ABSTRACT
The basic positivist contention is that testability of statements is a criterion of significance or meaningfulness; what cannot be tested is non-significant or without meaning.
The original form of the principle was that the meaning of a statement is determined by the method of verifying it (to this scientists under the influence of the descriptive interpretation of science often subscribe); for, if a word like "gravitation" denotes nothing, there is no way by which it can derive a meaning except from the method of testing it. That this is misleading will become clear.
