verification

Question 1

logical positivists

Answer 1

• group of philosphers concerned w truth contained in statements we can make or what can be logically positived or stated
• began in vienna, austria in 1920s n gathered around philosopher called Moritz Schlick.
• group was influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein + the group influenced many philosophers of religion.
• Those influenced incl A J Ayer, Antony Flew + the Falsificationists.
• an extension of scientific positivism

Question 2

the verification principle

ayer

Answer 2

• “A statement which cannot be conclusively verified … is simply devoid of meaning.”
• statements can only be meaningful if they can be demonstrated, divided into 2 types: analytic n synthetic propositions

Question 3

aj ayer
dates n book

Answer 3

• ‘language, truth n logic’
• 1910-1989

Question 4

analytic proposition

Answer 4

• which are true by definition, either because
• (a) this is required by the definition of the words used – e.g. ‘this circle is not a square’,
• or (b) because they are mathematical – e.g. ‘2+2=4’.

Question 5

synthetic propositions

S=senses

Answer 5

• , which are true by confirmation of the senses – e.g. ‘I can see that it is snowing outside’.

Question 6

ayer on religous claims

Answer 6

• their non-cognitive n impossible to verify
• so theyre meaningless
• he didnt say they r just false its more that they cannot really tell us anything at all
• but him n VC arent disporving gods existence

Question 7

ayer quote on meaningless rl

Answer 7

“No sentence which describes the nature of a transcendent God can possess any literal significance.”

Question 8

empiricists vs rationalists
ayer n VC attack on rationalists

Answer 8

• the debate between the 2= “are as unwarranted as they are unfruitful”.
• Empiricists claim that synthetic knowledge is gained a posteriori.
• but, rationalists/metaphysicians claim that their premises arent based on their senses but derived from an a priori faculty of intellectual intuition which enables them to know about reality beyond sense experience.
• so at stalemate bc impossible to disprove reason
• ayer tries to do it not by empirical claims but by logic to show religous statements=meaningless

Question 9

ayer quote of god talk

Answer 9

“god talk is evidentially nonsense”

Question 10

Tautology

Answer 10

• A logical statement that we can know to be true by definition
• If someone were to say that ‘triangles have three sides’ or that ‘all widows have been married’, we understand that these statements have to be the case w/out the need for any sensory experiences.

Question 11

vienna circle
vc

Answer 11

The group of philosophers including Schlick (1882 -1936) and Neurath (1882-1945) who gave rise to the logical positivist movement.
ayer was part

Question 12

the weak vp

Answer 12

weak verif means that if you outline what is necessary to make it probable, it becomes meaningful.
if we say there are mountains on the other side of the moon it is not an unreasonable proposition, because we can see mountains on this side.

Question 13

strong vp

Answer 13

he points out that strong verif is impossible because our senses are not infallible. even history and science fall because we cannot be utterly conclusive. for strong verif, every factual statement becomes meaningless

Question 14

dawkins

Answer 14

he treats religious belief as failed and evidence-less scientific hypotheses, but even ayer would not spend time trying to prove a meaningless thing wrong.

Question 15

Whether the verification principle is overly restrictive

strength: Verificationism fits with a scientific understanding of reality

Answer 15

• restricts meaning to whatever we have scientific evidence for
• positivsm of comte n mill claimed power of science shows its the only valid source of knowledge
• it was criticised for being to restrictive of meaning but he responded w weak vp

Question 16

Weakness: arguably weak verification opens the door to arguments for God, however.

Answer 16

• teleoligical argument attempts to infer gods existence from experience of world
• seems similar to weak vp
• we can weakly verify complexity n purpose in world n use that to verify gods existence
• so ayer seems to fail in his attemot to show RL is unverifbale n meaningless

Question 17

evaluation defending verificationism

Answer 17

• criticsm of ayer fails as he overcame it w his final version of vp
• he admitted wvp ‘allows meaning to any indicative statement’.
• he added direct n indirect verification
• rules out possibility of verfying god either in/directly
• even if we see direct evidence of causation/complexity which supports belief in god we still dont know how to verify god even in principle
• so vp succesfully shows RL=meaningless

Question 18

direct verification

Answer 18

a statement that is verifiable by observation. E.g. ‘I see a key’ is directly verifiable and so has factual meaning.

Question 19

indirect verification

Answer 19

when a direct verification supports a statement which we haven’t directly verified but in principle know how to verify. E.g. ‘This key is made of iron’.

Question 20

evaluation criticising verification

Answer 20

• it wants to provide criteria for meaning which eliminates metaphysical statements but idea of menaing is a metapohysical concept
• quine condludes the verificationism is j a modern linguistic form of Aristotelian metaphysics.
• Aristotle claimed the essence or formal cause of a human is rational thought. Logical positivists are simply now calling that ‘meaning’.
• Qs point=good as it reveals paradox in logical positivism= attempts to restrict r thought to only whjat we can possibly know via verification
• But we do not know what thought, rationality and meaning actually are.
• The framework of LP is undermined by its own criteria.
• All we can say, even since Aristotle, is that whatever rationality or meaning are, they seem to be an essential property of being human.

