Meaningful Statement Research Articles

Induction and Objectivity

This paper is an attempt at a vindication of induction. The point of departure is that induction requires a justification and that the only kind of justification possible is a vindication. However traditional vindications of induction have rested on unjustified assumptions about the aim of induction. This vindication takes the end pursued in induction simply to be correct prediction. It is argued that induction is the only reasonable way of pursuing this end because induction is the only objective method of predicting. While objectivity is not a necessary condition for successful predicting, it is a sufficient condition for the possession of a property that is, in turn, a necessary condition for correct predicting; and further there could be no reason to expect any non-objective method to possess this necessary condition for success.Induction is the only objective method of predicting for it alone uses facts which must be identified by any predicting method based on rules; and it alone uses these facts according to a relationship that must hold between facts and any meaningful empirical statement. Any alternative to induction must assume that the factual regularities that have been detected will alter in the future and the way they are expected to alter must be arbitrary. It is further claimed that this vindication is proof against the criticisms that have been advanced against practicalist justifications of induction.

Molecular constants of nitric oxide from the near infrared spectrum

High resolution spectra of the first and second overtone vibration rotation bands of N 14O and N 15O have been analyzed to obtain the molecular constants of the molecules. A simultaneous analysis of a sub-band in the two overtones allows one to give a meaningful statement about the ranges within which the molecular constants lie. The analysis leads to the following rotational constants: For N 14O, B e = 1.70509 ± 0.00013 cm −1, D e = (5.5 ± 0.2) × 10 −6, cm −1. For N 15O, B e = 1.64471 ± 0.00019 cm −1, D e = (5.2 ± 0.2) × 10 −6, cm −1. The uncertainties in these constants are simultaneous confidence intervals with a confidence coefficient of 0.95. The values calculated by isotopic substitution are well within the indicated confidence intervals. The spin-orbit coupling constant although not obtained with comparable accuracy is found to be a closely linear function of v. The data yields for N 14O, A e = 123.61 cm −1; for N 15O, A e = 124.03 cm −1. The vibrational constants are also obtained and compared by isotopic substitution calculations.

Statements, components and extensionality

The philosophically important questions concerning what can be deduced from a given statement, of what would constitute a correct analysis or translation of it, of whether to say that P is to say that Q., and others, can be clearly formulated and possibly answered only on the basis of prior clear formulations of what is to be meant by “statement component of a statement”;. This paper takes up these questions in the context of a discussion of a certain formulation of the so‐called Extensionality Thesis. It attempts to show the hidden complexity of this thesis (and those questions) by indicating the consequences for it of several more or less plausible interpretations of the notions of meaningful statement, and statement component.

Language or Ideas?

[The logicians of the Vienna Circle have independently reached the conclusion of physicalism: any scientifically meaningful statement reports a movement in space and time. This confirms the conclusion of A. P. Weiss and other American workers: the universe of science is a physical universe. This conclusion implies that statements about 'ideas' are to be translated into statements about speech-forms.]