What is the difference between Falsificationism and Verificationism? Give a religious example of where they would disagree about the meaningfulness of a statement.

Falsificationism is the belief that the only propositions that are meaningful are those that give conditions under which they could be proven false. This differs from Verificationism that holds that the only meaningful statements are those that can be verified as true or false by an empirical test. An example of where they would disagree could be "In 2020 Jesus will return to the earth". This is meaningful for a Falsificationist as it gives conditions for falsity (It being 00:01 on the 1st of January 2021 and Jesus having not returned) but would not be meaningful to a verificationist as present scientific test we could run to prove this.

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Answered by Gareth P. Philosophy and Ethics tutor

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