verification principle

the criterion of SCIENCE proposed by Logical Positivists (see POSITIVISM) that to be accepted as 'scientific’ a proposition must be ‘verifiable’. Problems with the concept of VERIFICATION (e.g. we can never establish with certainty universal propositions, such as ‘all swans are white’, since we can never know future cases) have led some theorists (notably POPPER) to suggest that this must be replaced as the criterion of scientific statements by the conception of ‘falsifiability’, since a single contrary instance (e.g. a single instance of a ‘black swan’) will falsify a universal proposition (see FALSIFICATION AND FALSIFICATIONISM). Because it is also proposed by Logical Positivists as a criterion of‘meaningfulness’, a further criticism of the verification principle is that it leaves utterly unclear the status of the principle, which is itself unverifiable -the so-called ‘paradox’ of Positivism.

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It is such a pity that this Verification Principle has closed so many people's minds so they are unable to explore a reality that is beyond touch, taste and sight.

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And indeed, on Ayer's standards, it seems that the verification principle is as metaphysical as talk of God.

Payne cites philosophers, who question the verification principle of A.

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The first of these, unsurprisingly, is that of the logical positivists, and traces the familiar history of the demise of the verification principle.

Verificationism: Its History and Prospects

where monitoring methods did not meet the verification principles or where emission data was uncertain).