Talk:Verificationism

message: Shouldn't this page be either Verification theory of meaning or Verificationism? Banno 21:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would stay away from "Verification theory of meaning" since not all the forms of verificationism discussed here are theories of meaning (e.g. Popper). However, moving it to Verificationism might be good. - Atfyfe 04:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title 

message: "However, Private Language by its nature is a pseudo concept. the concept and definition of 'language' is the fact that it isnt private."
Well, that is exactly what Wittgenstein's PLA is supposed to show. So I am not sure what the "however" is doing here. Secondly, not everyone would agree that there cannot be a private language.
"A private language is not open to be verified or falsified, therefore making it meaningless." 
Okay.
"Language as Ayer suggests is talking about sense data. this sense data is only labeled via ostensive verification and agreed publicly and a definition by more than one person. Therefore the idea of a language that is private only to one person is both a contradiction and a self-refutation."
I am not sure why Ayer was brought into this section out-of-the-blue and I am not sure if relying on the contentious issue of "sense-data" is the right way to give exposition to Wittgenstein's PLA.
- Atfyfe 07:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cut material on Wittgenstein's PLA 

message: I don't know much about this all, but isn't Popper a falsificationist? 89.27.19.182 (talk) 03:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Although he might have been part of the "Vienna circle" when he was young, he soon decided he was not wild about verificationism and then promoted falsification instead. Why?--Filll (talk) 05:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, obviously because he's listed as a "notable verificationist" which would seem to me a mischaracterization; yes, the article makes note  of the (unsourced) fact that Popper is often lumped together with verificationist, but I don't know if that qualifies as criteria to include him in that category here as well. 89.27.19.182 (talk) 00:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The difference between Popper and the other verificationists is minimal. Both rule out "untestable" propositions as illegitimate (whether you cash out "untestable" as not verifiable, not falsifiable, or not both). Compare these philosophers to those who do think untestable propositions are perfectly legitimate. The terminology is unfortunate since "verificationism" implies that these philosophers mean "not verifiable" by "not testable", but that is just how the terminology evolved. Here is a good standard for if someone is a verificationist: Do they rule out the "The universe uniformly doubled in size ten minutes ago" as an illegitimate hypothesis? - Atfyfe (talk) 04:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ok, I see that and if it's a matter of (unfortunate) terminology then so be it. Still, if I've understood correctly, Popper explicitly didn't rule out metaphysical statements as meaningless or not belonging to science, only that they be rejected if the testable (in this case, falsifiable) statements they are dependent on are rejected too. Thus, according to Popper, we can have statements about "space-time" or "electrons" or "aether", but if the hypotheses that apply these notions fail, the metaphysical notions must go as well. Well, go figure, I'm not in a position to really argue this anyway. 89.27.19.182 (talk) 18:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My own take: At the time Popper was working, he did seem like a significant alternative to verificationism. He certainly thought so. But looking back, Popper seems to just be a slightly different version of verificationism. One that focuses on falsifying conditions rather than verifying conditions of a theory. As for statements about "space-time" etc., I don't think a verificationist has to reject them as meaningless if they are embedded in a overall theory that might be verified. That would be similar to what Popper would have to say, I think. That a statement about space-time might be be unable to be falsified itself, but once embedded in a theory that is open to being falsified, statements about "space-time" can be counted as legitimate. I don't see any statement that Popper could judge as legitimate that a verificationist couldn't also in similar manner. - Atfyfe (talk) 00:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popper? 

message: Could someone add a section discussing the historical criticisms of verificationist thought? Mmortal03 (talk) 12:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms? 

message: It seems to me that verificationism is a very similar concept to Occam's razor.  From the article on Occam's razor:
The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.
Or equivalently, "The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that verificationism characterizes as meaningless."
Is there anything we can add to the article about the relationship between verificationism and Occam's razor?  If not, should we at least add Occam's razor as a "See Also" for this article and verificationism as a "See Also" for the Occam's razor article? Or am I overstating the relationship? Capedia (talk) 01:25, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Ockham's razor is different, but I agree that the relationship between verificationism and Ockham's razor does warrant it's own section since many people are sure to notice it. Part of the difference is that Ockham's razor is an epistemological principle about what theory is more likely to be true, where as Verificationism is rooted centrally in the philosophy of language position that certain theories are meaningless. "Is the universe a billion years old or start five minutes ago seeming to be a billion years old?" Ockham's razon would seem to say the second is more likely to be true, where as verificationism would probably judge the whole question meaningless since either way the verification conditions are the same. - Atfyfe (talk) 00:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verificationism and Occam's razor? 

message: Verificationism
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	This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007) SavantIdiot (talk) 00:57, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I love it. No one ever change it. - Atfyfe (talk) 18:29, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  This included link is hysterical (funny as it could be!) 

