Modern positivism...expresses criticism against the naïve use of certain terms... by the general postulate that the question whether a given sentence… - Werner Heisenberg

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Modern positivism...expresses criticism against the naïve use of certain terms... by the general postulate that the question whether a given sentence has any meaning... should always be thoroughly and critically examined. This... is derived from mathematical logic. The procedure of natural science is pictured as an attachment of symbols to the phenomena. The symbols can, as in mathematics, be combined according to certain rules... However, a combination of symbols that does not comply with the rules is not wrong but conveys no meaning.
The obvious difficulty in this argument is the lack of any general criterion as to when a sentence should be considered meaningless. A definite decision is possible only when the sentence belongs to a closed system of concepts and axioms, which in the development of natural science will be rather the exception than the rule. In some case the conjecture that a certain sentence is meaningless has historically led to important progress... new connections which would have been impossible if the sentence had a meaning. An example... sentence: "In which orbit does the electron move around the nucleus?" But generally the positivistic scheme taken from mathematical logic is too narrow in a description of nature which necessarily uses words and concepts that are only vaguely defined.