The verification principle arose from a movement in the 1920’s known as Logical Positivism and, in particular from a group of philosophers known as the Vienna circle. They applied principles of science and mathematics to religious language and argued that, like human knowledge, religious language also had to be empirically verified through experiences if it were to be considered meaningful. They believed that this was the basis of all forms of empirical testing. From this, Vienna Circle established that truth and meaning can be identified as two distinct concepts when referring to religious language. Consequently, statements such as ‘God exists’ may have meaning to a believer, however, it would be a completely different matter to state that this statement is true in a factual sense. A.J. Ayer was enormously influenced by the Vienna Circle and became extremely involved with the verification principle and the logical positivist approach. He noted that verification means achieving a statement to identify whether it’s true. He argued that the verification principle declared that: “a statement which cannot be conclusively verified is simply devoid of meaning”. He also pointed that “no sentence which describes the nature of a transcendent God can posses any literal significance” (Ayer, 2000). For Ayer and the Vienna Circle the verification of a proposition was “the criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact.” In effect, the verification principle of the Vienna Circle would reveal whether a proposition was meaningful or meaningless. It was a new Humean Fork. (Ayer, 1952)
The verification principle was therefore clearly based on the idea that statements can only covey factual information if they can be ...
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...sible to verify the destination whilst on the road; the journey is still meaningful for the believer (Hick, 2009) & (Hick, 1989). Moreover, Keith Ward in ‘Holding fast to God’ (1982) argued that God’s existence could be verified in principle since ‘If I were God I would be able to check the truth of my own existence’. (Ward, 1982)
It would appear that logical positivism and the verification principle has failed. Bryan McGee in ‘Confessions of a Philosopher’ (1997) writes: “People began to realise that this glittering new scalpel (the verification principle) was, in one operation after another, killing the patient”. In other words, what first appeared to be a decisive blow against religious, moral and ethical, emotional, historical statements i.e. the verification principle, it soon became apparent that it was in fact a decisive blow against itself. (Magee, 1998)
... uses the lack of proof of Gods existence for God’s existence. This then essentially leads to a battle between science and religion on the idea of whether or not God can be proven to exist and whether that proof is essential to determine if science or religion has the right answer.
8- McDermid, Douglas. "God's Existence." PHIL 1000H-B Lecture 9. Trent University, Peterborough. 21 Nov. 2013. Lecture.
... reality of objects, but it may not have the ability to be proven beyond any doubt, and is thus less certain than the logical inquiry.
It is not the case that it is all right for someone to be absolutely certain that something is so providing only that no overriding (consideration or) considerations make it all right. (242).
People often state moral claims thinking that they are stating the truth. But is it really the truth or is it just a statement backed by emotions and opinions? A.J. Ayer believed that moral claims are neither true nor false. How do you tell a person that the statement that they believe is true is actually just a moral claim and really has no truth to it? They believe it, so to them it is true, so can a moral claim be true? Ayer says that for a statement to be true it needs to be able to be verified by facts and uses the scientific method to get to the facts. So if it cannot be observed then it must not be true? From this belief, Ayer comes to the conclusion that moral claims are not true, but he also comes to the conclusion that they are not false either. This essay will explore Ayer’s view on this topic, but also provide objections to Ayer’s beliefs.
Firstly, I shall expound the verification principle. I shall then show that its condition of significant types is inexhaustible, and that this makes the principle inapplicable. In doing so, I shall have exposed serious inconsistencies in Ayer's theory of meaning, which is a necessary part of his modified verification principle.
Today, faith is the cornerstone of all major religious knowledge claims because there is no definitive way of...
But having the capacity to inquiry about His existence, it also gave me more knowledge about people who do not believe. I can understand now that people who does not believe, has enough reasons not too. We, people, are given our free will, to have our own choices, whether to believe in God or not. That’s why I now understand that it is not a sin if one does not believe in God. This paper has given me enough knowledge to understand the importance of knowing the different philosophical positions on the existence of God.
In order to understand the Verification Principle, one must first become familiar with Logical Positivism. Logical Positivism is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world, with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions in epistemology, the study of knowledge (Wikipedia).
that the meaning of the words prove this or they can be proved by some
Can we truly know when something can be considered true or false. The truth can be something that appeals to a person, or that it can reason with a person's knowledge that they have already develop. The knowledge we possess can shape the way we think, so does this also change the in the truth that a person sees. Our knowledge also limits us to what we considered to be true. In our century every year we discover something new so our truth is constantly changing. One of the conflicts that also comes to mind when talking about true and false is whether a true belief counts as knowledge depends on inherently imprecise judgments concerning whether the believer is accidentally right. To analyze the claim I am going to look at the three different theories of truth and how in everything true there is a false aspect to it. The theories are first, the correspondence theory. Second, coherence theory, and lastly pragmatic theory.
2) Gollwitzer, Helmut. The Existence of God: As Confessed By Faith. Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1965
integrity of his newly acquired understanding of reality, he uses the method of doubt. It is
Some of the objections, such as the ones made by Edmund Gettier, claim that three conditions are not nearly enough to justify a true belief, and that at the very least a fourth must be added. Gettier presents a very valid criticism of the JTB theory of knowledge, and his counter examples highlight flaws in the JTB theory that make it an inadequate theory of knowledge. Gettier claims takes an issue with the third part of the JTB theory, which states that proposition P must be true. Gettier makes the interesting observation that person S may very well be justified in believing in proposition P even if P is false
In this paper, I offer a solution to the Gettier problem by adding a fourth condition to the justified true belief analysis of knowledge. First though, a brief review. Traditionally, knowledge had been accounted for with the justified true belief analysis. To know something, three conditions had to be met: first, you had to have a belief; second, the belief had to be justified; third, this justified belief had to be true. So a justified true belief counts as knowledge. Gettier however showed this analysis to be inadequate as one can have a justified true belief that no one would want to count as knowledge.