Ludwig Wittgenstein and Logical Positivism

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Alexander L. Nikiforov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Logical Analysis ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Scientific Laws ◽  
Empirical Foundation

The article examines the question of whether L. Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus had any influence on the formation and development of logical positivism. It is shown that the members of the Vienna Circle were familiar with the Tractatus, but practically did not accept anything from its content. Wittgenstein's reasoning about the world, about facts, about the structure of fact were rejected by them as a bad metaphysics, with which they fought. The denial of causality and the deprivation of the meaning of scientific laws could not be accepted by representatives of logical positivism, whose main task was the logical analysis of the language of science in order to cleanse it of metaphysical concepts and build a unified science on a solid empirical foundation. If the members of the Vienna Circle were even familiar with Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, then representatives of the Berlin Group, the Lvov-Warsaw School, the Uppsala School and supporters of logical positivism in other countries hardly heard of it. This leads to the conclusion that Wittgenstein's Tractatus did not have any impact on the logical positivism.

Mach, Ernst (1838–1916)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Atomic Theory ◽  
Scientific Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Scientific Laws ◽  
Limiting Case

Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. Though not one of the great philosophers, he was tremendously influential in the development of ‘scientific philosophy’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A vigorous opponent of ‘metaphysics’, he was celebrated as a progenitor of logical positivism. His work is regarded as a limiting case of pure empiricism; he stands between the empiricism of Hume and J.S. Mill, and that of the Vienna Circle. Mach’s positivist conception of science saw its aims as descriptive and predictive; explanation is downgraded. Scientific laws and theories are economical means of describing phenomena. Theories that refer to unobservable entities – including atomic theory – may impede inquiry. They should be eliminated where possible in favour of theories involving ‘direct descriptions’ of phenomena. Mach claimed to be a scientist, not a philosopher, but the ‘Machian philosophy’ was ‘neutral monism’. Close to phenomenalism, it saw the world as functionally related complexes of sensations, and aspired to anti-metaphysical neutrality.

The Vienna Circle

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Murray
Keyword(s):  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Gottlob Frege ◽  
Rudolf Carnap ◽  
Ernst Mach ◽  
Kurt Gödel ◽  
The World ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Scientific Worldview

In 1922 Moritz Schlick (1882–1936) transformed the Verein Ernst Mach (Ernst Mach Society), a weekly reading group concerned with logical positivism, into an international assembly of academics known as der Weiner Kreis, or the Vienna Circle, which responded to recent developments within analytic philosophy by leading thinkers Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). Early members included Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970), Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) and Otto Neurath (1882–1945). In 1929, Neurath published Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis (The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle), a pamphlet delineating the group’s rejection of metaphysics in favour of a scientific worldview predicated upon empirical phenomena.

Is Philosophy Possible? A Study of Logical Positivism

Philosophy ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 22 (81) ◽  
pp. 25-48
Author(s):  
Winston H. F. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Logical Analysis ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Technique ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Proper Sense ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

The present situation in philosophy is paradoxical. On the one hand, thinking men and women all over the world are exclaiming that, while science has made sufficient advance to satisfy all our material needs, what we most need, and must find if we are not to suffer shipwreck, is a new sense of values, a new religious awakening and a new orientation towards life, in short a new philosophy. On the other hand, many professional philosophers are coming to hold the view that philosophy has had its day, or rather that it never in any proper sense had its day, because it is not a rational enterprise but a mistake, an illusion, a farrago of nonsense, “a muddle arising out of the complexities of language.” A new inquiry which goes by the name of Analysis and resembles logic more closely than any other existing discipline is at once to give the quietus to philosophy and to reign in its stead. The modern philosopher cries, with Faustus, “Sweet Analytickes! 'tis thou hast ravished me.” I will not prejudice your minds at the outset by recalling where the study of analysis led the Doctor of Wurtemburg.Those who are thus forthrightly sceptical about philosophy and group themselves under the aegis of analysis are themselves divided into a number of sects. One and all, however, are relentless in exposing the weaknesses of philosophy, zealous in proselytizing and deadly in expounding their new technique which combines scholastic subtlety with modern scientific realism. They represent in fact a modern scholasticism loosely grouped round the dogma: “We pursue logical analysis, but not philosophy,” though, by a curious paradox which demands scrutiny, some of them say: “Philosophy is analysis.”

