With the verification theory of meaning left gasping for air, Quine dismissed the idea that it’s meaningless to talk about unobservable things. Unverifiable statements must have meaning, because no individual statement is verifiable. Thus, the “metaphysics” so dreaded by the positivists came roaring back: rather than speaking simply of sensations, Quine contended that it was perfectly intelligible to speak of physical objects with existence independent of the speaker.
Quine
