Verification
putative statements
commonly accepted
part of what movement?
logical positivist
strong verification principle
no doubt that the statement is true as you can verify it using sense experience and observation
religious claims are
non- cognitive - do not carry meaning in a factual manner
verifiability in principle
only verifiable in theory, not in verifiable in practice e.g. There is life on other planets in the Milky Way galaxy
indirectly verifiable
statement that is not directly verifiable or analytic and in conjunction with certain other premises it entails one or more directly verifiable statements which are not deducible from these other premises alone
practical verifiability
statements which can be tested in reality e.g. Chelsea football team wear blue shirts
synthetic proposition
true by confirmation of the senses/empirical evidence e.g. the car is green
analytic proposition
true by definition because it is either required by the definition of the words used or by maths e.g. this circle is not a square/ 2+2=4
realist approach
words have objective meaning
weak verification principle
a statement has some observational evidence proving it true or false - instead of checking every bit of knowledge with our senses, we can set up sensible standards for evidence e.g. eye witnesses or multiple sources
The Verification Principle
a statement which cannot be conclusively verified is simply devoid of meaning
new criteria
directly or indirectly verifiable
directly verifiable
if it is either an observation statement, or is such that in conjunction with one more observation statements which is not deductible from the premises alone
tautology
a logical truth
Quote Ayer
The criterion we use to test the genuineness or apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability