Concerning statements, the analytic is true via terms' arrangement and meanings, thus a tautology—true by logical necessity but uninformative about the world—whereas the synthetic adds reference to a state of facts, a contingency. In 1739, David Hume cast a fork aggressively dividing "relations of ideas" from "matters of fact and real existence", such that all truths are of one type or the other.
Eventually, in his 1781 work, Kant crossed the tines of Hume's fork to identify another range of truths by necessity—synthetic a priori, statements claiming states of facts but known true before experience—by arriving at transcendental idealism, attributing the mind a constructive role in phenomena by arranging sense data into the very experience space, time, and substance.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Salmon, Wesley and Wolters, Gereon (ed.) Logic, Language, and the Structure of Scientific Theories: Proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Konstanz, 21–24 May 1991, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994. Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.) The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: From 1900 to the Vienna Circle.
Schlick had held a neo-Kantian position, but later converted, via Carnap's 1928 book Der logische Aufbau der Welt, that is, The Logical Structure of the World.
Sometimes these reductions consisted of set-theoretic manipulations of a few logically primitive concepts (as in Carnap's Logical Structure of the World, 1928).
A 1929 pamphlet written by Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn, and Rudolf Carnap summarized the Vienna Circle's positions.
Despite its revolutionary aims, logical positivism was but one view among many vying within Europe, and logical positivists initially spoke their language. ===Export=== As the movement's first emissary to the New World, Moritz Schlick visited Stanford University in 1929, yet otherwise remained in Vienna and was murdered in 1936 at the University by a former student, Johann Nelböck, who was reportedly deranged.
A scientific theory would be stated with its method of verification, whereby a logical calculus or empirical operation could verify its falsity or truth. ==Development== In the late 1930s, logical positivists fled Germany and Austria for Britain and the United States.
In the early 1930s, Carnap debated Heidegger over "metaphysical pseudosentences".
That year, a British attendee at some Vienna Circle meetings since 1933, A.
By then, the Nazi Party's 1933 rise to power in Germany had triggered flight of intellectuals.
Thus, a universal language failed to stem from Carnap's 1934 work Logische Syntax der Sprache (Logical Syntax of Language).
Thus, any dataset—the direct observations, the scientific facts—is laden with theory. ===Popper=== An early, tenacious critic was Karl Popper whose 1934 book Logik der Forschung, arriving in English in 1959 as The Logic of Scientific Discovery, directly answered verificationism.
Torino, 1934. Giere, Ronald N.
Despite its revolutionary aims, logical positivism was but one view among many vying within Europe, and logical positivists initially spoke their language. ===Export=== As the movement's first emissary to the New World, Moritz Schlick visited Stanford University in 1929, yet otherwise remained in Vienna and was murdered in 1936 at the University by a former student, Johann Nelböck, who was reportedly deranged.
In the 1936 and 1937 papers "Testability and meaning", individual terms replace sentences as the units of meaning.
Ayer's 1936 book asserted an extreme variant—the boo/hooray doctrine—whereby all evaluative judgments are but emotional reactions. ====Confirmation==== In an important pair of papers in 1936 and 1937, "Testability and meaning", Carnap replaced verification with confirmation, on the view that although universal laws cannot be verified they can be confirmed.
In the 1936 and 1937 papers "Testability and meaning", individual terms replace sentences as the units of meaning.
Ayer's 1936 book asserted an extreme variant—the boo/hooray doctrine—whereby all evaluative judgments are but emotional reactions. ====Confirmation==== In an important pair of papers in 1936 and 1937, "Testability and meaning", Carnap replaced verification with confirmation, on the view that although universal laws cannot be verified they can be confirmed.
Upon Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938, remaining logical positivists, many of whom were also Jewish, were targeted and continued flight.
Yet DN model received its greatest explication by Carl Hempel, first in his 1942 article "The function of general laws in history", and more explicitly with Paul Oppenheim in their 1948 article "Studies in the logic of explanation". In the DN model, the stated phenomenon to be explained is the explanandum—which can be an event, law, or theory—whereas premises stated to explain it are the explanans.
With World War II's close in 1945, logical positivism became milder, logical empiricism, led largely by Carl Hempel, in America, who expounded the covering law model of scientific explanation.
In exile in England, Otto Neurath died in 1945.
Ayer's book arrived in 1946, and discerned strong versus weak forms of verification.
Yet DN model received its greatest explication by Carl Hempel, first in his 1942 article "The function of general laws in history", and more explicitly with Paul Oppenheim in their 1948 article "Studies in the logic of explanation". In the DN model, the stated phenomenon to be explained is the explanandum—which can be an event, law, or theory—whereas premises stated to explain it are the explanans.
In any event, the precise formulation of what came to be called the "criterion of cognitive significance" took three decades (Hempel 1950, Carnap 1956, Carnap 1961). Carl Hempel became a major critic within the logical positivism movement.
These problems were recognized within the movement, which hosted attempted solutions—Carnap's move to confirmation, Ayer's acceptance of weak verification—but the program drew sustained criticism from a number of directions by the 1950s.
Austin, Peter Strawson, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty. ===Quine=== Although an empiricist, American logician Willard Van Orman Quine published the 1951 paper "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", which challenged conventional empiricist presumptions.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951. Parrini, Paolo.
New York: Greenwood Press, 1953. McGuinness, Brian.