message: I'm not trying to be cute here by pointing out a paradox, but is there any literature about self-applying the principle of verificationism to the idea of verificationism?
Is it possible to empirically verify that     something is true     only when it can be empirically verified?
Has anyone considered what Gödel's incompleteness theorems mean with respect to verificationism?
All interesting questions, any answers?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.186.237.194 (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There may be some things that we'll never know about. --Nerd42 (talk) 23:16, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

text: What I just said is a meaningful idea, which seems to disprove verificationism. There should somewhere be an article on logical/paradox-based critiques of positivism. --Nerd42 (talk) 23:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There should be. The critique that verificationism fails to be meaningful by its own standard is definately one of the central criticisms philosophers have made concerning the doctrine. I don't know of any good replies by verificationists, anyone else? One of the most interesting things about the self-defeating nature of verificationism is how even while it has always been widely recognized, the doctrine was still able to become widely accepted by philosophers during the first half of the 20th century. Why, psychologically, were philosophers so willing to look past such an obvious defect in the doctrine? I presume it has something to do with (1) that philosophers have a tendency to look past obvious, self-defeating problems with positions generally and always assume there to be some way around them, and (2) how powerful verificationism is in dismissing other philosophical problems that seem both unsolvable and also as somehow merely arising due to a confusion. "Was there a time before time began?" That's not a difficult or perhaps impossible philosophical question, it's a meaningless one! Not only does verificationism dissolve many hard philosophical problems, it also accounts for our sense that we don't even quite understand what it means to ask them by revealing them to in fact be meaningless questions. - Atfyfe (talk) 00:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

text: As far as the statement, "There may be some things that we'll never know about", that can be used to raise a problem for verificationism, but the verificationist could always bite the bullet here. Also, you need to rephrase it a little, since a verificationist could admit that there are things we won't in fact verify, but they do seem unable to allow that there are things we couldn't in principle verify. Also, a verificationist could argue that this is an advantage of their position. For example, it allows them to dismiss extreme epistemological skepticism as meaningless. - Atfyfe (talk) 00:28, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

text: Any criticism section should also include a discussion of the line(s) of objection from Popper, Kuhn, and Quine. Those seem to be what really killed verificationism. Also, the ordinary language philosophy of later Wittgenstein which rejected the whole logical positivist idea of analyzing ordinary language into it's true logical form. - Atfyfe (talk) 00:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  self-application of verificationism 

message: In the Pragmatism section, this quote is attributed to William James; however I can see no reference to this in his pages on Wikipedia and Wikiquotes, nor the Pragmatism pages. Can someone find a reference & promote the phrase into other pages if it really is important enough to appear in a summary of Pragmatism? YojimboSan (talk) 04:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the wording is slightly off. in lecture two "What Pragmatism Means" in his published set of lectures "Pragmatism" James states: "It is astonishing to see how many philosophical disputes collapse into insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple test of tracing a concrete consequence. There can be no difference anywhere that doesn’t make a difference elsewhere – no difference in abstract truth that doesn’t express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere, and somewhen. The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one." However, I think this often gets reworded/summarized and attributed to James in the way this article words the quote. James might use that exact wording somewhere, but I am not sure where. More likely just a common simplification of the actual quote. - Atfyfe (talk) 04:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  A difference which makes no difference ... 

message: I propose that verification theory be merged into this article. The two articles cover practically the same idea; any extra material in verification theory can easily be woven into this article. ItsZippy (talk) 17:02, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Merge. - Atfyfe (talk) 17:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I just turned verification theory into a redirect to this article. There didn't seem to be any material in that entry that wasn't already included in this one. - Atfyfe (talk) 00:11, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger Proposal 

message: I majorly overhauled the article by deleting nearly all of it, which followed the thesis of C J Misar, who apparently finds verificationism synonym to empiricism or any trace of it.  Misar includes falsificationist Karl Popper and somehow even Pierre Duhem—the conventionalist and instrumentalist who introduced the problem of underdetermination—as "verificationists" .  Cast the net wide enough, and everyone is a "verificationist" [British J Philos Sci 48(1):140–42].  Misar has some accurate points, and I myself admire key principles of logical positivism, but Misar's thesis certainly is not the general view among scholars on the topic.  I have included Misar's viewpoint, but put primary weight on the logical positivist program, the general view among philosophers as to the meaning of verificationism.  Should one expand the article, it ought to be done first and principally with details of the logical positivists' verificationism.  Then, one can go to the article version before my changes—hyperlinked to here—and expand with such viewpoint as Misar's of the diversity of surreptitious "verificationism". 71.190.193.175 (talk) 06:56, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verificationism rehab 

message: "Verificationism aims to..." I think it should rather start with "Verificationism is a...". What is it? A branch of philosophy? A theory of knowledge? GreyWinterOwl (talk) 14:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Lede

message: Logical positivism constantly gets infested with biased editors and it needs to stop. Every philosophical issue you can think of will have its supporters and its detractors. That does not mean Wikipedia should take sides in the debate. The final sentence in the introduction is an obvious example of this:
"The verifiability criterion underwent various revisions throughout the 1920s to 1950s, but, by the 1960s, was deemed to be irreparably untenable. Its abandonment signaled the end of the entire movement launched by logical positivism.[2]"
This statement represents the biased opinion of only a few philosophers. There are many philosophers today who will openly defend the ideas of positivism. For example, in the article "What do philosophers believe?" by David Bourget and David Chalmers, it was found that a full 2/3 of modern philosophers alive today were in agreement or sympathetic to the analytic/synthetic distinction. Most textbooks on quantum mechanics will also argue for ideas very similar to verificationism and the A/S distinction. The notion that positivism is dead and everything in it is wrong is a complete fiction. You never see this kind of bias in articles about Platonism or metaphysics, and it does not belong here. Someone needs to clean up this Wiki article and remove all statements to the effect that positivism is dead and gone. They are flat-out false.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nageljr (talk • contribs) 16:10, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed that you also removed related content at other articles.  I didn't edit this very article, but at a few others I've restored some material which summarizes a source that we consider reliable for Wikipedia.  I agree about the removal of the YouTube source there, which I've not restored.  —PaleoNeonate – 20:11, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obvious Philosophical Bias 

message: Hey - I just did some big edits on the criticism section. 
Can someone else look it over and determine if the "encyclopedic tone" note can be removed? Edenaviv5 (talk) 22:37, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Check in on criticisms section