expression than explanation for Emmet
What is Richard Swinburne’s problem with logical positivism?
He refutes it on the grounds that there are statements we would see as having meaning which would be rendered meaningless under the criteria of logical positivism, but that it wouldn’t make sense to call meaningless
What example does Swinburne use to express his problem with logical positivism?
Some of the toys that to all appearances stay in the cupboard while any humans in the house are asleep come out of their boxes in the middle of the night to dance without disturbing any detecting devices, and then go back to the cupboard, leaving no trace of their activity
Who is Anthony Flew?
A philosopher who has taken part in this ongoing discussion. He was a rational disbeliever. He challenged theists on the truth of the religious statement that God exists
Give the parable that Flew uses to prove his point
‘Two explorers enter a beautiful garden and stand in it. The garden is full of beautiful flowers, but also contains weeds. The ‘believer’ explorer, looking at the garden, posits that the garden must have been tended by a skilled gardener. The ‘sceptic’ explorer disagrees as there are problems with the garden, such as the weeds. They both stay in the garden and keep watch, looking for the gardener; however, no such gardener reveals himself and they find no evidence of the gardener. As time passes there continues to be no sign of the gardener, the believer begins to create more and more outlandish justifications as to why the gardener exists but they have not seen him
Who was Flew’s parable first used by?
British philosopher John Wisdom
What does Flew’s parable posit?
That theists refuse to acknowledge real challenges to their belief in God
What does Flew intend to do with his analogy?
Equate the believer explorer with theists, the sceptic explorer with a rational disbeliever, and to equate belief in the gardener with belief in God. He equates the increasingly outlandish ideas of the believer explorer as being akin to those who make the case for the existence of God, who, he argues, ignore the weeds in the form of evil and suffering. He argues in this way that theists lack the empirical evidence to prove the existence of God and yet continually insist on his existence. Through his invocation of this parable, Flew presents a challenge to those who continually believe in God
Give a direct quote from Flew to summarise his challenge to theists?
‘What would have to occur or have occured to constitute for you a disproof of the love of the existence of God?’
How does Flew’s question to theists trap them
- Because they would either have to conclude that there is evidence that exists that points towards the disproving of God’s existence (1) or that there is no evidence that could alter their state of belief (2)
- If they pick 1, Flew views religion to be meaningful but falsified. This means it retains its emotional and significant meaning to the believer, but is false in his eyes
If they pick 2, Flew views religion as being unable to be proved false to the believer, yet in his view that is completely meaningless
What idea did Flew put forward?
The falsification proposition
What does the falsification proposition say we can do to statements?
Test asserted statements to see whether or not they can be falsified
What example statement does Flew use to explain the falsification proposition?
‘All cats have 4 legs’
Explain Flew’s use of ‘all cats have 4 legs’ to show how the falsification proposition works
If all cats have 4 legs, then it would logically follow that there are no cats with three legs. Therefore if we one day encountered a three legged cat, this assertion would be proved false and we would have to accept this
What does Flew accuse theists of doing?
Wilfully ignoring encounters with evidence which might contradict their own beliefs regarding God in the same way one might ignore a three legged cat
Why does Flew have some sympathy for theists?
He acknowledges that it can be difficult for people to let go of long held beliefs
Why does Flew have a problem with theists?
His problem with them is that despite constant evidence that might contradict their beliefs, they refuse to acknowledge it
Give a quote from Flew that suggests that theism can be defeated by the accumulation of evidence contradicting the idea of the existence of God
‘Someone may dissipate his assertion completely without noticing that he has done so. A fine brash hypothesis may be killed by inches, the death of a thousand qualifications’
What challenge does the falsification proposition lay down to theists?
Because should they accept it, they then must falsify the idea that God does not exist. The challenge appears to effectively win the arguement on first look
Who acknowledged the strength of Flew’s arguement but then proposed a challenge to it with the use of their own analogy?
RM Hare
Explain how Hare uses the analogy of the madman to argue against Flew’s falsification proposition
There is a madman completely convinced that all the dons are out to kill him. His friends repeatedly stress to him that this is not the case and provide evidence to show this. However, the madman remains convinced. When put to Flew’s falsification test, since no evidence supports the madman’s theory his assertions must be meaningless. However, Hare argues that the madman may have plenty of evidence that might suggest they wish to kill him. However, it might not be the kind of evidence that the friends accept. According to Hare, the evidence may be the same provided information, but the world view of the interpreter will affect how it is taken and this will be a hindrance in the testing method. The perceived good behaviour of the dons would to the friends symbolise well-meaning intent, but to the madman it may be conceived as a front to conceal their murderous conspiracy. Both are valid
What does Hare term his biases or world views as described in his analogy of the madman?
Bliks
What does he say bliks are?
Unfalsifiable
Why was it so important that Hare highlighted the presence of bliks?
Because they are part and parcel of our everyday experience and will affect the way in which we navigate the world
How does Hare think we can get around the fact that bliks are unfalsifiable?
Because he thinks that it can be possible to draw a distinction between those bliks which can be said to be true and those which cannot. Most would argue that when you look at Hare’s analogy, the blik held by the madman was untrue
What does the idea of bliks clearly impact?
The discussion of religious ideas and statements
Why do bliks have such a big impact on how we discuss religious statements?
Because it raises the question of whether religious statements can be considered bliks or, as Flew terms them, assertions
Who replied to the works of both Flew and Hare?
Basil Mitchell. He disagreed with both of them, to an extent
What was Mitchell’s problem with Flew?
He disagreed with him that religious bliks and assertions are absolutely falsifiable. To make one assertion is to deny the opposite it possible
What three different ways does Mitchell think that religious language can be understood?
Provisional hypothesis, vacuous formulae and significant articles of faith
Explain Mitchell’s idea of provisional hypothesis
This is a scientific idea which can be disproved, and thrown away when evidence can be given ton prove it wrong. Flew argues that religious statements fall into this category - Mitchell disagrees
Explain Mitchell’s idea of vacuous formulae
With vacuous meaning empty, this term refers to beliefs which don’t change based on experience but also have no large impact on the life of the individual. This is where the bliks of Hare could fit into this description, and Mitchell believes that such statements or beliefs are mistaken
Explain Mitchell’s idea of significant articles of faith?
These are religious beliefs that are strongly held and have a huge amount of impact on the life of the individual, and to which the individual is hugely committed. For Mitchell, religious beliefs that are reasonable fit into this category
What does Mitchell think that religious people must be wary of?
He believes they need to be wary about the beliefs they hold on to and how committed they are to those beliefs to ensure that they do not become vacuous formulae. Religion fails in this sense
Explain Mitchell’s problem with religion?
