Verificationist Theory Research Articles

LA VERIFICABILIDAD DEL LENGUAJE RELIGIOSO: UN ANÁLISIS FILOSÓFICO

Las experiencias místicas y el conocimiento que producen son comunicados a través de un lenguaje religioso. En este texto presentaré un estudio de caso de una tradición yóguica del norte de la India, el Surat Shabdt Yoga, que se practica para obtener este tipo de experiencia. Desde el punto de vista de la teoría verificacionista del significado desarrollada por Alfred J. Ayer, el lenguaje religioso carece de significado.Mi objetivo es analizar y evaluar la teoría verificacionista y mostrar que no sólo se auto refuta; sino que también exhibe ciertas inconsistencias lógicas, empíricas y cognitivas que la debilitan como un buen criterio para evaluar la significatividad del lenguaje religioso. Se argumentará que los instrumentos y métodos de verificación se constriñen a nuestras habilidades, límites, expectativas e intereses cognitivos específicos; por lo que el valor de verdad del contenido fáctico de los enunciados religiosos no puede ser decidido de forma indubitable.

Pragmatism and Prophecy: H. G. Wells and the Metaphysics of Socialism

Read throughout the world, H. G. Wells was one of the most famous political thinkers of the early twentieth century. During the first half of the 1900s, he elaborated a bold and idiosyncratic cosmopolitan socialist vision. In this article, I offer a new reading of Wells's political thought. I argue that he developed a distinctivepragmatistphilosophical orientation, which he synthesized with his commitments to Darwinian evolutionary theory. His pragmatism had four main components: a nominalist metaphysics; a verificationist theory of truth; a Jamesian “will to believe”; and a conception of philosophy as an intellectual exercise dedicated to improving practice. His political thought was shaped by this philosophical orientation. Wells, I contend, was the most high-profile pragmatist political thinker of the opening decades of the twentieth century. Acknowledging this necessitates a re-evaluation of both Wells and the history of pragmatism.

Examinando la teoría verificacionista del significado

This paper purports to analyze the verificationist theory of meaning proposed by logical positivism. According to this theory, only sentences verifiably by means of empirical observation have meanings. Our purpose is to show the reasons why the verificationist theory collapses. In order to do so, we will examine both the internal and external critiques to it. Among the internal critiques, we will show the logical positivists’ failed attempts to formulate an adequate weak verification criterion. Among the external critiques, we will focus on the ones formulated by J.L. Austin on the basis of his theory of performative utterances.

Wittgenstein on Verification and Seeing-As, 1930–1932

This article examines the little-explored remarks on verification in Wittgenstein's notebooks during the period between 1930 and 1932. In these remarks, Wittgenstein connects a verificationist theory of meaning with the notion of logical multiplicity, understood as a space of possibilities: a proposition is verified by a fact if and only if the proposition and the fact have the same logical multiplicity. But while in his early philosophy logical multiplicities were analysed as an outcome of the formal properties of simple objects and simple signs, Wittgenstein in the early 1930s connects the notion of logical multiplicity with the notion of ways of seeing. I will argue that the relevant ways of seeing are closely similar to seeing-as or aspect seeing. According to Wittgenstein's view in the early 1930s, logical multiplicities are part of our perceptual experience of propositions and facts. In this sense, the verification relation depends on how we experience propositions and facts as being surrounded by a logical space of possibilities. Strikingly, Wittgenstein's way of thinking about the verification relation offers solutions to a set of seemingly intractable problems connected with the versions of verificationism developed by members of the Vienna Circle.

On the Conceptual, Psychological, and Moral Status of Zombies, Swamp‐Beings, and Other ‘Behaviourally Indistinguishable’Creatures

In this paper 1 argue that it would be unprincipled to withhold mental predicates from our behavioural duplicates however unlike us they are “on the inside.” My arguments are unusual insofar as they rely neither on an implicit commitment to logical behaviourism in any of its various forms nor to a verificationist theory of meaning. Nor do they depend upon prior metaphysical commitments or to philosophical “intuitions”. Rather, in assembling reminders about how the application of our consciousness and propositional attitude concepts are ordinarily defended, 1 argue on explanatory and moral grounds that they cannot be legitimately withheld from creatures who behave, and who would continue to behave, like us. I urge that we should therefore reject the invitation to revise the application of these concepts in the ways that would be required by recent proposals in the philosophy of mind.

A Semantic Approach to the Completeness Problem in Quantum Mechanics

The old Bohr-Einstein debate about the completeness of quantum mechanics (QM) was held on an ontological ground. The completeness problem becomes more tractable, however, if it is preliminarily discussed from a semantic viewpoint. Indeed every physical theory adopts, explicitly or not, a truth theory for its observative language, in terms of which the notions of semantic objectivity and semantic completeness of the physical theory can be introduced and inquired. In particular, standard QM adopts a verificationist theory of truth that implies its semantic nonobjectivity; moreover, we show in this paper that standard QM is semantically complete, which matches Bohr's thesis. On the other hand, one of the authors has provided a Semantic Realism (or SR) interpretation of QM that adopts a Tarskian theory of truth as correspondence for the observative language of QM (which was previously mantained to be impossible); according to this interpretation QM is semantically objective, yet incomplete, which matches EPR's thesis. Thus, standard QM and the SR interpretation of QM come to opposite conclusions. These can be reconciled within an integrationist perspective that interpretes non-Tarskian theories of truth as theories of metalinguistic concepts different from truth.