Question 21

john hick criticism n ‘eschatological verification’

Answer 21

• theres a way to verify god n RL bc when we die well see god n then well know
• One strength of Hick’s approach is that he doesn’t need to actually undermine verificationism itself, only Ayer’s claim that religious language is unverifiable.

Question 22

‘eschatology’

Answer 22

the doctrine of last things. It is the theological teaching about death and the final judgement after death.

Question 23

john hick

Answer 23

• Born 1922
• Religious Pluralist
• Believed that statements about God can be factual & meaningful
• Used Ayer’s Weak version of the verification principle to argue in favour of religious statements being meaningful.

Question 24

john hick parable of celestial city

Answer 24

• imagine 2 travellers, 1 representing a theist, the other an atheist
• theyre walking along a road, representing life
• 1 thinks a celestial city is at end of road, representing an afterlife n god, the other doesnt
• neithers reached the end of this road before.
• ends w this: “Yet, when they turn the last corner, it will be apparent that one of them has been right all the time and the other wrong.”

Question 25

hick strengths

Answer 25

• making use of ayers claim soemthing must be verifable in practice or principle
• A gave eg of mountains being dark side of moon in his tim but they know that in principle it was possible to go there n look
• H is arguing that RL=verifable in princple bc we also know thta in principle its possible to die n see god

Question 26

evaluation defending verificationism against hick

Answer 26

• we cant be sure theres a celestial city at end of road(an afterlife n seeing god)-its only a possibility
• ayers mountain eg=verifable in principle in ayers time bc they know how to verify it.
• they knew moon existed n knew travel in space happened so j needed to look once on the moon
• but cant do this in the afterlife, unlike moon we dont know if afterlife exists
• its possible it exists, but not enough to claim that its verifable in principle bc dontknow there r steps, if need to take them, which would provide verification
• so h only shows RL is possibly verifable. hasnt shown its verifable in principle

Question 27

richard holder criticism

Answer 27

• gives an eg of polar bear
• he argues that the VP would state all polar bears r white, so non-white objects cannot be polar bears
• verification logic suggests a brown chimpanze, eg, proves all polar bears r white
• he calls this ridiculous n illogical

Question 28

karl popper

Answer 28

he argues that we cannot scientifically verify everything

Question 29

brummers response to vp

Answer 29

• agues to treat sentences of faith as if they were scientific is to commit an error of understanding
• agreed w/ dz phillips that were making a mistake by treating faith sentences in terms of enlightenment thinking.
• we assume that non-scientific material isnt important but this modern view itself is an assumption w/out any possible justification
• can be said when LP reject metaphysics, theyre constructing their own
• to dismiss possibility of god n replace it w soley scientific truth is to say the entire contents of reality r knowable to science n theres nothinh beyond this

Question 30

swinburnes solution

Answer 30

• argues against LP say there r sentences w meaning that describe states of affairs that arent verifable
• uses eg of toys in a cupboard:| they come out at night n dance w/out disturbing any detecing devies n then go back to cupboard n leave no traces of activity
• points to possibility of the genuinely significant sentences that all outside to over-simplistic demands of logical positivism

Question 30

emmets response

Answer 30

• calims the claims of natural theology must be understood as analogies not scientific accounts
• she argues its a human inclination to c r attempts to make sense of mysteries of existsence as if what we know is all there to be known
• the LP charactertisation of religion fails to understand not only type of language involved bu modes of thinking too
• prayers,hymns n other language significant in context of faith=used by believers
• to reject all this as meaningless is to pay insuffecient attention to what ppl mean

Question 30

objections of swinburne

Answer 30

• its problematic
• theres no way of verifying this bc we cannot observe it
• it dimisses VP n leaves no alternative for meaning
• hes claiming it makes sense j bc we know what the words mean
• ik what a toy is n all the other things in eg are= but doesnt mean eg isnt nonsense
• it cannot be applied to god bc we dont know who god is
• Emmets criticism can be uysed here
• it uses human things to relate to metaphysical being

Question 31

vp criticism: it means most of what we say is meaningless

Answer 31

• if someone orders us to do soemthing its not tautology or scientifically verifiable, but it has significance.
• it would make sense to respond w a yes/no, which cannot be said for nonsense.
• issues is the approach=binary: either propostion=meaningful or its meaningless
• its not fair assesment of human use of langauge=its richer n more complex than that

Question 32

defence of swinburne

Answer 32

• providing evidence of swinburnes general philosphical project to create a cumlative case for gods existence
• this incl apparent design in laws of physics (design argument) n religous exp
• the LP of ayer/flew is acc too radical a form of empiricism even for many scientists
• theyre wrong about scientific meaning
• it can involve ideas we dont know how to test
• so rl is cognitively meaningful even if its untestable