Lecture 1

Logical positivism

September 8, 2004

Philosophy of science

The basic historical facts

Logical positivism started as a philosophical movement in Austria (the Vienna Circle) and Germany (the Berlin Circle) in the mid-1920s. The main representatives: Rudolf Carnap, Moritz Schlick, Carl Gustav Hempel, Hans Hahn, Herbert Feigl, Philipp Frank, Hans Reichenbach, Richard von Mises, etc. With the rise of Nazism in the 1930s, most logical positivists emigrated to the United States, and exerted an extremely strong influence on American Philosophy.

September 8, 2004

Philosophy of science

The philosophical background

Empiricism-rationalism debate What is the main source of knowledge: observation (Locke, Berkeley, Hume), or reason (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz)? The third way: Kant Kant was basically an empiricist, but he thought that science gave us some knowledge that is so certain that it cannot be based just on observation. Examples: Euclidean geometry, arithmetic, the principle of causality, Newtons laws of motion Kants problem: Some knowledge in science cannot be based just on observation, but on the other hand, observation is the only way to know anything about the external world. His solution: the doctrine of the synthetic a priori.
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Analytic - synthetic, a priori a posteriori

1. Analytic synthetic Analytic statements = true by virtue of their meaning (Examples: All bachelors are unmarried, Tomorrow it will either rain or not rain) Synthetic statements = not analytic (Tomorrow it will rain, All Lingnan students are unmarried) 2. A priori a posteriori A priori statements = their truth can be established without observation (Examples: All bachelors are unmarried, Tomorrow it will either rain or not rain) A posteriori statements = their truth cannot be established without observation (Tomorrow it will rain, All Lingnan students are unmarried)
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Kants table
A priori A posteriori

Analytic

All bachelors are unmarried.

Every event has a cause. 7 + 5 = 12 Synthetic Euclidean geometry The law of conservation of matter Newtons laws of motion

Tomorrow it will rain.

September 8, 2004

Philosophy of science

Speculative philosophy after Kant

Of the three categories of statements, the most interesting is synthetic a priori, because only it contains general, necessary and deep truths. The other two are either trivial and uninteresting (analytic), or relating to knowledge that has no necessity and generality (synthetic a posteriori). Since Kant used philosophical arguments to explain our knowledge of synthetic a priori, some philosophers after him (Hegel and Schelling) tried to develop comprehensive systems of knowledge by using pure thinking (speculation). They didnt call it synthetic a priori but they were definitely trying to discover some deep truths about the world without making observations.

September 8, 2004

Philosophy of science

The Elimination of Metaphysics

Logical positivists detested speculative philosophy or metaphysics, as they called it. They regarded statements made by Hegel, Schelling and Heidegger as not just false, but meaningless. The truth can be known only by (1) analyzing meanings or (2) by observation. All else is nonsense! If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, "Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?" No. "Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?" No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. (Hume) Another cell in Kants table became empty.
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The logical positivists table

A priori A posteriori

Analytic

All bachelors are unmarried. 7 + 5 = 12 Euclidean geometry (pure)

Synthetic

Tomorrow it will rain. Every event has a cause. Newtons laws of motion Euclidean geometry (applied) The law of conservation of matter
Philosophy of science 8

September 8, 2004

The principle of verifiability

Some statements are meaningless, although they appear to have some meaning. The fire that passed into crystal is its own melting, selfburning, in which the crystal becomes a volcano. The volcanoes should not be understood too mechanically, but as a storm with earthquake that happens beneath the earth. What does that statement mean? Or the following: Nothing nothings. (Heidegger) Logical positivists tried to find a way to distinguish real statements from (meaningless) pseudo-statements. They were looking for a criterion of demarcation. Their solution: the principle of verifiability: A statement is meaningful only if there is a possible experience (observation) that would show that the statement is true.
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Why the principle of verifiability?

The idea behind the principle: if you know what the statement mean, you know what would make it true. But if you know what would make it true, you know how the world would look if the statement was true. But if you know how the world would look if the statement was true, then you know what observations you would make if you were there, and if the statement was true. Two senses of the principle: strong and weak. Strong verifiability: it must be possible to prove that the statement is true. Weak verifiability: it must be possible to show that the statement is probably true. The weak version is preferable. (Scientific laws speak about infinitely many objects and cannot be verified in the strong sense.)
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Some problems with the principle of verifiability

Some statements seem to be perfectly meaningful but it is not at all clear how they could be verified by observation. Example: Murder is wrong, The world will still exist even after all conscious life disappears What about the principle of verifiability itself? Is it verifiable or not? If yes, how? If not, then it is meaningless because it is not an analytic statement. The principle of verifiability was supposed to divide all non-analytic sentences in two groups: (a) meaningless (metaphysics and other nonsense), and (b) meaningful (science in the first place, but also ordinary common-sense statements etc.). But it was not successful. On strong interpretation, it did eliminate metaphysics, but it excluded some scientific statements too. On weak interpretation, it preserved science, but some metaphysical statements crept in as well.
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Humes problem of induction

How do we verify a universal generalization? (Scientific laws are often universal generalizations.) We observe many swans, and on that basis we conclude that (S) All swans are white. Is S really verified by these observations? Obviously, despite all the observations of white swans, S may still be false. The usual answer is that the observations do not prove S, but they certainly make it probably true (weak verification). But Humes argument was precisely that we have no reason whatsoever to think that S is even probably true! If all observed swans were white, How can we logically justify our expectation that the next swan will also be white? Hume argued that we cannot. Logical positivists tried to show that we can. Their attempt to build a system of inductive logic were not very convincing. Humes problem remained unsolved.

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Philosophy of science

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Why not jump out of the window?

Answer: I will fall and hurt myself. But how do I know that I will fall? Answer: Law of gravitation. But how do I know that the law of gravitation is true? Answer: Verified by observation (All objects without support fall toward the surface of the earth.) But in fact observation only tells me that in the past all observed unsupported objects fell. How do I know that I will fall if I jump now? Answer: The fact that all unsupported objects always fell in the past shows that this is a law of nature. Otherwise, it would not have always happened. But I dont see that. It is a logical fallacy to conclude that an observed regularity will continue into the future. Why shouldnt I jump? Answer: Well, then jump, you, moron!
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Science and verifiability

There is an inferential gap between premises about observation and the conclusion (scientific law). An argument is obviously deductively invalid. Humes challenge is to find an inductive or probabilistic justification that could make the argument reasonable. Logical positivists (especially Carnap) tried to develop inductive logic that would serve this purpose, but they were not very successful. Scientific laws are often regarded as having some kind of necessity (Unsupported objects must fall, Every biological organism must die). But it turns out that we are not only unable to explain their necessity. We cannot even show that they are true! We cannot verify them.
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