Verificationists believe that every meaningful statement is either true by definition or else empirically verifiable (or falsifiable). Anything which fails to pass this two-pronged test for meaningfulness is neither true nor false, but literally meaningless. Liam Bright discusses Verificationism and its links with the Vienna Circle with David Edmonds in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast.
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Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
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We want to be able to understand the world, but how do we know which statements we make about it are meaningful?
Verificationists, such as the early 20th century group of philosophers and scientists known as the Vienna Circle, came up with a two pronged test for meaningfulness, the verification principle.
Take any statement, ask, is it true by definition, like all cats or animals?
That is, is it analytic?
And if not, is it empirically verifiable?
Can it be shown to be either true or false by some kind of experiment or observation?
An example of this would be all cats eat fish, a statement which is false and can easily be refuted by finding a cat that doesn't eat fish.
But it's a meaningful statement nevertheless, because it is testable.
If a statement is neither true by definition nor empirically verifiable, then it is meaningless.
Verificationism has rather fallen out of fashion now, but Liam Bright, a philosopher at the London School of economics, is sympathetic towards it.
Liam Bright, welcome to philosophy bites.
Hi.
We're talking today about verificationism.
Let's start with a definition.
What is verificationism?