Language, truth, and logic

Abstract

Linguistic significance depends entirely on a proposition being either analytic or empirically verifiable. Metaphysical assertions, which attempt to transcend the limits of possible experience, are dismissed as literally nonsensical pseudo-propositions because they fail to satisfy this criterion of meaning. Philosophy is defined not as a search for first principles or a speculative map of reality, but as a critical activity of linguistic analysis concerned with the definitions and logical implications of terms used in science and everyday discourse. Within this framework, a priori knowledge—specifically logic and mathematics—is explained as a system of analytic tautologies that are certain only because they record a determination to use symbols in a particular fashion, rather than providing factual information about the empirical world. Empirical propositions, conversely, are treated as hypotheses whose validity is determined by their utility in predicting sense-experience. This analytical approach extends to the domain of ethics, where value judgments are identified neither as descriptions of objective facts nor as intuitive truths, but as emotive expressions intended to convey or provoke feeling. Consequently, the study of reality is reduced to the analysis of the relationship between sense-contents, with physical objects and the self being understood as logical constructions derived from patterns of experience. – AI-generated abstract.