verification principle

• what is cognitive language?

  language is "cognitive" if it conveys factual information
• what are most cognitive statements?

  synthetic
• what is a synthetic statement?


  a statement that is shown to be true/ false depending upon evidence
• for example...?

  the pope is a man - example of a synthetic statement
• what is non-cognitive language?

  a "non-cognitive" statement may convey emotion, make a moral claim or express a wish etc
• it may be relevant to facts but...?

  its truth doesn't depend on its correspondence to empirical facts
• for example...?

  "God exists"
• what states that there are only two types of meaningful language?

  Hume's fork
• what are these two types of meaningful language?

  analytic and synthetic propositions
• what are analytic propositions?

  propositions that are true by definition, they're deductive and meaningful
• why are analytic propositions deductive and meaningful?

  because they're self-evident
• what is an example of an analytic proposition?

  "frozen water is ice"
• what are synthetic propositions?

  propositions that are dependent upon evidence
• what are synthetic propositions based on?

  empirical evidence
• what is an example of a synthetic proposition?

  "the sun will rise tomorrow"
• what is Moritz Schlick's and A.J Ayer's theory?

  the verification principle
• what did Wittgenstein suggest?

  that philosophical problems would be solved if the language people used was more precise and was limited to statements for which there could be evidence
• who were Wittgenstein's ideas taken up by?

  the "Vienna Circle"
• what is the approach they took generally known as?

  logical positivism
• who was the "founding father" of logical positivism and the leader of the Vienna circle?


  Moritz Schlick
• what did Schlick argue that the meaning of a statement is?

  its method of verification
• what did this become known as?

  the verification principle
• what did the logical positivists take their starting point from?

  Hume's fork
• what did they claim?

  that metaphysical and theological language is meaningless
• why did they claim that metaphysical and theological language is meaningless?

  because they're neither matters of logic nor provable by empirical evidence
• what is the verification principle?

  if there's no way that you could (verify) give an account if something in terms of sense experience then it is meaningless
• give an example:

  the statement "my car is parked on the road outside".
• explain the example:

  if you go outside and look on the road, you will see my car, since that is how you verify that it is true
• what did A.J Ayer promote?

  logical positivism
• what did A.J Ayer say about atheism and theism?

  that they are equally nonsense
• why are atheism and theism equally nonsense?

  since neither can be shown to be true on the basis of evidence
• what are the statements "God exists" and "God doesn't exist"?

  both meaningless, because there is no sensory evidence to support them
• the verification principle is not about whether a statement is true or false, what is it about?

  whether a statement is meaningful or meaningless
• for Ayer, a statement can be meaningful either...?

  in practice or in principle
• when does verification in practice happen?

  when there is direct sense experience to support a statement
• when does verification in principle happen?

  when we know how a statement can in principle be tested empirically, but at the moment it isn't physically possible
• what was Ayer mainly concerned with?

  statements that have "factual meaning"
• applying this to religious language, what did Ayer argue about statements like "God is love" and "God exists" etc?

  they cannot be verified in practice or in principle
• why can they not be verified in practice or in principle?

  because there's no evidence by which we could show these claims to be true or false (so they are literally meaningless)
• what are the two forms of the verification principle?

  strong and weak