Verifiability

FRIEDRICH WAISMANN
[This paper was originally the second part of a Symposium in which the first symposiast was Mr. (now Professor) D. M. MacKinnon. It therefore naturally contained several polemical references to Professor MacKinnon's contribution. In tearing the present paper from that context in order to reprint it in this collection, we tried to remove as many of these references as possible; but unfortunately it was not practicable to remove them all without re-writing the entire paper. So we must apologize to Professor MacKinnon; and remind readers that in the interests of the unity of this book he has been denied the right to speak in his own cause.] When we reflect on such a sentence as 'The meaning of a statement is the method of its verification', we should, first of all, be quite clear as to what we mean by the term 'method of verification'. From a logical point of view we are not interested in the various activities that are involved in verifying a statement. What, then, is it we have in mind when we talk of such things? Take an example. Suppose there is a metal ball in front of me, and I have the task of finding out whether the ball is charged with electricity. To do that I connect the ball with an electroscope and watch whether the gold leaves diverge. The statement 'The gold leaves of the instrument diverge' (s) describes the verification of the statement 'The ball is charged' (p). Now what exactly am I doing when I describe the verification of the statement p? I establish a connection between two statements by declaring that the one (s) is to follow from the other (p). In other words, I lay down a rule of inference which allows me to pass from the statement 'The ball is charged with electricity' to another that describes an observable situation. By doing this I connect the statement with another one, I make it part of a system of operations, I incorporate it into language, in short, I determine the way it is to be used. In this sense giving the verification of a statement is an important part of giving its use, or to put it differently, explaining its verification is a contribution, to its grammar. In everyday life we understand sentences without bothering much as to the way they are verified. We understand them because we understand the single words which occur in them and grasp the grammatical structure of the sentence as a whole. The question of the verification arises only when we come across a new sort of combination of words. If, for instance, someone were to tell us that he owned a dog that was able to think, we should at first not quite understand what he was talking about and would ask him some further questions. Suppose he described to us in detail the dog's behaviour in certain circumstances, then we should say 'Ah, now we understand you, that's what you call thinking'. There is no need to inquire into the verification of such sentences as 'The dog barks', 'He runs', 'He is playful', and so on, as the words are then used as we may say in their normal way. But when we say 'The dog thinks', we create a new context, we step outside the boundaries of common speech, and then the question arises as to what is meant by such a word series. In such cases explaining the verification is explaining the meaning, and changing the verification is changing the meaning. Obviously meaning and verification are connected -- so why say they are not? But when I say that the statement p is connected with the statements s1, s2 . . . sn which describe evidences for it, I do not say that p is identical with sl, s2 . . . sn or their conjunction.1 To say this

would only be true if s1, s2 . . . sn or their conjunction entailed p. Now is that so? There may be statements which are nothing more than abbreviations for all that which is unfolded in their verification. There are, however, other sorts of statements of which this is certainly not true. Recent discussions on phenomenalism, for example, tend to show that no conjunction or disjunction of sense-datum statements, however complex, entails the existence or the nonexistence of a certain material object. If that is so, a material object statement, though it is connected with sense-datum statements, is not just an abbreviation for them, rather has it a logical status of its own, and is not equivalent to any truth-function of the latter ones. I think that the result of these discussions is essentially right, and I ask for permission, to make my point quite clear, to add one word more. The failure of the phenomenalist to translate a material object statement into terms of sense-data is not, as has been suggested, due to the poverty of our language which lacks the vocabulary for describing all the minute details of sense experience, nor is it due to the difficulties inherent in producing an infinite combination of sense-datum statements though all these things may contribute to it. In the main it is due to a factor which, though it is very important and really quite obvious, has to my knowledge never been noticed -- to the 'open texture'2 of most of our empirical concepts. What I mean is this: Suppose I have to verify a statement such as 'There is a cat next door'; suppose I go over to the next room, open the door, look into it and actually see a cat. Is this enough to prove my statement? Or must I, in addition to it, touch the cat, pat him and induce him to purr? And supposing that I had done all these things, can I then be absolutely certain that my statement was true? Instantly we come up against the well-known battery of sceptical arguments mustered since ancient times. What, for instance, should I say when that creature later on grew to a gigantic size? Or if it showed some queer behaviour usually not to be found with cats, say, if, under certain conditions, it could be revived from death whereas normal cats could not? Shall I, in such a case, say that a new species has come into being? Or that it was a cat with extraordinary properties? Again, suppose I say 'There is my friend over there'. What if on drawing closer in order to shake hands with him he suddenly disappeared? 'Therefore it was not my friend but some delusion or other.' But suppose a few seconds later I saw him again, could grasp his hand, etc. What then? 'Therefore my friend was nevertheless there and his disappearance was some delusion or other.' But imagine after a while he disappeared again, or seemed to disappear -- what shall I say now? Have we rules ready for all imaginable possibilities? An example of the first sort tends to show that we can think of situations in which we couldn't be certain whether something was a cat or some other animal (or a jinni). An example of the second sort tends to show that we can consider circumstances in which we couldn't be certain whether something was real or a delusion. The fact that in many cases there is no such thing as a conclusive verification is connected with the fact that most of our empirical concepts are not delimited in all possible directions. Suppose I come across a being that looks like a man, speaks like a man, behaves like a man, and is only one span tall -- shall I say it is a man? Or what about the case of a person who is so old as to remember King Darius? Would you say he is an immortal? Is there anything like an exhaustive definition that finally and once for all sets our mind at rest? 'But are there not exact definitions at least in science?' Let's see. The notion of gold seems to be defined with absolute precision, say by the spectrum of gold with its characteristic lines. Now what would you say if a substance was discovered that looked like gold, satisfied all

the chemical tests for gold, whilst it emitted a new sort of radiation? 'But such things do not happen.' Quite so; but they might happen, and that is enough to show that we can never exclude altogether the possibility of some unforeseen situation arising in which we shall have to modify our definition. Try as we may, no concept is limited in such a way that there is no room for any doubt. We introduce a, concept and limit it in some directions; for instance, we define gold in contrast to some other metals such as alloys. This suffices for our present needs, and we do not probe any farther. We tend to overlook the fact that there are always other directions in which the concept has not been defined. And if we did, we could easily imagine conditions which would necessitate new limitations. In short, it is not possible to define a concept like gold with absolute precision, i.e. in such a way that every nook and cranny is blocked against entry or doubt. That is what is meant by the open texture of a concept.