ВЕРИФИКАЦИИ ПРИНЦИП

Verification, Principle of

The basic principle held by logical positivists, according to which the truth of every statement about the world must ultimately be ascertained by comparing it with the evidence of the senses. The principle, as formulated in the Vienna Circle, is based on the thesis that knowledge cannot in the final analysis extend beyond the limits of sensory experience, a distinction being made between the direct verification of assertions specifically describing the data of experience, and indirect verification, by logical reduction of a proposition to directly verifiable statements.

The obvious philosophical weakness of the principle, which leads to solipsism and deprives of cognitive significance all scientific statements not tested by "direct experience", compelled the logical positivists to accept a watered-down version of this principle that demanded partial and indirect experimental verification of scientific statements; in this form it merely expresses somewhat inadequately the usual methodological requirement of science that theoretical propositions should correspond to the empirical facts.