He argued that religion is susceptible to falsification - which is why, in his view, religious doctrines change. He means that faith means that one holds a significant belief in spite of conflicting evidence. This can be reasonable so long as the belief does not become provisional or vacuous
What does Flew use the parable of the garden to prove?
He uses it as an analogy of how many theists refuse to allow real challenges to their beliefs, with no number of criticisms ever able to dissuade them from what they perceive to be the truth.
What does Flew think is the consequence of theists refusing to allow real challenges to their beliefs?
That by doing this they make their religious statements unqualifiable and therefore incapable of describing the outside world
What does the believer represent in the parable of the gardener?
Theists
What does the sceptic represent in the parable of the gardener?
Rational disbelievers
What does the gardener represent in the parable of the gardener?
God
What does the believer’s qualifications about the gardener represent in the parable of the gardener?
Solutions to things like the problem of evil or the transcendence of God
What does Flew think is the only way a statement can be meaningful?
If there are boundaries at which it could be falsified
Explain Flew’s problem with the way theists encounter evidence that contradicts their beliefs?
Because rather than re examining the validity of their statements about God, they instead re-define the term ‘God’ so that their statement can still apply
What a statement an assertion rather than an utterance for Flew?
An assertion is a denial of the negation of that statement
What is the difference between how Flew and Hare approach RL?
Flew does so in a cognitive way, Hare does do in a non cognitive way
What is Hare’s problem with Flew’s parable of the gardener?
Because he thinks it fails to explore all the ways that religious language can be meaningful or pertinent
Why are all bliks unfalsifiable?
Because they rely on your POV of what counts as evidence, not on a series of tests to determine whether they are correct assertions
What is a blik?
A worldview affecting what counts as evidence
Why does Hare think that bliks are so important within everyday experience?
Because he thinks they underpin all everyday experience
What does Hare think it is possible to do to bliks even though they are all unfalsifiable?
Distinguish between correct and incorrect ones
How does Hare use Hume to prove his idea that bliks underpin all everyday experience?
Hume recognised that our knowledge of cause and effect is a posteriori rather than deductive, so all of the knowledge we gain and predictions we make based on our knowledge of cause and effect
Why does Hare thinks Hume’s discovery about the blik of cause and effect means that bliks cannot be called meaningless as Flew’s falsification criteria would suggest?
Because the example shows that bliks and the knowledge and choices that arise from them can greatly impact our lives in the same way as ordinary experience
Why does Hare think that Flew is wrong to describe RL as assertions?
Because he thinks they should be understood as bliks
Why does Hare think Flew is wrong to think that religious utterances are attempts at explanation?
Because he thinks the RL actually stems from the blik that God is responsible for and part of the world. As explanations originate from our bliks, a person without a blik about the existence of God will not see RL as a way of explaining the outside world
Using the statement ‘God is omnibenevolent’, explain how Hare and Flew differ in how they view RL?
Flew would argue that looking at the various forms of suffering in the world, we might see forms of evil that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God would not have created, therefore counting against the statement. Hare argues that this statement comes from a religious blik, where the things that an atheist might perceive as evil might, to a religious person, be perceived in another way as part of God’s benevolent plan. Neither blik is falsifiable by F’s criteria. The atheist cannot find any evidence that disease is evil while the theist might see it as a vehicle for spiritual growth
How does Hare use the example of the teleological arguement to highlight his point about religious bliks?
Because being able to see things in the natural world as evidence for the existence of God may be dependent on a certain kind of religious blik that atheists do not possess
Why does H think that the explorers are impractical in F’s parable?
Because they are disinterested in whether or not there is a gardener. In reality, however, utterances and assertions about the world have a profound affect on our lives
Why does H think that we should regard RL as bliks?
Because they lead us from personal attachments to our ideas and ways of perceiving the world
Why does Hare make a distinction between passive and active bliks?
Passive bliks are simple, implicit biases affecting our everyday observations, while active bliks directly influence how we choose our beliefs and decisions
What is the main problem with the way H sets out his theory on bliks?
He does not lay out any criteria for distinguishing between passive and active or correct and incorrect bliks, merely saying that it is necessary to do so
What were the two contrasting opinions about the nature of RL at the time that F, H and M had their debate?
Some thought that it didn’t meet the requirements to be meaningful, while others pointed towards the ineffability of God and his presence in the world
How did F flip the way that we have traditionally looked at the debate between theism and atheism?
He said that the burden of proof was on the theist to provide evidence for the existence of God
Why can F be seen as bringing a scientific angle to the debate between atheism and theism?
Because he thought that atheism should be the default and that theism needed to be proven like any other hypothesis
What were the three main influences on F’s development of the falsification principle?
Hume, AJ Ayer and the logical positivists, and Karl Popper and his theory of falsification
What can most modern ideas about the verifiability of assertions be traced back to?
Hume’s fork
What did Hume’s fork make the distinction between?
He distinguished between ‘matters of fact’ (synthetic statements) and ‘relations of ideas’ (analytic statements)
How did the logical positivists expand upon Hume’s fork?
Because they said that analytic and synthetic are the only meaningful forms of knowledge we can discuss
Which of Hume’s theories influenced Hare’s idea of bliks?
Induction
Explain Hume’s theory of induction
When reasoning inductively, a number of observations are made, with patterns and regularity leading to assumptions that this behaviour continues when unobserved. It is impossible to rationally justify this. All we can do to predict a future occurance based on the regular succession of events prior to it. There is nothing to say that regularity of succession will continue as we know it
How does Hume’s theory of induction show that bliks are a reasonable proposition?
Hume states that the only reason we accept empirical truths is about the outside world is because of a natural instinct/blik that we accept the uniformity of nature, believing that things will behave in the same way as they did in the past. This blik governs our interpretation of the truth. From this, Hare argues that different kinds of blik will produce different grounds for evidence and truth
What is the significance of the verification principle for RL?
Because it means that religious and metaphysical statements like ‘God exists’ are rendered meaningless
Why can Flew’s ideas be traced back to Popper’s work on falsifiability?
Because Popper said that empirical ideas were characterised by falsifiability and that rather than trying to justify induction, we should measure the verifiability of statements by testing them against the criteria that would render them false. F simply applies this theory to RL
What was Popper’s main problem with logical positivism?
That no amount of date or observation is sufficient to establish the truth of any generalisation, drawing on the ideas of Hume and induction. This would mean that science has to be based on some sort of faith/blik
How does the falsification principle succeed where logical positivism failed?
Because it created an easy way of showing how a scientific theory could evolve and develop, which the verification principle had struggled to do
What are the two main parts of analysing Hare and Flew’s discussion of RL?
Looking at whether Flew’s parable effectively described religious belief and as such whether his challenge that theism is unfalsifiable is correct
Whether Hare’s response is a position that theists would be happy to adopt or whether it has too many undesirable implications for religious language and belief as a whole
What does Flew’s parable miss?
important elements of meaning around RL and verification
What have most responses to Flew’s analogy been?