Problems for a Generalization of a Verificationist Theory of Meaning

Problems for a Generalization of a Verificationist Theory of Meaning

Conventionalism and realism in Hans Reichenbach's philosophy of geometry

Hans Reichenbach's so-called geometrical conventionalism is often taken as an example of a positivistic philosophy of science, based on a verificationist theory of meaning. By contrast, we shall argue that this view rests on a misinterpretation of Reichenbach's major work in this area, the Philosophy of Space and Time (1928). The conception of equivalent descriptions, which lies at the heart of Reichenbach's conventionalism, should be seen as an attempt to refute Poincaré's geometrical relativism. Based upon an examination of the reasons Reichenbach gives for the cognitive equivalence of geometrical descriptions, the paper argues that his conventionalism is a specific form of scientific realism. At the same time we shall argue against those interpretations which lead to a trivialization of Reichenbach's conventionalism or deny it entirely.

Reikšmės teorija: žvilgsnis į tiesos problemą

It is generally supposed that the two central questions addressed in the analytical tradition of the philosophy of language are: What is it for a word or a sentence to mean what it does? What is it for a statement to be true? Thence the need to make explicit the double" problem concerning the theoretical notions of meaning and truth and the necessity to analyse thoroughly the relationship between these notions. It is these issues that the present study aims at. So-called truth-conditional theories of meaning are entangled in certain intolerable contradictions and face insoluble difficulties due to a particular interpretation of the concept of truth. The explanation of meaning in terms of truth leads to the antinomy of the connection between meaning and truth. This is due to the fact that if we decide to specify the meaning of a sentence by stating the condition under which it is true, we are supposed to know in advance what is meant by saying "it is true", i. e. we must know the meaning of the term "true" and the point of its application. It is possi- ble to introduce a truth predicate into a language only if we have a prior understanding of that language. But if so, the concept of truth in a theory of meaning must appear pointless. One way to resolve, at least partly, the above- mentioned antinomy is to appeal to concepts which relate to our use of language, without simply approving of the extreme doctrine that meaning is use. The truth of a sentence should be distinguished from the grounds (evidence) upon which we might base a judgement as to its truth, so that the truth conditions of an individual sentence be treated as not identical with its assertibility conditions. The proposed concepts of evidence and assert- ibility are epistemic. They embody a regulative prin- ciple governing the notion of truth: If a statement is true, it must be in principle possible to know that it is true, that is, we must be able to recognize the sentence as true. The required notion is, therefore, that of verifiability. According to such conception, the meaning of a statement lies in the conditions of its verification and assertibility and is not deter- mined by truth conditions independent of the ground of assertion and the method of verification. A truth- conditional theory provides us with no explanation as to how the knowledge of truth conditions is delivered to the speaker. The advantage of a verificationist theory is that the condition for a statement being verified, unlike the condition for its truth, is one which we must be credited with in terms of our capacity for effectively recognizing when it obtains. Hence, there is no difficulty in stating what knowledge of such a condition consists of - it is directly displayed by our linguistic practice.

Verificationism: its history and prospects

Verificationism is the first comprehensive history of a concept that dominated philosophy and scientific methodology between the 1930s and the 1960s. The verificationist principle - the concept that a belief with no connection to experience is spurious - is the most sophisticated version of empiricism. More flexible ideas of verification are now being rehabilitated by a number of philosophers. C.J. Misak surveys the precursors, the main proponents and the rehabilitators. Unlike traditional studies, she follows verificationist theory beyond the demise of positivism to examine its reappearance in the work of modern philosophers. Most interestingly, she argues that despite feminism's strenuous opposition to positivism, verificationist thought is at the heart of much of contemporary feminist philosophy. Verificationism is an excellent assessment of a major and influential system of thought.

Pragmatic versus semantic contextuality in quantum physics

An approach to quantum physics (QP) is proposed that is characterized by the attempt to give up the verificationist theory of truth underlying the standard interpretation of QP. As a first step, anobservatively minimal language L is constructed that is endowed with a Tarskian truth theory. Then, a set of axioms is stated by means of L that hold both in classical physics and in QP, and the further language Le of all properties is constructed. The concepts ofmeaning andtestability do not collapse in L and Le, hence quantum logic is interpreted as a theory of testability in QP, and QP turns out to be semantically incomplete. Furthermore, semantic and pragmatic compatibility of physical properties are distinguished in Le, and the concepts of testability and conjoint testability of statements are introduced. In this context some known quantum paradoxes can be avoided, and a new general principle (MGP) characterizes the truth mode of empirical physical laws. MGP invalidates the Bell theorem and, presumably, the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem, and introduces apragmatic contextuality in QP in place of thesemantic contextuality that should occur because of these theorems.

