PERENNIAL QUESTIONS

WHY PUT SO MUCH FAITH IN VERIFIABILITY WHEN THE VERIFIABILITY PRINCIPLE, ITSELF, CANNOT BE VERIFIED?

There is, here, a possible assumption or, at least, a failure to distinguish between two uses of the term 'faith.'
      1) The term 'faith.' here, is not the CONDITIONED BLIND FAITH of "faith" in God's UNVERIFIABLE existence.
      2) As used, here, it means TRUST IN VERIFIABLE EVIDENCE subject to correction upon the presentation of new evidence.
Mathematical and geometric concepts cannot be verified to exist in the absence of  minds of intelligent beings.
      Yet, they are the most efficient tools at man's command for dealing with the presumed physical facts of the universe.
      Likewise, it is of little import to scientists whether the verifiability principle can or cannot be verified anymore than verifying the existence of the ding-on-sich, i.e., the thing-in-itself, i.e., the world beyond our sense data.
      The verifiability principle is the most efficient tool at man's command for, determining truth and knowledge, however probable they may be.

© 1997 by Pasqual S. Schievella