Abstract

For the logical positivists, protocol statements are points of contact between experience and knowledge. But within the Vienna Circle there were controversies with regard to how protocol statements are to play the key role in the process of verification. The uniqueness of Schlick's concept of protocol statement consists in the unity between its intelligibility and its validity. When the protocol statements are formulated during observations, the statements themselves are not verified but the whole body of the theory is. The momentary experience confirms the protocol statement at the moment, and the satisfaction of the knower attained through confirmations is the end of scientific inquiries.