Hard Objects in George Oppen's Discrete Series

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 496-517
Author(s):  
Ned Hercock
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Discrete Series ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
Gerard Manley Hopkins ◽  
Marcel Duchamp ◽  
The World ◽  
Production History ◽  
History Of

This essay examines the objects in George Oppen's Discrete Series (1934). It considers their primary property to be their hardness – many of them have distinctively uniform and impenetrable surfaces. This hardness and uniformity is contrasted with 19th century organicism (Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Ruskin). Taking my cue from Kirsten Blythe Painter I show how in their work with hard objects these poems participate within a wider cultural and philosophical turn towards hardness in the early twentieth century (Marcel Duchamp, Adolf Loos, Ludwig Wittgenstein and others). I describe the thinking these poems do with regard to industrialization and to human experience of a resolutely object world – I argue that the presentation of these objects bears witness to the production history of the type of objects which in this era are becoming preponderant in parts of the world. Finally, I suggest that the objects’ impenetrability offers a kind of anti-aesthetic relief: perception without conception. If ‘philosophy recognizes the Concept in everything’ it is still possible, these poems show, to experience resistance to this imperious process of conceptualization. Within thinking objects (poems) these are objects which do not think.

scholarly journals Architectural Theory and Analytic Philosophy in the Interwar Period

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Borbála Jász
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Le Corbusier ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
Architecture Theory ◽  
The Aesthetic

Abstract The basis of the connection between analytic philosophy and architecture theory was developed in the interwar period. The results of analytic philosophy – especially the neo-positivism of Vienna Circle – and modern, functionalist architecture theory were utilized in an interdisciplinary approach. The comparison was based on language puzzles, science-based building processes, the method of justification and verification, and designing an artificial language in order to express the theoretical (philosophical) and the practical (architectural) approach as well. The functionality was based on the modern way of architectural thinking that relied on the results of Carnapian neo-positivism. Interpreting modern architecture is possible by referring to the keywords of logical positivism: empiricism, logic, verification, unity of language, and science. In my paper, I first list the bases of the comparison between the philosophy of the Vienna Circle and the architecture theory of the interwar period – the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier. In the 2nd and 3rd sections, I show the dialectical succession between form and function. After that, I discuss the aesthetic verification of the turn of the century and the scientific justification of the interwar period. I focus on the interwar period with the positivist approach and the theory of the ‘new architecture’. I emphasize the importance of the language of science and the machine paradigm – in contrast to historicism.

scholarly journals Let's protect schools

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 260-269
Author(s):  
Boguslaw Wolniewicz
Keyword(s):  
School Reform ◽  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Educational Models ◽  
As Doping ◽  
European Universities ◽  
The Press ◽  
Personal Career

The first Ukrainian translation of the text by Boguslaw Wolniewicz " Let's protect schools". Boguslaw Wolniewich (1927-2017) is a new figure in Ukrainian information space. This Warsaw professor and visiting professor at a number of leading American and European universities, a member of the International Wittgenstein Society, also known for his journalistic activities, including appearances in the press, radio and television, and lectures on YouTube where he became a real star of the Internet. The main areas of his thought were logic, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of religion and philosophy of law, but he gained the most recognition as the creator of the ontology of the situation, as translator and commentator of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as a critic of freudianism, phenomenology, postmodernism, marxism and religious fundamentalism. In his opinion, school reform cannot destroy the authority of a teacher – even for the sake of introducing the latest foreign educational models. Wolniewicz defends the ideals of the classical school, which should give students scientifically sound knowledge, not just practical recipes for survival in society. He emphasizes that the main task of the school is education, and education can appear in it only as a valuable by-product – as doping. The school educates only through learning: through its content, its level, its requirements and its appropriate organization. Wolniewicz warns against the dominance of bureaucracy in the school, and sees the mission of the state in ensuring educational autonomy. A school should not be a profit-oriented institution or a means of building the personal career of an official.

scholarly journals The Origin and Functioning of Myth: Linguistic Conditions

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Siedin
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
Causal Connections ◽  
The World ◽  
Existential Dimension ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Unique Status

