Religious Language 20th century essay - VERIFICATION/ FALSIFICATION/ LANGUAGE GAMES

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VERIFICATION/ FALSIFICATION/ LANGUAGE GAMES
- “Assess the belief that talk about God is meaningless”
- “To what extent is it true to say that the existence of God is a scientific question?”
- “Atheism is meaningless. Discuss”
- “Falsification presents a weaker challenge than that offered by the
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3 P's
P1 – VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE
P2 – FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLE
P3 – FAITH DIFFERS FROM SCIENCE/ REASON
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Points P1
A: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE TO BACK UP RELIGIOUS CLAIMS
CA: REDUCES LANGUAGE TO TWO VERY NARROW CATEGORIES
R: DOES NOT DENY MEANING OF RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE, JUST LITERAL SIGNIFICANCE
CR: ERADICATES A WORLD VIEW
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P1 A
For the logical positivists there are two types of significant, meaningful propositions:
(1) Tautologies – a priori true by definition, “a triangle has three sides”, mathematics is a set of tautologies
(2) Empirically verifiable propositions – a sentence
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P1 CA
Art and poetry reveal valuable things about human nature but are neither cognitive nor scientifically verifiable sentences… Logical positivism, by reducing all significant language to two categories, seems to leave no place for valuable and significant co
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Philosophers P1 CA
Hegelian
Phelan
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P1 CA
(part 1)
Although it does not necessarily dismiss the meaningfulness of religion to individuals, religious claims are not claims about the way the world is; The greatest blow to Hegelian optimism was WW1 – people no longer believed in this optimism; logical postiv
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P1 CA
(part 2)
Phelan, “to eliminate metaphysics from philosophy” will achieve meaningful language.
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Philosophers P1 R
Brümmer
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P1 R
Brümmer: To suggest things are only significant if open to scientific investigation seems to be based on its own kind of metaphysical viewpoint that the reality of the world is merely based on science.
Verificationism thus does not present a stronger cha
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Points P2
A: DEATH OF A THOUSAND QUALIFICATIONS
CA: WRONG TO APPLY SCIENTIFIC CRITERIA TO THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE
R: THEISTS BELIEVE THEIR CLAIMS ARE FACTUAL
CR: SIGNIFICANT ARTICLE OF FAITH
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Philosophers P2 A
- ()
- Karl Popper
- Flew & John Wisdom
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P2 A
(part one)
Instead of criticising religious claims on the basis of their lack of empirical evidence (a rather paradoxical notion), falsification arguably presents a stronger challenge on the basis that it highlights how “God talk dies a death of a thousand qualifica
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P2 A
(part two)
The falsification theory was devised by Karl Popper as a demarcation between what is science and what is merely pseudo science. Popper’s point is that if it cannot be subject to tests that would show how it could be false; then this is not a real scientif
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P2 A
(part three)
Flew applied Popper’s falsification theory (perhaps wrongly) to religious language; claiming believers will allow nothing to falsify their claims thus religious statements are not genuine assertions and lack scientific meaning - he illustrates his point w
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Philosophers P2 CA
- R. M. Hare
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P2 CA
(part one)
Nonetheless, RM Hare rightly asserts, in response to Flew’s attack on God talk, that he is wrong to apply scientific criteria to theological language. God talk does not claim to be scientific in the first place; Flew’s investigation is failed from the off
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P2 CA
(part two)
His parable of the lunatic, who is convinced that all the dons at the university want to kill him despite there being evidence against this, allows Hare to develop his notion of “bliks” in order to defend God talk. Hare argues we have basic worldviews or
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P2 CA
(part three)
Bilks are “modes of cognition” which have significant importance to the way one orders their life; religious beliefs therefore, are a set of values and not a set of facts, demonstrating that falsification fails as a critique of God talk as religious bliks
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P2 R
However, the issue is when religious believers make a claim such as “God loves us” they believe they are making a claim about reality as a whole, not just their personal view – the claim “God created the world” is not merely a Blik but a supposed fact. Ye
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Philosophers P2 CR
Mitchell
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P2 CR
Mitchell partly accepts Flew’s point – there is evidence that counts for and against belief in God. Mitchell’s point is the believers acknowledgement of evidence against belief does not count against their beliefs as they are committed by faith to trust i
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Points P3
A: SCIENTIFIC MEANING DIFFERS FROM RELIGIOUS MEANING
CA: NOT WORTHY OF DISCUSSION
R: EXPLORATION OF FAITH
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P3 A
- Neither can render God talk meaningless as scientific meaning is different from religious meaning.
- Swinburne states existential statements cannot be falsified but the statements still meaningful- Toys in Cupboard Analogy
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Philosophers P3 CA
- ()
- Dawkins
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P3 CA
- Neither verification nor falsification claims religious statements are meaningless, but instead argue God talk is not worthy of serious philosophical/ scientific discussion.
- Dawkins – failed scientific hypothesis.
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P3 R
Verification and falsification miss the objective of God talk. Significance of religious statements based on faith, which is divorced from science or reason. Both theories are irrelevant what criterion for genuine assertions about God rests on one’s perso
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Conclusion
(part one)
Yet ultimately the most plausible response is to contend that verification fails to render religious language meaningless, as it applies a far too narrow criterion, which not only dismisses religious language, but in fact eradicates a wealth of valuable f
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Conclusion
(part two)
Its requirement of empirical evidence to validate statements is overly narrow and scientifically bias; one cannot applies rules of the scientific game to the religious language game.
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3 P's

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P1 – VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE
P2 – FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLE
P3 – FAITH DIFFERS FROM SCIENCE/ REASON

Card 3

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Points P1

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Card 4

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P1 A

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Card 5

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P1 CA

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