Positivism, logical

Before moving on to (IR3), it is useful to contrast the ideas behind (IR2) with related approaches, the logical positivists and Dummett s verificationism. According to logical positivism, all synthetic sentences should be verifiable, at least in principle, on the basis of experience unverifiable sentences are meaningless. The view developed above differs from this in two respects. First, it is not committed empiricism, so it does not constrain admissible verifications in the way logical positivism does. If it turns out that mathematics is synthetic a priori, as Kant believed, that is perfectly acceptable. The justification conditions which determine... 

On the history and philosophy of positivism see Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, ch. 4-6. On the contrast between Comtean positivism and Logical Positivism see L. Laudan, Science and Hypothesis Historical Essays on Scientific Method (Dordrecht ... 

On Logical Positivism as a synthesis of traditional empiricism and traditional rationalism see M. Friedman, Reconsidering Logical Positivism (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 5 and 9. 

Friedman, M., Reconsidering Logical Positivism (Cambridge Cambridge University Press,... 

One could consider this the 20th century culmination of Kant s view.18 Like Kant s view, Dirac s remark is referred to in lectures for a general audience of scientists in a way that suggests everybody knows it. Usually the reference is uncritical, e.g., by Noble laureate Mulliken in Physics Today (1968) 19 only rarely is the reference to Dirac more critical.20 Dirac s view fit the times, because logical positivism not only replaced metaphysics by logic, but stressed the unity of science all sciences were to be reduced to physics. 

Since the demise of Logical Positivism the purely normative approach to philosophy of science has been increasingly challenged. Many philosophers of science now consider themselves as naturalists and it becomes a matter of which particular variety they are willing to support. As is well known, one of the central issues in the debate over naturalism concerns whether philosophy offers a privileged standpoint from which to study the nature of science, or whether science is best studied by studying science itself.1... 

Inverse truth functional modification (ITFM) Logical Positivism ... 

Ayer, A.J., Verification and experience, in Logical Positivism, Ayer, A.J., Ed., Free Press, Glencoe IL, 1959. 

Carnap, Rudolf (1891-1970) German philosopher of science who has had considerable influence on scientists. He taught that statements were meaningful only if they can be related to sensory experience and have logical consequences that are verifiable by observation or experience. This idea led to the philosophical school of logical positivism and to the dismissal, by some people, of most or all of the propositions of metaphysics and religion. 

Neurath, Otto. 1959. Sociology and physicahsm. In Logical positivism, ed. Alfred J. Ayer, 282-317. New York Free Press. 

For Fodor, reduction is an expression that can be used to describe a certain metaphysical picture of the organization of sciences, just like it was for the early positivists. It is this picture which survived in the philosophy of mind but which was seemingly abandoned in the philosophy of science, although, as will be pointed out below, it still lurks within every single model of reduction on the market. This difference is reflected by the fact that in the philosophy of science, reduction is usually explicated in terms of a relation that primarily holds between theories, or representational devices, rather than non-representational worldly objects. Attempts to characterize the reduction-relation go back to the early years of logical positivism. Carnap s reductionism states that ... 

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