Critically examine A.J. Ayer’s theory of verification… (35 Marks)

In his most famous work, Language, Truth and Logic, A.J. Ayer presents his theory of verification. In this work Ayer distinguished between the two key adaptations of verification; weak and strong verification. Ayer was one of the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers who were inspired by the theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein. The Vienna Circle were interested in how we use language to convey truths.

Ayer begins his thesis by arguing that for a statement to be ‘meaningful’ or ‘factually significant’, it must either be a tautology or provable by sense experience. This approach is inspired by Hume’s fork, which claimed that meaningful language was either a priori analytic (knowledge from deduction) or a posteriori synthetic (knowledge from experience). Ayer’s approach is rather scientific. He argues that because statements such as ‘God Exists’ cannot be empirically proven and are not analytical (because he rejects the claims of the ontological argument), they are thus meaningless.

Many philosophers, such as J.H. Randall find weaknesses in this theory as it is too reductionist and reduces language to less than what it literally is. Subsequently philosophy becomes reduced to analysing words. On the other hand, it does provide a basic grounding for deciphering fact from meaningless statements, by examining language on an analytical form.

Furthermore John Hick refutes the notion that God’s existence cannot be proven by the senses. He gives a parable of the Celestials city, claiming that we will be sure of God existence when we get to the end of the road. God’s existence could be eschatological verifiable when we die. It is implied here that Ayer is oversimplifying the theory of verification, treating an abstract concept as though it is concrete. For example one religious