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