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Question: Logical Positivists!? 10 pts!!!!!?
What is one of the Logical Positivists' two proposed definitions of "meaningful statement", and why does it fail!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
ONE OF THE TWO PROPOSED DEFINITIONS OF "MEANINGFUL STATEMENT":

"A philosophy asserting the primacy of observation in assessing the truth of statements of fact and holding that metaphysical and subjective arguments not based on observable data are meaningless!."

This basically means:
A meaningful statement is one that at least theoretically can be verified through logical or empirical means!.

It fails because:
They consider discussions of ethics, metaphysics, and much of philosophy to be meaningless!.

Although the positivists consider ethics meaningful in terms of emotivism, they don't consider it meaningful in terms of spending time discussing it!.

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A statement has meaning if it is empirically verifiable--that is, if sense data can be adduced to determine is truth or falsity!. (This from A!. J!. Ayers's _Language Truth and Logic_ (1936)!.

I think it's one of the solidest definitions ever offered, but I admit there are some statements with which it is unequipped to deal!. For instance, how you prove or disprove the statement "X has a headache"!? You couldn't get any sense data to bear upon the topic, yet surely we know what such a statement means even though it is empirically unverifiable!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The problem with the LP's theory of meaning--that a statement to be meaningful must be capable of being verified--is that a statement of this theory cannot be verified!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

A statement that contributes effectively to the point trying to be made Www@QuestionHome@Com

huh!?Www@QuestionHome@Com