Logical positivism

The ideological core of logical positivism (neopositivism) was a group of philosophers and scientists, formed and organized by Professor Moritz Schlick at the Department of Inductive Sciences of the University of Vienna in 1922, which was called the Vienna Circle.

Logical positivism is often called logical empiricism. He has his predecessor, David Hume , who rejected claims to know such metaphysical issues as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, since the ideas on which these claims are based cannot be traced to simple sensory impressions that are their source. In the same way, members of the Vienna Circle rejected as meaningless any statements that were not verified empirically. Through this verification criterion, they believed that metaphysical statements were meaningless.

In the manifesto of the Vienna Circle it was written: “If someone says:“ There is God, ”“ The original cause of the world is the unconscious , ”“ There is entelechy , which is the basis of life of creatures, ”then we should not say:“ What you say , erroneously, “but rather they should ask:“ What do you mean by these sentences? ”There seems to be a clear separation between the two types of statements. One of the types includes statements in the form in which they are expressed in empirical science, their meaning can be determined by logical analysis, or, more precisely, by reducing to simple sentences about empirically given. Other statements, including the above statements, turn out to be completely meaningless if we take in the sense in which the metaphysician uses them. ” ^[2]

Two historical roots of logical positivism can be distinguished. So, in his programmatic article “A Turn in Philosophy”, the German-Austrian philosopher Moritz Schlick presented the genetic line of development from Leibniz to B. Russell and G. Frege . The very idea of ​​the Vienna Circle was initiated by the Principia Mathematica of Russell and Whitehead . The foundation and development of the logic of formal relations laid the foundation for a future grandiose epistemological reform. After becoming the second instrument of cognition after the Aristotelian classical logic of syllogisms, mathematical logic served as the material for the construction of a new unified science (a kind of New Organon of Sciences). The successes achieved in logic convinced the power of rational thinking procedures, made us believe in a speedy and inevitable fusion of sciences (with the dominance of physics, biology and mathematics). Hence the name “positivism” came from. The task set before the “crowns” is the development of a system of criteria for assessing the quality of a theoretical conclusion. Therefore, the most common understanding of positivism of this time is the thesis of the unity of the method.

Another generic concept of positivism is the language system. Schlick believed that L. Wittgenstein was “the first to come close” to the ideas of positive science in 1922 in the Logical and Philosophical Treatise (see below).

The new methodology actively selected suitable scientific knowledge and began with attacks on metaphysics. “Philosophy is not a science,” argued M. Schlick. The requirement to replace substantiveness as a supertask with formality was an important stage in the liberation of the scientific method from chimeras and hoaxes of ordinary consciousness, which reminded Bacon of the struggle with idols. On the whole, 30–40s of the XX century European science met in heated debate with the common victory of rationalism. Science, inspired by the successes of natural science and explaining this breakthrough by the perfection of the method, made an attempt to restore a single knowledge of the world and nature. “Having gained strength, the fire of knowledge embraces the rest. These moments of fulfillment and burning are the most essential. All the light of knowledge comes from them. In fact, the philosopher is busy looking for the source of this light when he searches for the last foundation of knowledge ” ^[3] .

The development of logical positivism

The philosophers of science Ernst Mach and Ludwig Wittgenstein had an initial influence on the development of early logical positivism.

E. Mach had an obvious influence on the development of logical positivism, discussing metaphysics, the unity of science and the interpretation of theoretical terms in science. Mach also advanced the doctrines of reductionism and phenomenalism .

L. Wittgenstein introduced several doctrines of logical positivism in his work “ Logico-philosophical treatise ” ( Tractatus logico-philosoficus ). In this treatise, he emphasized the basic principles of logical positivism:

1. language is the boundary of thinking (that is, they coincide).
2. there is only one world, a world of facts and events. They are described by various natural sciences.
3. a sentence is a picture of the world, since it has the same logical form with the world. “If the world were illogical, it could not be presented in the form of a proposal”
4. complex sentences consist of elementary ones that are directly related to the facts
5. the higher is inexpressible (that is, ethics, aesthetics, religion cannot be known by facts)

The main readers of this treatise were the founders of the Vienna Circle (20s of XX century).

The logical positivism of R. Karnap

“The truth of philosophical statements cannot be proved” - R. Karnap

One of the strongest influences on the development of logical positivism was the German philosopher Rudolf Carnap , one of the most significant representatives of the Vienna Circle. His works such as Logical Foundations of Probability (1950) and The Continuum of Inductive Methods (1951) are very famous. Karnap's analysis of philosophical problems, including a discussion of the principle of verification, is contained in his writings on the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of science. Karnap proves that in various fields of the natural and social sciences one general method of testing hypotheses and theories is used, and the concepts used in these areas can be reduced, using special “reduction sentences” (operational definitions and value postulates), to one common basis - the concepts that we use to describe the physical world that is familiar to everyone around us (the so-called physicalism ). An important result of Karnap in the analysis of the relation between theory and experience is a strictly formalized quantitative theory of logical probability, that is, the degree of inductive, or probabilistic, confirmation of the theory ^[4] .

