Derivation of the Verification Principle

 

P1:  A sentence S is meaningful only insofar as it pictures reality.  (Wittgenstein’s Picture Theory of Meaning)

 

P2:  Our only access to reality is through the senses and empirical investigation.  (Empiricism)

 

C:     So S is meaningful only if it can be empirically verified.

 

 

Versions of the Verification Principle

1.    S is meaningful iff we can establish that S is true through empirical investigation.

Counter: “There are mountains on the dark side of the moon.” (Said before we had technology to go to the moon)

 

2.    S is meaningful iff we can in principle establish that S is true through empirical investigation.

Counter: “All crows are black.”

 

3.    S is meaningful iff we can in principle establish that S is false through empirical investigation.

Counter: “Some crows are not black.”

 

4.    S is meaningful iff we can in principle either establish that S is true or establish that S is false through empirical investigation.

Counter: “Someone loves everyone.”

 

5.    S is meaningful iff we can in principle provide support for the truth of S through empirical investigation.

Problem: Difficult to give precise understanding of ‘support’

 

 

 

Problems with an Empiricist Criterion of Meaning

 

I.                  Empiricist Criterion of Factual Content:

All claims that have factual content/are about reality are subject to the test of sensory experience.

 

II.               Truths of math and logic

A.       Objection: 

Truths of math and logic seem to have factual content and be logically certain.  But no claim subject to the test of sensory-experience is logically certain.

 

B.       Reply:

Must either (a) deny that truths of math and logic are logically certain, or (b) deny that they have factual content.

1.       Mill denies that they are logically certain by claiming that there are empirical generalizations. 

2.      Positivists deny that they have factual content by claiming that they are analytic tautologies that are merely about the way we use certain symbols.

 

C.      Empiricist Criterion of Significance:

A claim is significant iff it is a claim about the world (and so empirically testable) or a claim about how we use symbols (and so an analytic tautology).

 

III.           Logical Status of Criterion Itself

A.      Objection:

The criterion itself seems to be neither empirically testable nor an analytic tautology.

 

B.       Reply:

1.      Convention:  The criterion is a prescription for the notion of significance. 

 

2.      Explication: The criterion is a precisification of the notion of significance.