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Why did logical positivists reject metaphysical statements as cognitively meaningless?

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Analytic philosophy British philosopher and educator A.J. Ayer, late 1980s.

Logical positivists rejected metaphysical statements as cognitively meaningless because they failed to meet the criteria for meaningful discourse established by the verifiability principle.12

According to this school of logical positivism, meaningful statements are limited to two categories:
* Analytic propositions: Statements that are true or false based solely on the logical meanings of their terms (tautologies), such as "all bachelors are unmarried".13
* Synthetic propositions: Statements that express matters of empirical fact, which can be tested or verified through observation.13

Metaphysical claims—such as "God exists" or "The Absolute has no history"—were dismissed because they are neither analytically true nor empirically verifiable. Positivists argued that if no possible observation or evidence could count for or against a statement, it lacks factual significance. While such statements might evoke emotions or influence beliefs, they do not impart knowledge or describe the world in a way that can be proven true or false, rendering them cognitively meaningless in the context of scientific inquiry.124