Criticisms and Defenses of Verification and Falsification Principles
Explore the criticisms and defenses of the Verification and Falsification Principles in religious language. Understand how believers defend the use of religious language and analyze challenges posed to the Verification Principle by notable thinkers like Swinburne, Hare, and Mitchell. Delve into responses to these challenges, such as eschatological verification, which argues for the verifiability of religious truth claims beyond empirical sense experience.
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4 B Criticisms of the verification and falsification principles Learning objectives To know how believers defend the use of religious language To analyse the defence of the Verification Principle Video on challenges to the verification principle Video on challenges to the falsification principle - Swinburne, Hare and Mitchell
Starter Look at the pictures on the next slide 1 What challenge to the Logical Positivists do they represent? A B C D E F Extension which ones challenge verification and which ones challenges falsification? a. Universal scientific statements can t be verified b. Basil Mitchell partisan and stranger c. Eschatological verification d. Historical events can t be verified e. Swinburne- toys in the cupboard f. Hare - bliks 2 What major challenge to the Logical Positivists has been missed out? The verification itself can t be verified (it was very hard to find a picture for this one!)
Challenges to the Logical Positivists (Verification and Falsification) C A B D E F
Responses to the Verification Principle 1. The most significant criticism was the statement of the theory itself does not pass the test as a meaningful statement. The verification theory cannot be verified by sense experience and so is not a meaningful synthetic statement; and it is not analytic (true by definition). 2. The idea that all meaningful synthetic statements have to be empirically verifiable also causes practical problems. Many of the claims in science, for example the existence of black holes, cannot be verified by sense experience. 3. Many historical statements of events that have happened in the past cannot be tested now using the senses e.g. Battle of Hastings in 1066
4. Eschatological verification John Hick argued that religious truth claims are verifiable, because they are eschatological verifiable . He meant that although we cannot test and see at the moment, in this life and world, whether the good will be rewarded, or whether God really does exist and love us, after death these claims will be verified. Although critics of John Hick have argued that eschatological verification is not possible, because even if there is an afterlife and even if we do have a physical senses in it with which to perceive things, they will not necessarily be the same senses that we have now; and if there is no afterlife, then there will be no one to do the verifying. It became clear and Ayer himself agreed, that the theory could not be adjusted so that scientific and historical statement were seen to be meaningful and yet religious claims ruled out.
Task Using your knowledge of the Verification Principle and challenges to it how do you think religion would defend itself?
Additional criticisms The verification principle can be criticised as it was developed by non believers and they did not understand the meaning and purpose of religious language for the believer They could be trying to explain something that is ineffable (give an example) so the meaning is not conveyed using verifiable language
Via Negativa What is the via negativa? This is the idea that it is possible to talk about God by saying what he is not It is often used by mystics such as St John of the Cross. Some philosophers believe that the via negativa can help in some ways, they do not believe they help people to understand what God is or say anything about God that is definitely true St Augustine and others claimed that positive attribute of God should be countered by the recognition that human language is inadequate when describing God
Criticisms of the falsification principle 5.Richard Hare bliks (the way that a person views the world give meaning to them even if others do not share the same view). Hare claimed religious language is not discredited by the falsification principle as religious statements do not aim to be cognitive (convey facts) but to influence ideas and behaviour Blik. Religious language is a blik, it is meaningful but not cognitive
Mitchell Partisan and the stranger Eduqas handout on evaluating the Logical Positivist view 6. Mitchell - Certain things can be meaningful even when they cannot be falsified Mitchell claimed the Falsification Principle made the mistake of ignoring the importance of faith. He said that believers will not turn away from their faith even if they are presented with evidence against it. It is a matter of having faith that there is an explanation, even if we can t see what it is of saying that we don t understand, but we trust Stairs He demonstrated this idea using the parable of the partisan (resistance fighter) and the stranger
