Falsification
- Created by: Katy Mills
- Created on: 11-12-12 14:37
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- Falsification
- General Points
- Antony Flew
- Propositions are only meaningful if they can be falsified
- Religious Language is meaningless
- Because you cannot falsify the statement 'God exists' - a religious believer will never say evidence disproves God
- Parable of the gardener - two men approach a clearing in a jungle (flowers and weeds)
- Beliver = gardener, non-believer = no gardener
- Set up electric fences and send out dogs to find if 'gardener' exists
- No sign of gardener but believer refuses to give up his belief
- FLew thinks that theists ignore - evil & suffering in the world/'bad' desgin/explanations for apparent 'desgin' e.g. evolution
- No sign of gardener but believer refuses to give up his belief
- Set up electric fences and send out dogs to find if 'gardener' exists
- Beliver = gardener, non-believer = no gardener
- Popper
- Thinks verification principle is flawed
- Because logically speaking, a hypothesis can never be conculsively verified
- e.g. no scientific 'law' is a law - we can only believe that metals expand when heated because all the ones tested up to now have done so (Induction - Hume)
- Therefore, instead of using the Vp we should use the FP
- Because logically speaking, a hypothesis can never be conculsively verified
- Thinks verification principle is flawed
- FP = A statement is only meaningfulif i know how the statement can be falsified
- e.g. 'All swans are white' is meaningful (and false) because we know what evidence is required to prove it false (find a black swan)
- Antony Flew
- Responses
- RM Hare
- Non-cognitively meaningful
- We all have beliefs which are unverifiable & unfalsifiable - but they still have meaning
- e.g. reading horoscopes/3 drains/walking under ladders
- This is called a Blik (a belief i cannot falsify but affects the way i live)
- A Christian's Blik could inlude GOd as Creator and the whole world is seen with this idea in mind - bliks are a set of values not fact therefore not falsifiable
- Flew - Christianity is not a Blik - it is amajor organised religion - by calling it a blik implies it is irrational
- A Christian's Blik could inlude GOd as Creator and the whole world is seen with this idea in mind - bliks are a set of values not fact therefore not falsifiable
- Basil Mitchell
- Cognitive (and therefore meaningful)
- Religious statements are falsifiable. Christianity is not just a matter of blind faith
- Parable of the Partisan - you arefighting in a war and a guy in enemy clothes tells you he is on your side but gaining intelligence by posing as the enemy
- Can't tell what side he's on
- Flew - A theist will never tell you what it would take (how much evil) for them to give up their belief
- 'Religious statements die the death of a thousand qualifications'
- Cognitive (and therefore meaningful)
- Hick
- Escatological verification (after death)
- hen you die your belief in God will be verified or falsified (religious language = meaningful)
- Falsification Principle is itself not falsifiable
- Cannot demonstrate how the FP might not be true –
by its own criteria it is meaningless
- Does this mean the FP shows religious language
is meaningless?
- No, because even though you cannot falsify religious statement, they are still meaningful as it affects the way believers live (non-cognitively meaningful)
- Does this mean the FP shows religious language
is meaningless?
- Cannot demonstrate how the FP might not be true –
by its own criteria it is meaningless
- Escatological verification (after death)
- RM Hare
- General Points
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