Synopsis:
- Purely analythic truths do not exist: all truth depends on both language and facts
- Even Logic and Mathematics are, ultimately, empirical
- A statement alone cannot be verified: only the totality of statements (science in its totality) can be verified
- A hypothesis is verified true or false only relative to background assumptions
- Each statement in a theory partially determines the meaning of every other statement in the same theory
- The structure of concepts is determined by the positions that their constituents occupy in the "web of belief" of the individual
- No part of a scientific theory can be proved or disproved; only the whole can
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- Several different theories may offer equally plausible accounts of the same situation
- Scientific theories are "undetermined" by experience
- There are infinite interpretations of a discourse depending on the context
- A single word has no meaning, its referent is "inscrutable"
- Words have a meaning only relative to the other words they are connected to in the sentences that we assume to be true
- The meaning of a sentence depends on the interpretation of the entire language. Its meaning can even change in time.
- The meaning of language is not in the mind of the speaker
- It is impossible to define what a "correct" translation of a statement is from one language to another, because that depends on the interpretations of both entire languages.
- Translation from one language to another is indeterminate
- Translation is possible only from the totality of one language to the totality of another language
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