The Universal Quantifier and Dummett's Verificationist Theory of Sense

The Universal Quantifier and Dummett's Verificationist Theory of Sense

The universal quantifer and Dummett's verificationist theory of sense

The universal quantifer and Dummett's verificationist theory of sense Get access Jim Edwards Jim Edwards University of GlasgowGlasgow, G12 8QQ Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Analysis, Volume 55, Issue 2, April 1995, Pages 90–97, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/55.2.90 Published: 01 April 1995

A "Semantic Realist" Response to Dummett's Antirealism

In What Is a Theory of Meaning? (II)' Michael Dummett argues that the applicability of a truth-conditions theory of meaning for natural language is extremely limited. There are many natural language sentences whose meaning a truth-conditions theory cannot account for. This failure of a truth-conditions theory leads Dummett to adopt a verificationist theory of meaning. But, since a verificationist theory of meaning rejects bivalence, and because bivalence is a necessary condition for realism, it follows that in adopting a verificationist theory of meaning Dummett is also adopting an antirealist theory of meaning. In follows I will suggest that at least one' of Dummett's arguments against Donald Davidson's version of a truth-conditions theory of meaning fails and that Davidson's semantic realism can be defended from this argument. For Dummett a theory of meaning for a natural language is a theory of understanding for that language. This means that a theory of meaning for a language must specify both a speaker of the language knows and what counts as a manifestation of that (WTM II, p. 71). Thus, if a theory of meaning takes truth as its central notion, as for Davidson, then the theory must supply an explanation of it is to ascribe to someone a knowledge of the condition which must obtain for a sentence to be (WTM II, pp. 79, 8o). According to Dummett, this knowledge consists in the ability to determine whether the condition under which a sentence is true obtains or not. Thus, applying a Davidsonian theory of

Realism and the Renegade Putnam: A Critical Study of Meaning and the Moral Sciences

For many years Hilary Putnam has been an enthusiastic supporter of the cause of realism about the external world (e.g., in [14]). However, he has never been afraid to change his mind. In the paper, Realism and Reason, the last part (Part Four) of Meaning and the Moral Sciences [16], he abandons the cause. Indeed, he now finds his former position incoherent ([16]: 124). He attributes the change in his views partly to new influences from Michael Dummett and Nelson Goodman, and to an old influence from W. V. Quine (pp. viii-ix). Aside from these influences he is led to anti-realism by model-theoretic argument he propounds in Realism and Reason (pp.125-127) and in much greater detail in recent paper. Models and Reality [18]. One aim of this study is to refute that argument. That is the concern of Part II. The issue of realism is not confined to Part Four of [16]: it recurs throughout, particularly in Part One. Until Part Four, Putnam's stance is pro-realist. To assess the bearing of any of Putnam's discussion on realism we need clear idea of what realism is. Unfortunately, that is something that Putnam does not supply. On the contrary, Putnam casts almost impenetrable darkness on the question. The other aim of this study is to show this. That is the concern of Part I. The chief difficulty in understanding Putnam's discussion of realism is that it is thoroughly entangled with discussion of truth. Truth is the other major concern of the book. Part One, the 1976John Locke lectures, comprising half the book, is largely devoted to arguing against Hartry Field [7] that we do not need to supplement Tarskian theory of truth with theories of reference; indeed, Field's view that such theories are possible is a species of scientific utopianism (p. 58). And in Part Three, the paper Reference and Understanding, Putnam argues for verificationist theory of understanding but for correspondence notion of truth. (I have discussed these arguments about truth in [4].) Part Two, the paper Literature, Science, and Reflection, is the most sketchy part of the book. Part One ends with the claim that the social sciences are fundamentally different from physics and must find place for Verstehen (empathetic understanding). In Part Two this humanist line is applied to literature and morality.

Meaning, Use and Privacy

I begin with the consideration of an argument which Moritz Schlick once gave in support of a verificationist theory of meaning. My interest in this argument has two main sources. Firstly, one finds in the literature of Logical Positivism no great wealth of argument in favour of verificationism, for in the heyday of the Vienna Circle it seems to have been felt sufficiently persuasive just to postulate the Verification Principle and display its anti-metaphysical consequences; in view of this, and the power of the Principle once accepted, any argument offering to demonstrate it from philosophically neutral premisses is a precious object. Secondly, we shall see reason to believe that a form of verificationism, differing in some respects from the original but resembling it in the affirmation of the complete monopoly in the theory of meaning of what is in principle knowabley is currently important in philosophical thought, and that it is sometimes supported by arguments bearing at least a superficial resemblance to that adduced by Schlick. Even if the resemblance should turn out to be no more than superficial, thinking about Schlick's argument should help us to get these more recent efforts into sharper focus. The essential paragraph is brief enough to be quoted in full: