Logical Positivism

greenspun.com : LUSENET : History & Theory of Psychology : One Thread

What are the criticisms of Logical Positivism?

-- Armida Maningo (nastygrl_2000@yahoo.com), July 06, 2001

Answers

They are many, and come from many different directions. In general, it is believed that their logical account of theory and their extreme empiricism were both unworkable and did not correspond well to actual scientific practice. There is a good chapter in Larry Laudan's _Beyond positivism and relativism_ about the problems of positivism. He also, more controversially, claims that the relativism generated by Kuhn's work actually embodies many of the same errors. Laudan is about in the middle of the pack on the radical-conservative continuum. A more conservative critique can be found in the work of advocates of the "semantic approach" to theory -- people like Patrick Suppes, Frederick Suppe (who try to maintain a strict logical structure) and Bas Van Fraassen (who is, in addition, very strictly empiricist). A little to the "radical" side of Laudan are people like Ronald Giere and Nancy Cartwright. Far to the radical side are folks like David Blooor, Bruno Latour, and Andrew Pickering.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), July 07, 2001.

Hi Armida, for another view on Logical Positivism, as a quest for certain knowledge it succumbs to the same fate as David Hilbert's program for mathematics. For a brief account of this see The Advent of the Algorithm by David Berlinski. In brief, look at LP as mirroring the mathematical/logical attempt to construct a formal system capable of infallible proofs. This system had to be consistent, complete, and decidable. One by one they were demonstrated to be illusive. In 1937 Alan Turing invented the modern computer as a thought experiment while proving the last one wasn't possible and with that Hilbert's hopes were finished - but Turing and his universal computing machine wasn't. Best, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), July 12, 2001.

Most basically it does not pass its own test. According to logical positivism only assertions whose truths are logically implicit or can be verified empirically are worth their meat. The statement 'Logical Positivism is true' fails the positivists own test.

-- phil (dolphinholmer@hotmail.com), August 31, 2001.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