Ok, so you’re only applying the verification principle to ontological claims. That is quite a bit crisper than what you wrote before. On the other hand, the verification principle does feel like an ontological claim as it is claiming that certain things don’t exist or at least that talking about them is meaningless. But how are you defining ontological?
I do have the disclaimer in the middle of OP, but not upfront, to be fair.
>the verification principle does feel like an ontological claim as it is claiming that certain things don’t exist or at least that talking about them is meaningless
These are very different things.
>how are you defining ontological
Claims of the sort “X exists” or synonyms like “X is real”, when intended in a deeper sense than more colloquial usage (e.g. “my love for you is real” is not asserting an ontological claim, it’s just expressing an emotion, “the stuff you see in the movies isn’t real” is also not an ontological usage, “the tree in the forest exists even when nobody’s looking at it” is an ontological claim, as well as “the past really happened”. )
(Note that I view “the tree in the forest exists when people are looking at it” as just as meaningless—all there is is the experience of viewing a tree. Our models contain trees, but that’s a claim about the territory, not the model.)
Ok, so you’re only applying the verification principle to ontological claims. That is quite a bit crisper than what you wrote before. On the other hand, the verification principle does feel like an ontological claim as it is claiming that certain things don’t exist or at least that talking about them is meaningless. But how are you defining ontological?
I do have the disclaimer in the middle of OP, but not upfront, to be fair.
>the verification principle does feel like an ontological claim as it is claiming that certain things don’t exist or at least that talking about them is meaningless
These are very different things.
>how are you defining ontological
Claims of the sort “X exists” or synonyms like “X is real”, when intended in a deeper sense than more colloquial usage (e.g. “my love for you is real” is not asserting an ontological claim, it’s just expressing an emotion, “the stuff you see in the movies isn’t real” is also not an ontological usage, “the tree in the forest exists even when nobody’s looking at it” is an ontological claim, as well as “the past really happened”. )
(Note that I view “the tree in the forest exists when people are looking at it” as just as meaningless—all there is is the experience of viewing a tree. Our models contain trees, but that’s a claim about the territory, not the model.)