RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE: The Falsification Principle Flashcards Preview

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Flashcards in RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE: The Falsification Principle Deck (9)
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1
Q

Who is Karl Popper?

A

Austrian-British philosopher of science

2
Q

What is the falsification principle?

A

A sentence is factually significant if there is some evidence which could falsify it

3
Q

Popper quote

A

‘In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable’

4
Q

Who is Antony Flew?

A

English philosopher

5
Q

What did Flew develop the Parable of the Gardener for?

A

To challenge the meaningfulness of religious language

6
Q

What is the conclusion made by Flew with the Parable of the Gardener?

A

The gardener’s (God) existence ‘dies the death of a thousand qualifications’- the believer qualifies what he means by his gardener every time he fails to be detected e.g. can’t be seen: invisible, can’t be touched: intangible. Therefore statements about belief in God are vacuous

7
Q

Strength of the FP: The emptiness of factual claims made by religion about God

A

They are empty because all the evidence against such claims is ignored by the believer

8
Q

Weakness of the FP: Confines meaningfulness to factual propositions

A

Human experience can’t always be defined this way; what about the world of drama, art, poetry?

9
Q

Weakness of the FP: Statements about God

A

Statements about God are metaphysical rather than scientific

So it is inappropriate to demand that they should be empirically falsifiable