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Philosophy > RL -20th C Perspectives > Flashcards

RL -20th C Perspectives Flashcards

1
Q

VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

VIENNA CIRCLE

A
  • Vienna Circle of logical positivist influenced by Wittgenstein and Russell
  • Wanted to establish criterion of meaning
  • If we can’t rest it and empirically verify it then it is meaningless
  • Any statements about God, ethics are meaningless
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2
Q

A J AYER

INTRODUCTION

A
  • Hugely influenced by logical positivist

- Book: language, truth and logic 1936)

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3
Q

A J AYER

VP IN PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE

A
  • Don’t just have to be able to practically verify something
  • You can also verify something in principle (under conditions might be true)
  • Scientists can’t always practically verify something
  • 1936, mountains on the moon
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4
Q

STRONG VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

A
  • Vienna circle, required conclusively verified

- Impossible as we can never conclusively make any statements about the world as our senses can be mistaken

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5
Q

WEAK VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

A
  • Should instead be used ‘if it is possible for experience to render it probable’
  • Some basic statements can be conclusively verified e.g. Cat is on my bed
  • Ayer thefts religious language as nonsense because it tells you nothing factually significant
  • Might be emotionally significant to say there is a God but not actually meaningful
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6
Q

VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

STRENGTH

A

-More helpful to scientist than original principle as you only have to show that statement is probable, allows more scientific theories to be meaningful

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7
Q

VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

PRINCIPLE ITSELF NOT MEANINGFUL

A

-As it cannot be verified. It is neither a tautology or empirically verifiable, created a criterion of meaning it did not pass itself
(Ayer said used to verify statements not theories)

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8
Q

VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

MAGEE QUOTE

A

‘This new scalpel was, in one operation after another, killing the patient’

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9
Q

COUNTER-CRITICISM

PROTOCOL STATEMENTS

A
  • Some tried to defend VP by saying there was a 3rd type of meaningful statements - protocol statements of method
  • However, this undermines the original idea what only two types of statements are meaningful
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10
Q

VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

ASSUMPTION OF SCIENCE

A

-VP makes assumption that only science can tell is about world, why is empirical verification something that makes it meaningful. Too narrow, can’t we learn things from poetry and art and expression of ideas what have factual significance

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11
Q

VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

CRITICISM - JOHN HICK

A
  • Religious statements can be verified, especially if we take idea we can use verification in principle
  • Road to celestial city, going to verify it at the end of the road
  • Same way when we die we will be able to verify our statement whether there is a God or not or an Afterlife
  • Using weak VP I can verify my statements in principle, evidence is design
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12
Q

VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

CRITICISM - VINCENT BRUMMER

A
  • Not appropriate to use scientific views of statements and apply them to religious statements
  • Influence of those like Ayer and Flew, Dawkins, people think if something is not scientific (measurable) then it is not worthwhile
  • That is not self evident, it is a choice
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13
Q

FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLE

OVERVIEW

A
  • Not development of verification principle. Alternative idea and not about meaning
  • Karl popper, this is what science is, we should be open to falsification when we put forward a theory
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14
Q

FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLE

ANTHONY FLEW

A
  • Takes Poppers theory and applies it to religious language
  • Not that religious language is meaningless but not as meaningful as scientific statements
  • Nit as valuable as not open to falsification
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15
Q

FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLE

JOHN WISDOMS PARABLE OF GARDENER

A
  • People come across well tended land ‘must be a gardener’
  • Test and find no evidence of gardener, each time falsify come up with excuse ‘maybe he is invisible’
  • When religion is falsified they attempt to qualify their statement
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16
Q

FALSIFICATION

SICK CHILD

A
  • People say God loves as father
  • Child’s earthly father trying to help ‘where is the Heavenly Father?’ He does nothing
  • Falsifying original statement that God loves us as a father
  • ‘God’s love is different we can’t understand him’
  • Statement died the death of a thousand qualifications
17
Q

