The Verification Principle and the Falsification Principle The verification principle was devised by a group of philosophers who called themselves the logical positivists. They were influenced by many philosophers one was Wittgenstein and is ‘picture theory of language’ Wittgenstein’s theory was that a statement can only be meaningful if it can be pictured and/or defined in the real world. Thus only assertions of statements that were in principle, verifiable could convey factual information as they have the means to be tested. The logical positivists had three statement types: Analytical- being self-explanatory for example, ‘a circle is round’. Such statements cannot be proved wrong because they have the means to prove it. Mathematical- such statements are much like analytical statements because they have the means to prove their truth, e.g. two plus two does indeed equal four. Synthetic- theses statements are different from both analytical and mathematical as they can be proved true or false by testing. For ...
First reason, the causal principle. David Hume claimed that we aren’t able to find out if everything has a cause. If everything has a cause than it is an analytical truth that we know for it has caused. Random things just cannot appear out of nothing, so it is not analytic. Human are known as synthetic truth because we know that mother’s give birth to babies and they are born out of
It does seem that are world is almost always in a state of confusion and even more
This essay will consist in an exposition and criticism of the Verification Principle, as expounded by A.J. Ayer in his book Language, Truth and Logic. Ayer, wrote this book in 1936, but also wrote a new introduction to the second edition ten years later. The latter amounted to a revision of his earlier theses on the principle.It is to both accounts that this essay shall be referring.
In “The Ways We Lie,” by Stephanie Ericsson, she defines various types of lying and uses quotations at the beginning of each description as a rhetorical strategy. Throughout the reading she uses similar references or discussion points at the beginning and ending of each paragraph. Most believe lying is wrong, however, I believe lying is acceptable in some situations and not others when Stephanie Ericsson is asked, “how was your day.” In “The Ways We Lie,” she lies to protect her husband’s feelings, therefore, I think people lie because they are afraid of the consequences that come with telling the truth.
The Verification Principle tried to show that the meaning of a statement lies in its method of verification. For example, the statements, "All cats are cats" and, "2 + 2 = 4" are necessary statements. They state nothing beyond the meaning expressed in the content of the statement and can be proved to be true. There are however other statements such as, "It rained on Tuesday" that need to be tested to know if they are true. These statements only become true if after testing they can be found to be true (E.g. I saw it raining on Tuesday). Thus the Verification Principle locates sense and meaning with experience. Despite variations on the theme of the Verification Principle (E.g. soft and hard versions) this was the distinctive doctrine of Logical Positivism.
In almost all major religions, there abounds the undertone of the spiritual battle that takes place inside someone regarding the succumbation to sin or earthly desires and the like. Also ever present in the soul's journey through life is the search for a prize; an ultimate Truth, especially in the early Middle Ages when religions where beginning to mature and take power in society. Though the doctrine theoretically differs greatly, Christian and Islamic faith as one body contextually share the same ideals and foci on the issues pertaining to the soul. This is made evident when analyzing the works of Christian mystic, Margery Kempe, and Sufi poet, Jalal al-Din Rumi, who despite the difference in gender and culture, shed light on the meaning of Truth through acts and words of devotion and love for a common God.
A question that epistemologist ask is what sort of factors make beliefs justified. That is to say, could there possibly be a set of basic justified beliefs that rationally define all of your other beliefs? Or perhaps there are no foundational beliefs, but rather an infinite amount of beliefs that explain the ones that came before it. Are these beliefs based on evidence or perhaps something more? Epistemology attempts to answer these such questions.
The case of the academic credentials falsification of the administrator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Marilee Jones, is one of those stories that we often hear and can be more memorable for long time. Marilee Jones resigns after admitting she “misrepresented” credentials on her resume, according to Reuters. But we need first to understand when falsification or misrepresentation of academic credentials occurs. Falsification or misrepresentation of academic credentials happens “when someone falsely represents to anyone that he or she received credits, grades, a degree, certificate or other credentials that the person never received or earned” (“UW Registrar”, n.d.).
