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    A verificationist semantics leaves too small a role for t... — Carmelics
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    A verificationist semantics leaves too small a role for theory and creative theorizing in science

    Philosophy of LanguageTruth & Knowledge
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Quine's holism shows that individual theoretical sentences lack discrete empirical content, undermining any sentence-by-sentence verificationist semantics.
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    • 2.If meaning requires holistic confirmation via entire theoretical webs, then isolated verification criteria cannot adequately capture the semantic contribution of theoretical terms.
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    • 3.Scientific theories routinely introduce unobservable entities whose meaning exceeds any finite set of verification conditions, as Putnam's model-theoretic arguments demonstrate.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Einstein's general relativity was formulated prior to confirmatory evidence, indicating theoretical meaning cannot be exhausted by available verification procedures.
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    • 2.Duhem's thesis establishes that auxiliary hypotheses always mediate between theory and observation, so no theory faces experience with a unique verification profile.
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    • 3.A semantics that ties meaning to verification conditions therefore misrepresents the epistemic structure of scientific reasoning by collapsing theory-ladenness of observation.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
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    • 1.A verificationist semantics makes the link between theory and experience too strong
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    • 2.When the link between theory and experience is too strong, the independent role of theory itself is diminished
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    • 3.Creative theorizing requires a degree of freedom from direct empirical verification
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    Related

    A semantics that ties meaning to verification conditions therefore misrepresents...A verificationist semantics makes the link between theory and experience too str...Creative theorizing requires a degree of freedom from direct empirical verificat...Duhem's thesis establishes that auxiliary hypotheses always mediate between theo...
    +5 moreShow less
    Einstein's general relativity was formulated prior to confirmatory evidence, ind...If meaning requires holistic confirmation via entire theoretical webs, then isol...Quine's holism shows that individual theoretical sentences lack discrete empiric...Scientific theories routinely introduce unobservable entities whose meaning exce...When the link between theory and experience is too strong, the independent role ...

    Similar

    A verificationist semantics makes the link between theory and experien...87%The link between meaningfulness and confirmation may nevertheless be s...79%Each verificationist formulation bundles together both a link between ...78%The core verificationist idea — linking meaningfulness with in-princip...77%

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    SEP: einstein-philscience
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    It was this argument over the nature and place of conventions in science that underlies Einstein’s gradual philosophical estrangement from Schlick and Reichenbach in the 1920s. Serious in its own right, the argument over conventions was entangled with two other issues as well, namely, realism and Einstein’s famous view of theories as the “free creations of the human spirit” (see, for example, Einstein 1921). In both instances what troubled Einstein was that a verificationist semantics made the l
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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit