"It is not the case that the emissor communicates that p; in fact it is not the case that the emissor communicates AT ALL"

meaningless Philosophy of language, logic Loosely, what is obviously false, absurd, or pointless. In a stricter sense, questions and answers which are devoid of meaning or sense. In logical positivism, metaphysical statements are examined by logical analysis and claimed to be meaningless. One cannot say that metaphysical statements are true or false, because we lack any criterion to determine whether they are true or false. Only statements allowing such a criterion are meaningful. According to logical positivism, there are two kinds of meaningful statements: first, the formulae of logic and mathematics and second, empirical or factual statements. Any other statements that do not fall in these categories are rejected from serious philosophy as meaningless, metaphysical statements or pseudo-statements. “In the strict sense, however, a sequence of words is meaningless if it does not, within a specified language, constitute a statement.” Carnap, “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis,” in Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism