It is so strange that we, as a profession, adhere to logical empiricism (a.k.a., logical positivism), the foundation of which is the 'verifiability criterion of meaningfulness' in all areas of inquiry except with respect to DEI claims.
verifiability principle, a philosophical doctrine fundamental to the school of
Logical Positivism holding that a statement is meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable or else tautological (
i.e., such that its truth arises entirely from the meanings of its terms). Thus, the principle discards as meaningless the
metaphysical statements of traditional
philosophy as well as other kinds of statements—such as
ethical,
aesthetic, or religious principles—asserted as true but neither tautological nor known from experience. Such statements may have
meaning in the sense of being able to influence feelings, beliefs, or conduct but not in the sense of being true or false and hence of imparting knowledge. According to the principle, then, a nontautological statement has meaning only if some set of observable conditions is relevant to determining its truth or falsity; so stated, it reflects the view that the meaning of a statement is the set of conditions under which it would be true.
