The Verification principle
if you can list any strengths, please comment them!
- Created by: amxns
- Created on: 19-05-17 20:50
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- The Verification Principle
- Logical positivists in vienna circle believed empirical evidence was key to understanding whats meaningful or not
- they created Strong VP: in order for a statement to be meaningful, it had to be analytical or empirically verifiable
- If it is neither, then is says nothing about reality= THUS ITS A MEANINGLESS STATEMENT
- "God created the world" is a meaningless religious statement because..
- it cannot be empirically verifiable eg we have never seen nor will see God create the world
- the statement isn't analytical- it isn't a definition in itself
- Frederich Waismann, member of VC " a statement which cannot be conclusively verified cannot be verified at all, it simply a devoid of meaning"
- "God created the world" is a meaningless religious statement because..
- If it is neither, then is says nothing about reality= THUS ITS A MEANINGLESS STATEMENT
- they created Strong VP: in order for a statement to be meaningful, it had to be analytical or empirically verifiable
- AJ AYER: Weak VP: in order for a statement to be meaningful, it had to be a tautology or verifiable in principle( u suggest ways on how it could be empirically verified)
- so the key difference between SVP and WVP is that we dont need to conclusively prove something by direct empirical observation, we could suggest ways on how it could be verified instead
- "there are mountains on the far side of the moon". This cannot be conclusively verified, but if we suggest that we orbit the moon to check the validity, its now a meaningful statement
- essentially, its verifiable in principle- we suggested HOW it COULD be verified.
- "there are mountains on the far side of the moon". This cannot be conclusively verified, but if we suggest that we orbit the moon to check the validity, its now a meaningful statement
- so the key difference between SVP and WVP is that we dont need to conclusively prove something by direct empirical observation, we could suggest ways on how it could be verified instead
- vp itself doesn't pass the test as a meaningful statement as we cannot test it by its own criteria
- according to SVP science claims such as the existence of black holes are impractical since they cannot be verified empirically
- Logical positivists in vienna circle believed empirical evidence was key to understanding whats meaningful or not
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