The Verification Principle

The Verification Principle

I would like to start this essay by explaining the background to

Logical Positivism and the Verification Principle.

The Verification Principle is a philosophical doctrine fundamental to

Logical Positivism. Logical Positivists argue that a statement is

meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable or else

tautological (You can get to its truth by the meanings of its terms).

They believe that if you can give evidence to back up what you said

then that evidence was what your statement was all about, e.g. “There

is a cat outside the door”. The Logical Positivists would say that you

can prove this by looking outside the door and you will see the cat.

It does appear to offer a real challenge to religious belief since

they believe that the only way a statement can be meaningful is either

that the meaning of the words prove this or they can be proved by some

form of sense experience.

Firstly, statements that can be verified using internal logic and

grammar are analytic. For example, “all spinsters are unmarried”.

Everything needed to verify the statement is included in the statement

itself since the definition of a spinster in an unmarried woman.

Secondly, statements that can be verified using external sense data

are said to be synthetic. For example, “Jane is a spinster”. We would

need to find Jane and ask her about her marital status-this would

provide the external sense data.

In both cases, we have everything that we need to prove whether the

statement is true or false.

Logical Positivists believe that verification is not about the truth

or falsity of a statement but about its provability.

The reason why it appears to offer a great challenge is because

religious language appears to be neither analytic nor synthetic

therefore Logical Positivists argue that it is completely meaningless.

It is not internally logical and the truth or falsity also cannot be

obtained from sense experience.

Logical Positivists hold, on the other hand, that if there is no