1.10.5

Discussion Points: Verification & Falsification

Test yourself

Is the Verification Principle Successful?

Do any of the verification principle theories show that religious language is meaningless?

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Locke and Hume's support

  • John Locke and David Hume's (pictured) arguments support the verification principle.
  • As empiricists, they argue that truth and knowledge should be known via our senses. This form of reasoning goes back to the early Greek Philosopher Aristotle who based his beliefs on scientific evidence.
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Weak verification

  • A.J Ayer's theory of weak verification states that to be meaningful, a statement does not have to be verifiable but instead must be shown to be true within reasonable doubt.
  • Weak verification means we can make statements about history, scientific theories and human emotion but not religion and ethics.
    • For example, if we know in principle how to verify a statement, then it is meaningful. If the probability weighs in favour of the statement, then it is meaningful.
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The theory is not meaningful

  • But one of the most significant criticisms is that the statement of the theory itself does not pass the test as a meaningful statement.
  • The verification theory cannot be verified by sense experience and so is not a meaningful synthetic proposition.
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Problems with analytic proposition

  • What's more, if the statement is analytic, then it is giving a new sense to the word ‘meaningful’; a new definition which we do not necessarily have to accept.
  • The idea that all meaningful synthetic statements have to be empirically verifiable also causes practical problems.
  • Many of the claims in science, such as the existence of black holes, cannot be verified by sense experience.
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History cannot be tested

  • Many historical statements about past events cannot now be tested using the senses.
  • Theologian and Philosopher Vincent Brummer argues that to treat sentences of faith as if they were scientific sentences is to commit an error of understanding.
  • Brummer, like D.Z. Phillips before him believes that scholars such as Hume and Dawkins are wrong to assume that if something is not scientific or measurable then it is somehow not significant.
  • We should not say that the entire contents of reality can possibly be known to science.
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Popper's view of vertification

  • The philosopher Karl Popper was the inspiration behind the falsification principle and he pointed out that if meaning depended upon strong or weak verification, then the whole of science would be wiped out. This is because none of the general laws of science are actually verifiable. We can never accept any statement as verifiable.
  • Instead, we can only accept a statement up to the point where it is falsified. Therefore, the verification principle is not successful.

The Falsification Symposium and Religious Language

Does the falsification symposium help us to understand religious language?

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Tillich's symbol argument

  • Tillich argued God is not ‘a being’ but ‘being itself’ and that religious language is not cognitive (it can't be known) but symbolic.
  • Symbols are not the same as facts. So it is wrong to criticise them as if they were. Symbols cannot be verified or falsified. This doesn't mean symbols are meaningless, even if they are unverifiable; they can be effective or ineffective ways of drawing religious believers to ‘the power of being’.
Illustrative background for 'Bliks' can be meaningful Illustrative background for 'Bliks' can be meaningful  ?? "content

'Bliks' can be meaningful

  • In the same way, a ‘blik’ could be intensely meaningful to a person who has one.
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Criticisms: falsification principle

  • Flew’s falsification principle can be criticised for many reasons.
  • You could argue that Flew’s confidence in empirical evidence as the final test of meaning is, in itself, unfalsifiable.
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Response to Flew's question

  • Flew’s article finishes with the question, ‘what would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or the existence of God?’
  • The religious believer might want to respond to him with a similar question, ‘what would have to occur or to have occurred, to constitute for you a disproof of the primacy of empirical evidence?’
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Swinburne's view of assertions

  • Richard Swinburne argues that we do not have to be able to specify what would count against an assertion for that assertion to be meaningful.
  • He argues that we cannot specify what would count against scientific theories of the beginnings of the universe, for example, because we do not know enough about the scientific theories involved, but this does not make the scientific theories meaningless to us.

Jump to other topics

1Philosophy of Religion

1.1Ancient Philosophical Influences: Plato

1.2Ancient Philosophical Influences: Aristotle

1.3Ancient Philosophical Influences: Soul, Mind, Body

1.4The Existence of God - Arguments from Observation

1.5The Existence of God - Arguments from Reason

1.6Religious Experience

1.7The Problem of Evil

1.8The Nature & Attributes of God

1.9Religious Language: Negative, Analogical, Symbolic

1.10Religious Language: 20th Century Perspective

2Religion & Ethics

3Developments in Christian Thought

3.1Saint Augustine's Teachings

3.2Death & the Afterlife

3.3Knowledge of God's Existence

3.4The Person of Jesus Christ

3.5Christian Moral Principles

3.6Christian Moral Action

3.7Development - Pluralism & Theology

3.8Development - Pluralism & Society

3.9Gender & Society

3.10Gender & Theology

3.11Challenges

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