Scientific proposals are either analytical or synthetic. Analytical proposals are logically necessary and self-sufficient (example: bodies are extended). The truth of synthetic sentences is established empirically (example: a book is on the table).

To prove the scientific nature of theories, verification is used. Verification is a procedure for verifying the truth of knowledge. It suggests that complex sentences should be divided into protocol sentences. The truth of the protocol proposals is absolutely certain, since it corresponds to the observed reality. The form of the protocol proposal looks like this: "NN observed such and such an object at such and such a time and in such and such a place." Reducing complex sentences to protocol ones is called reduction . Thus, all the activities of a scientist comes down to checking protocol sentences and summarizing them. Based on the reduction, the Vienna Circle, led by R. Karnap, is aiming at creating a unified scientific theory - the “Foundation of a unified science”, that is, protocol proposals that keep science at the top of the generalization. In the 40s and 50s, this theory will be revised on the basis of physics.

For more information about the scientist, as well as a list of works on logical positivism, see Karnap, Rudolph

Key points

Logical positivism, which rejects metaphysics and seeks to know the world only with the help of empirical evidence and using the natural sciences, includes two important theses:

1. solving a philosophical problem requires a logical analysis of the language in which the problem is formulated, and therefore logic plays a central role in philosophy;
2. any significant theory that is not purely logical or mathematical should be available to empirical verification.

The work of Karnap, devoted to the concepts of logical positivism, “Overcoming metaphysics through logical analysis of language” (Die Überwindung der Methaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache, 1932) ^{[4] is} widely known.

Early critics of logical positivism say that its founding principles cannot themselves be formulated in such a way that they can be traced to a clear sequence. Another problem is that while positive existential statements (“there is at least one person”) and negative universal statements (“not all crows are black”) allow us to define clear verification methods (to find a person or a non-black raven), negative existential statements and positive universal statements are not verifiable.

Apparently, the universal statement can never be verified: you cannot say that all crows are black until you catch all the crows, including from the past and from the future. This will lead to a large amount of induction work in combination with verification and falsification .

The answer of logical positivists to the first critics was that logical positivism is a philosophy of science, not an axiom of a system that can prove its own consistency. Secondly, the theory of language and mathematical logic was created in order to make statements like “all crows are black”, that is, to explain the facts as they really are.

The end of logical positivism can be considered the publication in the 1950s of a series of articles by one of the former members of the Vienna circle of K. Hempel, which noted fundamental difficulties and even ambiguities associated with the very key concept of meaningfulness. Serious criticism of neo-positivistic principles was carried out by the American logician W.W. O. Quine .

Criticism of Karl Popper (Postpositivism)

Karl Popper was a well-known critic of logical positivism who published the book Logik der Forschung in 1934 (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, published in 1959). In this book, he argued that the positivistic verification criterion is too strict a criterion for science, and it should be replaced by the criterion of falsifiability . Popper believed that falsifiability is the best criterion for science, since in this case one does not have to resort to philosophical problems associated with verification by induction, and this justifies the scientific nature of theories that do not fit into the framework of verification.

According to Popper, knowledge growth is achieved through a rational discussion that invariably criticizes existing knowledge. Popper believes that scientists make discoveries, going back not from facts to theory, but from hypotheses to single statements.

The Impact of Logical Positivism

Logical positivism is prevalent almost throughout the West. He was very popular throughout Europe. Thanks to A.D. Iyer, he became popular in the UK. It later spread to American universities thanks to members of the Vienna Circle after they fled from Europe and settled in the United States during and after World War II .

Logical positivism played an important role in the development of early analytical philosophy. In the first half of the twentieth century, these terms were almost interchangeable.

Logical positivism turned out to be extremely influential for the philosophy of language and became the dominant philosophy of science between the First World War and the Cold War ^[5] .

• Shvyrev, V.S. Neopositivism and the Problem of Empirical Cognition - M .: Nauka, 1966.
• Kraft V. Vienna Circle. The emergence of neopositivism - M .: Idea-Press, 2003.

• Analytical philosophy: formation and development. Anthology / General edition and compilation by A. F. Gryaznov. - M .: 1998.
• Neopositivism // Zotov A.F. Modern Western Philosophy: Textbook - M .: Higher School, 2001. - 784 p.
• Neopositivists // Spirkin A.G. Philosophy: Textbook. - M .: Gardarika, 1998 .-- 816 p. - ISBN 5-7975-0126-0 .
• Logical positivism (inaccessible link from 12-05-2013 [2266 days]) // Karl Popper.ru website (karlpopper.ru) (Retrieved October 28, 2012)