Why Logical Positivism is Dumb

By

Anthony J. Fejfar, B.A., J.D., Esq., Coif

© Copyright 2008 by Anthony J. Fejfar

The general idea behind Logical Positivism is that reality is best known through

rigorous inferences from sense experience. The idea is that sense experience gives us a

very complete accurate picture of what is going on. This is false.

In his book, “Psychology of Consciousness,” Robert Ornstein points out that the

human mind edits out a significant amount of “sense data” from ever reaching the

conscious mind. For example, it may be that the human ear can hear sounds, such as a

dog whistle, although this information is edited out and never reaches the conscious

mind.

Sense impression is inaccurate in other ways as well. For example, if a person

places a bag of ice on one’s hand for several minutes, then the temperature of warm

water running on one’s hand will fell different than normal. Alternatively, if one places

a very warm wet washcloth on one’s hand and then runs cool water over the hand, the

temperature of the hand will feel different than normal