Logical Positivism - The Vienna Circle

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Жыл бұрын

An introductory discussion of the Vienna Circle and their philosophical position of logical empiricism or logical positivism, which hinged on the so-called verifiability criterion of meaning. It was this principle that they used to try and rule out all metaphysical talk about reality, all religious talk about God, and all ethical talk about the good and the right. However, they soon realized that much more would end up being ruled out as a result.
These clips come from two different programs in the series on great ideas in philosophy: one on analytic philosophy and the other on metaphysics.
#Philosophy #Epistemology #Science

Пікірлер: 106

@trombone7 Жыл бұрын

I love how the whole execution of this excerpt sounds and feels like something you would have watched at museum in the 80s. Like you walk up to an exhibit and there's this big black shiny button. You push it and this boomy speaker and bleary screen come to life. You strain to hear it against the echoey hall and loud kids behind you and immediately evaluate how long you'll stay. - - - Don't evaluate the Vienna Circle's answers. Evaluate the project. Evaluate the range of questions they were asking, and the problem they were trying to solve. The torch is passed to us. How much better have we done ? Their work if not conclusive, was at least generative. It informs our sense of possibility and criteria for reigning our sense of possibility in, and therefore directing it.

@omalone1169 Жыл бұрын

4:40 direct experience Empirically verifiable

@jancoil4886 Жыл бұрын

Excellent! It is noteworthy that questions of value (good, bad, evil etc) do not fit under the principle of strict verification. The sad irony is that while the Circle was busy in Vienna, a certain Austrian gentleman came to power in Germany. The kinds of questions that needed to be asked about the Nazis (good/evil) are ones that empirical science and by extension Logical Positivism does not ask.

@omalone1169 Жыл бұрын

3:54 great ideas of philosophy

@FuckYouTube1776 Жыл бұрын

Oh Jesus. Here we go. . . 10 more social credits for you. Good job.

@amulyamishra5745 8 ай бұрын

Well he was a common peasent, not exactly a gentleman.

@edwardlawrence5666 2 ай бұрын

Well, maybe that was what logical positivism was all about.

@LuigiSimoncini Жыл бұрын

Pure gold! Thank you!

@ruskiny280 Жыл бұрын

I thought Hume had proved that we cannot actually know anything.

@plekkchand Жыл бұрын

A film on logical positivism with background music from K-Mart. Smart shoppers, abjure metaphysics!

@GottfriedLeibnizYT Жыл бұрын

Name of documentary?

@omalone1169 Жыл бұрын

What is in a name ?

@oneshot2028 Жыл бұрын

Good channel. Too bad it has still not achieved 100K subs.

@turdferguson3400 Жыл бұрын

The old channel was purged

@mikeyh0 Жыл бұрын

Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. A pile of horse manure by any other name - in this case logical positivism - still stinks to high heaven. A circle (how apropos) of like-minded individuals gather to examine meaning and produces a concept that others discuss ad nauseam even nearly a hundred years later. Hats off to the fools on all sides of the issue. Amazing how people will glom unto anything besides themselves in order to validate their minds. If I were being emotive, it might be sad. However, everyone has to be somewhere so have at it. I love this life. It's far more interesting than I thought it would be. And afterwards? Even better.

@aaronburgess4442 Жыл бұрын

The verification principle itself is not empirically verifiable, therefore it is meaningless.

@ManiH810 2 ай бұрын

It should be regarded as axiomatic.

@alwaysgreatusa223 4 ай бұрын

You can't throw-away metaphysics without throwing-out physics in the process.

@thehairblairbunchjones6209 Жыл бұрын

Is there really a consensus that there is necessity apart from convention? That claim at the end seems like an exaggeration.

@le2380 Жыл бұрын

You can detect what is false in that it works against itself, and that is what logical positivism did. Empirical observation and presumption of general rules from the patterns that emerge (such as logic) are necessarily connected to metaphysics since the metaphysical form their basis. Our presumption of general rules will always be proved wrong, and it is absurd to be positivistic about them. Their whole point is that they are assumptions. You can't assume that your assumptions are correct, it is a circle argument, which only proves that you are making assumptions. Such a line of thinking only proves you are not aware of the thing-in-itself, which is another word for the unknowable. Saying that there is no thing-in-itself is like saying that there is nothing that humans cannot know. Edit: Inadequate might be a better word than absurd

@christopherdiedrich40 Жыл бұрын

I'm not a scholar but it seems to me that our vocabulary is inadequate and thus we end up with seemingly paradoxical truths ad nauseam.

