Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion

FALSE

86

is infallibly known, it is incorrigible (not
subject to correction), but it is possible
(logically) for a belief to be incorrigible
without being infallible.

FALSE. See TRUTH & FALSEHOOD.

FALSAFA. An Arabic word derived from
the Greek philosophia. (“Philosopher”
translates as Faylasuf, sg., Falaasifa, pl.)
In the Islamic context, falsafa originally
referred to the intellectual practices and
arguments encountered in Aristotelian
and Neoplatonic schools of the Byzantine
and Sassanian lands conquered by
Muslims, though these schools and their
texts were understood by many Muslims
of the era to be continuous with ques-
tions, concerns, and principles found in
the sources of Islamic revelation. Begin-
ning in the eighth century, significant
numbers of logical, linguistic, metaphysi-
cal, and ethical texts were translated into
Arabic, and when drawn into conversa-
tion with pre-existing ideas and commit-
ments, this gave rise to intense debates
and intellectual development in centers
of learning such as Baghdad. Though not
all philosophers of this era were Muslims,
the Islamic cultural and intellectual con-
text framed the development of the tradi-
tion. This initial watershed gave rise to
the achievements of philosophers such as
al-Kindi, Avicenna, al-Farabi, Averroës,
and al-Suhrawardi. Among the philoso-
phers, some who claimed to be Muslim

were accused of being kuffar (sg., kafir),

or unbelievers, and strong, though not

necessarily hegemonic, currents within

Islamic thought have been aggressively

antagonistic toward the rationalism of the

philosophers. Falsafa as a discipline dis-

tinct from theology did not flourish much

beyond the twelfth century in Western

Islamic lands, though many of its meth-

ods and commitments were absorbed by

theology as well as Sufi mystical thought.

In the East, particularly Persia and India,

falsafa has maintained a more robust

identity.

FALSIFIABILITY. Karl Popper proposed

that an essential condition of meaningful

scientific statements was their liability to

falsifiability. On Popper’s view, Freudian

psychoanalysis was suspect because it

seemed incapable of being shown to be

false. In the 1950s and 1960s Anglophone

philosophers questioned whether religious

beliefs were falsifiable. Paradoxically,

a prominent non-theistic philosopher

Moritz Schlick claimed that the existence

of an afterlife is not falsifiable (the living

will never know if the dead survive in

some other realm) but it is verifiable if

true. See also TRUTH & FALSEHOOD.

FARRER, AUSTIN MARSDEN (1904–

1968). British philosopher, theologian,

biblical scholar, and Anglican priest, pri-

marily known for his metaphysics, view

of divine action, and theory of revelation.