Verifiability principle
In the early twentieth century, the logical positivists put forth what came to be known as the verifiability theory of meaning. The verifiability theory was based upon the verifiability principle, which states "A statement is literally meaningful (it expresses a proposition) if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable." If it failed that test, then it was held by proponebts of the verifiability principel to be literally meaningless — as a useless sound or babble.
Hume in many ways was a forerunner of the verification principle, he argued that all meaningful concepts depended on sense experience and/or basic "relations among ideas" ( logical relations mostly), if something could not be traced back to one or the other of these then it was meaningless.
The idea of a statement being empirically verifiable was taken up by in the twentieth century by the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle (the so-called verificationists), who used it to build upon the theory of language that Ludwig Wittgenstein had introduced in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
The classification terms analytic/synthetic, especially as used by Immanuel Kant, have fallen into disuse in contemporary formal logic. In essence, the positivists equated Kant's synthetic statements with empirical statements. If an empirical statement is true, it ought to be empirically verifiable, and if an empirical statement is false, it ought to be empirically falsifiable.
However, the verifiability principle is not empirically verifiable nor is it analytic. Thus the verifiability principle seems to be self-refuting. In the early days of the logical positivists (the members of the Vienna Circle and their followers — see the articles "Logical Posiitivism" and Vienna Circle"), this problem was not recognized. Later there were enormous efforts by logical positivists to develop a version of the verifiability principle that would withstand logical scrutiny and criticism, but those efforts always failed. Eventually those who wished to hold to to the verifiability principle could present it only as a recommendation, not as something that could be proved or supported with either logic or good argument.
The verifiability theory of meaning is also closely related to the correspondence theory of truth.
The verifiability theory features as an assumption of an important argument for non-cognitivism.
See also
- Epistemic theories of truth
- Logical positivism
- Verificationist
- Hypothetico-deductive method
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
