Philosophy of Empiricism and Positivism

Empiricism

• Empiricism is based on experiences through senses and expressions through logical statements.
• Observations and logic are essential in science, with roots in the Renaissance England (1500-1600) and influential figures like Francis Bacon and John Locke.
• David Hume, a key figure, inspired the logical empiricists of the 1920s and Karl Popper after 1945.
• Hume problematized induction, arguing that just because something has always been true in the past, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be true in the future (e.g., assuming all swans are white because only white swans have been seen).

Positivism

• Positivism is closely related to empiricism and emerged from 1800 to 1900.
• Logical empiricists/positivists, such as George Boole, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, and Bertrand Russell, developed symbolic logic, which is crucial for analytical philosophy.
• Focus was on language analysis, using mathematical logic (e.g., black or white, true or false).
• Notable logical empiricists include Bernhard Bolzano and Ernst Mach.
• The Vienna Circle, led by Moritz Schlik, with members Rudolf Carnap and Otto Neurath, was a key group of logical empiricists.

Key Principles

• The world consists of matter without cognitive meaning.
• Only two cognitively meaningful statements: those derived from experience or logic.
• Metaphysics cannot provide knowledge.

Vienna Circle

• The Vienna Circle, a group of logical positivists, emerged in Austria in the 1920s, aiming to find certain knowledge, like Hume.
• Verifiability theory was their core principle: a statement is true if it is logical and can be verified.

Critique by Karl Popper

• Popper criticized logical empiricists, arguing that knowledge should be attempted to be falsified rather than verified.
• Hypotheses (more specific theories about reality) should be tested, and researchers should be willing to admit errors.
• The hypothetical-deductive method involves formulating a hypothesis (H) and testing its implications (K); if K does not occur, H is falsified.