Logical Positivism Revisited with special reference to the relevant writings of Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap and Alfred Jules Ayer

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.