Logical Positivism

Logical positivism is a school of philosophy concerned with the logical analysis of scientific knowledge. The soundness of metaphysics and traditional philosophy are attacked and positivism asserts that many philosophical problems are meaningless. Instead, logical positivism argues that there are only two sources of knowledge: logical reasoning and empirical experience, or, analytic and synthetic. Logical reasoning is reducible to formal logic and experience is the only judge of scientific theories. Emotionalism and metaphysics are victims of “bad syntax”.

The primary tenet of logical positivism is the verificationist principle, or factual knowledge. Statements must be verifiable to have meaning. A statement that is not verifiable is meaningless, and not suitable for serious attention. To be verifiable a statement must be capable of being proved true or false, at least in principle. For example, “the pen exists” is a verifiable statement. The statement “God exists” is not. The existence of the pen can be proven by simply touching and seeing the pen. There is no condition in which the latter statement can be proven true or false, therefore it is not a meaningful question for the positivist.

Statements that have no immediate concrete provability can be accepted as meaningful. For example, the statement “a small formation of ice exists at latitude ‘x’ and longitude ‘y’ on Neptune cannot be evaluated today, but an experiment could be proposed that would allow it to be tested in the future if the proper spacecraft were built and launched for this purpose.

Positivism wants to put an end to the emotional and metaphysical, at least for scientific purposes. Emotions are subjective and not objectively provable. Non-factual statements have no place in scientific, and therefore, true knowledge. Metaphysical thinking is useless.

One way positivism attempts to destroy metaphysics is by strictly defining the syntax of meaningful statements. Strict criteria for determining the literal meaningfulness of sentences are constructed. A sentence has literal meaning if and only if the proposition it expresses is either analytic or empirically verifiable. Furthermore, the word “proposition” is reserved for what is expressed by sentences which are literally meaningful. Metaphysical arguments can be successfully debunked by detailed analysis and proved to be meaningless.

In adopting these verbal conventions, positivists relegate metaphysics into irrelevance. Science should purge itself of this crass disease which has infected philosophy for generations. Science is cumulative and inductive. Phenomenalism is assumed. The world can be divided into sets of discrete objects and scientific knowledge proceeds from bottom-up. Since metaphysics does not meet the analytic and empirical criteria it is forever banished from the light of day.

Positivists believe that theories develop from facts. Scientists perform experiments, gather sense-data, correlate, classify and categorize. Theories are deducible from premises or experiences because of empirical patterns that emerge. Therefore, positivists support the inductive method of scientific laws and theories. Facts produce theories. Theories are inferred from direct observation of objects and processes. The truth of theories can only be acknowledged by experience.

The positivist philosophy of the relations between fact and theory are in direct conflict with deduction. Where deduction starts with a hypothesis or, heaven forbid, metaphysical inspiration, induction applies a sharp razor to logical and factual statements, eliminating the metaphysics and recording the atomic experiences. These atomic facts are correlated and progress upward through raw facts, sub-laws, laws, super laws, and ultimately theories.

Weaknesses of positivism as a theory of knowledge and as a cultural phenomenon are apparent. As a theory of knowledge weaknesses are rooted in the principle of verification and the assumption of phenomenalism. Positivism as a cultural phenomenon has flaws regarding the elimination of metaphysics and the impossibility of ethical theory. While positivism has largely been discredited as a general cultural philosophy, the useful tools for scientific philosophy have survived.

A strict interpretation of the verification principle seeks absolute criteria for the verification of scientific theories. Few philosophers of science still seek these absolute criteria, noting that no theory can ever be exposed to all possible relevant tests. Real science is much more about probability rather than absolute verifiability. In this respect, the positivists are too much in the ivory tower of philosophical theory rather than closely connected with the realities of science.

Phenomenalism is the view that physical objects, properties and events are mapped to corresponding mental objects, properties and events. Ultimately, only mental objects, properties and events really exist. A physical object is a collection of sense-data. That is, for the individual, the physical world is all just a construction of the specific individual’s sense-data.

Several weaknesses of phenomenalism are apparent. A strict phenomenalistic interpretation cannot allow for things that are too small or brief to be seen. What about quantum physics phenomena? Unperceived objects and hypotheticals cannot exist, which would negate much of the evidence from science history in the modern world. Abstract natural concepts such as space, time, cause-effect, mass and energy are not addressed with this view either. Phenomenalism does not allow for construction of reality which begins in the mind, or a more deductive approach to scientific progress.

The elimination of metaphysics has negative consequences as a cultural phenomenon. The fundamental problem with eliminating metaphysics is the tendency to marginalize the role of intuition and imagination in science or other activities. Examples of important science and theories developing from an intuitive concept or inspiration exist in the fields of physics and genetics in the personalities of Einstein and McClintock. These scientists and others have developed theories that originated from an internal model of reality. Experiments are then devised to prove the model.

Real-world science proceeds in a variety of ways. Some science, probably most science, develops through the positivist/induction method of correlated facts to laws to theories. These paradigms may become standard and drive further sense-data experiments within the paradigm. However, some theories are more aesthetic and model-driven, and this drive to realize the vision of the model is what determines which experiments to perform.

Another criticism of positivism and the verifiability principle from a cultural perspective is the impossibility of a theory of ethics. Statements about ethics are neither true nor false. They are expressions of feeling. But if ethics is meaningless, what is the origin of ethical principles?

Schlick was one positivist who considered ethics as a descriptive scientific theory: good is whatever gives pleasure and no pain. The first ethics impulse is an egoistic one. However, it is possible that in a society, an altruistic action is more beneficial than a purely egoistic one. The positivist’s elimination of these kinds of ethical arguments and theories, which are useful in building the foundations of societies, marginalizes the human mind and forces culture into a mindless, sterile world.

Losing intuition, emotion, metaphysics and ethics is a very negative consequence of strict logical positivism. Positivism may have usefulness as a scientific tool, but the loss of other intellectual arenas of thought become restrictive. Science can tell us things about the world as they are, but metaphysics and ethics tell us which questions to ask. Intuition provides the unconscious insight for discoveries and is an interesting area of study as to how science really occurs, as well as providing some guidance for human behavior.

Carried to extremes, logical positivism is a death toll to expansive human behavior, especially from a cultural perspective. The philosophy implies mechanical behavior and eliminates the imaginative quality that separates man from other species. Humans plan for tomorrow, imagine a future and choose ethical behavior that is not always instinctual. Without metaphysics, man’s existence would be extremely bland. Without ethics, man would have no basis for laws that create a civilized society.

Logical positivism is a welcome tool for exorcising superfluous superstition and emotionalism from modern thought in general and science in particular. However, in doing so, the philosophy continued toward an unsustainable extreme. Positivism and the verification principle are useful in picking out the most viable among a set of alternatives. The philosophy is further useful, as Kuhn has stated, as part of a joint verification-falsification process for a probability comparison of theories.

Logical positivism is one side of a sharp silver coin that provides an unequivocal separation of scientific knowledge from speculation, but it needs to be integrated as only one important part of a broad scientific or cultural philosophy.