Verification
Mind map including both the strong and weak verification principles and some criticisms of it
- Created by: JMitch
- Created on: 29-05-13 11:23
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- Verification Principle
- Weak Verification
- A.J. Ayer recognised the difficulties with strong Verification so adapted the principle
- Argued that language has meaning if you can show how you would verify it
- E.g. there is life in the Milky-way would be verifiable if you found it
- Also can use past evidence to build up a case of probability
- Observations over time have verified that 'all humans are mortal'
- For God though: we know nothing of God as there is no way we can sense him, other than he exists and is transcedent
- Ayer argued therefore that 'God talk is evidently nonsense'
- Strong Verification
- Initially influenced by Wittgenstein: 'Whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent'
- Vienna Circle
- Principle proponents of the notion
- Included people like Rudolf Carnap and Mortiz Schlick
- Verification is the principle that what we say needs to be verified to have meaning
- Verification can be as a result of a tautology - E.g. Bachelors are unmarried men
- Knowledge is also gained through the senses so this is another method of verification - e.g. My car is red - can be seen
- Criticisms
- Too rigid a system
- Means that statements of History are unverifiable
- Scientific Laws are unverifiable - E.g. Gravity is a constant cannot be verified because you cannot be in all places at one time
- Talk of God, religion or atheism can not be verified by the sense or a tautology so is therefore meaningless
- Criticisms
- Eschatological Verification
- Hick argued that 2 travellers argued on a road whether they would reach a Celestrial City at the end - Verifiable at the end of the journey
- Argued therefore that God talk is verifiable at the end of life - BUT is this meaningful?
- Hick argued that 2 travellers argued on a road whether they would reach a Celestrial City at the end - Verifiable at the end of the journey
- Swinburne's Toys in the Toy cupboard
- Verification is unverifiable as it is not a tautology
- Does Religion have to be verifiable for it to have meaning for believers
- Ayer dismisses Religious Experiences as evidence
- Eschatological Verification
- Weak Verification
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