Phil 8: Introduction to Philosophy of Science

Outline 6: Logical Positivism

I. Analytic-Synthetic Distinction

 Analytic sentences (according to positivists): definitions, mathematics, logic

 Synthetic sentences (according to positivists): all other meaningful sentences,
including those found in everyday discourse and scientific discourse.
 According to positivists, analytic claims are knowable a priori, and synthetic claims are
knowable a posteriori.
 All real knowledge (i.e. knowledge of synthetic truths) is had a posteriori.

II. Verifiability Theory of Meaning

 Verifiability Theory of Meaning: The meaning of a sentence consists in its method of

verification.
 Verifiability/Testability: “A sentence is testable/verifiable” means that a sentence is
capable of being shown to be true or false by means of observation.
 Scientific hypotheses have meaning because they are verifiable/testable.
 The positivists thought much of philosophy, ethics, and theology is meaningless.
 Scientific theories are composed of sentences formulated in terms of a “theoretical
language” and an “observational language”.
 “Theoretical” and “observational” are hard to define. The rough idea is that you can
directly perceive whether an observational sentence is true or false. Theoretical
sentences cannot be directly perceived to be true or false, but rather are inferred from
observational sentences.
 For the theoretical language of a scientific theory to have meaning, it must be
somehow “hooked up” (with logical connectives) to the observational language.

III. Other views

 The positivists believed that logic is the main tool of philosophy.
 The positivists believed that the aim of science is to track and anticipate patterns in
experience.

IV. Problems

 The verifiability theory of meaning is enormously difficult (perhaps impossible) to

adequately formulate.
 Many sentences in ethics, theology, and philosophy do seem meaningful despite even
if they are not empirically testable.
 Other problems faced by logical positivism will, in one way or another, be the topic
of much of this class.
o As we will see next time, the doctrine of holism creates problems for
positivism.
o The positivist search for the rules of inductive logic was unsuccessful.
o Scientific realism puts pressure on the idea that science aims merely to track
and anticipate patterns of experience.
o Relativism puts pressure on the idea that science is a strictly logical and
objective discipline.