Verification and Falsifiability

Principles of verifiability and falsifiability

In order to understand the principle of verifiability, one must first understand the criterion of meaning. The criterion of meaning says that a statement is meaningful is and only if it is empirically or logically verifiable. Both the principle of verification and falsification have there basis on trying to prove or discredit the truth. Many philosophers, both past and present, have spent countless time arguing for one principle over the other.

Before verification was pronounced as an actually principle, experiments were used to test whether or not a theory was true. During the time of Galileo, it was a known fact that water in a pump barrel would not lift any higher that thirty four feet. Though out time the experimental method was used to prove the truthfulness of the water height to give an explanation for such a thing. A student of Galileo’s. Toricella concluded that the air pressure explains why the water would only go as high as thirty four feet. Although there was no direct evidence to prove Toricella’s theory to be true, it was proven indirectly with the use of a mercury barometer, which made length measurements easier to understand. Shortly there after, the principle of verifiability was introduced and defined as wanting to describe the conditions that make a particular theory true. The main objective to the principle of verifiability is to maintain the theory to be true, in all aspects. When subjecting science to the verification principle, one must be aware that there may be some consequences involved. Many may believe that verification would go hand and hand with science because they both should be based only of the proven facts, but that is not the case. Science may sometimes contradict the verification because it is an attempt to systematically refute the said theory. The principle of verifiability relies heavily on the induction method, which is the belief that we can come up with empirical generalizations for our theories. The conflict with science would stand that we are not logically justified to make empirical generalizations based only on our experiences. The verification principle takes the risk of making the theory uninformative. This is done so by adding unnecessary principles to it, because we want to make it so there is not possible way to refute it.

The principle of falsification states that a theory is falsifiable when we are able to describe the conditions that would make the theory false. Falsification directly relates