ABSTRACT
Verificationism was the linchpin of logical empiricism. It sustained their contentions that traditional metaphysics was a fraud, and that philosophical methodology should much more closely emulate scientific practice. For its critics, verificationism was an irredeemably flawed doctrine, one that ultimately was responsible for logical empiricism’s demise. The chapter reconstructs this debate by looking at verificationism as a criterion of meaning and of meaningfulness and the associated problems: the problem of reflexivity and the problem of adequacy. It discusses Ayer’s attempts at precise formulations, considers Hempel’s later skepticism, and analyzes Carnap’s long-neglected proposal of 1956. It is argued that both Ayer’s and Carnap’s criteria can be amended for the criterion to work.
