Editing Logical positivism (section)

====Verifiability Criterion of Meaning====

According to the [[verificationism|verifiability criterion of meaning]], a statement is ''cognitively meaningful'' only if it is either verifiable by [[observation|empirical observation]] or is an [[analytic proposition|analytic truth]] (i.e. true by virtue of its own [[semantics|meaning]] or its own [[syntax|logical form]]).<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hempel |first=Carl G |title=Problems and changes in the empiricist criterion of meaning |journal=Revue Internationale de Philosophie |year=1950 |volume=41 |pages=41–63}}</ref> ''[[meaning (philosophy of language)|Cognitive meaningfulness]]'' was defined variably: possessing [[truth value]]; or corresponding to a possible state of affairs; or intelligible or understandable as are scientific statements. Other types of meaning—for instance, emotive, expressive or figurative—were dismissed from further review.<ref>Various different views are discussed in Ayer's ''Language, Truth, and Logic'', Schlick's "Positivism and realism" (reprinted in {{harvnb|Sarkar|1996}} and {{harvnb|Ayer|1959}}) and Carnap's ''Philosophy and Logical Syntax''.</ref>

[[Metaphysics]], [[theology]], as well as much of [[ethics]] and [[aesthetics]] failed this criterion, and so were found cognitively meaningless and only ''emotively meaningful'' (though, notably, Schlick considered ethical and aesthetic statements cognitively meaningful).<ref>{{cite journal |last=Allen |first=Barry |year=2007 |title=Turning back the linguistic turn in the theory of knowledge |journal=[[Thesis Eleven]] |volume=89 |issue=1 |pages=6–22 |doi=10.1177/0725513607076129 |s2cid=145778455 |quote=In his famous novel ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' [[George Orwell]] gave a nice (if for us ironical) explanation of the boon Carnap expects from the logical reform of grammar. Right-thinking [[Ingsoc]] party members are as offended as Carnap by the unruliness of language. It's a scandal that grammar allows such pseudo-statements as 'It is the right of the people to alter or abolish Government' ([[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson]]), or 'Das Nichts nichtet' ([[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]]). Language as it is makes no objection to such statements, and to Carnap, as to the Party, that's a sore defect. [[Newspeak]], a reformed grammar under development at the [[Ministry of Truth]], will do what Carnap wants philosophical grammar to do.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Schlick |first=Moritz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LTOaM0X6e6cC&q=%22The+future+of+philosophy%22 |chapter=The future Of philosophy |title=The Linguistic Turn |editor=Richard Rorty |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1992 |pages=43–53}}</ref> Ethics and aesthetics were considered subjective preferences, while theology and metaphysics contained "pseudostatements" that were neither true nor false. Thus, logical positivism indirectly asserted [[Hume's law]], the principle that [[fact|factual]] statements cannot justify [[axiology|evaluative]] statements, and that the two are separated by an unbridgeable gap. [[A. J. Ayer]]'s ''[[Language, Truth and Logic]]'' (1936) presented an extreme version of this principle—the [[emotivism|boo/hooray doctrine]]—whereby all evaluative judgments are merely emotional reactions.<ref name=Ayer1>{{cite book |last=Ayer |first=A.J |title=Language, Truth, and Meaning |year=1936 |pages=2,63-77}}</ref>