Many responses to the analogy have been to provide alternative analogies that better represent a more accurate description of religious belief
Why does Hare think that Flew’s parable misrepresents theism?
Hare says the Flew’s parable implies we are disinterested observers of the world, rather than active participants. This is dramatically different to how people normally engage in belief and communication. In reality it can be argued that religious belief takes place within the larger framework of a person’s upbringing, personal morality and perspective.
Give a quote from Hare where he explains his idea that Flew’s parable misrepresents theism
‘There is an important difference between Flew’s parable and my own which we have not yet noticed. The explorers do not mind about their garden; they discuss it with interest, but not with concern. But my lunatic minds about the dons. It is because I mind very much about what goes in within the garden in which I find myself, that I am unable to share the explorer’s detachment’
What does Flew’s parable not recognise about religious belief?
There are distinct nuances in the forms religious belief takes which Flew’s parable does not recognise
What is the problem with the explorers in Flew’s parable?
The disinterested observers epitomise Flew’s rigidly scientific outlook, which, especially if we adopt Hare’s system of bliks, aren’t reflective of human conscious perspective at all
Why do the flaws in Flew’s parable not actually limit the impact of the challenge that he makes at the end of his parable?
religious belief still has to define whether it is making an assertion or some other form of statement
What is the main success of Flew’s parable?
The parable succeeds in forcing theists to define what is meant by religious statements that seem to claim the existence of God or other states of affairs
What is the main weakness of Flew’s parable?
The weakness of the parable is leaving open the possibility of refining/rectifying the assumptions he makes, which many theologians have done in their replies
Explain the main thrust of Flew’s arguement that comes at the end of his parable
The main thrust of Flew’s argument is where he challenges theists to come up with criteria, where, if found true, would disprove belief in God.
What must we consider when examining Flew’s challenge to theists?
It is important to consider whether the falsification principles Flew wants to apply to religious belief are consistent and valid in practise
What were the two things that Popper was looking to determine when outlining his falsification principle?
how far scientific enquiry could be said to discover truth in the world in light of Hume’s theory of induction and how to distinguish between scientific truths and unverifiable pseudoscientific truths
How did Flew use Popper’s idea of a falsification proposition?
Flew applied this to religious beliefs, challenging theists to either put the conditions forward to make religious belief a form of scientific enquiry or retain their beliefs within the pseudoscientific framework, which he sees as having no meaning
Why is Flew’s idea that what is true can be determined by its falsifiability contentious?
Because it has unintended consequences if applied to all philosophical and scientific statements
What is the main issue Flew faces in challenging religion to tests of falsifiability?
The main issue Flew faces in challenging religion to tests of falsifiability is that many legitimate scientific statements that we commonly affirm seem to be unfalsifiable.
What type of entities does the falsification theory have issues with in particular
For example, there are many existential statements within science about unobservable entities that cannot be falsified.
Explain how the falisifcation theory struggles with unobservable entities, using black holes as an example
Black holes cannot be observed with conventional scientific means, but at the same time we still want to be able to assert that ‘black holes exist’. The opposite falsifiable proposition is difficult to formulate without any reference to the act of observing a black hole, for how is it possible to test the existence of an objected predicted by mathematical models or by its effect on other material objects? The proposition ‘there is at least one black hole in the universe’ is only useful if there were some way of determining how this proposition would be fulfilled, this is to say ‘at least one black hole can be observed within the universe’. While some might simply admit that black holes don’t meet the criteria to be a real, falsifiable scientific phenomena, this is arguably unintuitive and holds deeper implications for scientific enquiry as a whole. First, it devalues the scientific enterprise of a positive prediction, for black holes fulfil an important role in understanding the cosmos and there appears to be no better model currently available. Secondly, it belies (fails to give a true impression of) a problem with falsifiability and existential statements as a whole, because, especially with unobservable entities, many what want to argue that the assertion of existence of certain things aren’t refutable or falsifiable by our failure to observe them. There are huge numbers of unobservable entities that generate empirically testable theories, such as DNA or atoms, but Popper’s theory indicates that while these empirical statements might be testable, because the original existence of the entities are not, they cannot be called scientific statements.
Why is the difficulty the falsification theory has with unobservable entities a problem for Flew’s parable?
This is important because if Popper’s theory fails to take account of the importance of unobservable entities in this way, then Flew could be said to be failing to take into account the importance of a possibly unobservable gardener in his parable. When examined this way, it appears that Flew either has to accept that falsifiability is flawed or allow a greater scope of explanatory entities than the theory would normally allow
Why do unobservable entities lead us into difficult territory for falsification theories?
The issues with unobservable entities lead us into difficult territory for falsifiability theories, particularly because some scientific statements are beyond being falsified.
Using the idea of the probability of a coin flip landing on tails being 50%, explain one of the problem with the idea of falsifiability
We may hypothesise that the probability of a coin flip landing on tails is ½, but it is arguably impossible to test this theory in terms of falsifiability. For if conducting an experiment where coins are flipped multiple times, it could very well lead to the coin landing always on heads and never tails. Yet this does not mean that the probability of the coin landing on tails is any less than ½, simply that within the experiment the coin has landed on heads every time
Why is the falsification theory even hard to apply to scientific statements that don’t refer to unobservable entities?
However, perhaps a greater issue is that, examining scientific laws and truths further, there appears to be certain statements that are beyond falsifiability simply by virtue of their ubiquity (being common) and applicability within science itself. If we take the scientific law of entropy, which outlines that in an isolated system the total amount of order will always increase over time. Such is the prevalence of this theory that if an experiment produced results that appeared to contradict this theory, scientists would be more inclined, even if the results were perceived to be valid, to regard something as having gone wrong with the experiment rather than revise their theories on the laws of entropy
Why is the fact that there are flaws in falsification theories not a complete get out of jail free card for theists?
Despite having seen some of the flaws within falsification theories, arguably there is still a responsibility for theists to define what is meant by religious assertions and whether there are certain standards of evidence to make them meaningful and verifiable. Just because scientific truths may not be clear cut does not excuse theists from justifying their belief in a similar way
How does Hare’s idea of bliks discredit Flew’s parable?
Hare, by proposing bliks, puts forward that Flew misses an important idea regarding the believer and sceptic’s perception on the garden; namely that both share a set of assumptive, unverifiable worldviews that govern what they count as evidence in the first place
How does Hare see the theistic blik?
Hare might identify the theist’s blik as advocating a religious system or construct that for them is verifiable through experience in ways that are not necessarily accessible to the theist
What does Hare’s bliks allow theists to do?
Avoid the challenge set out by Flew
Why do some theists take issue with Hare’s idea of bliks?
