A2 philosophy revision homework piece, includes ideas of Flew, Hare and Basil Mitchell in regards to falsification.

1. FALSIFICATION
Claudia BH

2. FALSIFICATION
 This means to prove something is false.
 Falsification principle accepts a statement is verifiable if it known
what empirical evidence could count against it or prove it to be
wrong.

3. ANTONY FLEW
 The parable of the two explorers in the Jungle:
 This story is about two explorers who were in the Jungle, one explorer
repeatedly modifies the qualities that he attributes to an alleged gardener
who is looking after to forest clearing.
 This story links to religious language because it cannot be proved wrong as a
religious person will always believe and have faith, Religious people act the
same as the believing explorer.
 Flew suggests that religious people refuse to let their beliefs be falsified,
instead when religious people are challenged they qualify their beliefs. Flew
suggests that by this the original belief is lost.
 “Dying a death of a thousand qualifications”
 Flew believes a statement must be open to challenge to be meaningful;
religious people deny challenges to statements of God’s existence; they are
meaningless.

4. R.M. HARE
 The Parable of the lunatic: The lunatic believes that they university
staff are plotting to kill him. So his friends introduce him to the nicest
and kindest people however this doesn’t alter his belief that they are
trying to kill him.
 Hare uses this story to show that people have a way that they see the
world, know as their Blik. They can be insane or sane, there are no
sense observations that are able to help resolve conflicting Bliks.
 However this story doesn’t aid traditional views, if religious beliefs are
Bliks, this suggests that religious beliefs are a interpretation of the
world which could also be sane or insane.
 Weaknesses of this include religious people believe that it is more
than just an approach to life.

5. BASIL MITCHELL
 Story: There is a war in an occupied country and one night there is a
member of the resistance that meets a stranger in the night. They end up
speaking and the stranger says that he is on the side of the resistance, and
that he is command of it and convinces the partisan to have faith in him no
matter what. Sometimes the stranger is seen to be helping the resistance
and the partisan says that he on their side however sometimes the stranger
is seen in the uniform of the police and is shown to be handing over people
to the occupying power. Once this happened someone spoke against him
and the partisan still believes that he is on their side, and does not believe
that the stranger was deceiving him. He wont test the stranger either.
 This story suggests that there may be events that count against or in favour
of a believer’s Blik. Mitchell also agrees that theological statements are just
assertions.
 He concludes that religious statements of belief could be “provisional
hypothesis”, “significant articles of faith” or “vacuous formulae”