FALSIFICATION

R.M.HARE

A
  • Agrees with falsification is religion was same as science
  • Religious believers statements are bliks, and non-cognitive, you can’t apply falsification to it
  • Bliks are unverifiable and change way you see the world, but you can’t prove them right or wrong
18
Q

R M HARE

BLIK
UNIVERSITY EXAMPLE

A
  • Man thinks all dons want to kill him in spite of contrary evidence
  • Still maintains statement because it is a blik
  • sane and insane bliks and what matters is having the right blik, doesn’t tell us how to know one from other
19
Q

FALSIFICATION

BASIL MITCHELL

A

-Disagrees with Hare, religious people are making assertions, Are making statements about they world as a scientist would they are not bliks

20
Q

FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLE

WAYS BELIEVERS CAN REACT WHEN ASSERTIONS CHALLENGED (3)

A
  • Discard it
  • Understand it but it makes no difference to life
  • Significant articles of faith, this is what Mitchell says they fall into as believers recognised they are a challenge but will not allow experience
21
Q

FALSIFICATION

BASIL MITCHELL
PARABLE OF THE PARTISAN AND STRANGER

A
  • Someone fighting resistance meets stranger who says ‘i am on your side’
  • Partisan believes stranger but then sees him arresting his friends
  • Still believes he is on his side
  • In flew’s parable they don’t meet gardener and have no reason to believe in him other than garden well tended
  • Religious people have trust and faith in God so grounding to why they maintain their belief
24
Q

FALSIFICATION

3 WAYS BELIEVERS. AN REACT WHEN THEIR ASSERTIONS ARE CHALLENGED

A
  • Discard it
  • Understand it but makes no difference to life
  • Significant articles of faith, this is what Mitchell says they fall into as believers recognised they are challenged but will now allow experience to count decisively against them, reason why they believe in them
25
Q

WITTGENSTEIN

EARLIER THEORY

A
  • Picture theory, statements meaningful so far as they picture states of affairs, represent and stand for empirical facts
  • Religious language becomes nonsense as not empirical facts you can’t picture them in reality
  • Influenced logical positivist, later rejected his thorny in later works
26
Q

WITTGENSTEIN

LANGUAGE GAMES
ANALOGY

A
  • Language gets meaning from context used in
  • Language is like a game (analogy)
  • Unless you understand the rules you can’t play and you won’t understand the rules until you play
27
Q

WITTGENSTEIN

LANGUAGE GAMES
CONCLUSION

A

-Use terms in different games and you don’t understand their meaning, language is form o life, its community and social activity

28
Q

EXPERIENCE FOR JOB EXAMPLE

A

Need experience to get job and need job to get experience

29
Q

WITTGENSTEIN

STRENGTHS

A
  • Religious language is meaningful so you can use it to criticise VP
  • Not appropriate for atheists to criticise religion as they are not in language game and in a way it protects religious language
30
Q

WITTGENSTEIN

CRITICISM - NON-COGNITIVE

A

-Religious language becomes non-cognitive and question would believers find this satisfactory, would they not feel they are making factual cognitive assertions about the world, God created the world and has a relationship with them, offensive to say it is non-cognitive

31
Q

WITTGENSTEIN

ATHEIST GAMES

A

-If all in own language games (atheist, Sikh)then we are not going to get this discussion or debate because we can’t engage, no interfaith dialogue
What about conversion?

32
Q

FALSIFICATION CRITICISM

R.B.BRAITHWAITE

A

-Religious statements are non cognitive, therefore it is not appropriate to treat them as if they are cognitive assertions and therefore subject them to falsification or verification

33
Q

FALSIFICATION

SWINBURNE

A
  • There are statements that cannot be falsified and yet we understand the meaning behind the statement
  • e.g. Toys in a cupboard
  • We can never prove that the toys do not come out of the cupboard and move around when we are not watching them
  • We might be able to falsify whether the statement is true (toys move) but we can still understand the idea of toys moving

Philosophy (6 decks)

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