Verifiability Criterion + Relativism =
Today’s Headlines
When "Science" Lies
The Verifiability Criterion of Meaning is a Positivist notion that sentences, in order to have meaning, must be verifiable. Otherwise they are a collection of syllables that are as much gibberish as lines my mother used to quote for fun from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky:
"T'was brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gymbol in the wabe,
All mimsy were the borogroves, And mome raths outgrabe....”
They don’t mean anything, they’re just a series of nonsense words seasoned with just enough meaningful words to make you wonder if it could mean something.
You’ll recall that Positivism resulted from the ideas of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who rejected anything not scientifically proven. Combined with this idea, the Verifiability Criterion would suggest that both sentences, “God exists” and “God does not exist” can have no meaning because they contain the word, “God.” Neither the existence of God nor his absence can be proven scientifically, rendering the sentence “God exists” in the same camp as “T’was brillig, and the slithy toves.” To the Positivist, it’s stringing nonsense syllables together. Science is king—or possibly omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent at the very least, though not omnibenevolent because that would infer being—and therefore anything that cannot be proven scientifically and in fact is without meaning [irony added].
You will also recall that the later Postmodern movement threw out anything of which you could be sure, suggesting there are no absolutes and nothing a priori (which is anything that comes from outside of man). So not only is God irrelevant, science has its limitations as well. Only when there is “general acceptance” can anything be considered “true” and even that has specific qualifiers and cautionary labeling (for example, “thought to cause cancer in California,” though this label doesn’t clarify whether it only causes cancer in California or whether only Californians think so).
The combination of the Verifiability Criterion of Meaning with a Relativistic approach to situational science is what we now see playing out around us in today’s headlines. If we think President X is a bad person or a good person capable of doing what we think he has done (whether good or a bad) and there are enough of us who think so, then we can convict or exonerate regardless of a lack or even a plethora of evidence that he (or eventually she) has done anything either good or bad. As long as enough of us “feel” there is either good or ill, then it is so and whomever disagrees should be silenced because they are speaking nonsense.
Or, if there are certain individuals in key positions who say something is a certain way and it happens to align with a desired political end, then it doesn’t matter how many scientists with sterling scientific credentials disagree with what is said, they are wrong and should be silenced because they are speaking nonsense.
The reason the passions are so high on both sides of these arguments is because the stakes are so high. The political paths before us are very disparate and incompatible, and since we have lost the ability to rationally debate topics of importance, it becomes a shouting match. Some of the Postmodernists might consider rational debate impossible since both sides have differing definitions of the terms in question, so such argumentation itself is irrelevant and without merit. Others argue that the average person is incapable of rational thought and must be told what to think, so circumventing argument is justifiable—it would only confuse them.
What it comes down to is the Relativist notion that the end justifies the means. If I am convinced my end is preferable to that of another, the argument goes, I am entitled to use whatever means necessary to achieve my end. If that means using my position to tilt the events in my favor—whether it be a position of government, journalism, or social media—so be it. After all, there being no a priori absolutes, one cannot argue from a stance of right or wrong, only justification of ends. Here the argument gets even stickier. If I say I am doing something for the greater good—and perhaps (though not always) even mean it—I am justified in using any means necessary to achieve my end if it appears to be in agreement with whatever is thought to be true at any given moment. It is for the “greater good.”
If you were raised with a notion of a priori right and wrong and that neither the individual nor the situation dictates what is right or wrong, you may have been lost in the above discourse. Don’t worry, it makes as much rational sense as Jabberwocky, largely because the Postmodern relativists don’t believe in absolute right or wrong. In fact, I might go so far as to say that today’s headlines are not intended to make sense in the traditionally rational meaning. If I feel something strongly, there is no need to prop up what I believe with facts. If I feel something is true, then it is. If I feel someone is bad in spite of evidence to the contrary, he is. If I feel the government would never do something wrong if a certain party is in power, then it’s true. If I feel the World Economic Forum is an influence for good because they say they are, then I should take seriously their proposals as valid and altruistic regardless of the previous actions of any of the players, whether cut-throat capitalists or despotic dictators. If I feel something to be true, it must be true.
After all, deep thinkers like Yuval Noah Harari tell us, "Human feelings are just biochemical algorithms that were shaped by millions and millions of years of evolutions. ... If you had to choose between your feelings and the Bible, you should definitely go with your feelings" (The Rise of Homo Deus).
Welcome to the age of "Feelings Transcend Facts.”
