Relevance and Verification

A. J. Ayer’s empiricist criterion of meaning was supposed to have sorted all statements into nonsense on the one hand, and tautologies or genuinely factual statements on the other. Unfortunately for Ayer, it follows from classical logic that his criterion is trivial—it classifies all statements as either tautologies or genuinely factual, but none as nonsense. However, in this paper, I argue that Ayer’s criterion of meaning can be defended from classical proofs of its triviality by the adoption of a relevant logic—an idea which is motivated because, according to Ayer, the genuinely factual statements are those which observation is relevant to

Empiricism · Epistemology · Mathematical proof · Meaning (existential) · Nonsense · Political science · Pure mathematics · Relevance (law) · Sequent calculus · Triviality · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Philosophy, Science, and History

• Language, truth and logic

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• Relevant Logic

  Open Access•Edwin Mares, Edwin D Mares•Relevant Logic•2004

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• An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic

  Open Access•Graham Priest•Introduction to Non-Classical Logic•2008

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• Relevant implication

  Open Access•David Lewis•Theoria•1988

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• The logic of paradox

  Open Access•Graham Priest•Journal of Philosophical Logic•1979

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• Carnap’s epistemological critique of metaphysics

  Open Access•Darren Bradley•Synthese•2018

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• Empirical significance, predictive power, and explication

  Open Access•Jonathan Surovell•Synthese•2019

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• Testability and Meaning

  Open Access•Rudolf Carnap•Philosophy of Science•1936

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• Postulates and Meaning

  Open Access•Edward H Madden, Murray Kiteley et al.•Philosophy of Science•1962

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• Meaning and Verification

  Moritz Schlick•The Philosophical Review•1936

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• The Anatomy of Enquiry

  L Jonathan Cohen, Larry Cohen et al.•The Philosophical Quarterly•1965

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