Verification Principle
- Created by: 11wardem
- Created on: 15-10-17 12:53
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- Verification Principle
- Vienna Circle
- Religious believers make propositions
- Statement of fact = meaning and need to be verified
- A fact is either true or false
- Meaningful statements
- Analytical propositions
- contain all info within the statement (2+2=4)
- Synthetic Statements
- Factual statements confirmed by a posteriori
- Analytical propositions
- A.J Ayer
- "The term God is a metaphysical term. And if this is so then it cannot be probable that God exists. The statement isn't true or false; it is meaningless"
- Denies God's existence as no way to prove it
- Empirical statements fell short of VP as they can't be verified empirically
- "The term God is a metaphysical term. And if this is so then it cannot be probable that God exists. The statement isn't true or false; it is meaningless"
- Strong Verification Principle
- Vienna Circle
- Religious believers make propositions
- Statement of fact = meaning and need to be verified
- A fact is either true or false
- Meaningful statements
- Analytical propositions
- contain all info within the statement (2+2=4)
- Synthetic Statements
- Factual statements confirmed by a posteriori
- Analytical propositions
- Accepts only direct verifiable statements
- Vienna Circle
- Weak Verification Principle
- A statement is factual if sense experience can go some way to confirming it
- A.J Ayer
- "The term God is a metaphysical term. And if this is so then it cannot be probable that God exists. The statement isn't true or false; it is meaningless"
- Denies God's existence as no way to prove it
- Empirical statements fell short of VP as they can't be verified empirically
- "The term God is a metaphysical term. And if this is so then it cannot be probable that God exists. The statement isn't true or false; it is meaningless"
- Strengths
- Saves wasted time discussing God
- Supports claims of an afterlife and religious experience
- Supports the design argument as based on a posteriori evidence
- Often regard verification = sense and falsification = nonsense
- Weaknesses
- Doesn't meet its own criteria - no empirical evidence to support VP
- Vardy argues that if you can't verify something doesn't mean it's meaningless
- Keith Ward argued that God's existence can be verified since God can verify his own existence
- If you apply the WVP then you can verify anything
- Vienna Circle
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