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Everything about Logical positivism
Movement in Western philosophy
Logical positivism was a philosophical movement rooted in the empiricist tradition, seeking to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse proves as authoritative and meaningful as empirical science. Richard Creath notes that A. J. Ayer was the only philosopher who would unhesitatingly have described himself as a logical positivist. Wikipedia →
🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: Logical positivismA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: Logical Positivism: The History of a “Caricature”Influential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: The logical syntax of languageThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: Aufbau/Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and Architectural ModernismCited 142 times
- Go sideways: VerificationismA closely related topic
- Go sideways: Vienna CircleA closely related topic
📖 Definitions
Noun A 20th-century school of philosophy which held that all knowledge is based on logical inferences from empirical observations.
🗂️ The subject at a glance
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
Aufbau/Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and Architectural Modernism
Logical Positivism
The Re-evaluation of Logical Positivism
“Logical Positivism”—“Logical Empiricism”: What's in a Name?
Philosophy and Logical Positivism
Logical positivism (I)
Logical positivism (II)
Logical positivism (III)
🆕 Influential since 2022
Logical Positivism: The History of a “Caricature”
Logical Positivism or Critical Theory as the Methodological Foundation of The Authoritarian Personality?
Susan Stebbing on Logical Positivism and Communication
Two Critics of Logical Positivism: Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn
Pure theory of law and logical positivism: closely related approaches?
📚 Books worth reading
The logical syntax of languageRudolf Carnap · 1937
Contemporary philosophyFrederick Charles Copleston · 1956- 📕Examination of Logical PositivismJulius Rudolph Weinberg · 2012
- 📕Metaphysics of ConsciousnessWilliam Seager · 2002
Wittgenstein und der Wiener KreisFriedrich Waismann · 1967
The logical syntax of languageRudolf Carnap · 1937
Logical positivismA. J. Ayer · 1959
Routledge Handbook of Logical EmpiricismThomas Uebel, Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau · 2021
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
🔗 Related topics
- Verificationism Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is a doctrine in philosophy which asserts that a statement…
- Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (German: Wiener Kreis) of logical empiricism was a group of philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic…
- Inductivism Inductivism is the traditional and still commonplace philosophy of scientific method to develop scientific theories. Inductivism aims to neutrally observe…
- Instrumentalism In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea…
- Rudolf Carnap Paul Rudolf Carnap (/ˈkɑːrnæp/; German: [ˈkaʁnaːp]; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German philosopher and logician who was active in Europe before…
- Otto Neurath Otto Karl Wilhelm Neurath (/ˈnɔɪrɑːt/; Austrian German: [ˈɔtoː ˈnɔʏraːt]; 10 December 1882 – 22 December 1945) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science…
- Herbert Feigl Herbert Feigl (/ˈfaɪɡəl/; German: [ˈfaɪgl̩]; December 14, 1902 – June 1, 1988) was an Austrian-American philosopher and an early member of the Vienna Circle…
- Carl Gustav Hempel Carl Gustav "Peter" Hempel (/ˈhɛmpəl/; German: [ˈhɛmpl̩]; January 8, 1905 – November 9, 1997) was a German writer, philosopher, logician, and epistemologist…