The play, Doubt: A Parable written by John Patrick Shanley, is based purely on uncertainty. Throughout the whole play, all I felt was uncertainty and I have still not come to a firm conclusion about what Father Flynn has done. There are many pieces of evidence proving his guilt and proving his innocence. I did enjoy reading the play and I think my favorite part about it is that I will never fully know what happened and who was right. I like being able to create my own ending to a book because you get to use your imagination. Today during the debate I started out as defending Father Flynn’s innocence. I do stand by what I was defending because there is no certain evidence against him that can prove him guilty; it is all based on assumption.
In addition to logical consistency, testability is an important piece when evaluating a theory. According to Akers & Sellers (2013), “a theory must be testable by objective, repeatable evidence” (p.5); thus, if the theory is not testable then it has no scientific value. There are several reasons why a theory might not be testable; such as its concepts may not be observable or reportable events and tautology. Tautology refers to a statement or hypothesis that is tr...
Moritz Schlick believed the all important attempts at establishing a theory of knowledge grow out of the doubt of the certainty of human knowledge. This problem originates in the wish for absolute certainty. A very important idea is the concept of "protocol statements", which are "...statements which express the facts with absolute simplicity, without any moulding, alteration, or addition, in whose elaboration every science consists, and which precede all knowing, every judgment regarding the world." (1) It makes no sense to speak of uncertain facts, only assertions and our knowledge can be uncertain. If we succeed therefore in expressing the raw facts in protocol statements without any contamination, these appear to be the absolutely indubitable starting points of all knowledge. They are again abandoned, but they constitute a firm basis "...to which all our cognitions owe whatever validity they may possess." (2) Math is stated indirectly into protocol statements which are resolved into definite protocol statements which one could formulate exactly, in principle, but with tremendous effort. Knowledge in life and science in some sense begins with confirmation of facts, and the protocol statements stand at the beginning of science. In the event that protocol statements would be distinguished by definite logical properties, structure, position in the system of science, and one would be confronted with the task of actually specifying these properties. We fin...
Since physics actually means the physical world; Meta involves the non-material world, such as the mind and spiritual brief. According to Encarta Encyclopedia, “Metaphysics,” is a branch of philosophy that entails the "nature of ultimate reality" (p.1) According to the Hummingbird N Company’s, “The Metaphysical Sciences,” the dictionary defines this as “A mental philosophy dealing with the nature and causes of being and knowing” (p.1). H. J. Patton (1948), say’s in Immanuel Kent Ground Work of the Metaphysics of Morals, “so act that your will can regard itself at the same time universal law thought its maxim” (p.34). The interoperation was that the universal law was the human’s as rational beings. Therefore, act, as you will but at the same time having the rational beings at the maximum of self-value. Patton goes on to say the rational being is having universal law at is maxim, is giving ones self-supreme value (p. 35). Therefore, Patton feels making decisions should be based on maxims of the universal law (p. 108). Which means all decisions should be made rationally.
Since the days of Newton, the ideas of classical mechanics prevailed in the scientific community. The ideas of absolute velocity and absolute time were accepted phenomenon and were not at all challenged. However, as the nineteenth century drew to a close, new observations were being made, observations which contradicted the current theory of the time.
There are therefore absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false in such fields where a distinction matters and is significant, but circumstances also arise when truth must be relative to a certainty continuum where one may find a middle ground.
With regard to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Albert Einstein famously said, on several occasions, that, “God does not play dice with the universe.”1 Like many great rational thinkers––and perhaps the human mind more generally––Einstein was remiss to believe that, at a fundamental level, nature could be as random as the throw of a die. Unfortunately for Einstein, much of quantum mechanics posits the inherent randomness of nature’s most basic elements. However, Einstein and the devout can take some solace in prime numbers about which the famous number theorist Carl Pomerance once remarked, “God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers.”