Despite successfully dodging the challenge set out by Flew, it is quite a radical theory and many theists have argued that it positions religious belief as being positively unreasonable
While this may be an acceptable conclusion for some, with personal revelation or faith being an important aspect of religious belief, other critics desire to maintain elements of rational argument within their overall theistic framework
How does Hare’s idea of bliks damage many of the traditional arguements for God’s existence and why is this a problem for theists?
One is that numerous arguments for the existence of God (cosmological, teleological and ontological) to a great extent rely on extrapolations of empirical and logical evidence. While many of them are not fully persuasive, they do show God to be a distinct logical possibility. If we take Hare’s bliks as being true, however, the evidence for these theories by nature only comes to the theist and the atheist. This means there is no continual evidential frame or reference point for God’s existence and means that for many, belief in God is reduced to a mere perspective or belief rather than a reasonable assertion
How is bliks relativising religious belief a problem for theists?
This leads to the charge that Hare is effectively advocating relativism, which if considering philosophical areas such as morality, becomes difficult to reconcile with religious teaching as a whole, which usually wants to argue that the moral laws it puts forward are absolute. It also means that cosmological assertions like ‘God created the world’ become little more than expressions of emotion or preference, when most theists would want these assertions to be objective and representative of reality as a whole
What does Hare fail to shine light upon within his discussion of bliks and why is this a problem for theists?
Hare fails to shine light on how we distinguish between ‘sane’ and ‘insane’ bliks. This important for theists so that they can prove that their religious blik is not insane. Hume argues that there is a natural instinct towards believing in the uniformity of nature, is it possible to say that we have a similar sort of instinct towards God? If so, it is difficult to tell whether this is the throes of the grand delusions of certain groups, or whether it is a reasonable perspective to hold. As Hare throws away the idea of being able to evidentially verify such beliefs we have no standard by which to judge differing bliks
Why is Hare’s response for theists unsatisfactory despite allowing them to dodge Flew’s challenge?
It seems as though Hare’s reply falls down on a number of levels. While it may answer Flew’s challenge, many theists would say it presents religious belief in an unreasonable and inaccurate way in doing so
What does the fact that there are flaws in both Flew and Hare’s ideas perhaps suggest?
Does this suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with their approach?
Why does Flew put himself in an awkward position by explaining his position as analogy?
Arguments from analogy generally rely on the idea that there is some intial plausability behind the comparison in question, such that when Flew draws his analogy between the parable of the gardener and religious belief we are naturally drawn towards accepting the two things as realistically similar. This approach carries the weakness that because religious belief is so varied, that it effectively simplifies theism to the point that different types of theist can avoid the challenge by pointing out the flaws in the original analogy. When Flew replies with counter analogy he suffers from this same conceptual problem
How could looking at language games illuminate why Hare and Flew are unable to come to a consensus?
If the theist and the atheist, when talking about theistic belief, are in different language games there will inevitably be different forms of communication that one another are not privy to. The theist, in stating what meaning exists in their assertions about God, will be referring to a set of terms which may have a different meaning when examined by the athiest.
Why was the discussion between Hare and Flew not really about Flew’s initial challenge to theists?
The trading of analogies between Flew and Hare can be seen less as a discussion of Flew’s original challenge of falsifiability and more about what religious assertions are in the first place
Why is it hard for theists and atheists to explain their position on RL to one another according to LG?
If theists carry a distinct set of meanings and terminology within their talk of God, then this may not carry through to objective discussion and an important element of religious belief may be lost in any analogy made about it
Explain Thomas Kuhn’s idea of scientific paradigms
Kuhn argues against what was the prevailing perception of science in the 1960s, that there was a continual path of progress in scientific enquiry, with new knowledge and theories gradually replacing older, obsolete ones. Instead, he puts forward the idea that science is paradigmatic, with periods of stability in conceptual thought being broken up by more revolutionary ideas and theories. These paradigms (shifts in thought and practise) rather than being the result of purely scientific enquiry, were often caused by a mixture of sociology, history and cultural practise and natural human enthusiasm.
Why is Kuhn’s idea of scientific paradigms a problem for Flew?
This idea might disprove falsifiability theories, with Kuhn’s position being that successive paradigm shifts are incommensurable with older ones; that is, they can be proven or disproven by previous paradigm shifts, rules or theories (in other words, they are unfalsifiable, and therefore meaningless according to Flew). The shifts involve such a complete transformation of language, worldview and thought that the terminology of one paradigm cannot be used effectively within another paradigm.
This idea has an impact on Flew’s argument. If we take the idea of incommensurability to be true then Flew struggles to assert how ordinary scientific and rational truths aren’t subject to the same revisions and changes that he identifies with religious belief (when he talks about the DOATQ etc.).
How did the old Ptolemaic system of astrology undergo a DOATQ before being replaced by the Copernican system?
Kuhn examines the Copernican revolution, noting that many of its theories in their infancy struggled to explain planetary rotations and patterns better than the old Ptolemaic system. Rather the old system has been revised so much to match the patterns of the stars and planets that it was burdened by its complexity and beyond being proved false it was the ease and promise of a better system that converted many to the Copernican system
Therefore, on many occasions, science promotes ad hoc revolutions to old theories in the same way that theists are supposedly guilty of and the challenges of falsifiability that are supposed to identify truth are rarely linear or established when considering new findings
Much ordinary scientific and rational belief is subject to the same changes Flew makes of religious belief and he is perhaps dividing too strongly between what he says are pseudo forms of religious truth and the normal, rational truths we can falsify on a daily basis
How does Kuhn’s theory of scientific paradigms discredit F’s challenge of falsifiability to theists?
Whether or not it is acceptable to lay the challenge of falsifiability to theists is a matter of debate, but what can be shown is that normal, rational belief and truth rests on more than simply providing and proving against propositions required for its falsification. Rather, scientific enquiry might just as easily rest upon a number of positive, inductive inferences at best and at worst a number of unverifiable assumptions or beliefs
What do the implications that the discussion between H and F have on religion depend upon?
There are a series of possible implications for religion, depending on whether we accept Flew’s challenges to be accurate or whether we adopt Hare’s idea of bliks as representing religious belief. If we accept Flew, then falsifiability becomes the measure of meaning for religious beliefs and theists are either forced to accept that things like the problem of evil carry distinct evidential weight against God or that cosmological assertions are meaningless when it comes to explaining the world in the way that scientific enquiry might. When considering the fact that religion often wants to answer the ‘why’ questions of the universe; removing its ability to meaningfully explain phenomena is deeply impactful to the practise as a whole.
How is F’s challenge an attack on religion as a whole?
Morality, the afterlife and the idea of salvation are all predicated on the idea that God exists, so it is reasonable to say that Flew presents his challenge as a way of discrediting religion as a whole
Why is the idea that religion is falsifiable not as impactful as Flew would hope?
