Logical positivism
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SZUDEK, ANDY & TORSLEY, SARAH (2018) The Little Book of Philosophy, Landau Cecile (Ed), London, DK Publishing.
Preface
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SZUDEK, ANDY & TORSLEY, SARAH (2018) The Little Book of Philosophy, Landau Cecile (Ed), London, DK Publishing.
Rudolph Carnap
Note the different titles for similar works translated from German to English. The text under review is compiling the information and I am adding as many relevant references as my research finds.
In The Modern World section there is an entry entitled Logic is the scientific ingredient of philosophy. (155)
Logic is the scientific ingredient of philosophy is quoted from Rudolph Carnap (1891-1970). (155)
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970), AustrianAmerican philosopher. trans. by Max Black, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. (1934). Unity of Science, p. 22.
Cited
[LSS] 1934a [1937], Logische Syntax der Sprache, Vienna: Springer. Translated by Amethe Smeaton as The Logical Syntax of Language, London: Routledge, 1937.
1934b, “Theoretische Fragen und praktische Entscheidungen”, Natur und Geist, 2: 257–260.
1934c [1987], Die Aufgabe der Wissenschaftslogik, Vienna: Gerold. Translated as “The Task of the Logic of Science”, Hans Kaal (trans.), in Unified Science, Rainer Hegselmann and Brian McGuinness (eds.), Dordrecht: Reidel, 1987, 46–66. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-3865-6_3
1934d [2004], “On the Character of Philosophic Problems”, W. M. Malisoff (trans.), Philosophy of Science, 1(1): 5–19. German original “Über den Charakter philosophischer Probleme” published in R. Carnap Scheinprobleme in der Philosophie und andere metaphysikkritische Schriften, T. Mormann (ed.), Hamburg: Meiner, 2004, 111–127. doi:10.1086/286302 (en)
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The Little Book of Philosophy continues...
The German born Carnap in 'The Philosophical Language as the Universal Language of Science (1934)', suggests that philosophy's proper function, and its primary contribution to science is analysis and clarification of scientific concepts and ideas. (155).
Carnap reasoned that metaphysical issues were meaningless because the metaphysical cannot be proved empirically. (155). The text then explains that 'logical positivism' accepts only empirical statements as true. (155).
Blackburn writes that within philosophy this view holds that the highest or only form of knowledge can be known through sensory perception. This is a version of empiricism. It focuses on optimism from the hopes of science and originated in the 19th century and relates to evolutionary and naturalist theory. Blackburn (1996: 294).
encyclopedia.com
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Auguste Comte
First published Wed Oct 1, 2008; substantive revision Tue May 8, 2018: Bibliography
Bryman explains that within social research and statistics, positivism advocates the use of methods of natural sciences for the study of social reality and beyond. This concept can include only knowledge confirmed by the senses. Bryman (2004: 11).
Logical positivism, which is also known as logical empiricism, accepts empiricism, but also allows for the power of formal logic to describe the structures of permissible inferences. Blackburn (1996: 223).
Richard A. Fumerton notes that some positivists have allowed for the idea that a proposition can be meaningful if it is likely to be true. Fumerton (1996: 445-446). Fumerton presents that a strict positivism leads to a rejection of religious and moral philosophy. Fumerton (1996: 445).
A view that combines the need for empiricism as a method of finding truth and allows for non-empirical rational philosophical propositions that are also considered a form of truth, because the rational philosophical propositions are logical and cannot be reasonably contrasted by superior counter propositions, would be a view that would work with a Christian worldview.
Perhaps a more adaptable form of logical positivism could offer this reasonable compromise position between empirical science and related views and philosophy of religion and theology.
Rationalism is the view that unaided reason can be used in finding knowledge without the use of sense perception. Blackburn (1996: 318).
Christian theology uses philosophical reasoning, and a priori knowledge in deducing the existence of God, and this could be considered a form of rationalism and some logical positivists could accept rationalism in conjunction with an acceptance of empirical science. A priori knowledge can be known without the use of sensory experience in the course of events in reality. Blackburn (1999: 21).
A posteriori knowledge can be known through the use of some sensory experience, and if something is knowable A posteriori it cannot be known A priori according to Blackburn. Blackburn (1996: 21).
John Kent states positivism is a philosophical position belonging to the empirical view according to which humankind can have no knowledge of anything but phenomena, and that is only what is apprehended by the senses empirically. Kent (1999: 454).
The concept would be that positive knowledge is associated in particular with the sciences as in things must be observed and there is no questioning of knowledge beyond. Kent (1999: 454).
Therefore other fields such as theology and metaphysics would be regarded as speculation. Kent (1999: 454).
The term 'positivism' was introduced by French socialist Saint-Simon (1760-1825) and noted by his student Auguste Comte (1798-1857). Comte held that the highest or only form of knowledge is the description of sensory phenomena. Blackburn (1996: 294). This being the empirical. He held to three stages of human belief the theological, the metaphysical and the positive. It is a version of traditional empiricism. Blackburn (1996: 294).
BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
BRYMAN, ALAN (2004) Social Research Methods, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
FUMERTON, RICHARD A. (1996) ‘Logical Positivism’ in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1998) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by Norman Kemp Smith, London, Macmillan.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1788)(1997) Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Mary Gregor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1788)(1898)(2006) The Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, London, Longmans, Green, and Co.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1791)(2001) ‘On The Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy’, in Religion and Rational Theology, Translated by George di Giovanni and Allen Wood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
KENT, JOHN (1999) ‘Positivism’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd.
WEIRICH, PAUL. (1996) ‘Comte, Auguste’, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Cited
The periodicals edited by Saint-Simon, L’industrie (1816–1818), Le politique (1819), L’organisateur (1819–1820), and Du systeme industriel (1821–1822), are often catalogued by libraries under Saint-Simon’s name. Manuel 1962 describes them as appearing intermittently, in part to evade the rules of censorship applied to serial publications, but chiefly because Saint-Simon found it difficult to raise the money necessary to publish them.
1807 Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du dix-neu-vième siècle. Paris: Scherff.
(1813a) 1876 Memoire sur la science de l’homme. Volume 40 of Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin. Paris: Dentu.
1813b Travail sur la gravitation universelle. Paris. → No publisher given.
(1825) 1952 New Christianity: Dialogue. Pages 81-116 in Saint-Simon, Selected Writings. Edited and translated by F. M. H. Markham. Oxford: Blackwell. → First published in French. A new French edition was published in 1943 by Aubry.
Henri de Saint-Simon: Social Organization. New York: Harper, 1964. → Also published in 1952 by Macmillan under the title Henri de Saint-Simon: Selected Writings.
Oeuvres de Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon. 6 vols. Paris: Éditions Anthropos, 1966. → Volumes 1-5 reprinted from Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin, 1865— 1878. Volume 6 reprinted from other works.
Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin. 47 vols. Paris: Dentu, 1865–1878. → Saint-Simon’s writings are in Volumes 15, 18-23, and 37-40.
Selected Writings. Edited and translated with an introduction by F. M. H. Markham. Oxford: Blackwell, 1952.
