What does Hume's Fork say about what language we can know?
We can only know of matters of fact and of the relations between ideas
1 of 15
What did the Vienna Circle think are the two types of meaningful statements?
Synthetic and analytic
2 of 15
What are the only statements that can have meaning in the eyes of Logical Positivists?
Only scientific/logically necessary statements have meaning, metaphysical statements (including religious language) are literally meaningless
3 of 15
What is cognitive language?
Language that conveys factual information
4 of 15
What is non-cognitive language?
Language where its validity isn't dependent on whether it is empirically true.
5 of 15
What are analytic statements?
Statements that are true by definition
6 of 15
What are synthetic statements?
Statements that are verifiable by sense experience
7 of 15
Ayer distinguished between verification in...
Practice and in principle
8 of 15
When is verification in practice possible?
When statements can be conclusively established empirically
9 of 15
Statements that are unverifiable in practice or in principle completely lack...
Factual meaning
10 of 15
What did Ayer call an unverifiable statement?
A pseudo-proposition
11 of 15
Is the statement 'God exists' meaningful to Ayer?
No it is non-cognitive and there isn't and never can be any empirical evidence that could prove the matter one way or the other, it cannot be true or false.
12 of 15
What is the key weakness of Ayer's verification principle?
It cannot be verified itself and so it is meaningless
13 of 15
What did Keith Ward say about the verification principle?
It excludes nothing because the weak version allows all experiences
14 of 15
What does the verification principle assume?
that empirical statements and science can completely describe the world and perfectly encapsulate human experience
15 of 15
Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
What did the Vienna Circle think are the two types of meaningful statements?
Back
Synthetic and analytic
Card 3
Front
What are the only statements that can have meaning in the eyes of Logical Positivists?
Comments
No comments have yet been made