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Logical Positivism
Most sources I read simply state the same old tirade about how logical positivism was an influential idea that sought to challenge traditional philosophy but ended up being proven wrong. However, none of them go on to explain why or how logical positivism is invalid. So my question is: Why is logical positivism generally rejected?
There is a basic contradiction in logical positivism.
It stands upon the "verification principle": only empyric sentences make sence, and empyrical sentences must be empyrically verifiable. But... "only empyrical sentences make sence" is a sentence that is empyrically non-verifiable, and so it should make no sence. And if so, logical positivism is based in a nonsencical proposition.
Luís Henrique
Why couldn't it be?
Because it puts forward a certain conception of sense based on empirical propositions. One couldn't verify empirically whether bachelors are unmarried.
We can agree that "Tony Blair owns a copy of Das Kapital" is an empyrical proposition, because it can be empyrically verified. If we want to know whether it is true or false, we go to Tony Blair's home and take a look at his library. If we find a copy of Das Kapital there, then it is true, otherwise it is likely false (though of course he could keep it in his bathroom, to make his downloads easier).
But what empyrical evidence would confirm or refute the verification principle? How would you be able to state, "look, I found this proposition, it is totally empyrical, and still makes no sence at all", or "here is a proposition that is completely non-empyrical which makes perfect sence"?
Luís Henrique
how about: "only empyric sentences make sence, and empyrical sentences must be empyrically verifiable" ? Can it not be its own proof?
"oh noes they be takin mah surplus value" -Tim Finnegan
"'The' names reached a peak with The The and hence after were obsolete. " -Angry Young Man
"anyone seen blazin saddles? best fucking movie ever." - Red Spartan
These are two different sentences:
- only empyric sentences make sence.
- empyrical sentences must be empyrically verifiable
But sentence #2 is merely a definition of "empyrical sentence". And sentence #1 is still definitely non-empyrical. You cannot empyrically verify whether it is true or false.
Luís Henrique
Except that isn't what the logical positivists said, it is at best a crude caricature. The rejection of logical positivism had more to do with the attacks of the analytic/synthetic distinction by Quine than it had to do with the verification principle. The positivists never maintained that verificationism itself was an empirical claim; verifiability was, for the positivists, constitute of empirical propositions, such that only propositions which were verifiable were cognitively significant, i.e., capable of being true or false.
Most logical positivists took the line that the verification principle was a stipulative definition of the meaning of what it is for a proposition to be "meaningful" or "cognitively meaningful" for technical purposes. That was basically the line that A.J. Ayer took in the second edition of his Language, Truth, and Logic as well as in his later book, The Central Questions of Philosophy.
Rudolf Carnap in his later work viewed the verification principle as a 'recommendation' for the construction of the supposedly 'ideal' language of science from which all 'metaphysical' statements have been eliminated. And he came to view meaning no longer in terms of direct or indirect verification but with reference to empirical consequences which admit of confirmation.
BTW members of this board might wish to take a look at George Reisch's book, How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic. In that book, Reisch investigates the reception that logical positivism received in the US, particularly after some of its leading figures emigrated to the US following the rise of Nazism in Germany and Austria. Reisch notes that logical positivism as an intellectual movement originally had very broad concerns. The positivists were not only concerned about logic and the philosophy of science but were also concerned about politics, education, and culture. Most members of the Vienna Circle were socialists, with one leading figure, Otto Neurath, calling himself a Marxist (BTW Neurath had served as a minister in the Soviet Republic of Bavaria in the 1919 revolution in Germany). After the logical positivists fled central Europe, with many of their leading figures coming to the US, their philosophical concerns became much narrower. Now, they tended to define logic and the philosophy of science as the central concerns of philosophy and they began to shy away from the formerly broader concerns in the name of a very austere conception of what philosophy should be about. As Reisch points out in his book, the change in focus, seems to have emerged at least in part as a reaction to the McCarthyism that sweeping the US, including American universities. And in fact, two leading logical positivists, Rudolf Carnap and Philipp Frank, were subjected to scrutiny by the FBI in the 1950s.
There were other problems with logical positivism apart from the verification theory of meaning and the analytic/synthetic distinction. phenomenalist reductions could never be carried out. attempts to do that foundered on their inability to provide an account of counter-factual conditionals. behaviorism (another part of their program) came under severe attack in the '60s/'70s period from Chomsky and many others.
The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.
Is it fair to say that logical positivism is dead?
What would a logical positivist say about this statement?
"Casey Anthony killed her daughter."
It is obviously a "meaningful" statement. But it cannot be verified. We can't go to her home and look in her "library" as with Tony Blair.
On the Tony Blair statement, which I see come up now and then, what if it were phrased, "Tony Blair once owned a copy of Capital?"
Thanks for the ref. This pattern of German and Viennese intellectuals having their work distorted under Cold War pressure runs the gamut of disciplines. Freudian psychoanalysts, for instance, had to put the kabbosh on their "red" past, but it's surely true of other disciplines as well. (I mention psa. because my partner has an article coming out next year about Hoover's campaign to intimidate the shrinks - playing head games, as it were.)
As far as philosophy goes, the lynchpin is Karl Popper, who was marginal to the Vienna Circle, but whose critiques were picked up and used by right-wingers - the same critiques I see vaguely reflected in the "thought" of certain folks on this site. Popper, basically, was adopted and used by Friedrich Hayek at the London School of Economics. So was the art historian Ernst Gombrich.
BTW - one very minor point: Neurath wasn't quite a "minister in the Bavarian Republic," he was an appointed official who stayed in kept his position from one Bavarian regime through the next while developing his radical ideas. When he was arrested after the repression he claimed that he was immune to prosecution because he was merely doing his job as an appointed official. Max Weber was called in as a witness for the defense, and almost got Neurath convicted....
Be well.
BTW - Here's Hacohen's take on the political side of the Vienna Circle:
Hacohen. Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902-1945, pp. 189-190.
Last edited by Hoipolloi Cassidy; 13th July 2011 at 14:59. Reason: Additional info.
Old Marcuse said that the logical positivists reduce concepts to mere words, that their aim is to figure out "what words mean". so there can be no substantial proress in that school of thought and it only serves to preserve the status quo.
Basically, Hans Hahn and his merry men took on a quest to make philosophy into a sidenote for science. They presume that science is the great Truth, while I have taken to views Adam Curtis promotes, that science is just a tool for men for doing stuff. Science can't tell us what is "good" or "right". Science ain't even reliable to work right. What we call "world economy" is run by a scientific model also. We all know how well that works. Marx's use of science was different. It was needed in his time. It's dialectics, all.
Soviet dia-materialists used the tools of logical positivism as well, though. They called'em "systematics". They used them for computer systems, mostly. Which is what they are good for.