However, the impact on religion may actually be more minimal than Flew would hope. If the theist accepts that RL is unfalsifiable, then despite Flew’s protests, they may still believe that they carry both meaning and importance. Swinburne draws on the idea of toys that come alive at night when no one and nothing can detect them. Although this is unfalsifiable, we would hesitate before saying that the statement means nothing. Again, we see the falsification principle struggling with the idea of unobservable objects.
Some theists may therefore accept that the fork in the road given by Flew as ineffective at suppressing theistic assertions. Mitchell, is one of these, who recognises that religion is falsifiable and that there is evidence against the existence of God, but thinks that faith is about believing despite this
What do arguements from falsifiability leave out about religion?
Arguments from falsifiability also ignore large dimensions of religious belief that aren’t predicated on rational arguments. Many people have experiences or revelations about a divine power and faith is a key concept in assertions about God in most religions, to the point where theists maintain their religious belief beyond what a falsifiability principle might regard as meaningless. It is therefore debatable as to what extent religion is affected by pointing out its falsifiability. Religious belief is so multi-faceted that applying one level of falsifiability to its assertions about God in unlikely to deter people who hold strong convictions of faith
However, to those with a more scientific worldview, it may simply be more evidence about the lack of transparency and verifiability of religion
Why does H’s description of bliks leave problems for theists?
Hare leaves a potential problem for religion through bliks, as scientific enquiry or atheism could claim to be the ‘sane’ blik within this debate
Why does H’s introduction of bliks bring the discussion back to square one?
Part of Popper’s original intention when coming up with his falsification theories was to avoid the problem of induction set out by Hume, yet Hare’s idea of bliks brings the discussion back to the idea that our knowledge fundamentally rests upon unverifiable principles
Why is bliks relativising religious belief a problem for theists?
The fact that bliks relativise religious belief proves too great a problem for many theists and if his position on bliks was widely accepted, religious assertions would possibly carry even less objective and meaningful weight than if the ways that they could be falsified were outlined
How are H’s bliks similar to Platinga’s ideas about ‘basic beliefs’?
The fact that bliks relativise religious belief proves too great a problem for many theists and if his position on bliks was widely accepted, religious assertions would possibly carry even less objective and meaningful weight than if the ways that they could be falsified were outlined
What is the parallel criticism of Platinga’s ‘basic beliefs’ and H’s bliks?
Platinga’s view is still open to the criticism that there is no measure for how we determine what is properly basic in the same way that there is no guidance on how to distinguish between sane and insane bliks
What does Platinga’s idea of ‘basic beliefs’ succeed in showing?
Platinga does show that there is a strong argument for accepting religious belief as a basic cognitive function, capable of forming rational arguments and ideas
How does H’s theory of bliks have limited impact on religious belief?
One could compare religious belief to other forms of paradigmatic belief. In this way, it is possible to stay away from descending into relativism within Hare’s arguments. As a result, accepting Hare’s beliefs may not have that much of an impact on religion.
What is the main arguement for bliks being a sound method of describing religious belief?
Many theists consider their religious beliefs to be foundational to their identity and being, and bliks may be a theoretical extension of considering how those beliefs are beyond conventional means of falsification
What fatal flaw in Flew’s parable does H point out?
Hare points out that Flew makes the mistake of presenting humans as disinterested observers of the world. This insight has implications for falsification theories in terms of how human experience might shift if they were widely adopted as guides to truth and meaningfulness
Why can the idea of applying falsifiability to everything be considered impractical?
For instance, if we were to regard every form of belief as requiring equal propositions for its falsification, it may result in certain human biases being eliminated, as rigorous analytical processes take over our more instinctual behaviours. Hume argues that human rationality is based on in-built assumptions (theory of induction) we have about the uniformity of nature and radically shifting people away from these assumptions would massively alter the way people experience the world.
Why can it be seen as impractical to try and find out whether RL is meaningful?
When the term ‘meaning’ is discussed, it arguably cannot be separated linguistically or epistemologically (epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies how we can know things) from the psychological preferences that we assign to things that are apparently meaningful. This partly why theists are unwilling to allow RL to be classes as meaningless; as doing so fundamentally changes the significance of their own religious experiences and therefore possibly threatens to dramatically alter the way they view the world
How do H’s bliks settle the debate about whether it is practical to class RL as meaningful?
However, it is debateable to what extent acknowledging certain kinds of truth over others has on the propensity to give mystical weight to human experience
Hare’s blik perhaps resolves this debate, for if each person has an unverifiable worldview from which their experience is built upon, then arguing that some propositions are meaningful and others are not may well have little impact on how our worldviews are formed; as, in the same way as the student in the parable, religious people see evidence against religious belief as further evidence that they need to ‘maintain their faith’ or that ‘God works in mysterious’ ways etc.
Why are many theists reluctant to accept H’s parable?
It equivocates them with the lunatic in the parable, when they view belief in God as rational and evidential
What does the impact that F’s challenge has on religion depend upon?
Ultimately, the impact the Flew’s challenge has rests on whether theists view revelation and faith as possibly having experiential priority (Hare)
against other theists who would wish to maintain a greater element of rationality of any religious worldview (theists who disagree with Hare).
What does F’s challenge have wide ranging implications for?
Morality
Explain the impact that falsifiability has on morality
The main issues that arise depend on whether the theist accepts Flew’s challenge and whether falsification as a whole has an impact on the status of moral beliefs as being religiously objective
For instance, if the theists accept that there are criteria that can falsify religious assertions, the evidential problem of evil becomes an even greater issue as a theists can no longer appeal to a greater unobservable or mysterious good without it being meaningless. In essence, by accepting that religion can be falsified, the benevolence of God and the moral laws that spring from this idea come deeply under question to the point that many would argue that they would be evidentially falsified from a neutral human perspective
On the other hand, if we accept assertions about God as meaningless, this could make talk of morality meaningless in turn. While it could be argued that morality could have its own internal system whereby it is falsifiable against a series of core standards, it is difficult to determine how this could be objective or meaningful in the same way as it is intuitively used in our everyday lives
A lot hinges on whether we consider moral statements to have some sort of special status, similar to how some theists view religious language. If we argued that good is equivalent with pleasure or some other natural concept, then it is possible to advocate utiltarianism along with certain falsifiable principles that could accompany such a system. However, if we consider, as some philosophers do, that morality contains certain ideas of intrinsic goods that carry meaning beyond natural emotions or states, then this could never be accounted for within a strict system of falsifiability
Depending on how Flew’s system is approached by theists and atheists, arguably there are greater implications for ethics as a whole, especially if morality is seen as a system that eminates from the idea of God’s benevolence
What was M a keen supporter of and what did this encourage him to do?
