Discuss the debate between Verificationism and Truth-conditional Semantics.

Verificationism and Truth-conditional Semantics (TCS) are two major concepts in the

field of Philosophical Semantics and are in many ways at odds with one another. It begs the

question: which approach is more comprehensive in allowing us to understand the meaning

of a sentence? This paper will seek to first review what Verificationism and TCS bring to the

table, followed by my stand on the question at hand along with my reasons and possible

objections that I may face.

Verificationism presents the notion that the meaning of a sentence is encapsulated

within the observations or circumstances which would inform us whether that sentence is true

or not. Importantly, it provides us with a very practical and “hands-on” perspective on how to

determine the meaning of a sentence – one that brings the abstractness of meaning into a

more “tangible” realm, where the idea of human experience or perception plays a key role in

producing the meaning of a sentence. For instance, the meaning of a sentence:

(1) There is a brown cat in this house

would be closely tied to its verification conditions i.e., being in that house and having the

experience of a brown cat in your presence. This approach certainly has its strengths, most

evidently that it is able to create a clean demarcation between what is meaningful (and worth

thinking about or analysing) and what is gibberish and worth none of our attention or effort.

Since Verificationism tells us that meaning arises from our ability to observe whether it is

true or not, then when we are faced with a sentence that contains a string of incomprehensible

letters, or a sceptical situation that could in no way be shown true by any set of observations,

we are able to simply disregard them on the basis that they are meaningless. Additionally,

since Verificationism derives meaning from the ways which we verify a sentence to be true

rather than other constituents that presuppose meaning, it steers us away from the mistake of
a logical loop that would prevent productive advancements in Philosophical Semantics.

However, Verificationism also comes with its fair share of problems, two of which I shall

highlight: first, since it involves the idea of human perception in determining meaning, it

leads to subjectivity and inconsistency that is dependent on the background knowledge of the

person perceiving it. Secondly, it seems to wrongfully categorise certain types of sentences as

completely meaningless and not worth analysing when they intuitively seem to have

meaning.

TCS, on the other hand, brings a different approach: it does not include the

component or necessity of human experience or observation and instead proposes that the

meaning of a sentence is defined by the set of possible circumstances under which it is true,

otherwise known as its truth conditions. This results in the mitigation of some of the issues

faced by Verificationism, such as that the meaning of a sentence seems to be no longer

subjective to one’s background knowledge of the sentence (I will, however, revisit and

challenge this idea at a later part of the paper). Additionally, TCS provides a systematic

manner in which we can unpack complex sentences into meaning, especially through the

realisation of Possible World Semantics (PWS) – the idea that the meaning of a sentence is

the set of worlds in which the sentence is true – which is one way in which TCS takes form

and will be focused on in this paper. This is achieved through the utilisation of set theory that

breaks down the different components of a sentence and provides a logical framework in

which they create meaning. However, TCS unsurprisingly runs into problems as well, mainly

in relation to the issue that it is unable to express certain nuances between very similarly true

sentences. For instance, for two sentences that are a priori such as:

(2) 3 + 3 = 6

and
(3) All bachelors are unmarried.

since both sentences are true in all possible worlds, then according to PWS, they have the

same meaning yet clearly by intuition we can tell that they are representing very different

ideas.

Moving on to my stand on the question of whether Verificationism or TCS should be

preferred as a means to determine the meaning of a sentence: I have a natural inclination

towards Verificationism, despite the consensus of recent Philosophers to favour the

alternative.

One of the key issues raised with Verificationism seems to be that since it is based on

experience or observation, the context-dependent background knowledge of the perceiver

results in the meaning of the sentence becoming subjective and hard to truly determine. I

would refute by saying: this is true, but certainly not a problem – in fact, it seems important

to be able to identify the biases, limited scope of perception that we have when determining

the meaning of a sentence. Just like how in physical science where scientists must state their

assumptions and analyse their biases that may have affected their findings, this “issue” just

seems like a similar vital step where we must recognize how meaning is affected by our

background knowledge. Although it may seem that PWS is able to remove this aspect of

background knowledge and subjectivity by determining meaning through its truth conditions,

I would argue that there is still an inherent sense of subjectivity and involvement of

background knowledge of the perceiver within the realm of PWS and TCS in general. For

instance, looking again at:

(1) There is a brown cat in this house

true that there is a brown cat in this house. It may appear that by examining this with PWS,

there is no subjective component such as background knowledge about lighting conditions

that would cause its meaning to be ambiguous like it would for Verificationism. To me,

however, it seems that in the defining process for “the set of worlds where it is true that there

is a brown cat in the house”, there is also an implicit aspect of background knowledge and

subjectivity. Take the issue of variability in colour perception, for instance – as someone

cognitively defines that set of worlds according to their visual perception of the brown cat

referred to in (1), it would inherently result in a sense of subjectivity arising from their unique

“background experience” of a particular shade of brown. It is hence my opinion that

subjectivity is an intrinsic part of determining meaning and that the background knowledge

involved in Verificationism is not an issue, but instead a strength because it creates an avenue

for this to be discussed and weighed rather than subtly ignored as what is done in PWS as

well as TCS generally.

One may then refute my take on this issue by saying that if what I say is true, then

there is no actual way of objectively determining meaning from a sentence, since it is prone

to so much subjectivity from different forms of background factors. To such a claim, I would

respond arguing that objectively and fully understanding the meaning of a sentence cannot

involve the exclusion of analysing its subjectivity. Rather than perceiving our background

knowledge that we carry with us as a hindrance to understanding sentences, it should be seen

as part of the process of coming to a fuller understanding of what a sentence means. In other

words, it is the acknowledgement and taking into account of subjectivity arising from our

background knowledge that leads to the true, objective understanding of sentences. If this

ignored and we rely on what TCS leans towards, then it is my view that it leave us with a
much more abstract and disconnected grasp of Semantics that although advantageously

systematic, is questionable in terms of practicality and comprehensiveness.