New York: Longmans Green, 1954. Cirera, Ramon.
In any event, the precise formulation of what came to be called the "criterion of cognitive significance" took three decades (Hempel 1950, Carnap 1956, Carnap 1961). Carl Hempel became a major critic within the logical positivism movement.
Quine later proposed naturalized epistemology. ===Hanson=== In 1958, Norwood Hanson's Patterns of Discovery undermined the division of observation versus theory, as one can predict, collect, prioritize, and assess data only via some horizon of expectation set by a theory.
Thus, any dataset—the direct observations, the scientific facts—is laden with theory. ===Popper=== An early, tenacious critic was Karl Popper whose 1934 book Logik der Forschung, arriving in English in 1959 as The Logic of Scientific Discovery, directly answered verificationism.
Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1959. Barone, Francesco.
Logical positivism became a major underpinning of analytic philosophy, and dominated philosophy in the English-speaking world, including philosophy of science, while influencing sciences, but especially social sciences, into the 1960s.
In this, Putnam opposed not only the positivism but other instrumentalism—whereby scientific theory is but a human tool to predict human observations—filling the void left by positivism's decline. ==Fall== By the late 1960s, logical positivism had become exhausted.
In any event, the precise formulation of what came to be called the "criterion of cognitive significance" took three decades (Hempel 1950, Carnap 1956, Carnap 1961). Carl Hempel became a major critic within the logical positivism movement.
The 1962 publication of Thomas Kuhn's landmark book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions dramatically shifted academic philosophy's focus.
In 1967 philosopher John Passmore pronounced logical positivism "dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes". ==Origins== Logical positivists picked from Ludwig Wittgenstein's early philosophy of language the verifiability principle or criterion of meaningfulness.
New York: Macmillan, 1967, first edition Articles on related philosophical topics Hájek, Alan.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969. Ayer, Alfred Jules.
Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1970. Janik, Allan and Toulmin, Stephen.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973. Kraft, Victor.
With his "no miracles" argument, posed in 1974, Putnam asserted scientific realism, the stance that science achieves true—or approximately true—knowledge of the world as it exists independently of humans' sensory experience.
'Positivism in the Twentieth Century (Logical Empiricism)', Dictionary of the History of Ideas, 1974, Gale Group (Electronic Edition) Hempel, Carl.
New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1979. Milkov, Nikolay (ed.).
Blackwell, 1981. Holt, Jim, "Positive Thinking" (review of Karl Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science, Basic Books, 449 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol.
Wien: Springer, 1982. Geymonat, Ludovico.
Angeli, 1983. Parrini, Paolo; Salmon, Wesley C.; Salmon, Merrilee H.
Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985. Richardson, Alan and Thomas Uebel (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Logical Positivism.
Roma Bari: Laterza, 1986. Bergmann, Gustav.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Salmon, Wesley and Wolters, Gereon (ed.) Logic, Language, and the Structure of Scientific Theories: Proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Konstanz, 21–24 May 1991, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994. Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.) The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: From 1900 to the Vienna Circle.
New York: Garland Pub., 1996. Spohn, Wolfgang (ed.) Erkenntnis Orientated: A Centennial Volume for Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991. Stadler, Friedrich.
Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1994. Edmonds, David & Eidinow, John; Wittgenstein's Poker, Friedman, Michael.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Salmon, Wesley and Wolters, Gereon (ed.) Logic, Language, and the Structure of Scientific Theories: Proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Konstanz, 21–24 May 1991, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994. Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.) The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: From 1900 to the Vienna Circle.
New York: Garland Publishing, 1996. Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.) Logical Empiricism at its Peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath.
New York: Garland Pub., 1996. Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.) Logical Empiricism and the Special Sciences: Reichenbach, Feigl, and Nagel.
New York: Garland Pub., 1996. Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.) Decline and Obsolescence of Logical Empiricism: Carnap vs.
New York: Garland Pub., 1996. Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.) The Legacy of the Vienna Circle: Modern Reappraisals.
New York: Garland Pub., 1996. Spohn, Wolfgang (ed.) Erkenntnis Orientated: A Centennial Volume for Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991. Stadler, Friedrich.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Hanfling, Oswald.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999 Gadol, Eugene T.
New York: Springer, 2001.
Zalta (ed.) Ryckman, Thomas A., 'Early Philosophical Interpretations of General Relativity', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2001 Edition), Edward N.
(ed.) Logical Empiricism – Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. Reisch, George.
Dordrecht – Boston – London, Kluwer 2003. ==External links== Articles by logical positivists The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle Carnap, Rudolf.
'Interpretations of Probability', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2003 Edition), Edward N.
'The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2003 Edition), Edward N.
'Lvov-Warsaw School', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2003 Edition), Edward N.
'Scientific Explanation', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2003 Edition), Edward N.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Rescher, Nicholas.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Salmon, Wesley and Wolters, Gereon (ed.) Logic, Language, and the Structure of Scientific Theories: Proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Konstanz, 21–24 May 1991, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994. Sarkar, Sahotra (ed.) The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: From 1900 to the Vienna Circle.
Prometheus Books, 2007 (PDF version) Murzi, Mauro.
Hamburg: Meiner 2015.
– 2nd Edition: Dordrecht: Springer, 2015. Stadler, Friedrich (ed.).
20 (21 December 2017), pp. 74–76. Jangam, R.
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