Basil Mitchell successfully challenges the falsification Principle for religious language. Evaluate this view. Antony Flew claimed that the key for deciding whether language was meaningful was the application of the falsification principle. If it was known how a statement could be shown to be false then the statement was meaningful. If nothing could show it to be false, then the statement was meaningless. To illustrate his argument, Flew told the parable of the Gardener, in which the claim that there was a gardener was compatible with anything happening or not happening. In other words, the claim that there existed a gardener had no content and so was meaningless. Flew applied this to religious assertions generally arguing that all religious assertions were meaningless if it could not be stated what would falsify it. For example, religious believers are unable to say what would have to happen for them to conclude that God does not love us . Basil Mitchell took up this view about God loves us , claiming that theologians do not deny that the fact of pain counts against the assertion that God loves us . However a believer is committed by their faith to trust God, so pain and evil does not count decisively against the assertion. His parable of the Stranger illustrates that though the Stranger s behaviour does count against what he believes about him, it is this very situation which constitutes the trial of his faith. Yes things do count against believing the Stranger but he has met the Stranger and so has reason to be committed to him. Clearly the parable relates to the assertion that God loves us . The fact that it cannot be conclusively falsified does not make it meaningless. Mitchell sees it as an article of faith, and is meaningful. However, how successful is this response? It does not challenge the idea of the falsification principle, but rather claims that it is difficult to state exactly what would have to happen to no longer believe. But surely the Stranger in the parable is very different from God. The stranger is human whilst God is omnipotent and omniscient. God created us so although we may think of explanations of why the Stranger did what he did; it is more difficult to explain God s actions where evil is concerned. Flew saw such attempts at explanations as death by a thousand qualifications . Yet Theologians and philosophers have offered various possible explanations to the problem of evil that make it reasonable for a believer to remain believing in God s love. So it does seem that religious assertions are meaningful.
Swinburne toys in the cupboard 7. Swinburne claimed a concept could be meaningful even though falsifying the statement is not possible. Toy cupboard analogy. I can understand the idea that toys come out of the cupboard at night, even though I can t falsify it. Applied to religious language I can understand the concept of God, even if I can t falsify it.
Summary Religious language can not be verified using empirical evidence because it is non cognitive language Therefore, a different criterion is needed for determining meaning Religious language can be used in a non-literal way e.g. analogy
Summary DIL Complete side 2 of the A3 sheet summary of verification and falsification Read the list of strengths of verification and falsification and complete the missing words Use your knowledge to write very brief summaries of the 9 weaknesses/challenges of verification and falsification (Logical Positivism) - General challenges can t verify scientific and historical statements
Religion has unsuccessfully responded to the challenges of the Verification Principle. Evaluate this view. Many people felt that A.J. Ayer had dealt a death blow to religion with his attack on religious assertions. He argued that assertions were meaningless if there was no way that they could be verified, either in principle or in terms of probable. The difficulty for religion was that the notion of God was nonsensical given the verification principle. God was a person whose essential attributes were non-empirical but for an assertion to be meaningful it had to be open to verification through the senses. Indeed Ayer and others saw religious language as a misuse of language. People assumed that because a word existed there must be some corresponding reality, for example, the word God . Talk of God was therefore meaningless nonsense. As expected, this did not go without challenge. A number of responses accepted the Verification Principle but focussed on the argument that infact, verification was possible. It was accepted that historical statements were meaningful. Therefore, the statement that Jesus was raised from the dead must also be regarded as meaningful. An argument by John Hick involved eschatological verification. Verification was possible if there was life after death and heaven. However, even if verification is possible in some instances, further problems arise. For instance, if Jesus did come back from the dead, it would still not be clear that there was a God. Even the experiences in the afterlife might be ambiguous as in this life. If some religious language was cognitive, is it possible to discern that which is cognitive and that which is non-cognitive? Keith Ward also thought verification was possible. He suggested that If I were God I would be able to check the truth of my own existence so his existence is verifiable in principle. Other attempts at challenging the claim that religious assertions were meaningless involved the argument that the Verification Principle is flawed as it cannot itself be verified. There are no sense experiences that can count in its favour because it is a non-empirically verifiable proposition. The debate continues without either side having a clear win. However, believers seem to understand religious language and Wittgenstein s approach of language games may be the answer. An alternative answer to the challenges posed by the Verification Principle is to agree and claim that non-cognitive language is still meaningful. Symbolic language is meaningful as are myths. However, this would degrade religious language to just being an expression of our psychology and God is just a term for being itself . For many this would be to deny what they understand by religious assertions.