The article identifies two approaches to determining the linguistic conditions of the emergence and functioning of the myth. The first approach assumes that the myth is a manifestation of unconscious (M. Müller) or conscious (E. Cassirer, R. Barthes) distortion of language. Within this approach it is impossible to escape from myth because the presentation of the facts of the world in language is inescapable, which is always imperfect. These distortions are meant for political influence, as according to the proponents of the conscious mythologizing of language. Philosophy is tasked with resisting such distortions and, consequently, myth creation in general. This approach seems simplified, because the myth is identified here with the linguistic form of its distribution, reduced to the analysis of distortions of language presentation. At the same time, the psychological and epistemological preconditions of the myth, its unique status in the life of communities are lost. Conditions for the development of the second approach arise through the critique of classical rationality by several influential thinkers who undermined the belief in the exclusive ability of discursive language to present the truth (F. Nietzsche, L. Wittgenstein, M. Heidegger). The second approach assumes that the myth emerges and continues to exist due to the inability of the logos to present some important aspects of reality, especially its existential dimension (P. Tillich, H. Blumenberg, L. Hatab, K. Morgan). In this case, myth and logos become alternative and at the same time closely connected linguistic ways of presenting the truth. Logos (the language of science) presents primarily abstract causal connections of essences. At the same time, mythical narratives are better than science at presenting the mysteries of origin and existence, creating a hierarchy of values for communities.

The Philosophy‐Literature Interface

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan May
Keyword(s):  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Logical Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
Modes Of Thought

Analytic philosophy has come to dominate modern academic thought.  It is a method of study that attempts to solve problems through a logical analysis of the terms in which they are expressed.  In many ways, analytic philosophy strives not to discover new metaphysical or supernatural truths.  Rather, it is meant to provide a deeper understanding of existing truths.  This strain of philosophy, I believe, sets forth exactly those goals and methods of thinking upon which philosophy should concentrate.  The investigation and clarification of the state of the world, whether through logic, metaphysics, value theory, or epistemology, is an invaluable development that is best suited to philosophical analysis.   However, this restricted focus means that something must pick up where philosophy leaves off.  The solutions to any potential problems or shortcomings necessarily imposed on analytic philosophy need to be found within a different realm of study.  This support to philosophy can be found in the study of English, or literature.  Neither realm of thought is more inherently valuable.  Each is needed for different reasons, and each relies on the other.  Philosophy needs literature to enter the modes of thought into which it cannot validly stray.  Literature needs philosophy to provide a stable base of thought from which it can imaginatively expand.  In short, no set of ideas can stand alone, and the rise of analytic philosophy has made its discipline’s role extremely clear.  It has also made evident the fact that philosophy’s greatest ally and clearest counterpart is literature.  

Reichenbach, Hans (1891–1953)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley C. Salmon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Philosophy Of Physics ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The World ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
And Mathematics

Philosophy of science flourished in the twentieth century, partly as a result of extraordinary progress in the sciences themselves, but mainly because of the efforts of philosophers who were scientifically knowledgeable and who remained abreast of new scientific achievements. Hans Reichenbach was a pioneer in this philosophical development; he studied physics and mathematics in several of the great German scientific centres and later spent a number of years as a colleague of Einstein in Berlin. Early in his career he followed Kant, but later reacted against his philosophy, arguing that it was inconsistent with twentieth-century physics. Reichenbach was not only a philosopher of science, but also a scientific philosopher. He insisted that philosophy should adhere to the same standards of precision and rigour as the natural sciences. He unconditionally rejected speculative metaphysics and theology because their claims could not be substantiated either a priori, on the basis of logic and mathematics, or a posteriori, on the basis of sense-experience. In this respect he agreed with the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, but because of other profound disagreements he was never actually a positivist. He was, instead, the leading member of the group of logical empiricists centred in Berlin. Although his writings span many subjects Reichenbach is best known for his work in two main areas: induction and probability, and the philosophy of space and time. In the former he developed a theory of probability and induction that contained his answer to Hume’s problem of the justification of induction. Because of his view that all our knowledge of the world is probabilistic, this work had fundamental epistemological significance. In philosophy of physics he offered epoch-making contributions to the foundations of the theory of relativity, undermining space and time as Kantian synthetic a priori categories.

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