The testability of facts

Higher level empirical statements have always the character of hypotheses relative to the lower level statements de­ducible from them: they can be falsified by the falsification of these less universal statements. But in any hypothetical deductive system, these less universal statements are themselves still strictly universal statements, in the sense here understood. Thus they too must have the character of hypotheses—a fact which has often been overlooked in the case of lower-level universal statements.

I shall say even of some singular statements that they are hypothetical, seeing that conclusions may be derived from them (with the help of a theoretical system) such that the falsification of these conclusions may falsify the singular statements in question. [55]

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