 A similar doctrine was maintained by the logical positivists in the early Twentieth Century, though the positivists couched the view in linguistic terms (Ayer 1959). Their principle of verification required for a sentence or statement to be meaningful that it have empirical consequences, and, on some formulations of the principle, that the meaning of a sentence is the empirical procedure for confirming it (see the entry  Vienna Circle).  Sentences that have no empirical consequences were deemed to be meaningless. Since a good deal of philosophy purports to express propositions that transcend all possible experience, the positivists were happy to say that these philosophical doctrines are entirely devoid of content and are composed of sentences that aren’t merely false but are literally gibberish.