1. Is this statement meaningful?
‘I love you’

2. Criticisms of the Verification principle

3. Learning Outcomes
To be able to understand the criticisms and responses to the Verification Principle.
To be able to evaluate the verification principle.

4. Criticism of the Verification Principle
There are many criticisms of Verificiationism, particularly strong verification. Swinburne stated that it ‘generally agreed to be false’ and that ‘God talk is not evidently nonsense’. Whether the verification principle makes God talk meaningless is much debated….

5. Verification is unverifiable
Many Philosophers have pointed out that claiming ‘statements are only meaningful if verifiable by sense-observation’ is itself unverifiable. It is self-refuting!

6. The Evidence Problem
What evidence can we use to verify a statement? E.g. A.J Ayer rejects religious experience as evidence but why can they not be a weak form of evidence?
Swinburne argues that there are many areas of debate where people would disagree on what we could use as evidence e.g. the end of the world.

7. God talk is eschatologically verifiable
John Hick suggested that religion is not meaningless because its truth is verifiable in principle, thus meeting the conditions of verificationism. He explains this using the analogy of the celestial city!

8. Draw a picture in your notes to explain the celestial city….
Stretch yourself:
How does it make religious language verifiable according to Hick?

9. The analogy of the celestial city
In this parable, a theist and an atheist are both walking down the same road. The theist believes there is a destination, the atheist believes there is not. If they reach the destination, the theist will have been proven right, however if there is no destination on an endless road, this can never be verified. This is an attempt to explain how a theist expects some form of life or existence after death and an atheist does not. They both have separate belief systems and live life accordingly, but logically one is right and the other is not. If the theist is right, he will be proven so when he arrives in the afterlife. However, if the atheist is right, they will simply both be dead and nothing will be verified.

10. Meaningful but Unverifiable
Richard Swinburne argues that there are propositions which no-one knows how to verify but still are not meaningless.
He gives the example of toys which come out of their cupboard at night and dance around, then returning without a trace. No observation could ever establish this as truth, but it’s not meaningless.

11. Write your own analogy that demonstrates Swinburne's point!
Stretch yourself: How does this apply to religious language?

12. Evaluation zig-zag
Complete the zig-zag in your notes. Zig-zag from arguments that support and criticise the verification principle.
For
Against
Stretch yourself:
To reach a better A02 grade you must always link your arguments. E.g. However Ayer would disagree with Hick because…..
For
Against

13. Black holes
The reason why you can never see a black hole is that it has such a string gravitational field that it sucks everything into, including light. It is physically impossible to see a black hole as light has to enter your eye. Are black holes verifiable? (Include what other thinkers would see on the matter…)