The verification principle Flashcards
Who created the verification principle?
Schlick
What are the 2 types of statements that make sense according to a verification principlist?
‘A Priori’ statements/Analytic Propositions – gained through logical
reasoning, cannot be untrue, e.g. “all cats are mammals.”
‘A Posteriori’ statements/Synthetic Propositions – where knowledge
can be verified true or false by sense experience or experiment. E.g.
‘my pet is a cat’ (achieved through investigation).
What is strong verification?
Can be immediately proven through empirical experiment, or sensory testing and/or through logic and reasoning.
Is literal, and stated in a cognitive way.
Cannot be interpreted ambiguously.
Who created weak verification?
A.J. Ayer
What is weak verification?
Ayer also argued that something is weakly verifiable if it can be verified “in principle.”
This means that scientific knowledge can be used to predict ideas that may be strongly verifiable in the future.
Example: if I said “there is a little green alien asleep on the dark side of the moon” I would know HOW to verify it (using a rocket etc) I just wouldn’t have the means. It is verifiable in principle.
Strengths of Eschatological Verification:
Uses logic and reason as it relies on the premises of Logical
Positivism, particularly Ayer’s weak verification. This shows
that some religious statements are reasonable, at least in
principle.
It gives a framework for testing the meaningfulness of
eschatological statements – life after death is either true or
false; so we could also test ‘God exists’ or ‘Jesus resurrected’
It is reasonable to interpret evidence before it can be verified
in the future – for example if you saw something curled up on
the ground in front of you it would be reasonable to assume it
is either a rope or a snake. This interpretation of
data/evidence in different ways is valid and reasonable up until
it can be evaluated and verified.
Weaknesses of Eschatological Verification:
The believer’s argument for the Celestial City is no more valid than the
non-believer’s argument that there is nothing until death. Therefore by thislogic atheism is as logical and believable as theism.
Eschatological verification does not take into account other statements that cannot be verified because they are not verifiable at death – what about the statement “God is love” – how can we verify that, even in principle?
If claims about religion are verifiable at death then they can’t be falsified – how would I ‘know’ if I was wrong to believe in an after life if there isn’t one?