@iranjackheelson Жыл бұрын

Don't be so quick to dismiss it as being absurd. The fact that people come to assume certain kinds of general rules and not others is not arbitrary or trivial. In fact, it's the positivism about these assumptions that allow us to make progress in science and make better approximations about the nature of reality.

@hkumar7340 Жыл бұрын

@@iranjackheelson The objection to Logical Positivism is not that it is 'absurd,' but that it is inadequate. For example, one of the fundamental areas of knowledge that human beings have about themselves is 'history.' Without history, we become robotic presentists who learn nothing and get manipulated by every charlatan who comes along. But historical knowledge is entirely outside of the 'verificationist' paradigm that the positivists uphold. There is a reason why Wittgenstein moved on from his 'Tractatus' view of the world to the 'Philosophical Investigations' outlook. He saw that the Tractatus had an inadequate conception of human language. Inadequate, not absurd.

@le2380 Жыл бұрын

@@iranjackheelson Very fair point. I would hold that just as important as trust in our assumptions is the questioning of them, which half of the verification business is about. In a sense i very much agree with the end-point of logical positivism as mentioned in the video; that in the end it is hard to verify anything at all... Except perhaps a version of that old saying; the only thing i know is that i know nothing.

@yonathanasefaw9001 Жыл бұрын

An interesting approach to philosophy. But I am more about human passion than scientific ideals.

@DaKoopaKing Жыл бұрын

Verificationism is based

@mikeyh0 Жыл бұрын

You mean 'biased'?

@jimmyfaulkner1855 Жыл бұрын

Verificationism is dead lol

@KaizorianEmpire Жыл бұрын

This is kind of stupid, it cannot be "meaningless", this is how physics works, you come up with an idea in the meta and then try to verify it on the physical,. Even concepts like infinity can't be verified yet but the concept allows for things to be abstracted from it.

@KaizorianEmpire Жыл бұрын

@@Edruezzi no i went to a university lol i am a phd in physics

@Edruezzi Жыл бұрын

@@KaizorianEmpire X

@alwaysgreatusa223 Жыл бұрын

Science presupposes metaphysical and epistemological foundations, yet the apologists for scientism pretend that science can somehow explain and justify itself. What scientific method explains and justifies science ?

@alwaysgreatusa223 Жыл бұрын

@@billherd9695 what justifies skepticism? I do not know, therefore I will never know, and there is no possibility of knowing... appears to be an Invalid argument. Every assertion of skepticism is a disguised or self-deceptive form of dogmaticism.

@turdferguson3400 Жыл бұрын

@@alwaysgreatusa223 the existence of snake oil salesmen is a pretty good justification for skepticism. The existence of liars, gullible people, and simply mistaken people is another excellent justification for skepticism. Even by asking for justification for skepticism you are engaging in skepticism. That's a good thing.

@alwaysgreatusa223 Жыл бұрын

@@turdferguson3400 you are speaking of being skeptical, NOT philosophical skepticism. Philosophical skepticism denies the actuality and possibility of objective knowledge. Your examples of being skeptical in particular situations are all based upon knowledge -- for example, knowledge of the existence of snakeoil salesmen and their arts of deception.

@turdferguson3400 Жыл бұрын

@@alwaysgreatusa223 you are the one involving philosophical skepticism in a discussion about logical positivism. Logical positivism was attempting to avoid philosophical skepticism and provide a meaningful metric for healthy skepticism. Unfortunately, logical positivism was unable to do this, but its goal remains very important. We still need to have healthy skepticism from nonsense and lies and deceit, and even from honest mistakes.

@alwaysgreatusa223 Жыл бұрын

@@turdferguson3400 I was replying to Bill Herd's comment. He was the one who raised the issue of skepticism with regard to my point about science necessarily presupposing metaphysical ideas. You should probably read the entire thread before commenting next time, then you will be able to follow the discussion intelligently.