Verification & Falsification Principle

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Verification & Falsification Principle

Cognitive- True claims (facts that can be proven true or false)

Non- Cognitive- Does not describe fact. Cannot be proven true or false.

Verification- (A.J.Ayer)

A.J.Ayer was logical positivist part of the Vienna Circle, which was led by the writer Mortiz Schlick (to discuss issues arising in logic)

They believed following the work of the writer Auguste Compte- That theological interpretations of events and experiences belonged in the past to an own enlightened age. (When God was used in the explanation of anything and everything that science has not yet mastered)

Wittgenstein had an influence on them but was not part of them.

A.J.Ayer

In 1935 Ayer wrote 'Language, truth and Logic' at the age of 26.

Ayer used the ideas of Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle to set down rules to judge if the language we use is meaningful.

Those statements are meaningful if they fall into analytical (true by definition) or synthetic (needs to be proven, tautologies or mathematical statements)

For example the statement: "God exists" is not analytical --> can't empirically test it either therefore this statement is MEANINGLESS

Verification Theory

If a statement is neither analytical or synthetic it is meaningless because it says nothing about therefore it is "not factually significant"

Ayer says "the criterion we use to test the genuineness and apparent status of fact is the criterion of verifiability"

Statements have to be careful of being tested and we have to understand what conditions are needed to call them true or false (in order for any statement to be meaningful it has to be verifiable using empirical methods.

Empirically verifiable propositions- This is a sentence is one that tells us something beyond itself and not simply about the meaning of its own terms, such as the statement, "Ben Navis is the highest mountain". Such a statement tells us about something claimed as a matter of fact.

Verifiability and Religion

Any religious language that are claims about God such as "God created the world" or "God answers my prayers" cannot be verified as being true or false therefore they must be meaningless.

Thus "God is perfect, immutable, transcendent" tell us nothing about the world around us and is talking of ideas beyond human sense experience and observation

Similarily religious experiences are meaningless as they are not verifiable because one merely recounting a set of emotions.

Religious believers cannot say under what circumstances they would call these claims true or false nor can they suggest a test or "criterion" of a way others can experience this too.

Ayer says "such a reality have all been devoted to the production of nonsense".

AO2- Brümmer's Response

Brümmer argues that we have, in modern times, tended to assume that if something is not scientific or measurable that it is somehow not very significant or measurable that is somehow not very significant. But even to think like this is to make an assumption we cannot justify. To dismiss the very possibility of God seems to necessitate a particular world-view. Their stance towards the world, the assumption that things are only significant if open to scientific investigation, seems to be based on a metaphysical assumption about the way things are: that the entire contents of reality are those possibly known to science and that there is nothing beyond this.

Evaluation

SWINBURNE (critic of Verification)- People generally accept that all Ravens are black but you can never prove empirically that throughout all of history and time that Ravens are always going to be black but it still has meaning because we still understand it.

Strict Scientific views also mean the status of people for example: "I am not feeling very well" is meaningful as it makes perfect sense they are based on emotions and feelings

Ayer's Strong Verification- Strong Verification is when something can be verified conclusively.

PROBLEM: Nothing you say about history can ever be strongly verified. For example, Henry VIII existed. Therefore disregards all of history. (However, Ayer himself recognised this is his 2nd edition, therefore, created the Weak verification principle)

The verification argument itself is unverifiable.

Eschatological verification argument (the study of the afterlife )- when you are dead you will know the truths. --> JOHN HICK suggests that religion is not meaningless because it's truths are verifiable in the afterlife.

JOHN HICK 'Celestial City' analogy- Two walkers are on the path of life from birth to death, one is an atheist one is a believer neither of them knows which one is correct until they die and there is either a celestial city or not. (suggesting that you should get along with other people in life because at the end of the day neither of you knows who is correct)

Evidence problem- there is a lack of evidence and what counts as evidence.

