The Verifiability Theory of Meaning
According to this theory, meaning and truth are determined by verifiability or confirmability.
1. The verifiability theory of meaning asserts that there is a
cognitive (informative) meaning or cognitive truth only as verification
or falsification is actually possible or, as in operationalism,
when all necessary steps for demonstrating meaning or truth can
be specified. Verifiability is the possiblity of verification
or falsification. Only verifiable or falsifiable statements are
capable of truth or falsity since, properly speaking, only they
are statements.
2. The verifiability criterion of meaningfulness may be modified
as the confirmability criterion of meaninfulness. Confirmability
requires that an assertion be capable of being verified or falsified,
i.e., verifiable or falsifiable in principle, by the specification
of empirical evidence that would count for or against its truth
or falsity.
With respect to the question of the verifiability theory of meaning,
the opposition rationalism vs. empiricism becomes metaphysicians
vs. verificationists (antimetaphysicians), i.e., those who hold
knowledge to be in principle both verifiable and nonverifiable
(rationalists) and those who hold that it must be verifiable (empiricists).
a. Rationalists hold that the verifiability criterion is not itself
verifiable and hence by its own definition not meaninful and not
true. It is a theory of meaning and not the actual nature of
meaningfulness. Statements are meaningful if intelligible.
b. Empiricists hold that it is a procedural rule justified by
its utility and not by its truth value as such.
c. The use of theory of meaning, however, holds that verifiability
(or falsifiability) is not the exclusive criterion of meaninfulness.
Use determines criteria or rules of meaningfulness. So far as
the verifiability criterion applies, "a sentence has meaning
only if it can be used to make an assertion, and it can be used
to make an assertion only if it's possible to specify some way
of verifying or falsifying the assertion"
Verifiability is not the only way of making sense. The verifiability
theory of meaning is a proposal to confine "meaningful"
to the cognitive uses of language.