Philosophy · Year 12

Active learning ideas

The Nature of Religious Language

This topic challenges students to grapple with a foundational philosophical puzzle: can we even talk meaningfully about God? We will explore the powerful arguments from 20th-century philosophy that threatened to render all religious, and even ethical, language nonsensical.

• National Curriculum Attainment Targets
• AQA A-Level Philosophy: Section 4.1 - Metaphysics of God - Religious Language

• 20–30 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Socratic Seminar
• 25 min · Small Groups

Verification Principle Sorting Challenge

In small groups, students are given a set of cards with various statements (analytic, synthetic, religious, moral, aesthetic). They must sort them into 'meaningful' and 'meaningless' piles according to both the strong and weak versions of the verification principle, justifying their choices.

Explain the verification principle and its implications for religious statements.

Facilitation Tip

Circulate to check that groups correctly distinguish between practical verifiability and verifiability in principle.

What to look for

Exit ticket: Students must write a 'tweet' (under 280 characters) summarising the core argument of either Ayer or Flew.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 02

• Socratic Seminar
• 30 min · Pairs

Modern Parables

Students rewrite one of the key parables (Flew's Gardener, Hare's Dons, Mitchell's Partisan) in a contemporary setting, for example, involving a social media influencer, a scientific theory, or a political conspiracy. This helps them to internalise the core philosophical argument of each parable.

Analyse Flew's falsification principle using the parable of the gardener.

Facilitation Tip

Encourage creativity but ensure the modern analogy accurately reflects the logic of the original parable.

What to look for

A timed essay responding to a question such as, 'Critically assess the view that Wittgenstein's theory of language games successfully defends religious language from the verificationist challenge.'

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• Socratic Seminar
• 20 min · Individual

Language Games 'In the Wild'

Students are tasked with identifying two different 'language games' from their own experience (e.g., the language of a science lab versus the language of a poem). They must explain how the meaning of a key term changes between the two contexts, then apply this insight to the debate about religious language.

Compare cognitive and non-cognitive approaches to understanding religious language.

Facilitation Tip

Use a simple example like the word 'power' in physics versus politics to model the task first.

What to look for

Students use a 'traffic light' system to rate their confidence in explaining each key theory (verification, falsification, bliks, language games, analogy), identifying areas for revision.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 04

• Socratic Seminar
• 25 min · Whole Class

Philosopher Speed-Dating

Each student is assigned a key thinker (Ayer, Flew, Hare, Mitchell, Wittgenstein, Aquinas). They have two minutes to explain their core ideas to another 'philosopher' before rotating, encouraging concise and accurate recall.

Explain the verification principle and its implications for religious statements.

Facilitation Tip

Provide students with a summary card for their assigned philosopher to use as a prompt.

What to look for

Exit ticket: Students must write a 'tweet' (under 280 characters) summarising the core argument of either Ayer or Flew.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

A few notes on teaching this unit

Start by grounding the problem in a simple question: 'What does it mean to say God is good?'. Use the stark, clear-cut challenges from Ayer and Flew to establish the core debate. The parables are excellent tools for making the abstract arguments of Flew, Hare, and Mitchell more concrete and memorable before moving on to the complexities of Wittgenstein.

Upon completing this topic, your students will be equipped to critically analyse religious propositions, deploying the key arguments of verificationism, falsificationism, and language games to evaluate whether such statements have meaning.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• Ayer claimed that 'God does not exist' is a true statement.

  Ayer's position was more radical. He argued that statements like 'God exists' or 'God does not exist' are not false, but meaningless. For Ayer, they are pseudo-propositions that cannot be verified and are therefore nonsensical, like saying 'The number seven is green'.

• Non-cognitive language is just another word for gibberish or nonsense.

  Non-cognitive does not mean without meaning; it means without factual, propositional meaning. Such language does not make claims that can be true or false. Instead, it serves other functions, such as expressing emotions, prescribing a way of life (Hare's 'bliks'), or fostering a sense of community.

• Falsification is just the opposite of verification.

  While related, they are distinct criteria of meaning. Verificationism asks 'What evidence would prove this true?', while falsificationism asks 'What evidence would prove this false?'. Flew argued that for a statement to be a genuine assertion, the speaker must be able to state what would have to happen for them to admit they were wrong.

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Methods used in this brief

• Socratic Seminar