Weak Verification- Probable by observation

what really can be verified: poetry, music and Shakespearean Sonnets- you can see/ hear music but the effect and feeling of music cannot be verified but it still has meaning

Falsification Principle

Anthony Flews Falsification Principle

Article 'Theology and Falsification'

In a symposium at Oxford University in 1950, Anthony Flew presented his Falsification Principle.

Flew drew on the work of logical positivists but suggested that rather than verifiability you should focus on falsifiability.

This is how alibis work because you can't prove what they're saying is true you have to find an alibi for someone in a criminal case to prove that they can't have been in a certain place. If the defendant can show what they were doing at the time of the crime this rules out their participation in that crime.

C.S. Evans Quote:

"An assertion which does not rule out anything but rather compatible with any considerable stage of the affair does not appear to assert anything either"

(When you make an assertion telling someone something it doesn't rule out anything it also doesn't mean that it assert anything either)

Anthony Flews Example (John Wisdoms Parable of the Gardener)

Two explorers in a jungle the find some land of the clearing where there are flowers, the grass is cut, everything is neatly kept. One of them believes that there is a gardener and the other does not & so in order to try and prove what they say or find something against that statement, they try to falsify that statement, they set up cameras but they never find the gardener, so then the gardeners set dogs to find the gardener, they stay up all night to see if the gardener appears, they do all theses tests- they will never accept a falsehood against their claim.

The analogies aim is to show how religious people explain their views rather than accepting evidence against their views. They constantly try to qualify God's existence.

Flews Quote:

"their belief in God dies the death of a thousand qualifications"

Their belief in God is justified so many times it dies a death that God.

This means the original belief such as "God loves us all" is lost due to the amount of qualifications they are used to justify the idea of the problem of evil.

It is vacuous- nothing there- no meaning. For example when believers say "God is different from us" they end up with a description of God that has no content.

Dawkins Argument= vacuous as well- he never accepts the falsehood of for example evolution.

Thus when the theists believe in God talk about God they refuse out any state of affairs.

Peter Vardy Example:

You have a friend whose boyfriend or girlfriend constantly does awful things to them such as cheating. Your friends come up to you and say "oh he's cheated on me again but he still loves me" no matter what that boyfriend does they will always believe he still loves them, no matter what awful thing happen to them, their view can never be falsified- their claim/ statement is vacuous.

R.M.Hare- (part of the symposium in Oxford & along with Basil Mitchell they were invited by Flew to present their responses)

Most radical response

Agreed that Flew had succeeded in demonstrating the theory of religious language to make meaningful truth claims however Hare suggested whenever people use the religious language they should not be interpreted as truth claims in a cognitive sense

But as instead as expression he called "blicks"

"Blick" = an expression of a personal attitude or commitment (non-cognitive)

Therefore falsification does works only when used when asserting cognitive claims.

Example (Parable of the lunatic)

Lunatic who believes all his professors are out to kill him at university. This is the way he saw the world no matter what anybody said he would not change his views and so his friends said why do you think that the professors want to kill you? This was the lunatics 'blick'

Nothing would prove the lunatics 'blick' false.

The importance of a blick is that they are not falsifiable they are "mans unfalsifiable convictions"

Many religious believers intend their claims to be cognitive so "Jesus rose from the dead" they believe it to be true and factual. Therefore they will not accept any falsehood against that.

Basil Mitchell- (Parable of the Partisan)

The partisan meets the stranger who makes a strongly favourable impression on him and so the resistance fighter makes a commitment to the stranger so even if the stranger helps on the other side his commitment doesn't change he even defend the stranger against other resistance fighters he tells himself that it is reasonable explanation for the strangers behaviour even if he doesn't know the details.

Mitchell: when people gave this view they hold it as cognitive (fact)

There is still content about religious assertions however he also discovers from Hare as he argues that 'Blicks' are groundless, unsupportive.

Believers who do not accept the weight of evidence against their beliefs are guilty of a failure of faith as well as logic