If you like; I don’t see how that changes the argument. How do you verify “A statement is defined as meaningful if it’s verifiable, and true if it’s verified”? And if it’s not verifiable, it’s meaningless by its own assertion. But replace ‘statement’ with ‘belief’ and you get the same avoidance of the reflectivity problem, because you then have a statement about beliefs, not a statement about statements or a belief about beliefs.
A definition isn’t a statement, it’s part of your vocabulary for discussing statements. Would it help if we replaced “statement” with “hypothesis” or “claim”?
If you like; I don’t see how that changes the argument. How do you verify “A statement is defined as meaningful if it’s verifiable, and true if it’s verified”? And if it’s not verifiable, it’s meaningless by its own assertion. But replace ‘statement’ with ‘belief’ and you get the same avoidance of the reflectivity problem, because you then have a statement about beliefs, not a statement about statements or a belief about beliefs.
You don’t verify definitions, just like you said. Gotta start somewhere.
A definition isn’t a statement, it’s part of your vocabulary for discussing statements. Would it help if we replaced “statement” with “hypothesis” or “claim”?