bullett summary: verification and meaning

god’s unknowability makes it difficult to define him precisely
even saying god ‘exists’ has many issues
the most radical approach is to say that religious language is meaningless
this is the approach of the vienna circle, a group of scientists interested in logic

a.j. ayer discovered the vienna circle’s idea and in his book ‘language, truth and logic’ he set out logical positivism
philosophers felt it was a challenge and attempted to respond
it seemed to make many branches of logic meaningless

in the 19th century the contemporary philosophy was dominated by g.w.f. hegel, who argued all reality is one, forming part of a spiritual reality, the one
he emphasised progress, a constantly improving universe
he argued ‘the history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom’
logical positivists worried that this was a philosophical attempt to define the universe, a job they said was for scientists
but hegel had a vast influence until the first world war, when progress seemed to fade in the face of mass carnage
the 20 century became a reaction to the tragedy
the logical positivists did not claim a world-view of their own, nor claim a version of reality; that was for scientists

if philosophers cant say thing about the world, logical positivists argued their job was to analyse logic, determining meaning in sentences
it was not to find truth but sense
to assert the height of a mountain makes sense because it can be investigated

the following are the log pos’ two types of meaning:
tautologies: a priori, true by definition
‘a triangle has three sides’
they only tell us rules of language
if triangles are real or not is a scientific endeavour
a tautology is true because of the meaning of the words in it, not because it is a fact of the world
for log pos this includes maths
empirically verifiable propositions
this goes beyond meaning of words to the real world, telling us if something is a matter of fact
it requires observation to be true or false
this can be done through sense experience, whether direct or indirect from books or pictures
for a log pos, a sentence that is not empirically verifiable or a tautology is meaningless
this is the verification principle

ayer distinguished between strong and weak verification
“a proposition is said to be verifiable in the strong sense..if its truth could be conclusively established in experience. but it is verifiable in the weak sense if it is possible for experience to render it probable“
he points out that strong verif is impossible because our senses are not infallible
even history and science fall because we cannot be utterly conclusive
for strong verif, every factual statement becomes meaningless.
weak verif means that if you outline what is necessary to make it probable, it becomes meaningful
if we say there are mountains on the other side of the moon it is not an unreasonable proposition, because we can see mountains on this side

in terms of implications for religious language, ayer states that religious language is not untrue, but is is without meaning
it should be noted that religious people and atheists alike are talking nonsense, as ‘god exists’ and ‘god does not exist’ are equally nonsensical
even agnosticism is answerless
faith is based on nonsense and religious experience impossible
it is all unverifiable
richard dawkins treats religious belief as failed and evidence-less scientific hypotheses, but even ayer would not spend time trying to prove a meaningless thing wrong

the biggest criticism is that the verification principle itself cannot be verified
by its own rules it is meaningless
some log pos tried to argue it was a protocol statement, but this undermines the idea of only two true types of sentence
another issues it that is is a form of foundationalism
it is an idea so self-evidently true it needs no justification, such as descartes’ cogito
it claims there is an absolute foundation from which to assert rules for meaning
this thinking says it knows its right and has no way of justifying it
there are underlying assumptions, such as that scientists alone can give information on the world
we gain insights from art and poetry, but they are not verifiable
log pos’ idea of only two language categories rules out valuable contributions to human knowledge
richard holder gives an example saying that the verification principle would state that all polar bears are white, and non-white objects cannot be polar bears
therefore a brown chimpanzee proves polar bears are white
this is ridiculous and illogical
Karl Popper simply argues that we cannot scientifically verify everything

vincent brummer‘s response is that to treat faith sentences as scientific is an error of understanding
agreeing with d.z. phillips that they cannot be analysed by scientific method, like poetry can’t
he says we tend to assume in modern day that non-scientific material is not important, but this is an unjustifiable assumption
it can even be said that log pos reject metaphysics, and construct their own
to dismiss god in favour of pure science says that everything is knowable by science

dorothy emmet claims natural theology must be understood in analogies, not science
she says we naturally tend to think we know everything when we try to make sense of existence
she suggests log pos’ characterisation of religion fails to understand the type of language used as well as the modes modes of thinking
prayers, hymns etc take place in context of faith
log pos pays insufficient attention to what people mean

swinburne argues against logical positivism saying that there are sentences with meaning that describe states of affairs that are not verifiable
his example is a toy cupboard
he says toys could come out fo the toy cupboard at night and go back in before people wake up, seemingly undisturbed
he is aware of the vast variety of sentences in discussions, pointing out that some genuinely significant sentences fail to fit the over-simplistic demands of logical positivism.

objections to swinburne here are vast
this example is problematic
there is no way of verifying this, so it dismisses the verif principle without offering an alternative
his claim is that it makes sense because we know the words that make up what he means
i know what toys are, etc. this doesn’t stop it being nonsense
it can’t be applied to god because we don’t know who god it, and it uses human things to relate to a metaphysical being.

a final objection is that the verif principle makes most of what we say is meaningless.
what about orders?
if i ask someone to shut a door, this is not a tautology or scientifically verifiable, but it has significance
it also would make sense to respond with a yes or no, which you can’t do for nonsense
the issue with logical positivism is that the approach is binary; meaningful or meaningless
this is unfair on our language, which is more complex

Published by lauren ferro