1. Epistemology revision Responses: add a ‘no false lemmas’ condition (J+T+B+N) Responses: replace ‘justified’ with ‘reliably formed’ (R+T+B) (reliabilism) Responses: replace ‘justified’ with an account of epistemic virtue (V+T+B).

2. Module content Philosophy of Religion The concept of God Arguments for God’s existence The Problem of Evil Religious Language

3. Discussion Many philosophers question whether talking about God has any real meaning, after all we cannot really know anything about God. Does talking about God mean anything? Booklets, p.52

4. Today’s lesson You will learn how to explain the claims of logical positivism concerning verification and falsification

5. Key terms You have been given a card containing a question and its answer Pair up with someone else who has a different question from you Ask your partner your question and tell them the answer Swap cards and then find new partners to question / answer Eventually you should know the answers to all the questions without being told

6. Key terms Logical positivism Verification Falsification Cognitivist Non-cognitivist Eschatological Verification

7. LOGICAL POSITIVISM: THE VERIFICATION AND FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLES Key term: Logical Positivism Refers to a philosophical movement in the twentieth century that sought to analyse religious and moral language scientifically

8. Logical Positivism Only two kinds of proposition are meaningful:  analytic propositions  (a priori – e.g. logic and tautologies)  e.g. monotremes are egg-laying mammals  synthetic propositions  (a posteriori - empirically testable statements)  e.g. a duck-billed platypus is a monotreme

9. Practice definition question What is logical positivism? (2 marks)

10. Verification Principle ‘The criterion we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability.’ ‘The criterion we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability.’ A statement that cannot be verified is either meaningless (i.e. not factually significant) or a tautology Language about God is meaningless because we cannot demonstrate its truth or falsity with sense observation and experiments

11. Which of these statements could be verified by sense experience? All humans are mortal The Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066 All ravens are black David Cameron is Prime Minister Murder is wrong God loves you Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius God created the world Bilborough College is in Nottingham Bilborough college is wonderful

12. Verification Principle Practical verifiability – can be tested in reality Verifiability in principle – cannot be tested in reality e.g. Man United play in red shirts e.g. There is life on other planets in the Milky Way Galaxy

13. Verification Principle Strong VerificationWeak Verification Can be verified conclusively through experience and observation Can be shown to be probably true beyond any reasonable doubt by observation and experience E.g. ‘There are students in the classroom.’ E.g. ‘WW2 ended in 1945.’

14. Verification Principle Booklets, p.53 What definition of the verification principle is given on p.53?  A proposition has meaning if and only if it is possible in principle to make observations which would show the proposition to be true or false.

15. Practice question Explain Ayer’s verification principle (5 marks)

16. Verification Principle – p.56 Arguments forArguments against

17. Falsification Principle Booklets, p.54 What definition of the falsification principle is given on p.54?  Statements are meaningful if and only if there is some way of falsifying them.

18. Imagine you have a friend who’s convinced Jennifer Lopez has romantic feelings for him… ‘Jennifer Lopez loves me’ ‘Jennifer Lopez loves me (but she is playing hard to get)’ ‘Jennifer Lopez loves me (but she is playing hard to get and it is a deeply secret love)’ ‘Jennifer Lopez loves me (but she is playing hard to get, it is a deeply secret love and her entourage is conspiring to prevent us from getting together)’

19. Falsification Principle Antony Flew: A statement is meaningless if there is no way it can be falsified (Popper argues that falsifiability distinguishes science from non-science) John Wisdom: The Parable of the Gardener Death by a thousand qualifications

20. Discussion Is the person who continues to believe in the existence of the gardener being reasonable?