Logical positivism
Austin's label of 'descriptive fallacy' was aimed primarily at logical positivism, and his speech act theory was largely a response to logical positivism's view that only statements that are logically or empirically verifiable have cognitive meaning. Logical positivism aimed to approach philosophy on the model of empirical science, seeking to express philosophical statements in ways to render them verifiable by empirical means. Statements that cannot be verified as either true or false are seen as meaningless. This would exclude many statements about religion, metaphysics, aesthetics, or ethics as meaningless and philosophically uninteresting, making merely emotive or evocative claims expressing one's feelings rather than making verifiable claims about reality.