3. Religious Language: Verification Principle
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 17-06-17 10:51
View mindmap
- 3. Religious Language: Verification Principle
- Logical positivists
- Vienna, 1920s
- Concerned with relationship between use of language and knowledge
- Rejecting non-cognitive language as meaningless
- A. J. Ayer
- Language, Truth and Logical - 1936
- "A statement which cannot be conclusively verified cannot be verified at all. It is simply devoid of meaning"
- Analytical propositions (a priori)
- True by definition because this is required by the word
- E.g. A triangle has 3 sides
- E.g. because they are mathematical (2+2=4)
- True by definition because this is required by the word
- Synthetic propositions (a posteriori)
- True by confirmation of senses
- e.g. I can see it is raining
- True by confirmation of senses
- Strong verification
- An assertion only has meaning if it can be verified according to empirical information, anything else is meaningless
- Weak
- Developed to allow historical facts to have meaning
- Some evidence is enough to make a statement meaningful
- E.g. eyewitness accounts
- Religious claims are meaningless as they are non-cognitive and cannot be verified
- Criticisms
- Hick
- Eschatological verification, talk of God may be verifiable in principle
- Convincing evidence is not apparent now but may be in the future
- i. e. when we reach the "Celestial City" (heaven)
- Swinburne
- Propositions which non-one knows how to verify are not meaningless
- e.g. toys hat come out at night when you are asleep.
- it is not possible to prove or disprove this but this doesn't mean it is meaningless
- e.g. toys hat come out at night when you are asleep.
- Propositions which non-one knows how to verify are not meaningless
- The weak form of verification would support some religious statements
- e.g. some historical evidence for the existence of Jesus and his acts
- Evidence of possible design could support "God as creator"
- Ayer's creation of the weak verification principle may suggest that the verification principle has gaps
- Hick
- Logical positivists
Comments
No comments have yet been made