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1Carnophile
Could someone explain why logical positivism is commonly held to be dead? I’m inclined to take the obituary seriously, since A. J. Ayer himself, decades after writing Language, Truth, and Logic, said in an interview that “nearly all of it was false.” From the major exponent of the view, that’s pretty damning.
But I can’t hunt down the specific reasons that it’s nearly all false. My attempts have only uncovered some nitpicking about ways of constructing verificationism, in what sense statements about the past are meaningful, etc.
Here’s Ayer himself in the interview: http://www.basicincome.com/bp/ratherlike.htm
Here’s some more discussion: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayer/#2
A major problem with LP, some think, is that fails its own test for meaningfulness. (LP philosophy is neither analytic nor empirical.) But if you’re willing to do a Wittgensteinian knocking over the ladder after you’ve climbed it, it just seems like that shouldn’t bother you much.
What are the real problems with LP?
But I can’t hunt down the specific reasons that it’s nearly all false. My attempts have only uncovered some nitpicking about ways of constructing verificationism, in what sense statements about the past are meaningful, etc.
Here’s Ayer himself in the interview: http://www.basicincome.com/bp/ratherlike.htm
Here’s some more discussion: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayer/#2
A major problem with LP, some think, is that fails its own test for meaningfulness. (LP philosophy is neither analytic nor empirical.) But if you’re willing to do a Wittgensteinian knocking over the ladder after you’ve climbed it, it just seems like that shouldn’t bother you much.
What are the real problems with LP?
2lawecon
I don't quite understand why you are confused.
In addition to the points you've mentioned (which are hardly trivial points), most philosophers of science these days accept Popper's critique of induction. Since induction is not possible as a logical process, only as a psychological one a la Hume and the British Associationists, the entire enterprise of LP fails. There are no "empirical statements."
Additionally, some broad interpretations of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem undercut the LP enterprise of creating a totally artificial and unambiguous language.
So what is left of LP? Effectively nothing.
In addition to the points you've mentioned (which are hardly trivial points), most philosophers of science these days accept Popper's critique of induction. Since induction is not possible as a logical process, only as a psychological one a la Hume and the British Associationists, the entire enterprise of LP fails. There are no "empirical statements."
Additionally, some broad interpretations of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem undercut the LP enterprise of creating a totally artificial and unambiguous language.
So what is left of LP? Effectively nothing.
