Relevance and Verification
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10691528 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ben Blumson (0000-0002-2469-3150, National University of Singapore, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 71 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 457-480 |
| Publication date | 2021-06-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/pq/pqaa071 |
| OpenAlex | W3096555107 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 37 |
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
Relevant Logic
An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic
Relevant implication
The logic of paradox
Carnap’s epistemological critique of metaphysics
Empirical significance, predictive power, and explication
Testability and Meaning
Postulates and Meaning
Meaning and Verification
The Anatomy of Enquiry
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |