Abstract:
Logical positivism is one of the first manifestations of analytic philosophy during the
first half of the twentieth century. The early development of logical positivism aims at
showing that metaphysical propositions are meaningless. The declaration of logical
positivism is that a proposition has meaning only to the extent that it is verifiable. It
follows from that only two classes of propositions have meanings and those are
empirical and analytic. All other propositions, including those of ethics, aesthetics,
and religion do not have meaning, rather they belong to ‘metaphysics’. Bertrand
Russell thought that it might be possible to modify narratives into their component
statements, verifiable by empirical observation, reason, and logic. Rudolf Carnap is
connected with the movement of the Vienna Circle. He claims that he is influenced
by Russell and Frege. One of the main objections raised by critics of logical
positivism is that of accusation of inconsistency; in fact, all the propositions of science
are obviously not empirically verifiable. The other objection was formulated regarding
the criterion of verifiability. Alfred Jules Ayer creates a distinction between strong
and weak senses of verification. The objective of strong verification is to establish
conclusively the truth of a proposition and that of a weak verification is to make sure
that such a proposition is probably true. Wittgenstein says that the laws of logic and
mathematics are tautologies, i.e. propositions devoid of factual content but true in all
circumstances. However, there began a process of 'liberalization' marked by different
stages, which led to formulate the criterion not in terms of ‘verifiability’, but in those
of ‘confirmability’. According to this, a proposition is meaningful if it is in
‘agreement’ with experience, an agreement that, far from determining final
verification, leads to a growing sense of confirmation and is expressed in terms of
probability. Logical positivism ended up being absorbed by analytic philosophy,
which inherited both the interest in language and attention to science. Finally, despite
the failure of its agenda of unification of knowledge, intellectual efforts were made to
achieve the purpose, the relevant results were obtained in the field of philosophy of
science and logic, as well as in the lively debate ignited in the philosophical world.
