Logical Positivism, an early 1900s tradition in philosophy, was the worst thing that ever happened in philosophy. Here’s an introduction:
Note A. J. Ayer’s remarks introducing the heart of Logical Positivism, its dreaded Verifiability Criterion of Meaning. According to this idea, a claim is meaningless if it cannot be verified (unless it’s a tautology like “All bachelors are unmarried men”).
Note that among the foes of Logical Positivism are philosopher of science Karl Popper and Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga. Note that Bertrand Russell, friendly enough to Logical Positivism, recognizes the truth itself as a foe of Logical Positivism.
Which truth? The same one Popper was talking about. To explain:
Logical Positivism claims that no claim is meaningful if it cannot be verified (unless it’s a tautology). But verification only works by means of those principles by means of which we verify (principles that aren’t tautologies).
For example, “We can learn about parts of the universe we have not seen from the parts we have seen” and “The laws of physics in operation now are the same ones that are always in operation.”
A claim like that is prior to verification; we use it to verify other claims; we can’t verify it.
So Logical Positivism is a dud.
And why does this matter?
So, so many reasons.
But here’s the big one: Logical Positivism has, long past its own demise, fed the myth, very prominent in modern western culture, that all meaningful, true, or knowable statements are ones that can be known scientifically.
I’ve just explained why this is false: The very nature of scientific reasoning means that some things meaningful, true, and known cannot be known scientifically (and are not tautologies). Either that, or science itself is all nonsense, false, or ignorance–which it’s not.
But that myth has done incalculable harm to society.
Never mind how many people under its influence didn’t accept some important religious or moral truth. This myth made us not even understand moral and religious claims.
I’m not saying anything new here. If you’re having trouble following this post, no problem–just skip this post and go somewhere else for an introduction. My introduction in this book (cheap on Kindle) is recommended; or skip me altogether and read The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis, After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre, or “Advice to Christian Philosophers” by Alvin Plantinga. They’ll introduce a good bit of this material very nicely.
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