Philosophy - Religious Language - Falsification and Verification

Religious Language

• Concerned with asking 'What can be said about God?'
• Discusses things outside our senses rather than physical issues
• If God is infinite, words used to describe finite humans may not be adequate
• Is religious language therefore meaningless?

• Religious believers: it is possible to speak and write about God (though difficult - the word 'God' applies to a being beyond human understanding)
• Logical Positivists: Statements about God have no meaning beacause they don't relate to facts

• Two types of language:
  • Cognitive - A statement is factual
  • Non-cognitive - not subject to truth or falsity

The Verification Principle

Strong Verification - Logical Positivists

• Vienna Circle gave rise to the logical positivist movement
• Central principle of the group was that propositions only have meaning if they can be verified empiricially
• Came up with the Verification Principle
  • Statements only have meaning if they can be verified by the senses
  • It must be verifiable by an actual experience or is a tautology (a logical statement we know to be true by definition)
• Waismann described logical positivism as
  • A statement which cannot be conclusively verified cannot be verified at all. It is simply devoid of meaning.
• Wittgenstein, although not a member of the Vienna circle, argued that language only had meaning if it referred to empirical reality
• However, he also differed from the logical positivists by accepting that the mystical should be allowed for, formulating the language games theory:
• • Observed that religious people understand the language of religion as cricketers understand the leg before wicket rule
  • To speak in any language is to play a certain game
  • Words only make sense in a background of other words that all belong to the same game, and thus have no 'real' meaning
  • People play one game after another to find meaning, including the religous language game to understand the meaning, signifigance, feeling and aura around an expression of belief
  • Strengths:
    • Recognises that scientific approaches to religious language are inappropriate
    • Safeguards religious language from attack as he argues that we cannot stand outside a game and legislate it
    • We can also not brush aside vast areas of language as nonsensical
  • Weaknesses:
    
    • Does this lead to fideism i.e. blind acceptance and an inability to question the validity of anything?
    • Are language games totally isolated? If we all participate in several language games simultaneously, can't we evauate them?
    • Conceptual relativism - each game is immunised from attack, for each has its own equal claim to an objective truth. But can they all be valid?
      

Weak Verification

• It is easier to verify some statements than others - for instance, we can verify 'the sun is shining' easier than we can verify 'the soul is immortal'
• Weak verification refers to stements that can be shown to be probable by observation and experience - doesn't need conclusive verification as above

• Verification principle states that two types of statement are meaningful:
  • Analytic statements that contain all the information within a statement that is necessary…