Mitchell was a strong supporter of theism being present in public debate and sought to defend theism as being a reasonable position to hold
How does M make the case for the existence of God?
Proposed the idea of a ‘cumulative-case’ approach to justifying theistic beliefs, which treats religious assertions as forms of evidence that once added up present God as the best explanation for the universe. (Similar to Swinburne’s cumulative argument within the teleological argument). The various arguments for the existence of God result in the conclusion that God exists
Why does M think that the way Flew looks at RL is misguided?
Mitchell spent lots of time looking at how argument is conducted in various academic disciplines and believed that the more disputed evidence around an issue, the harder it is to reduce it down to any formal syllogistic argument
Explain what a syllogistic arguement is
A syllogistic argument is a type of deductive argument that uses to assertions that are presumed to be true to come up with a conclusion. An example of this could be the assertions ‘men are mortal’ (major premise) and ‘Socrates is a man’ (minor premise) combining to form the conclusion ‘Socrates is mortal’. If there is is disputed evidence on an issue, we cannot make one of these arguments, since we cannot take the necessary assertions for granted
Why does M think that F is wrong to draw a line between scientific knowledge and all other forms of knowledge?
Mitchell goes on from this to argue that there is no dividing line between scientific explanation and other forms of explanation. He says that there instead a scale of rationality that becomes more or less precise depending on the area being studied. Sciences are higher up on the rationality scale than areas like the humanities and metaphysics
Mitchell thinks no form of explanation is exclusive to its rationality, all have various assumptions that dictate how they operate and what they take to be important
Why was M so keen for religious statements to still be classed as assertions?
Unless some real state of affairs is expressed by RL then it is impossible to start building an objective case for theism, nor is it possible to distinctly compare religious and scientific explanations for the universe
How do both M and Swinburne try to prove the existence of God?
Swinburne and Mitchell both use Bayesian logic; this is where probability is assigned to statements of belief. They believe that from this a strong probabilistic argument can be made for God
Explain Swinburne’s cumulative arguement for the existence of God
In ‘The Existence of God’, Swinburne he runs through all the main arguments for God that have been put forward and posits that although they are insufficient to prove God on their own, together they form a strong evidential argument that makes believing in God more rational than not
How does Swinburne provide a counter parable to Flew?
Swinburne presents a counter parable to Flew in terms of RL, imagining a child’s room where the toys come alive at night. While no one could verify or falsify this assertion, it would be wrong to call it meaningless. The concept of toys, movement and animation are familiar enough that the idea has explanatory power in our mind . He thinks it is reductive to say that assertions about unobservable objects are meaningless
What is the biggest issue in the discussion between F and M?
The primary disagreement within the discussion is whether Mitchell truly allows evidence to count against theistic beliefs
Outline the challenge that F provides to theists
F requires the theist, under the falsification theory, to provide conditions that could count against theological assertions such as to cause someone to lose their faith. If the theists can’t provide these conditions, religion ceases to be an explanation and instead becomes a series of meaningless qualifications
List the three ways that M thinks theological assertions can be treated
As provisional hypotheses which can be discarded if experience counts against them
As significant articles of faith
As vacuous formulae to which experience makes no difference and which make no difference to life
Give a quote from M where he states what he sees as the main difference between his and Hare’s parables
‘The partisan admits that many things may and do count against his belief; whereas H’s lunatic who has a blik against the dons doesn’t admit anything counts against his blik’ ‘The partisan admits that many things may and do count against his belief; whereas H’s lunatic who has a blik against the dons doesn’t admit anything counts against his blik’
How is there tension within M’s claim that the partisan accepts evidence against their beliefs?
There is a tension within M’s claim that the partisan accepts evidence against his belief. If evidence actually does count against their belief, then he should be able to form some conditions where the stranger’s behaviour would be so overwhelmingly against the resistance movement that the partisan would abandon his belief in order to avoid the statement becoming (3). However, taking concrete evidence against his belief would then make the partisan’s belief no longer a serious article of faith and therefore (1)
This begs the question of what conditions a theological utterance has to meet to be considered a significant article of faith
Why does F think that M was inaccurate when he equivocated God with the stranger?
Flew thinks that it is not possible to excuse the GoCT in the same way that M does with the behaviour of the stranger. This means that there has to be a specific explanation for every instance of pointless suffering that God allows. The overwhelming amount of evil in the world means that the theologian would have to resort to endless qualification to do this
Why does F think that M’s response ultimately fails?
F says that M has not completely resisted falsification, but has merely expanded upon a form of belief that could avoid it
Why is it so difficult for articles of faith to be classed as meaningful?
Because you must outline falsification criteria to prevent the statement from becoming vacuous formulae while also making sure that the statement doesn’t fall into becoming a provisional hypothesis
Why is the way the partisan considers evidence contrary to their own beliefs not really reflective of what a falsifiable statement needs to be?
M’s parable is not accurately descriptive of all the instances whereby theistic belief comes into question given the apparent nature of the GoCT. Evidence has to count against the partisan’s belief in a real way so that it would force him to change his mind, not just hypothetically change it in another scenario. If not, it would be possible to argue that the partisan in M’s parable and the lunatic in H’s parable are one and the same
What is the only way we can say M’s response successfully avoids F’s challenge?
M response is effective at avoiding F’s challenge only if the conditions for faith-based assertions can be stated so that it doesn’t become vacuous formulae (no evidence can count against it) or a provision hypothesis (will be discarded if evidence counts against it
Explain how the falsification proposition struggles with unobservable entities
The falsification theory struggles with unobservable entities, which include scientific concepts such as atoms and gravitons, as well as, crucially, the idea of God. Tests cannot be reasonably established to falsify these concepts, yet it would be unintuitive to say that we cannot verify their existence (through mathematical models etc.) and use them to predict events and states of affairs
Why does the fact that M cannot completely avoid F’s challenge not completely destroy M’s arguement?
Just because M cannot avoid the challenge of falsification does not mean that his argument fails. It is possible to criticise falsification as a theory of knowledge itself and examine how alternate theories might provide a way for M’s views to have a stronger epistemological foundation
Explain how the falsification theory struggles with probability
It has also struggled with probability since it is difficult to test a probabilistic hypothesis that by chance could give a false result within the test
What do flaws in the falsification theory suggest and what does this mean for F’s challenge to theists?
From this it can be posited that the way we ordinarily gather knowledge and truth about the outside world is not exclusively through the lens of falsifiying wrong beliefs, but a mixture of this with faith, induction, probability, intuition, inference and deduction. If this is the case, then F’s test of meaning would not necessarily apply to Mitchell’s idea of faith based assertions
If falsification cannot fully test all forms of knowledge and other forms of knowledge can possibly count in favour of theological assertions, then F’s challenge is misguided or at the very least a very narrow way of measuring meaning
How does the cumulative case approach go further than the falsification theory in examining the case for the existence of God?
