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• the one method of all rational discussion, and therefore of the natural sciences as well as of philosophy. The method I have in mind is that of stating one’s problem clearly and of examining its various proposed solutions critically. I have italicized the words ‘rational discussion’ and ‘critically’ in order to stress that I equate the rational att...
• I do not care what methods a philosopher (or anybody else) may use so long as he has an interesting problem, and so long as he is sincerely trying to solve it.
• empirical theoretical system will have to satisfy. First, it must be synthetic, so that it may represent a non-contradictory, a possible world. Secondly, it must satisfy the criterion of demarcation (cf. sections 6 and 21), i.e. it must not be metaphysical, but must represent a world of possible experience. Thirdly, it must be a system distinguishe...
• The theory of knowledge, whose task is the analysis of the method or procedure peculiar to empirical science, may accordingly be described as a theory of the empirical method—a theory of what is usually called ‘experience’.
• a justification is ‘objective’ if in principle it can be tested and understood by anybody. ‘If something is valid’, he writes, ‘for anybody in possession of his reason, then its grounds are objective and sufficient.’1 Now I hold that scientific theories are never fully justifiable or verifiable, but that they are nevertheless testable. I shall ther...