FALSIFICATION

FALSIFICATION

1. The Falsification Principle has its origins in Karl Popper.

   • Karl Popper argued that science was based on falsification as science works by having theories that can be possibly falsified. Eventually theories are superseded by better ones e.g. Einstein's theory was superseded by Newton's.

2. The FP states that a statement is meaningless if it can't be possibly falsified through empiricism. E.g. 'it is raining outside', we need to be able to possibly falsify this in order for it to be meaningful for example look outside.

3. Anthony Flew

   • Anthony Flew applied the FP to religious language and said that they have no meaning as they can't be possibly falsified. He uses the parable of two explorers in the jungle...
     • He uses the parable of two explorers in the jungle, where one explorer argues that there is a gardener despite all the evidence against him. This explorer keeps adding qualifications to his original belief until his original statement is lost.
       • Flew argues that believers add qualifications in the same way as the explorer until the original belief is lost, thus Flew calls this the 'death of a thousand qualifications' and concludes that religious statements are meaningless.
         • R.M. Hare disagrees with Flew by saying that you cannot treat religious statements like scientific ones, because religious statements are bliks. Hare explains this with his story of the lunatic who believes that his teachers are trying to kill him, even when they are nice to him, he reasons that they're being cunning. This is the lunatic's blik. R.M. Hare said that bliks aren't subject to the FP so there's no point falsifying them, as they're not claims of how the world is but ways of seeing it.
           • Flew replied to this by saying that Christians didn't have bliks but assertions, meaning that their beliefs did at one point actually happen. Through this logic which Flew accepted, Flew said that R.M. Hare was wrong as by calling it a blik it implies it is irrational.
         • Basil Mitchell points out that religious believers do accept evidence that count against their ideas but don't doubt their beliefs because they are committed believers.
           • He demonstrates this with a story of a resistance fighter who meets a stranger that claims that he is the secret leader of the resistance. The stranger acts ambiguously but the resistance fighter trusts that he is the leader, so religious believers are potentially falsifiable, thus are not meaningless.
             • In reply to this, Flew maintained that if you keep questioning a believer, they will eventually add qualifications losing their original belief, thus religious beliefs are meaningless as they are qualified to the point they can't be falsified.

4. Swinburne challenged falsification by saying that whilst factual statements can be falsified, existential statements cannot always be falsified but this doesn't mean they're meaningless. E.g. the statement that 'a cupboard is full of toys that come to life when everyone is asleep and no-one is looking' is meaningful, because we can understand what it means to suggest that toys can move, even though we can never gather evidence to falsify the statement.