Rather than simply looking at the negative propositions that would count against God, it is also important to consider the positive arguments in favour of God, like religious experience, the apparent design of the world and morality
Explain M’s alternative to the falsification proposition of viewing arguements for the existence of God
It may be, as M suggests, that the way we view arguments for the existence of God in the same way that we do court cases rather than through the strict propositional requirements of the falsification theory. We can take the statement ‘God loves men’ to test this idea. Under falsification we could formulate propositions to test this statement, with things like evil counting against its truth. However, for the theologian, this belief is affirmed by positive evidence more than it is negative. The good in the world may heavily eclipse evil; God’s design and the order of things could be proof of God’s benevolence. There is immense difficulty in testing these kinds of additional beliefs, and while Flew may argue that this makes them unfalsifiable and therefore meaningless, to do so is to run the risk of arguing all value statements are meaningless
Explain M’s idea that F is wrong to apply the falsification proposition to things like religion
When theological problems are placed within a logical framework, F is correct to argue that they are open to the challenge of falsification. Mitchell’s point is that RL should not be looked at from within this strictly logical, scientific framework, as it is generally difficult and reductive to do this with the humanities. The limits of falsification theory become apparent once we move away from just science and so it wrong to rigidly assign it to theological assertions. There are clearly logical and evidential problems with theology, but they cannot necessarily be treated in the rigid, scientific way that F desires
If we view the statement ‘God loves men’ as being akin to a court case, then it is possible to see how alternative evidence could be presented but not taken up (Mitchell’s partisan). Belief in the statement could have elements of strong faith while for others it could be ‘inference to the best explanation’
It can be argued that the internal problems of falsification and the wider scope of discussion that RL encapsulates makes F’s challenge misleading at best and wrong at worst
Explain the difference between explanation and qualification
An explanation provides a reason for a situation, but a qualification is a statement that lessens the impact of the previous statement. He accuses theists of often falling into the latter when defending their assertions.
It is important to consider what F means in his argument against DOATQ and what exactly the distinction between an explanation and a qualification is. For instance, in the free will defence of the POE (Augustinian Theodicy), is each instance of pointing out free will in response to human suffering an explanation or a qualification? If there is a logical framework which answers the particular issue then every response to an evidential problem will be a qualification, similar to the way that maths regularly changes it assumptions and practises to adapt to changing states of affairs
Give a quote from F where he accuses theists of slipping from explanation into qualification
‘So, though I concede that M was entirely right to insist against me that the theologian’s first move is to look for an explanation, I still think that in the end, if relentlessly pursued, he will have to resort to the avoiding action of qualification’
How does Kuhn’s theory about the paradigmatic nature of science suggest that scientific statements may also be qualifications?
There have been many instances throughout history where scientific theories were regularly qualified instead of being revised and often for a long time before being overturned
What does F mischaracterise about the theist conceptions of God?
One thing F is guilty of is assuming that the theist’s conceptions of God are static, when ideas around his omnipotence and omnibenevolence have actually changed throughout history. The homogenous idea of God that F invokes is a far cry from the dynamic discussions that occur around his identity
How does M’s cumulative case arguement for the existence of God suggest that religious statements are assertions rather than bliks or something of that kind?
One of M’s main ideas is the cumulative-case argument for the existence of God, whereby separate arguments for the existence of God can be brought together to develop a larger set of evidence that allows us to come to the conclusion that God is the best explanation for the evidence we see around us. This means that RL must be assertions because they are acting as a truth proposition, that God exists, rather than simply just expressing a personal preference or belief
If deemed succcessful, how does M’s parable allow religious language a much greater impact within wider society?
M’s counter parable is effective and Flew’s challenge is defused there are a number of implications for the kinds of theological truth a theist could reasonably espouse, as, no longer beholden the limited idea of scientific rationality, cases can be constructed for the existence of God in the same vein as other inductive or inferential theories and he could in turn become a valid explanation for the universe beyond personal faith
While contentious, M’s arguments carry the possibility of a consistent methodology towards theological truth of the kind that F tried to challenge
His cumulative-case argument also sets up grounds for faith-based assertions to have rational justification beyond religion
If we accept his parable, then arguably faith in certain explanations is not necessarily limited to religion and the truths that are often taught by religion to be based on faith can have influence within a wider section of society. M was a strong proponent of RL being part of matters of public debate and his ideas effectively grant RL a rational power that they may not have once enjoyed within society
How does M’s parable suggest that talk of God is not just meaningless qualifications, as F’s parable suggested?
While F might categorise RL as meaningless qualifications, M argues that faith in one’s perception in the face of difficult evidence is completely reasonable. In his parable, although there are times where the partisan’s behaviour contradicts the partisan’s perception of him, faith in his character is enough to justify belief in his motivations. This isn’t a huge step, as people make these kinds of evaluations every day in lots of situations
How does M’s portrayal of religion and faith present it as much more rational than H’s?
It can be argued that psychologically, human interaction is built upon degrees of faith in ideas and the world around us and M’s arguments could have a wider ranging impact on how people trust and experience faith in the outside world
This stands in contrast with H’s blik, where personal faith and revelation are simply unverifiable (bliks are based on nothing, whereas faith is based on evidential experience) and arguably push theism towards either relativism or the fanaticism of the student within H’s parable
Why did many theists dislike H’s conclusion that religious belief was just a blik?
H’s views of religious beliefs being bliks had the possible charge of relativism in both religion and morality and many theists have sought to avoid this conclusion
What challenge does Flew set out for theists
Wants them to outline the propositions that could falsify the existence of God or otherwise render religious statements meaningless
How did Hare reply to this challenge
Tried to dodge the challenge altogether, putting forward a new parable that established all religious belief as being founded on bliks, unverifiable worldviews that govern what counts as evidence for any particular individual
How does Mitchell reply
Agrees that religious utterances are assertions rather than dodging the challenge, instead arguing that Flew is wrong in stating that no evidence is allowed to count against religious belief
Many would argue Mitchell is correct in this assertion. Although Flew wants to paint theists as avoding real clarification of their assertions, looking at issues like the problem of evil has actually had a tremendous impact on theological belief
Shares Hare’s criticism of Flew as assuming theists took the position of the disinterested observer, Mitchel notes that the attitude of theists is one of faith and belief
What does Mitchell try and illustrate with his parable of the partisan
There are times when the stranger’s actions count against the beliefs of the partisan but his committed trust overrides any doubts. The parable can be seen as analogous to the trials of faith that theists undergo when evidence is presented against their beliefs
What is vacuous formulae
Statements to which experience make no difference and which make no difference to life
What is the benefit of Mitchell finding a middle ground between provision hypothesis and vacuous formulae
The religious duty to maintain faith in God despite the evidence is preserved, but the explanatory power that religious assetions hold is also preserved
How does Mitchell’s parable show how Flew’s is misleading and incomprehensive
Flew’s is perhaps misleading because there is no real initial contact or evidence to suggest a gardener, whereas many theists do see empirical evidence for God in the world.
