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Something really stupid and anoying they make you learn in Communication Studies graduate programs even though you're a rhetorician and couldn't really give a rat's ass.
Logical positivism asserts that only statements about empirical observations are meaningful, effectively asserting that all metaphysical statements are meaningless. Unfortunately, this fundamental tenet of logical positivism belongs to the family of statements that it asserts to be meaningless. As a result, the entire edifice of logical positivism vanishes in a puff of logic. This insight appears not to have occurred to the logical positivist school of philosophers.
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1.n. A proposed cure for the illness known as philosophy (love of sofas), which sadly proved nothing but a palliative by presupposing the definitions of the very processes it set out to define.
The proponents of logical positivism had a jolly good time taking turns reading Hegel at parties and cracking up hysterically.
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A major philosophical movement during the 20th century. Its wide influence became deeply rooted in today's scientific practice, as well as in contemporary philosophy. Logical positivists were philosophers, scientists and mathematicians with varying philosophical ideas, although they shared the so-called "scientific world-view", which states that society's choices and beliefs should be based on science, and that true science produces knowledge strictly inferred from empirical data (i.e. what "appears to the senses" in some way). The most well-known group of logical positivists is the Vienna Circle.
The movement became dominant in philosophy during half of the 20th century, before losing its widespread popularity later on. Nowadays, though, logical positivism is increasingly studied in a more neutral manner, like any influential doctrine in the history of philosophy.
You are welcome to agree or disagree with the different views endorsed by logical positivists. What you are not invited to is parroting baloney spread by trolls or knowitalls on the Internet. Like the fact that logical positivism refutes itself. It’s not a fact, it’s a viewpoint coming essentially from philosopher Hilary Putnam and that criticized a doctrine (verificationism) already debated among the logical positivists themselves. If you share that view, read him plus some logical positivist papers (if you’re already familiar with the jargon), then think about it and be proud of yourself.
The other day, I read a post from some random dude on the Internet. He enlightened me about how he refuted logical positivism by showing that it is itself meaningless. I'm amazed that dozens and dozens of well-trained philosophers/logicians during the 20th century never thought of that. Clearly, that guy is a f*****g genius.