a 20th century philosophical movement holding that all meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless
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what are the main themes in Ayers article?
the verification principle, meaningless concept and nature
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what is the verification principle?
the characteristic doctrine of logical positivism that a statement that cant be verified is strictly meaningless
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what is Igtheism?
the idea that every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God and other theological concepts
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what is the argument against natural theology?
things within nature must not be confused with things outside of nature
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why does Ayer say that 'god' is a meaningless concept?
the word 'god' in itself is pointless to use in itself it has no meaning, so is completeley rejected
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why are religious experiences rejected?
all in the mind and tell us nothing about god, they cannot be verified and are only in the mind of the believer and cannot be true
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what is an implication of what Ayer is saying?
much of religious practice is meaningless, so does this mean religion should be abolished? ridiculed?
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what is an implication of what Ayer is saying?
religious experiences are all in the mind: people who claim to have such experiences should be treated as psychiatric patients
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what is an implication of what Ayer is saying?
the idea of design and purpose in the world is meaningless so there is no hope of post mortem existence, there are no ultimate values, only opinions
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what is an implication of what Ayer is saying?
life has no meaning or ultimate purpose. might this cause a collapse in society?
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what is an implication of what Ayer is saying?
should religious belief be treated as an illness or psychological problem? any knowledge on intuition is false and is not knowledge
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what is an implication of what Ayer is saying?
all arguments from atheism or agnosticism are meaningless as they discuss 'God' might we have to rid the word 'god' from the language all together
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How can we link Donovans article to Ayers?
Donovan claims regarding religious intuition often fit within a long tradition of reported religious experiences
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How can we link Donovans article to Ayers?
could repeated claims about experience of God amount to a body of evidence?
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How can we link Donovans article to Ayers?
Owen and Bailie would argue that relgiious intutitions are self authenticating ( the truth of experience is apparent to the one experiencing it)
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How can we link Donovans article to Ayers?
Buber would be critical of Ayers attempt to limit meaningful language, it doesnt give enough credit to the subjective, personal and emotional aspects of human life
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How can we link Westphals article to Ayers?
Hegel would say that our mind/spirit is non physica and cannot be empirically investigated yet its reality is certain
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How can we link Westphals article to Ayers?
Kant would reject the VP on the grounds that some truths emerge through 'practical reason'
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How can we link Westphals article to Ayers?
Ayer opens the door to pantheism, as he admits the idea of God may have some significane where god is defined as an aspect of the physical world
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
what is logical positivism?
Back
a 20th century philosophical movement holding that all meaningful statements are either analytic or conclusively verifiable or at least confirmable by observation and experiment and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless
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