Mitchell aludes to the fact that any of these kind of parables will never be able to replicate the conditions from which religious belief arises in people in one narrative. To ascribe a uniform pattern of belief to theists is inevitably oversimplifying how theists interact with the world and how they make faith based assertions about it
How does Flew respond to Mitchell
Admits that in his first analysis he missed the fact that the theologian would not deny that issues such as the problem of evil count against their faith
He says that if Mitchell’s faith based assertions are examined again, one can argue that no evidence is actually allowed to count against the partisan’s belief in the stranger, or at least there is a vital difference between acknowledging there is evidence that would count against your belief and the act of letting it do so.
If a person believed so wholly that all cats have 4 legs that they could not entertain the proposal that there could be a cat with three legs. For them, the world only contains 4 legged cats. While others may argue there are three legged cats and he could imagine such a being countering his belief, he holds up the primacy of his original premise such that upon seeing a three legged cat for the first time, he refuses to allow it as evidence against his theory
Flew would argue this is like belief in God. If a person’s belief is so strong that evidence against it could never be actualised in the person turning away from their belief then that person has not appreciated the evidence. For instance, the problem of evil should not merely elicit acknowledgement of the trials of faith but rather push towards agnosticism at the very least
How could Mitchell respond to this
That examining faith in terms of evidential enquiry is missing the point of faith
How does Flew point out that comparing the stranger and God is an unsound analogy
Difference between making excuses for the stranger and making excuses for God, whose omnipotence and omniscience means he carries a greater degree of responsibility. While the partisan can overlook the stranger’s misdeeds, the theist does not have this luxury
How isn’t this criticism completely damning for the theist
Because they don’t necessarily have to resort the the crime of qualification and can look towards theodicies instead
How does Flew respond to Hare
Acknowledges that his approach is fresh and bold, but he regards it as inadequate within Christian belief as a whole. If cosmological assertions are regarded as bliks then they would be unorthodox within the Christian religion, which generally wants to assert that its teachings correspond to nature and are not just affirmations of a particular worldview
If religious assetions were bliks, then many religious practises would have little to no basis and become absurd. If we take the phrase ‘Jesus died for our sins’ as a measure of his cosmological atonement and the practise of the Eucharist as a means of remembrance, this sacrament only has meaning when Christ’s atonement is objective. Otherwise the eucharistic becomes a solipsistic activity and thus loses the spiritual significance it has when practises worldwide
Despite religious assertions relying partially on faith as Mitchell suggests, they still have to contain some form of justifiable assertion about states of affairs, as so many religious ideas rely on metaphysical and contingent truths. Flew acknowledges that while Hare’s ideas are interesting and there is certainly some form of blik that guides our perceptive capacities, it cannot be exhaustive in describing religious beliefs and some form of assetion is required within the context of the religion as a whole
Explain Mitchell’s attitude to religious belief
Strong supporter of the presence of theism in public debate and sought to defend the idea that it was a reasonable position to hold. In ‘The Justification of Religious Belief’ he proposed the idea of a cumulative case approach for justifying religious belief, which treats religious assertions as forms of evidence that once added up present God as the best explanation for the universe. While some treat this as a formal arguement, many think it better interpreted as akin to a court case, with the arguements adding up to a conclusion in the same way a judge might reach a verdict. He spend time looking at how arguement is conducted in various academic disciplines and concluded that the more disputed evidence around the issue, the harder it is to reduce it to any formal syllogistic arguement
Says there is no dichotomy between scientific explanation and other forms of explanation, rather a scale of rationality that becomes more or less precise depending on the area being studied. Subjects like physics and chemistry are higher up on the scale and fields like the humanities and metaphysics have a broader rationality lower down on the scale. The key thing is that no form of explanation is exclusive in its rationality, all have various assumptions that dictate how they operate and what they take to be important
This framework is important for understanding his desire for religious utterances to remain assertions. Unless some real state of affairs is being expressed by theistic belief then it is impossible to start building an objective case for the existence of God, nor is it possible to compare in a distinct way the scientific and religious explanations for the universe
What is bayesian logic
Bayesian logic, rooted in Bayesian probability theory, is a framework for reasoning under uncertainty. Unlike classical logic, which deals with certainty, Bayesian logic acknowledges that beliefs and hypotheses are updated in light of new evidence. At its core is Bayes’ theorem, which describes how to update the probability of a hypothesis based on new evidence. This approach allows individuals to assign probabilities to hypotheses and update these probabilities as new evidence emerges. Bayesian logic is widely used in various fields, including statistics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, for decision-making, inference, and prediction tasks.
How does Swinburne look to uphold theism in the face of Flew
Swinburne, like Mitchell, argues using Bayesian logic (where probability is assigned to statements of belief) a strong probablistic arguement can be made for the existence of God. In ‘The Existence of God’, he runs through all the main arguements for God that have been put forward and posits that, although all of them are insufficient to prove God on their own, together they form a strong evidential arguement to make believing God more rational than not
In the case of RE, he presents a counter parable to Flew, imagining a child’s room where the toys come alive at night before stopping in the morning. While no one could verify or falsify this, it is arguably still wrong to say that these assertions have no meaning. The concept of toys, movement and animation is familiar enough that this idea has explanatory power in our mind and it is reductive to say any assertions about unobservable entities are meaningless
What is the big question about Mitchell’s response
Whether M truly allows evidence to count against theistic belief. Mitchell says the different between his response and Hare’s is that the stranger acknowledges there are many things that could and do count against their belief, whereas Hare’s lunatic doesn’t admit that there’s anything against their belief. However, if this is true then there is a tension in Mitchell’s arguement. For if in this the case of the partisan evidence actually does count against his belief, then it is possible to determine some conditions by which the stranger’s behaviour becomes so overwhemingly against the resistance movement that the partisan would be forced to abandon his belief in order to avoid it becoming vacuous formulae. Yet at the same time admitting evidence would count against his belief would mean it was no longer an article of faith and this would make it provisional hypothesis. The question is therefore what conditions a theological utterance must have to become a significant article of faith
Evidence has to count against his belief in a real way such that it would force the partisan to change his mind, not just imaginably change it is some other given scenario. If not, it is possible to argue that the partisan and the lunatic are one and the same
Mitchell’s reply is only effective so long as the conditions for faith based assetions can be stated such that it does not become a vacuous formula, yet the challenge remains of outlining them so they don’t become provisional hypothesis
